Daniel 7 has the same message as Daniel 2. But, while Daniel 2 is more of a summary, Daniel 7 expands that message by way of more fantastic visions. It’s like how Genesis 2 expands on Genesis 1. Curiously, Daniel doesn’t write in chronological order—Daniel 7 returns us to Babylon on the eve of the Persian conquest, but the reader just finished Daniel 6 which shows us Darius the Mede after the conquest!

First, a word about how to interpret prophecy. As we sit comfortably—far removed from the anxious times in which God revealed these visions to Daniel—we can make a mistake. We can obsess over unimportant details and miss the larger point. God didn’t give us these incredible visions so we’d bog down in irrelevant questions. Some enthusiasts teach that Daniel’s visions “provide[] the most comprehensive and detailed prophecy of future events to be found anywhere in the Old Testament.”[1] Perhaps, but that isn’t Daniel’s point or God’s point. This turns Daniel into fodder for abstract speculation, which as far from the point as the east is from the west. Obsessive focus on, say, the identity of the four beasts might be interesting and profitable, but they’re not the point. God gave this vision to Daniel as hope for desperate people. So what’s the point of this vision?

Daniel’s angelic guide tells us plainly: “¹⁶So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things: ¹⁷The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. ¹⁸But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever,” (Dan 7:16-18). The point is that God wins. He wins big. And even the most fearsome nations will fall before Him. Whatever else you take away from Daniel 7, make sure you get that right.[2]

The dream (Daniel 7:1-14)

Daniel 7 easily divides into two sections; (a) the dream (Dan 7:1-14), and (b) the interpretation (Dan 7:15-28).

First, here is the cast of characters from the vision with my identification for each:

• Beast 1: the lion with wings. This is Babylon/Nebuchadnezzar.
• Beast 2: the lopsided bear. This is Persia—the nation in which Esther lived, and from which Cyrus let the Jewish people return home, etc.
• Beast 3: a leopard with four heads. This is Alexander the Great and the kingdoms belonging to the four generals who succeeded him after his death.
• Beast 4: iron teeth + ten horns + one little horn. This is the Roman Empire in three derivative phases; (a) the historical kingdom of Jesus’ day, (b) the interim period of nations which in some way derive from the historical Roman Empire, and (c) the kingdom of antichrist of the last days, which grows from among the nations of the interim phase.[3] Some teachers think only “liberals” deny that the fourth kingdom is Rome, but this cruel and incorrect.[4]
• Ancient of Days: God the Father.
• Son of Man: Jesus—this is his favorite way to describe Himself.

Second, forget the first three kingdoms. Daniel is simply not interested in the first three kingdoms in this vision. He only asks the angel for clarification about the fourth (Dan 7:19-20). So, the first three kingdoms are not relevant. I believe the “four beasts” in Daniel 7 are parallel to the four-fold statue at Daniel 2, which means the first kingdom remains Babylon (Dan 2:36-28; cp. Dan 7:2-4, 17-18). A different vision addresses the second and third visions (Daniel 8), but they are not the issue here. So, this article will not address the first three kingdoms at all.

Third, focus on the fourth kingdom. The remainder of the article will do just that.

The fourth kingdom is “terrifying and frightening and very powerful.” Like the character Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me, it has “large iron teeth.” It crushes and gobbles up everything in its path. It also has ten horns (Dan 7:7), about which the angelic guide later explains.

This focus on four kingdoms doesn’t mean they are the only four nation-states that matter in human history. Instead, it suggests there are four kingdoms that will have a particular impact on the people of Israel. God could have discussed a particular Chinese dynasty, but it would have meant nothing to Daniel. In context, this is a message of hope to the people of Israel as they’re in exile in a foreign land. China would have meant nothing to them. This indicates our interpretive options are limited to a nation which has relevance to the people of Israel.

As Daniel stares at this awful creature, pondering the meaning of the ten horns, “there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it,” (Dan 7:8). This “little horn” emerges from among the ten—it is not an outsider. Whatever this “little horn” is, it doesn’t represent a revolution from without. Instead, it signals the gradual rise of a new power-center from within. This last horn “had eyes like the eyes of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully,” (Dan 7:8). The angelic guide will soon elaborate, but we get the impression of intelligence, shrewdness, and arrogance.[5]

As Daniel looks on in horror, he spies another vision in the heavens above. This one seems parallel to the rise of the fourth beast—it takes place at the same time. “[T]hrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat,” (Dan 7:9). This is a solemn, choreographed event. The Ancient of Days has snow white hair, a flaming throne with wheels ablaze, a river of molten fire flows from the chair, and “thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened,” (Dan 7:10). This is the same imagery Ezekiel used (Ezek 1), and that the apostle John later re-purposes (Rev 5:11, 20:11-15). In other words, the Ancient of Days is God, and the setting is a courtroom.

Then, like a person watching two screens at once, Daniel looks back to the first vision “because of the boastful words the horn was speaking,” (Dan 7:11). He keeps looking “until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire,” (Dan 7:11). Its doom is like the antichrist’s fate in John’s apocalypse. Jesus tosses the antichrist into the lake of fire at His second coming (Rev 19:20).

Daniel now looks back at the second “screen” depicting the heavenly courtroom. He sees “one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven,” (Dan 7:13). “Son of man” is a woodenly translated phrase which means “person” or “human being.” Jesus often identifies Himself as this mysterious human figure in the context of His triumphant return to this sphere (Mt 16:27, 24:30; Lk 17:30). Once the Son of man arrives, He receives His eternal kingdom: “His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed,” (Dan 7:14). Jesus is the rock from Daniel 2 which smashes the evil kingdom and fills the whole earth (Dan 2:34-35, 44-45).

Christians have strong opinions about when this happens—at His ascension or later? The evidence suggests both are correct.

Jesus hints that He arrives at the holy court immediately after His death (i.e., at His ascension).[6] He tells the Sanhedrin that “from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven,” (Mt 26:64). Jesus says His “arrival” to rule His kingdom will be a reality from here on out, and this “seeing” is repetitive—“from here on out, you’ll be seeing …”[7] That is, the Sanhedrin will be seeing Jesus rule and reign “from now on.” The irrefutable evidence will be that nobody can stop the good news about His kingdom. This is the comforting vision Stephen saw just before the Sanhedrin murdered him (Acts 7:55-56)—meaning it’s a reality right now.

Yet, in Daniel’s vision, the Son of man arrives in the divine courtroom to receive His kingdom after or as the terrible beast is slain—suggesting an enthronement in the last days. This is the future great arrival for which the apostle Paul waits (1 Thess 2:19, 4:16-17)—meaning it hasn’t yet happened. The apostle John refers to this Daniel passage as a future event: “Look, he is coming with the clouds …” (Rev 1:7) and pairs it with a Zechariah quotation about a divine victory over evil (Zech 12:10)—an event that closely resembles those of Revelation 19 (cp. Zech 12:10–13:6).

Evidence suggests:

• Jesus arrives in heaven after His ascension to take the throne. He immediately makes His authority known to those on earth.
• Yet, sometime in the future when the kingdom of darkness is at its zenith—the age of the terrible fourth beast of Daniel 7 and the fourth kingdom of Daniel 2 (cp. Rev 17:1-13)—Jesus will return here to destroy evil and establish His kingdom on earth.

The distinction is like an incident from World War 2. Admiral Chester Nimitz took over his duties as Commander-in-Chief, US Pacific Fleet in December 1941—just after the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor. His headquarters remained at Pearl Harbor, HI. However, as the war went on, Nimitz’s Central Pacific campaign re-took territory the Japanese had captured earlier in the war, and he became further and further removed from the center of action. Eventually, in January 1945, Nimitz moved his headquarters from Pearl Harbor, HI to Guam. He had always been the Pacific Ocean Area theater commander, but his move to the scene of action allowed him to exercise more direct and convenient control over his forces.

In a comparable way, while God declared Jesus to be His eternal Son and King at His ascension (Acts 13:32-37; cp. Ps 2, 110), the time will come when Jesus moves His headquarters from heaven to earth. Unlike Admiral Nimitz, Jesus is not hindered by distance, but the concept is similar. He wants to be with His people—it’s why one of His titles is Emmanuel (Isa 7:14, Mt 1:23). His people are here, and so when the time comes Father, Son, and Spirit will shift their flag to Jerusalem.

Daniel is confused. He asks the angel, who (as we saw earlier) gives him the bottom line: “¹⁷The four great beasts are four kings that will rise from the earth. ¹⁸But the holy people of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever,” (Dan 7:17-18).

But Daniel is still troubled. The fourth beast terrifies him. Who is it? What does it mean? When will it happen? It’s so fearsome—what does it signify (Dan 7:19)?

What the dream means (Daniel 7:15-28)

Daniel is worried about the fourth beast because it’s horrifying. It has iron teeth, bronze claws, and it “crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left,” (Dan 7:19). He’s curious “about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell—the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully,” (Dan 7:20).

Daniel looks again at this image, as if the angel had paused it on a screen, and at the same time the action on the second screen replays the scene from Daniel 7:11—perhaps in slow motion. Daniel sees the “little horn” waging war against the people of the Most High and winning—until the Ancient of Days raps His gavel and puts a stop to it all. Then, God’s people possessed the kingdom (Dan 7:21-22).

What does it all mean? The angel answers in two parts; (a) the rise of the “little horn” from among the ten (Dan 7:23-25), and then (b) the little horn’s demise (Dan 7:26-27).

The rise of the “little horn” (Daniel 7:23-25)

The angel explains:

²³He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. ²⁴The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. ²⁵He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time (Daniel 7:23-25).

The beast represents a mighty kingdom of darkness. It’s identical to the fourth kingdom from Daniel 2, which the angel described as strong as iron—“and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others,” (Dan 2:40). We don’t know what kind of animal the fourth kingdom is. It’s teeth and claws sound dragon-like, which would fit with the dragon symbolizing Satan (cp. Rev 12-13).[8]

This fourth kingdom has three phases, each separated by large periods of time but having traceable connections.[9]

‌Evil Kingdom Phase 1. The historical Roman Empire. It is “different” from all the other kingdoms because of the extent and ferocity of its realm (“devour … trample … crush,” Dan 7:23).

Evil Kingdom Phase 2. This is the age between (a) Jesus and the apostles, and (b) the last days. This makes sense because the ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom (Dan 7:24). They are future developments after the Evil Kingdom Phase 1 leaves the stage.[10] Many bible interpreters lose their audience trying to identify the ten kingdoms. The angel doesn’t tell us what they are, so we should drop the attempt. It is idle speculation that accomplishes nothing—no matter how ingenious it may be.

We can say these ten kings (or kingdoms—the kings in Daniel’s visions are always synonymous with their realms) are a second phase of the historical Roman Empire because one could trace their origins back to it. This line need not be direct. For example, (a) South Korea’s existence derives from Japan’s defeat in the second world war, (b) the present-day Federal Republic of Germany comes from Otto Von Bismark’s unification of 39 independent nation states into the German Confederation in the late 19^th century, and (c) the United States derives from the British Empire.

Neither example is a straight line from past to present, but each nation only exists today because of its historical ancestor—the same way a Tesla derives from a Model T Ford. The “10 horns” of Evil Kingdom Phase 2 may be like that—which means they could be any nation in the Western world. The number ten may also be symbolic, which would obviously complicate quests to identify them.

Evil Kingdom Phase 3. This is the time of the antichrist and the last days. We know this because “after them [that is, after the period of the 10 kings] another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings,” (Dan 7:24). This mysterious “little horn” is the antichrist, who John later reminds us is on the way (1 Jn 2:18). The angel tells Daniel the little horn will “put down” (RSV) three of the ten nations and arise from somewhere among them (“came up from among them,” Dan 7:8).[11] He’s different from the others because (Dan 7:25):

• First, he will speak against God. Earlier, Daniel saw that he had “a mouth that spoke boastfully,” (Dan 7:8). This is blasphemy. The apostle Paul later calls this individual “the man of lawlessness” who “will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God,” (2 Thess 2:4; cp. Rev 13).
• Second, he will oppress believers. This is a long and deliberate campaign that wears believers down (NASB) or wears them out (KJV).[12] The apostle John later saw a vision of antichrist—a horrid beast which combined imagery from all four monsters from Daniel’s visions (Rev 13:1-4). “It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation,” (Rev 13:7).
• Third, he will try to change set times and laws. The antichrist will pervert and twist public morality, virtue, and decency into a lie.[13] Some also believe this refers to anti-religious sentiment in general—a pure secularism[14] and a “new table of religious festivals.”[15] It’s both.

God gives His people over to this evil figure’s power for a set period (“3.5 times”) that the angel doesn’t define here but is probably three-and one-half years (cp. Dan 12:5-7, 11).[16] The significance here is not the length of the evil king’s reign, but its sudden crash after a rapid acceleration.[17] It speeds up quickly (“a time, times …”), and then hits a wall and crashes with no warning (“half a time”).

The little horn’s fall (Daniel 7:26-27)

Why does antichrist’s kingdom crash and burn so suddenly?

Because, the angel explains, “the court will sit, and [antichrist’s] power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever,” (Dan 7:26). This is an elaboration on Daniel 7:14. We know the evil empire’s fall will be sudden and violent—remember the stone that smashes the statue from Daniel 2? The apostle John tells of an angel picking up a huge boulder and throwing it into the sea: “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again,” (Rev 18:21). This is when God avenges the blood of His servants, and the heavenly chorus sings: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever,” (Rev 19:2-3).

Daniel’s vision is the divine courtroom where the Ancient of Days declares: “Enough is enough!” John’s apocalypse tells us that, as antichrist’s evil kingdom smolders in ruins, Jesus the King returns to this sphere with the armies of heaven to do battle with His sinister counterpart. “He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God,” (Rev 19:13). This is the blood of God’s enemies, tramped and splattered like so many grapes in a vat. The prophet Isaiah explained: “I trampled the nations in my anger; in my wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground” (Isa 63:6). John warns that Christ “treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty,” (Rev 19:15).

Then, the angelic guide tells Daniel, “His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him,” (Dan 7:27).

What does all this mean?

Daniel’s vision tells us six things:

1. A singularly evil figure will rise from a nation which derives, in some way, from the historical Roman Empire.
2. This antichrist will then subdue three nations which stem from the historical Roman Empire.
3. He will persecute God’s people, twisting public decency and morality against everything God says is good—a program of pure secularism that is rabidly anti-religious.
4. Antichrist will rise rapidly then experience a sudden and spectacular crash (“time, times, and half a time,” Dan 7:25). Revelation 18-19 tells us this “crash” is God’s violent overthrow of Babylon (Rev 18:21-24) and Jesus’ second coming (Rev 19:11-21).
5. Antichrist will be “slain and his body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire,” (Dan 7:11; cp. Rev 19:19-21).
6. The Son of Man will take His seat as King and make all things new (Dan 7:13-14, 28; cp. Rev 21-22). “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” (Mt 13:43).

To Daniel and the exiles then, God’s message was: “The kingdoms of this world will surely fall, and I’ll judge them, and I’ll make everything right.”

To churches great and small today, God makes the same promises—even as we’re now several episodes further along in His story. His truth is still marching on. No matter what is happening in your life, in your country, and in your world—God will win. Babylon will lose. And Jesus’ “dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed,” (Dan 7:14). God wanted Daniel and the people of Israel to believe that as they lived in exile in an unholy land. He wants us to believe it too.

Here is a recent sermon I preached on this passage:

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[1] John Walvoord, Daniel, rev. by Charles Dyer and Philip Rawley (Chicago: Moody, 2012), 181.

[2] Walvoord represents the dispensationalist habit to favor prophetic timelines instead of the author’s point. He devotes two pages to defending the historicity of Daniel’s statements at Daniel 7:16-18, yet never stresses that this is the very point of the whole vision (Daniel, 211-12).

[3] I am following Edward J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 147-50.

For a very compelling argument from a conservative that the fourth beast is the kingdom of the Syrian madman Antiochus Epiphanes, see Moses Stuart, A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1850), 205-11. For the old saw about the fourth kingdom being the papacy, Albert Barnes does an excellent job (“Daniel,” in Barnes Notes, vol. 7 (reprint; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 76-99). Leon Wood’s wonderful commentary advocates the dispensational perspective of a “revived Roman Empire,” (A Commentary on Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), ch. 7).

[4] Walvoord does this (Daniel, 7), and so does Andrew Steinmann (Daniel (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2008), 145).

[5] See Barnes, Daniel, 58.

[6] See especially Steinmann, Daniel, 359-60.

[7] Gk: πλὴν (contrasting conjunction) λέγω ὑμῖν ἀπʼ ἄρτι (temporal preposition + temporal adverb = marks the time at which something changes) ὄψεσθε (iterative future) τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. “But I’ll tell you all this—from here on out you’ll all be seeing the Son of Man … arriving on heaven’s clouds.”

[8] John Goldingay declares the fourth beast has no dragon-like qualities, and bizarrely suggests it may be a war elephant! (Daniel, vol. 30, in WBC (Dallas: Word, 1989), 163, 186).

[9] Young, Daniel, 147-50.

[10] Barnes, “Daniel,” 56. Wood (Daniel, 188, 200) and Stephen R. Miller believe the ten will be contemporaneous with each other. “They reign contemporaneously as one empire since all exist together, and this fact is expressly stated in Rev 17:12–13. Daniel was predicting that out of the old Roman Empire will arise ten kings (or kingdoms) that will constitute a new phase of that empire at the end of the age,” (Miller, Daniel, vol. 18, NAC (Nashville: B&H, 1994), 213). This may well be the case. The citation from Revelation 17 is a strong one.

[11] Again, Miller makes a good point about these ten kingdoms: “Coming ‘after them’ signifies that the empire will already have been formed by the first ten kings when Antichrist rises to his position of dominance over them. The text does not mean that the new king (Antichrist) will originate from a separate nation from those symbolized by the ten horns, for the empire seems to remain a confederacy of ten after he comes to power,” (Daniel, 213).

[12] Steinmann, Daniel, 374.

[13] Wood, Daniel, 201.

[14] Barnes, “Daniel,” 72-3; Peter Steveson, Daniel (Greenville: BJU Press, 2008), 137. “Denying religious liberty is characteristic of dictators (e.g., Antiochus IV, Nero, Domitian, Stalin, Hitler, and others), but Antichrist will go beyond what anyone has done before in his attempt to create a thoroughly secular world. Even now there are those seeking to rid society of all vestiges of religion,” (Miller, Daniel, 214).

Stuart believes it refers to the Mosaic law because he sees the fourth kingdom as being that of Antiochus Epiphanes (Daniel, 222-3). Steinmann goes beyond the evidence by declaring that antichrist seeks to destroy justification by faith by substituting another gospel (Daniel, 374).

[15] Joyce Baldwin, Daniel, in TOTC (Downers Grove: IVP, 1978), 162.

[16] On the three- and one-half years, see Wood, Daniel, 201-2; Stuart, Daniel, 222-4, and Miller, Daniel, 214. For a rejoinder, see Steinmann, Daniel, 375-6. Barnes takes a middle road and says both figurative and literal senses are well supported (“Daniel,” 72-5).

[17] Keil and Delitzsch, 9:652; Baldwin, Daniel, 162. Dispensationalists often miss this.