Page 199 - Daniel

body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest
of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were
prolonged for a season and a time.”

The scene of the vision shifted once again to earth. Young, after
Montgomery and Keil, holds that because of should be translated “from
51
the time of.” Their point is that the vision of heaven immediately
followed the arrogant words of the little horn. As the prophet listened to
the great words uttered by the little horn of verse 8, he saw the beast
destroyed and given to burning flames. This passage is another
illustration of how quickly God can dispose of the mightiest of earthly
rulers, and how evil men are ultimately brought to divine judgment.
Critics maintain that the beast here is the Seleucid power in general and

the mouth is Antiochus Epiphanes, killed in battle in 164 B.C. But the
kingdom of God from heaven did not follow the downfall of Antiochus.
Although the Maccabean revolt was followed by the independent Jewish
kingdom, and the Roman conquest was not until a century later in 63 B.C.,

the ultimate beneficiary of Antiochus was Rome.

The destruction of the beast, however, does not fit the historic Roman
Empire either, which took centuries to lose all its strength. This is a
sudden act of divine judgment in which the major ruler is killed and his
government destroyed. This passage is an obvious parallel to Revelation
19:20 where the beast and the false prophet are cast alive into the lake
of fire at the time of the second coming of Christ.

Verse 12 has proved mysterious to liberal critics, who have great
difficulty in understanding how the rest of the beasts have their lives
prolonged even though their dominion is taken away. If the earlier
beasts were empires that were succeeded by the fourth beast, how can

they be prolonged after the fourth beast’s death?
The answer is that the destruction of the fourth beast here described
refers to a time yet future in connection with the second advent of

Christ. Montgomery suggests that the expression “a season and a time”
are semantic equivalents (cf. Dan. 2:21; Acts 1:7) and denote “a fixed
52
fate.” Verse 12 is saying that the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Greek
Empires were to some extent continued in their successors; that is,
Gentile power shifted as to rulership, but continued more or less in the