A Study of Revelation 20 and Other Related Passages
In my travels, which have been wider than ever man yet accomplished, I have seen many, many wild beasts of Arabia and India; but this beast, that is commonly called a Tyrant, I know not how many heads it has, nor if it be crooked of claw, and armed with horrible fangs.
Apollonius of Tyana
Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.
Ben Jonson
Revelation 20:4 tells us that of those nations who partake in the first resurrection and reign with Christ for a thousand years there are the souls of those who were beheaded for their testimony of Jesus. They did not worship the beast nor receive his mark. This brief reference sends us back to Revelation 13:1-14:20 where all these metaphors are worked out in an earlier apocalyptic vision. As soon as we read Revelation 13:1-4, which introduces the beast, we are sent back to Daniel 7:2-6 to find the origination of these signs.* What we will discover from Daniel 7 and Revelation 13-14 is a consistent message. Despite the apparent strength and fury of satanic beasts, God’s purposes will succeed in the exaltation of Christ for the deliverance of His people. As promised in the last post, we turn our attention to Daniel 7.
Daniel spoke, saying, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. “And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’ “After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it.
Daniel 7:2-6
That Daniel should see the Great Sea is of manifold interest. Living in Babylon put him well over five hundred miles from the Mediterranean Sea (to which this term refers). Why should he be concerned with the Great Sea? He certainly prayed three times every day toward Jerusalem. This oriented his body and eyes West, toward that direction. The Great Sea, however, proves central to the vision for two other reasons. First, the coming empires, which would succeed Babylon, had much of their fortunes decided by their forays through and around the Great Sea. Second, the Sea is sometimes used in the Old and New Testament as an image of the Nations. This is exemplified in Isaiah.
Woe to the multitude of many people Who make a noise like the roar of the seas, And to the rushing of nations That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters; But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away, And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
Isaiah 17:12-13
Daniel has a vision about the nations getting stirred up by the four winds of heaven. Four winds from heaven all blowing indicates that what is happening pertains to the whole geopolitical map. That they all blow at once means there’s a hurricane. A great sea + a great wind = a great storm… just ask Jonah. How are we to think about these winds of Heaven? The four winds blow according to patterns that only God knows and determines (Psalm 135:7; 147:15-18; 148:7-8). The four winds refer to that which is beyond our perception and understanding, beyond the horizon, out of sight. We hear the sound of them, but have no control over them. We are to be helped by the vision, steadied in this vision by the recognition that these four winds are of heaven. Just a quick survey of your Bible will demonstrate to your satisfaction that God is the One Who controls the four winds. Not only is He sovereign over the nations, but over their entire parade, as one displaces another.
This parade of lion, bear and leopard** becomes a chimera in Revelation 13:1-4. Before we consider that beast in more detail, we should think about the parade referenced here. Both in Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 a fourth beast takes up most of the reader’s attention, but its significance is established by the first three. We are looking at empires in these beasts (just as in the various metals of the statue from Daniel 2). The first three are Babylon, Medo Persia and Greece. The first two expanded their empires to the Great Sea from their eastern capitals. Greece, the Macedonians we may also call them, were both familiar and proficient in the Sea, and built their empire first around the Mediterranean and then Eastward into the fertile Crescent, the backwaters of Babylon and Persia. The fourth kingdom is Rome which ringed the entire Mediterranean with its fortresses, ports, trade and navy. Special focus is given to the fourth kingdom as Christ comes and establishes His kingdom during this time. But all four are important because they are connected to the state of the Jews, their land and their hope of the coming Messiah. In this post we will consider the first three beasts.
The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.
Daniel 7:4
This is Babylon. This first beast is a vicious one. Lions kill for dominance as well as for food. They are a king among beasts. Also dominant is the eagle. This chimeric beast, however, is altered. It is changed into the likeness of a man, with a man’s heart. We should remember that key royal Babylonian figure in Daniel. We should recall Nebuchadnezzar’s wretched state, how he was humbled into the ground. He had soared in his own mind like an eagle, proud and lofty, but God cut him down like a tree in a field and left him there for seven years to grovel in mindless shame (Daniel 4:10-37). This was not the end, for God graciously restored Nebuchadnezzar, but not to the exact place he was before. Rather, Nebuchadnezzar was restored to a converted, God-fearing place, once again ruling his dominion, but as a steward for God’s glory.
“And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’
Daniel 7:5
This is Medo Persia. We remember that Daniel has this vision during Belshazzar’s brief reign, which would come to a surprising and abrupt end (Daniel 5:1-31). This is foreshadowed by the sudden manner in which the next beast arrives in the parade. Medo Persia will be later depicted as a Ram with one horn way bigger than the other (Daniel 8:3-4). So also here, the bear is heaped up on one side. The Persians domination in the arrangement of the empire is thus depicted. We see in the vision that although the beastly empire devoured much territory, three ribs remained in its mouth between its teeth, a kind of restraining effect. Three kings of this empire served in this way for the Jews: Darius, Cyrus and Ahasuerus (Xerxes). Each of these kings were used by God to preserve the Jews and ultimately the Messiah’s lineage.
“After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it.
Daniel 7:6
After the bear, along came a leopard, Greece. Alexander the Great took the reins of the Greek war machine when he was only eighteen years of age. By the time he died at the age of thirty-two he had raced his armies all over the known world, eradicating the Persian armies and spreading Greek language and culture from the Aegean Peninsula to the Indian Peninsula, from modern day Egypt to modern day Kazakhstan. He was very swift. One at least one occasion, his army marched thirty-six miles a day, and in the course of his campaign, it averaged over nineteen miles a day. Alexander personally led his troops through an area three hundred sixty thousand square miles large, moving back and forth in every direction as needed. A leopard with four wings is a fitting description. So also are the four heads. After Alexander died, his empire was carved out for a time by four competing generals. Their internecine conflict often raged across Judah and impacted Jerusalem. This four-way split later resolved into the two, the two thighs of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue (Daniel 2:32), the Ptolemies and Seleucids.***
The artifacts, influences, trade routes, customs and peoples of these first three empires were absorbed and amalgamated into the fourth empire, Rome. We will think about that beast, its relationship to the other beasts and its appearance in Revelation 13 in our next post.
*Bible study (especially in books like Revelation) often entails holding your place in one passage and carefully looking at a chain of cross references in their respective contexts. Hopefully your Bible has more than one silk ribbon.
**Oh, my!
***A wonderful survey of Daniel-related historical fulfillment of prophecy can be found in Jay Rogers’ “In the Days of These Kings,” a well-researched book that has proven as interesting as it is useful.
