Daniel – Chapter 7a
Chapter 7 Outline
I. Introduction to the Dream (7:1-3)
a. The Date of the Dream (7:1)
b. The Detail of the Dream (7:2-3)
1. The Four Winds (7:2a)
2. The Great Sea (7:2b)
3. The Diverse Beasts (7:3)
II. Information about the Dream (7:4-14)
a. The Earthly Empire (7:4-8)
1. The Lionlike Beast (7:4)
2. The Bearlike Beast (7:5)
3. The Leopardlike Beast (7:6)
4. The Terrible Beast (7:7-8)
b. The Heavenly Empire (7:9-14)
1. God’s Sovereignty (7:9)
2. God’s Sentence (7:10-12)
3. God’s Son (7:13-14)
III. Interpretation of the Dream (7:15-28)
a. Daniel’s Troubled (7:15-16)
b. Dream’s Truth (7:17-27)
1. The Five Kingdoms (7:17-18)
2. The Fourth Kingdom (7:19-26)
3. The Fifth Kingdom (7:27)
c. Daniel’s Thoughts (7:28)
Message
The first 6 chapters of Daniel are about Daniel and his personal friends and are essentially historical in character. The remaining chapters are about Daniel and his people’s future and are mostly prophetical in character.
There is a natural division between Chapters 6 & 7 and here we enter Part II of the Book of Daniel. During his dream, he is given a full view of “The Time of the Gentiles;” beginning with Babylon and ending with the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the establishment of His kingdom.
I. Introduction to the Dream (7:1-3)
a. The Date of the Dream (7:1)
The vision came to Daniel in the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, which would have been 553 B.C. Chronologically, this dream belongs between Daniel chapter 4, which deals with the humbling of Nebuchadnezzar, and chapter 5, which deals with the overthrow of Belshazzar, which occurred in 539 B.C.
No wonder Daniel showed such contempt for the gifts and promotion that Belshazzar had promised him if he could interpret the writing on the wall. Daniel had known for some time that the Medo-Persian Empire would replace the Babylonian Empire on the world stage.
b. The Detail of the Dream (7:2-3)
1. The Four Winds (7:2a)
The four winds of the heaven symbolizes four great angel princes Revelation 7:1-3 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. [2] And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, [3] Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of God in their foreheads.
These are the principalities of Satan who rule over the four nations that were to seize world power. They are the powers of the air the forces of the evil one Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Ephesians 2:2 Wherin in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. They are subject to Satan and through them he holds the nations of the earth in chains.
Daniel saw them strive for mastery of the prophetic earth. Each in turn was able to parade his own particular wild beast kingdom as his prize exhibit.
2. The Great Sea (7:2b)
The significant geographical location of Daniel’s vision was the great sea, which in the Bible refers top the Mediterranean. All of the world empires of the Bible eventually, if not initially, held territory on the coastline of the Mediterranean. As Gentile world power began to move westward the Mediterranean became increasingly more important until.
The kingdom of Babylon embraced the shores that stretched along the eastern and south-eastern edge of the Mediterranean; Medo-Persian did the same; while Greece also took in the north-eastern shores, by the time we come to the fourth world empire, “the great sea” was little more than a Roman lake, as they had completely surrounded the sea.
The name Mediterranean means “midst of the earth,” and that is the sea Daniel was looking at in his vision, and in a very literal sense every one of these empires seems to spring up from the great sea.
Revelation 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
Isaiah 57:20 But the wicked are like the troubled sea, When it cannot rest, Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
We can clearly see from the Scriptures that the sea is a picture of the troubled nations. In other words, out of the unsettled nations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea these great empires will arise.
3. The Diverse Beasts (7:3)
The first part of Daniel is a prophetic history viewed from man’s standpoint, but in part 2 we see the same scenes as viewed in God’s eyes. In chapter 2 there was a Gentile king who had a vision of the course of world empires, he saw the image of a man. It was such a glorious sight to see and it filled him with such admiration that he set up a similar statue to be worshipped.
However, at the start of chapter 7, the man of God has a vision of the same empires; he sees them as four ravenous wild beasts, so brutal and monstrous that no actual animals known to man could adequately describe them.
Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord [9] For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.
If we look back on the events of history we find that man is so proud of his achievements, there is great space in the history books congratulating humanity on its exploits. The human race would claim to have reached perfection as far as government and political economy is concerned.
But, if we read history in the light of Scripture, with the Holy Spirit illuminating the page, we have a completely different impression. We see that things highly esteemed among men are abominations in the sight of God. This is why each kingdom in God’s eyes was represented by a beast.
Psalm 49:12 Neverthless man being in honour abideth not: He is like the beasts that perish.
II. Information about the Dream (7:4-14)
a. The Earthly Empire (7:4-8)
1. The Lionlike Beast (7:4)
The Babylonian empire had been seen by Nebuchadnezzar as a symbol of Gold, the richest metal. Daniel saw it as a lion, the king of beasts. Both symbols speak of sovereignty and supremacy.
In Scripture Babylon is identified with the lion and the eagle. Jeremiah 4:7 & 13 The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant. [13] Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.
Ezekiel 17:3 & 12 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar: [12] Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean? tell them, Behold, the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to Babylon;
The lion with eagle’s wings is a picture of Nebuchadnezzar’s swift conquests. The Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC saw the humbling of Egypt and the way to the west open up. In a series of swift campaigns he had conquered all of Syria, Israel, and invaded Egypt and took ancient Tyre.
The eagles wings, however, were soon plucked, and Nebuchadnezzar’s career of conquest came to an end as he turned to the domestic affairs of the kingdom and war lost its charm. The savage rage of the wild beast was replaced by the heart of a mortal man, as Daniel had already recorded in Chapter 4.
The reigning emperor at the time of this vision was Nabonidus, and he was no mastermind when it came to war, even his co-regent Belshazzar was partying in the city blissfully unaware that the Medes & Persians were already withing the city walls.
2. The Bearlike Beast (7:5)
The second empire had none of the speed of the first one; a bear is relatively slow in contrast to a lion. It achieves its objectives by sheer strength and brute force, seeking to crush its victims in its embrace.
The bear was raised up on one side because the Persians were stronger than the Medes.
The three ribs in the bear’s mouth accurately describe the initial conquests of the Medo-Persian alliance. The three kingdoms that the Medo-Persian empire swallowed were Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt. The empire was to devour much flesh, a characteristic of their method of waging war.
3. The Leopardlike Beast (7:6)
The leopard with its grace and beauty, speed and ferocity, was a fitting symbol of Alexander the Great and the Greek empire. The four wings of the leopard added to the picture, depicting the amazing speed with which this youth from Macedon subdued the world.
Alexander’s glory was short lived as he died in his thirties, at the height of his success, as a result of his sinful living.
The four heads of the leopard symbolize the division of Alexander’s empire by his four generals. Cassander, who took Macedon and Greece; Lysimachus, who took Asia Minor and Thrace; Seleucus, who took Syria, Upper Asia, Babylon and the East; and Ptolemy who seized Egypt, Israel, and Arabia.
4. The Terrible Beast (7:7-8)
This represents the Roman Empire and the coming reign of the Antichrist and we will look at this in more detail next time.
