Daniel
7:5 - "And
behold another beast, a second, like to a bear,
and it raised up itself on one side, and it had
three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth
of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour
much flesh."
The
bear represented Medo-Persia, which was a kingdom
made up of Medes, who lived in the northern part
of what is today Iran, and Persia, which is the
southern part of Iran of today. Elam was
a third part of this kingdom, but it was only a
minor player in the kingdom. On the bear,
one shoulder (or possibly one paw, depending on
the interpretation of the original language) was
raised up, indicating one would be dominant over
the other, which turned out to be the case. The
Medes were dominant initially, but eventually the
Persians came to dominate the Medes.
The
3 ribs in the bear's mouth are believed to symbolize
the 3 steps of conquest that Medo-Persia did in
creating an empire. The 3 steps were the
conquest of Lydia, Babylonia, and Egypt, in that
order. See
ram for more historical details. This
is an example of the Characteristics
Principle -
the 3 ribs tell us something about what this power
would do.
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beast of Daniel 7
The
use of a bear to represent Medo-Persia is another
example of use of the Characteristics
Principle. Consider carefully this question:
Why have a bear represent Medo-Persia? Why not
a pig? Or how about a hippopotamus? Not
predators? Both are dangerous. The hippo
is rated as one of the most dangerous animals in all
of Africa because it kills more people than just about
any other animal. It has huge teeth and a massive
mouth, so if it bites a person, it almost certainly
will be fatal. So, how about a fox? That
is a predator and would look rather cool.
But
still, there is the question. Why use a bear? A
bear is a very intelligent predatory animal, generally
keeps to itself, but if you get in his way or he
thinks you are a threat to him, look out - he can
be really dangerous. A bear tends to claw
and bite, particularly on the head but may do this
anywhere on the body, when it attacks and may strike
with its paws. Hence, it
tends to use brute force when
it attacks to maim or kill.
The
attack method of the bear is clearly reliant upon
brute strength. The Persians frequently did
in fact use this method. There are a number
of battles known from history in which the Persians
brought huge armies to fight against their enemies. It
seems that they figured sheer manpower would do
the job, and it usually did. In one battle
they had against the Greeks, they claimed that
they brought a million men with them for the attack. Historians
think this number was exaggerated, but the claim
probably was made to suggest that they came in
huge numbers prepared for battle. So, there
may be an element of truth to the claim. This
particular attack failed and they lost the battle. But,
attacking like this is similar to the way a bear
will do, which simply applies brute strength to
get the job done, and usually is successful.
The Characteristics
Principle applies to the bear because the
species itself is telling you something about
its behavior, how it will do something, or what
it will do. In this case, it is telling
you how it will do battle - with brute force
- its method of attack.
How
do I know that the bear represents Medo-Persia? First,
in history, it is clear that the Medes and Persians
conquered Babylon in 539 or 538 BC, the date depending
on the source you read. The most accurate
date seems to be the 539 BC date. Second,
the context of the vision is that one kingdom follows
another. Since Daniel was living under the
Babylonian kingdom at the time of the vision (Dan
7:1 In
the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel
had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed:
then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the
matters. Belshazzar
was the last king of Babylon under his father Nabonidus),
the next kingdom to take over the area was clearly
Medo-Persia.
But
some have argued that in the explanation part of
the vision, the 4 kingdoms are 4 kings that shall
arise from the earth (Dan 7:17 These
great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which
shall arise out of the earth.),
meaning that these 4 kingdoms are in fact yet future
to the time of this vision. This idea, while
appealing to some, is incorrect. First, the
vision parallels the vision given to Nebuchadnezzar
of the large statue made of different metals, in
which future empires of the region were symbolized
by 4 different body parts, each made of a different
metal. In this vision, Nebuchadnezzar is
told that he is the head of gold, which means that
vision begins with Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, not
some future kingdom. Since the vision of
Daniel parallels this dream of Nebuchadnezzar,
it must be that the successive kingdoms are one
and the same.
Second,
there is a common misunderstanding about the term "shall
arise" from Daniel 7:17. The author
is not an expert in ancient languages, so take
it from one who teaches ancient languages at a
theological seminary. Below is a quote from
Dr. Roy Gane, a professor of ancient languages
at a graduate school seminary at Andrews University,
Berrien Springs, Michigan, USA. Here, in
a personal communication with the author, is what
he said about this term:
"Regarding
Dan 7:17, "the earth" means
just what it says because it is in
the explanation part of the chapter,
not in the vision part, where "sea" has
the meaning of peoples, etc. As for
the future tense "will/shall arise," this
translates an Aramaic verb yequmun,
which is in the "imperfect" tense,
meaning that it is uncompleted action,
whether present or future. You could
translate "four kings arise out
of the earth," which simply explains
what Daniel saw in his vision. It is
true that the vision is given during
the reign of Belshazzar, the last king
of Babylon, but Daniel is seeing a
process that is ongoing and mainly
in the future, so the Aramaic imperfect
tense is completely appropriate."
So,
there you have it that the words in the original
language support the idea that the vision is an
ongoing process from and including the time of
Daniel, and continues into the future. Therefore,
there is no need to look to the future of Daniel
for the beginning of the 4 kingdoms. They
had already begun with Babylon.
The
kingdom after Babylon was the Medo-Persians, the
next after them was the Greek empire of Alexander
the Great, and the final kingdom of the 4 was the
Romans.
Some
have suggested that the four beasts represent 4
concurrent kingdoms that existed at that time. This
seems unlikely. The vision parallels Nebuchadnezzar's
dream given him by God, in which it was explained
that the kingdoms would arise in sequence, beginning
with Babylon. Another reason is that it is
explained that these kingdoms are counted, something
that usually means a sequence. It does refer
to the dreadful beast as the "fourth kingdom" upon
the earth, so that gives a sequence number to these
kingdoms. In addition, it says that this
fourth beast would "devour the whole earth,
and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces" (Daniel
7:23), which rather strongly suggests that it would
not allow any other of these kingdoms shown in
the vision to coexist with it. That would
suggest these others came before it.
There
is one good thing that can be said for the Persians. The
Persians generally treated captives better than
the Assyrians before them, who were absolutely
horrible (The Assyrians skinned people alive, according
to one source the author read!). But the
Persians were none too nice as well for they too
could be quite cruel. Assyria certainly did
not have a monopoly on cruel behavior.
