by Bryon Mondok

Created on: March 29, 2009

The visions of Daniel are an amazing foretelling of how world superpowers would influence the course of future events. Dreams and visions are a regular themes throughout the book. Chapter seven summarizes future world events. The visions that follow fill in the details of the sweeping overview given in chapter seven. The vision in chapter seven directly correlates to a dream Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon, had in the days when Daniel was young. The interpretation Daniel gave of the emperor's dream was the glory of kingdoms built by men from Nebuchadnezzar's present rule on into the future. The visions of Daniel in later chapters are the telling of terrors the self-glorifying empires would wreak on tiny Israel.

Four Great Beasts

Daniel has a vision of four great beasts rising out of the tempest of the Great
Sea. The sea is a terrifying image. Israel
was not a seafaring people. There are two possible interpretations of "the
Great Sea." The Great
Sea could refer simply to the Mediterranean Sea and the nations that would rule civilization settled on its shores. That fits in most cases.

"Great
Sea" could also mean "sea of humanity". This is accepted by many Bible scholars. Both interpretations work for Daniel's vision of Four Beasts because each super power Daniel points to rules at least up to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The final beast described has the sea as its own private pond.

The First Beast: A Lion with Eagle's Wings

This, according to the interpretation of what it appears to be an angel, a messenger of heaven, is the kingdom ruling over Israel, and indeed, all of the geography from the shores of the Mediterranean to the northern borders of India; Babylon. The book of Daniel opens with Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers taking Jerusalem
captive and carrying its Israeli inhabitants off to Babylon. A teen-aged Daniel was among those captives and served in the king's palace ever since.

The Second Beast: A Bear

The second beast was a seemingly lop-sided bear. This represented an power to the east that was a current up-and-comer. This bear, raised up on one side, represented the alliance between the Persians and their less powerful ally, the Medes. This is the Kingdom that would, in Daniel's lifetime, wrest world domination from an internally crumbling, morally corrupt Babylon during the rule of the emperor in power at the time Daniel was given this vision, Belshazzar.

The actual fulfillment of this vision occurs in chapter five during Belshazzar's blasphemous party when

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