Hello! Welcome to our study of the book of The Revelation. In case you are just jumping on our Revelation train, let me bring you up to speed a bit. We have been studying Revelation since January, beginning at…well, the beginning, and studying forward, chapter by chapter. We have completed 7 chapters, and every single post in the series is linked HERE in the order in which we studied them.
I felt led to take some excursions into other books of the Bible in order to give you a better understanding of some of the events noted in Revelation. So, for a few weeks we are going down some rabbit trails. We have visited in Nehemiah, Daniel chapter 2, and Daniel chapter 9. These excursions build on each other, so it would be important for you to review the Nehemiah and Daniel teachings in order to get the full picture. You may click on the links in this paragraph to do that.
Today we are going on a very quick excursion to Daniel 7 which will enhance what we learned in Daniel 9. The bulk of today’s study will be reading Daniel 7, which is only 28 verses. Please go HERE to read it, or read it in your Bible, then return to our study.
Do you remember the image that we studied in Daniel 2? King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a huge image made of different substances….the head of gold, the arms and upper torso of silver, the lower torso and upper thighs made of bronze, the legs of iron, and the feel of iron and clay.
Each of these segments represented a different kingdom that ruled the known world.
Head of gold ~ Babylonian empire
Arms and chest of silver ~ Medo-Persian empire
Lower abdomen and thighs of bronze ~ Grecian empire
Thighs of iron ~ Rome
Feet of Iron and Clay ~ Kingdom to come
This week we read about the four beasts of Daniel 7. Without going into a week long teaching of this chapter, let me tell you that most scholars agree that these beasts correlate to the parts of the Daniel 2 image, and represent the four kings who would arise from these kingdoms.
Head of gold ~ Babylonian empire ~ Lion ~ Nebuchadnezzar
Arms and chest of silver ~ Medo-Persian empire ~ Bear ~ Darius/Cyrus
Lower abdomen and thighs of bronze ~ Grecian empire ~ Leopard ~ Alexander the Great
Thighs of iron ~ Rome ~ Beast ~ Caesar or Domitian
Feet of Iron and Clay ~ Kingdom to come ~ 10 Horns/Little Horn ~ 10 kings and antichrist
Hold this thought because we will be back to look further at the last kingdom of iron and clay in a future portion of our Revelation study. Share your thoughts and ideas about all of this in the comments. Let’s engage over the Word.
