Daniel's 4 "Beasts" and John's Leopard-Bear-Lion composite "Beast"
Blessedly there is a broad consensus among Jewish, as well as Christian scholars, futurist, preterist and orthodox, regarding the identity of Daniel's four beasts.
In Daniel's chapter 7 dream we find: Daniel 7:3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
Daniel 7:4 The first [was] like a lion, and had eagle's wings...
Daniel 7:5 And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear...
Daniel 7:6 After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard...
Daniel 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly...
In the verse below we learn that in the figurative language of a vision or dream in prophecy, a "beast" is a kingdom or empire.
Daniel 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
BEAST = KINGDOM
The broad consensus holds that the kingdoms represented by Daniel's lion, bear and leopard, are the successive ancient kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece, followed by the fourth "terrible" beast, that is understood to be the Roman Empire.
This conclusion is reached within the traditional continuous-historic context of prophecy. This is simply the view that bible prophecy is fulfilled steadily, as the era about which it is written gradually unfolds. This is the context in which virtually all Christians and Jews understand Old Testament prophecy.
Below are maps of these successive kingdoms.
Daniel 7:4 The first [was] like a lion, and had eagle's wings...
lion - Babylon
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/216a3a30.jpg
Daniel 7:5 And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear...
bear - Medo-Persia
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/214a3a60.jpg
Daniel 7:6 After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard...
leopard - Greece
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/214a3a60.jpg
Daniel 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly...
fourth "dreadful" - The Roman Empire
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/24fa3d30.jpg
John's 42 "months" and 1260 "days" in prophecy
DAY YEAR LANGUAGE OF PROPHECY
Within this traditional continuous historic context of study we also find a "language" of prophecy wherein we consider "each day for a year". We learn that this day-year principle was well known prior to the 20th century, when we look to those of the "former age" and "search of their fathers", as the Bible instructs.
The following is a summary of seven more of the math problems explored in "The False Prophet" (available absolutely free by simply clicking on the link), that uniformly apply this day = year "language" of prophecy. Much better to start the book at the beginning, rather than explore the math out of context, because "The False Prophet" is a brick by brick empirical argument.
Let's start this section with a problem involving 1260 "days" in prophecy, from John's vision detailed in Revelation:
Here is a link to a godtube video of this problem.
3. Revelation 12:6 (KJV): And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred [and] threescore days.
Most agree that Israel, is the "woman" in the context of this verse. If we then consider that the end of the 1260 "days" was when Israel came out of "the wilderness" (of the people Ezekiel 20:35), or out from being scattered among the nations, returning home and declaring her independence in 1948, and subtract 1260 years ("each day for a year"), we arrive at 688 AD.
A quick Yahoo search reveals that this is widely understood to be the founding year of the construction of the Islamic mosque, the Dome of the Rock.
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/16ca4190.jpg
The founding verses of the Dome of the Rock "O you People of the Book, overstep not bounds in your religion, and of Allah speak only the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, is only an apostle of Allah, and his Word which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him. Believe therefore in Allah and his apostles, and say not Three. It will be better for you. Allah is only one Allah. Far be it from His transcendent majesty that he should have a son."
Luke 24:39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
1 John 2:22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [(but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also].
The blasphemous founding verses are written in the mosaic on the Dome of the Rock both inside and out. Over the nearly 1400 years of Islamization of the Middle East, the Holy Land became spiritually desolated by the exile of Christians and Jews. Today Iran is 99% Muslim, with Iraq at 98% and Syria at 90%, while Saudi Arabia is 100% and Turkey 99% Muslim. Below is a map of this spiritual condition.
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/1f5a3aa0.png
By the 1800's Israel was rendered a desolate, barren, relatively abandoned, wasteland.
Continuing our study it will become increasingly apparent that the Dome of the Rock is God's symbol for Islam in prophecy, and that Islam is the subject of Daniel's "time of the end", and the "end of the world".
The language of prophecy wherein we calculate "each day for a year" was well known by Matthew Henry, Thieleman J. van Braght, and Jamison, Faucett & Brown, to mention just a few. One example of a source verse is:
Ezekiel 4:6: And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
The day-year "Language" of Prophecy
The following threads are intended simply to present the first little peak into another entire context through which to consider New Testament prophecy and particularly the book of Revelation. Unlike futurism or preterism this view suggests that the book of Revelation has been being steadily fulfilled throughout the Christian era. The same view that virtually all Christians and Jews hold for the Old Testament as in the case of Daniel's kingdom "beasts" for example.
When we look to those of the former age we find the day-year language of prophecy was well understood:
Job 8:8 For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: 9 (For we [are but of] yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth [are] a shadow:)
Quoting from "The False Prophet": "In 1569, the great Anabaptist theologian, Thieleman van Braght, wrote the following in Martyrs Mirror, pages 21-24: 'a thousand two hundred and threescore days, which reckoned according to prophetic language means as many years… let it be reckoned as it may, say we, as a very long period of time.'
Two hundred years later, Matthew Henry, in his 'Commentary of the Whole Bible', came to the same conclusion (Vol VI, page 1157 column 1, para. 2): "….if the beginning of that interval could be ascertained, this number of prophetic days, taking a day for a year, would give us a prospect of when the end might be."
Isaac Newton - "She is nourished by the merchants of the earth, three times or years and an half, or 42 months, or 1260 days: and in these Prophecies days are put for years." - Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St.a John - Chapter 3
Also Jamison, Faucett & Brown commentary - "..... in the wilderness 'a thousand two hundred and threescore days.' In the wider sense, we may either adopt the year-day theory of 1260 years..."
The source of this language can be found in these key verses:
Ezekiel 4:5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
Ezekiel 4:6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
Numbers 14:34 After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, [even] forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, [even] forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.
Genesis 29:27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
Additionally Exodus alludes to a week of days as years:
Exodus 23:10 And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:
Exodus 23:11 But the seventh [year] thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, [and] with thy oliveyard.
Other examples of those who understood this language include:
Augustine (AD 430)
Nahawendi (Jewish) (AD 8-9th century)
Jehoram (AD 10th century)
Abraham bar Hiyya (Jewish) (AD 1136)
Arnold of Villanova AD (1292)
Tichonius (AD 380)
Joachim of Floris (AD 1202)
John Wycliffe (AD c.1379)
Nicholas of Cusa (AD c.1452)
Martin Luther (AD 1522)
Phillip Melanchthon (AD 1543)
Johan Funck (AD 1558)
James I of England (AD 1600)
Sir Isaac Newton (AD 1727)
It is important to note that the studies I entered in this forum discuss FULFILLED prophecy, pinned mathematically.
"The folly of interpreters has been to foretell times and things by this prophecy [Revelation], as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own providence, not the interpreters', be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence." - Sir Isaac Newton
We should consider the warning that Jesus gave to the Pharisees, and never allow our doctrine to trump the truth of God's Holy Word:
Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
The Year_Day Theory Fails
The Year-Day Theory
Recently the study of prophecy had earned for itself a bad reputation among believers because of the so-called year-day theory. According to this theory, many numbers of days in the Scriptures are computed as though a day were a year [even Isaac Newton made this mistake with all kinds of calculations], thus fostering predictions as to the precise date for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ—an exercise of the mind which is plainly contradictory to the Lord’s announcement: for no one knows the date of His return, not even Jesus himself. Then, too, some commentators on Revelation have twisted God’s word in ways that are meant to fit in with this year-day theory. We have no intention to argue about this theory; we only desire to point out a right understanding of the “days” that are mentioned in the Bible.
The advocates of the year-day theory base their conception on Numbers 14.34 and Ezekiel 4.6. Let us first examine Numbers: "After the number of the days in which ye spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my alienation." Here we are told that due to their unbelief, the children of Israel were disciplined by God for forty years, a year for every day they had spied out the land. But this does not apply equally to other "days" mentioned in Scripture, and certainly not to the "days" found in Revelation. As to Ezekiel: "And again, when thou hast accomplished these, thou shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it unto thee." Here we see that God commanded Ezekiel to lie down in a certain position as a response to the iniquity of Judah. This has nothing to do with the other "days" found in the Bible.
Let us look at a few more passages.
(1) "And yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (Gen. 7.4). Did God wait for seven years and then have the rain fall for forty years? No, for the record goes on to explain as follows: "And it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. . . . And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (vv.10,12). Here, a day is not a year.
(2) "Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within yet three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head" (Gen. 40.12,13). Was it that after three years the chief butler was released from prison? Not at all: "And it came to pass the third day . . . [that] he restored the chief butler unto his butlership again" (vv.20,21).
(3) "Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day . . . And it shall come to pass on the sixth day . . . [that] it shall be twice as much as they gather daily" (Ex. 16.4,5). The children of Israel went out to gather manna every day, not once a year.
(4) God gave meat to the children of Israel to eat for "a whole month" (Num. 11.19, 20). They did not eat meat for thirty years.
(5) "Within three days ye are to cross this Jordan" (Joshua 1.11). What actually happened afterwards? Did the children of Israel cross over Jordan after three years? No, they crossed after three days.
(6) "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12.40). Was the Lord Jesus in the heart of the earth for three years? We know from the biblical record that He was there for only three days and three nights.
From this evidence, therefore, we can easily conclude that the year-day theory is erroneous. If some of the "days" appearing in the book of Revelation are to be taken as years, then the rest of the "days" found therein should also be treated as years. And in that case, the three and a half years of the Great Tribulation would have to be calculated as a thousand two hundred and sixty years; and the millennial kingdom would have to be extended out to three hundred and sixty thousand years. Obviously, we know that such calculations as these cannot be true.
May we therefore trust the Holy Spirit to guide us correctly as we read the word of God. Let us not seize upon strange ideas like this. Even though the Bible is most wonderful, it is not to be explained in any quaint or bizarre way. We ought to learn to be more obedient to God in our thought. And then we will not be likely to misinterpret His word.