Page 191 - Daniel

problems of the fourth world empire. This one was to extend to the end
of human history as Daniel saw it, and contains so many elements that
by any stretch of the imagination cannot be conformed to the history of
the second century B.C. or earlier.

THE FOURTH BEAST: ROME (7:7–8)

7:7–8 “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast,
terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth;

it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its
feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had
ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among
them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns
were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like
the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.”

The crucial issue in the interpretation of the entire book of Daniel, and

especially of chapter 7, is the identification of the fourth beast. On this
point, liberal critics generally insist that the fourth beast is Greece or the
kingdom of Alexander the Great. Conservative scholars with few
exceptions generally identify the fourth beast as Rome. 33

The dominion of Rome, beginning with the occupation of Sicily in 241
B.C. as a result of victory in the first Punic conflict, rapidly made the
Mediterranean Sea a Roman lake by the beginning of the second century

B.C. Spain was conquered first, and then Carthage at the battle of Zama in
North Africa in 202 B.C. After subjugating the area north of Italy, Rome
then moved east, conquering Macedonia, Greece, and Asia Minor. The
Roman general Pompey swept into Jerusalem in 63 B.C. after destroying

remnants of the Seleucid Empire (Syria). During following decades,
Rome extended control to southern Britain, France, Belgium,
Switzerland, and Germany west of the Rhine River.

The Roman Empire continued to gradually grow for more than four
centuries (reaching its height in A.D. 117), in contrast to the sudden rise
of the preceding empires. It likewise declined slowly, beginning in the

third century. The decline became obvious in the fifth century A.D., with