Daniel’s fourth beast is the Roman Empire.

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Introduction

Purpose

In both Daniel chapters 7 and 8, the main character is an evil horn. These are two symbols for the same entity (see here). This article refers to it as the Antichrist because the Book of Daniel describes it as God’s great enemy, saying that it will only be destroyed when Christ returns.

Daniel 7 describes the Antichrist as an 11th horn growing out of the 4th animal. The purpose of this article is to determine what that 4th animal is. Some believe it represents the Roman Empire. In that case, the Antichrist would be Roman. But others believe that the fourth animal represents the Greek Empire, which would mean that the Antichrist is Greek.

Method

Daniel 7 describes world history, from the time of the Babylonian Empire until Christ returns, using a series of four animals, symbolizing four successive empires, with the Antichrist growing out of the fourth. But it does not explain what these animals represent.

Daniel 8 uses two animals as symbols for empires, a Ram and a Goat, and explicitly identifies these two animals as “Media and Persia” and “Greece” (Daniel 8:20, 21).

To identify the animals in Daniel 7, this article compares them to the animals in Daniel 8. That will determine which empire the Antichrist grows from.

Competing Interpretations

The four ancient Empires, beginning with the time of Daniel, to which the nation of Israel was subject, were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and the Roman Empire.

Both Conservatives and Liberals interpret the first animal in Daniel 7, the Lion, as the ancient Babylonian Empire. However, they differ with respect to the other three animals:

While the Conservatives identify the second animal, the Bear, as Medo-Persia, Liberals propose that Medo-Persia is symbolized by BOTH the second and third animals. They propose that the second animal is Media and the third is Persia.

Consequently, Conservatives and Liberals differ with respect to the fourth animal:

In the Conservative scheme, the first three animals symbolize Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece, so the fourth represents the Roman Empire. Consequently, the Antichrist arises from the Roman Empire.

Since, in the Liberal proposal, the second and third animals represent Medo-Persia, it follows that the fourth is the Greek Empire. Consequently, the Antichrist is a Greek king.

Therefore, the two competing systems may be compared as follows:

Daniel 7	Conservative	Liberal
Lion	Babylon	Babylon
Bear	Medo-Persia	Medes
Leopard	Greece	Persians
Fourth	Rome	Greece

The Liberal Logic

One may ask why Liberals follow this approach. The reason is that they effectively read the Book of Daniel backward:

Given the significant agreement between the events described in Daniel 11 and the history of the Greek Empire, they conclude that the Book of Daniel must have been written after the Greek Empire was already established.

Liberals believe that the 2nd-century BC author of the Book of Daniel was uninspired and could not foresee any future Antichrist. Instead, that author wrote the Book of Daniel in the form of a prophecy, but it really was a history book, focusing on the 2nd-century persecutions of the Jews by the Greek king Antiochus IV. Therefore, they identify the ‘despicable person’ of Daniel 11:21 as Antiochus.

All interpreters probably agree that the evil horns of Daniel 7 and 8 are the same as the ‘despicable person’ of Daniel 11. On that basis, Liberals identify the evil horn of Daniel 7 also as Antiochus IV.

Since that horn grows out of the dreadful fourth beast in Daniel 7, they conclude that that fourth beast must symbolize the Greek Empire, and that beast’s 11 horns represent 11 consecutive kings of the Greek Empire.

But then, what about the previous three empires in Daniel 7?

Daniel 2 explicitly identifies the first empire as Babylon. Critics are forced to accept this.

However, in history, there was only one empire between Babylon and Greece, namely, the Medo-Persians, while there are two animals between the first and fourth animals in Daniel 7. To solve this problem, critical scholars divide the Medo-Persian empire between the Medes and the Persians, identifying the second beast as the Medes and the third as the Persians. Therefore, they align the prophecies as follows:

Daniel 2	Gold (Babylon)	Silver	Brass	Iron
Daniel 7	Lion	Bear	Leopard	Dreadful Beast
Daniel 8		Ram (Medes)	Ram (Persia)	Goat (Greece)

See here for a general discussion of Critical Scholarship.

The Animals Compared

This section identifies the fourth beast in Daniel 7 by comparing the animals in Daniel 7 to those in Daniel 8.

The Ram and the Bear

The first animal in Daniel 8 is a Ram. It has two horns, one higher than the other. The higher horn came out last. The Ram charges in three directions: the West, the North, and the South (Daniel 8:3-4).

The Ram is similar to the Bear of Daniel 7:

Both are higher on one side. While the Bear is “raised up on one side,” the Ram has two horns, one longer than the other.

Both conquer three things. While the Ram charges in three directions, the Bear has three ribs between its teeth (Daniel 7:5).

Given these similarities, the Bear of Daniel 7 is equivalent to the Ram in Daniel 8. Since Daniel 8:20 explicitly identifies the Ram as “Media and Persia,” the Bear also represents the Medo-Persian Empire.

The two sides symbolize the composite nature of the empire formed by a fusion of the kingdoms of Media and Persia. The Ram’s horn that came out last but became longer, and the higher side of the Bear, symbolize the Persians. Initially, the Medes dominated Persia, but Cyrus reversed the relationship so that Persia dominated the Medes when their combined forces conquered Babylon.

Since animals symbolize kingdoms, ribs may represent kingdoms or territories conquered. The three ribs between the teeth of the Bear may reasonably be taken as representing the three major conquests of the combined forces of the Medes and Persians in the sixth century BC:

- - Lydia in the north in 547,
  - Babylon in the west in 539,
  - and Egypt in the south in 525.

The Ram and the Leopard

In the Liberal interpretation, the Ram of Daniel 8 includes both the Bear and Leopard of Daniel 7. However, the descriptions of the animals do not support the view that the Leopard is related to the Ram. There is no similarity between the Ram and the Leopard. On the contrary, they clearly differ. Daniel’s prophecies use heads and horns to indicate divisions of empires. While the Ram has two horns, meaning it has two divisions (identified as the Medes and Persians), the Leopard has four heads, meaning that it has four divisions (Daniel 7:6).

The Goat and the Leopard

The second animal in Daniel 8 is a Goat. It comes from the west without touching the ground. It has one great horn, but the great horn was broken while it was still strong. In its place came up four horns to the four directions of the compass (Daniel 8:5, 8). The Goat is similar to the Leopard of Daniel 7:6:

Firstly, both are represented as fast. The Leopard has four wings while the Goat flies. The speed of its conquests refers to the speed at which Alexander the Great conquered the known world.

Secondly, both consist of four parts. The Leopard has four heads, while four horns grow from the Goat’s head. The four heads and four horns symbolize the four Greek Empires formed after Alexander’s death at age 33.

These similarities imply that the Leopard is equivalent to the Goat. Since Daniel 8:21 explicitly identifies the Goat as Greece, the Leopard represents the Greek Empire.

The Goat and the dreadful fourth animal

In the Liberal interpretation, the Goat of Daniel 8 is equivalent to the dreadful fourth beast of Daniel 7. However, nothing in their descriptions suggests that. On the contrary, while the Goat first has only one horn and then later four, the Fourth Beast first has ten horns, then an 11th comes up, and ‘plucks out’ three of the 10 horns by their “roots”, leaving 8 horns standing. Since horns symbolize the divisions of kingdoms, the Goat and the Dreadful Fourth Beast are not the same.

Conclusion

Since the Bear is Medo-Persia and the Leopard is Greece, the Dreadful Fourth Beast of Daniel 7 must be the next empire in the series, namely, the Roman Empire:

- - The Lion of Daniel 7 symbolizes the ancient Babylonian Empire.
  - The Bear of Daniel 7 is equivalent to the Ram of Daniel 8 and represents the Medo-Persian Empire.
  - The Leopard of Daniel 7 is equivalent to the Goat of Daniel 8 and symbolizes the Greek Empire.
  - The Dreadful Fourth Beast of Daniel 7 is the Roman Empire.

This is consistent with the Conservative view. Therefore, the Antichrist arises out of the Roman Empire.

Furthermore, since the Dragon in Revelation (when mentioned with the Beast) is Daniel’s fourth animal (see here), the Dragon also symbolizes the Roman Empire.

Medo-Persia

As stated, to make their interpretation fit the text, Liberal scholars propose that the author of Daniel divided Medo-Persia into two empires, one represented in Daniel 7 by the Bear and the other by the Leopard. Therefore, another argument against the Liberal interpretation is that this is not consistent with either secular history or with the Book of Daniel:

Historically, the Persians conquered the Medes around 550 BC, and the joint forces of the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon eleven years later, with Cyrus the Great as their supreme king.

It would also not be consistent with the Book of Daniel itself. Daniel always refers to the Medes and Persians as a single empire. For example:

He prophesied that the joint forces of the Medes and the Persians would conquer Babylon (Daniel 5:28).

He referred to the unchangeable law of the Medes and the Persians (Daniel 6:9, 13, and 16).

He identified the Ram as “the kings of Media and Persia” (Daniel 8:20).

Furthermore, the author of the Book of Daniel would have been inconsistent if he described Media and Persia as a single beast in Daniel 8, but as two different beasts in Daniel 7, and as two different metals in Daniel 2.

Who was Darius?

Critics argue that the author of Daniel committed a historical blunder when he referred to Darius the Mede (see Daniel 5:31-6:28 and Daniel 9:1). They say that no such figure is known from secular history. They propose that Daniel mentioned Darius the Mede because he mistakenly thought that the Medes were a separate empire after the Neo-Babylonian rulers, but before the Persian king, Cyrus.

However, another article on this website argues that Darius the Mede might have been the throne name for General Ugbaru, who conquered Babylon for Cyrus, and who Cyrus appointed as king over the “kingdom of the Chaldeans” (Daniel 9:1), which was part of the Persian Empire. However, Ugbaru died three weeks after the conquest of Babylon. He ruled only for one week, which explains why archaeologists have not yet found his name in secular history.