And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it (Daniel 7.3-4). These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth (Daniel 7:17). (We'll come back to this tomorrow. My apologies.)
Before we continue with the lion story, I need to go back to a statement I made yesterday about the four winds of the heaven blowing against each other in "the great sea." I realized after I had mailed yesterday's article that there is some controversy over the identity of the "the great sea." I can see how some might think it is more than the Mediterranean Sea and I think it would be good to review that issue now rather than later.
Was The Great Sea the Mediterranean Sea or the oceans of the world? Some commentators suggest it referred to the ocean water of the entire world because the sea was a figure of speech for the people of the earth. However, the great players in military battles related to this striving of the winds are most likely the kings and armies around the Mediterranean Sea. The four winds are mentioned as a parallel to the four kinds of metal in Nebuchadnezzar's multi-metallic image and the four beasts we are about to examine. The four great world powers begin with Babylon and end with the Roman Empire. We are now in the end days of feet of iron mixed with clay and the stone is about to come and smash the feet and grind it to powder.
The fifth kingdom is the kingdom set up by the God of Heaven, coming after the stone, (Jesus Christ) smashes the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's great image. There are other great nations such as ancient Assyria, the United States, Russia, China, and India. But none of these are players in world power as identified by the Bible. Russia and her allies will come down against Israel (Ezekiel 38) and 5/6 of her army will be destroyed by an earthquake. But Russia is not a world player. It has been suggested that China may be the 200-milllion-man army mentioned in Revelation 9:6 but it is not clear that these are human soldiers. Even if Revelation 9:6 is China, it is short-lived and not part of God's view of world powers.
The phrase, "The Great Sea" occurs 13 times in the Bible and all of them by their context indicate that the Mediterranean is the Great Sea. Daniel 7:2 is the last reference mentioning the Great Sea. I find nothing in the Bible indicating that the 13th reference to the Great Sea is different from the prior 12 uses of the term. The sea is used in other Bible passages to represent various people and nations of the earth. It will help, I think, to remember that all four of the great world kingdoms, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Graeco-Macedonia, and Rome—all four were in the vicinity of The Great Sea, i.e. the Mediterranean Sea.
It is also helpful to remember that when Babylon ruled the world under Nebuchadnezzar, he did not have occupational soldiers in every part of the world. He ruled the world in the sense that he occupied the essential part of the world required to dominate the rest of the world. The later three world powers occupied the world in the same sense.
Please keep in mind that world powers not only occupied territory by military force but also exercised control of the economies of the conquered regions. They were not interested in destroying the people they conquered. They wanted those countries to prosper and generate wealth.This meant that they presided over the major bodies of water and the major rivers where ships carried goods and generated taxes to support the government. Water was the lifeline of international trade. Camel caravans contributed to this effort but were not to be compared with goods moved by water. The water of the Great Sea and the rivers that flowed into it were the arteries of international power. The great world powers came to power by displacing existing powers and that pretty well ties them all to the waterways around the Mediterranean Sea.
"In this image of four winds blowing against each other we have a picture of the people from all directions of the earth coming against each other in the area of the Mediterranean Sea." There is a time line involved in this that I did not mention yesterday. The parts of Daniel's beast could all be seen at one time by Nebuchadnezzar but all the parts did not exist at the same time. The time line began with the gold head and went down to feet of iron and clay which were smitten by the great stone.
In a similar way, the striving of the four winds blowing against each other in the "Great Sea" propably had a time line covering several centuries. But in the end there will be a final gathering of the nations of the world existing at that time that will surround Jerusalem and God will wipe them out. The "Stone" that smashed Nebuchadnezzar's great image will deal a pulverizing blow upon the gathered nations of the world.
The striving of the winds is a timeless reference to the continual competing and warring between the nations around the Great Sea. In its immediate context of Daniel 7:1-2 the beasts coming up out of the sea or the Great Sea are kings of that area of the world. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth (Daniel 7:17).
These four great beasts are seen one after the other. They did not all exist at the same time. There is a time line here as will be obvious as we study the four beasts. God showed Nebuchadnezzar the spectacular aspects of the great image because that is what he could understand. But in showing the beasts, God is showing Daniel the nature of the four parts of the image.
The lion was a primary image of Babylon as seen in our picture for today, and was taken from the restored Istar Gate of the city of ancient Babylon.
Memory Verse for this week:
(Hebrews 3:12,13) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12,13).
Digging Deeper
"Exhort one another daily…" This is one of the "one another" phrases of the Bible. God calls pastors and other church leaders for special function in the church but He also ordains the use of the rank and file people in the church to minister to each other. Here the activity is to exhort or urge or encourage one another and to do it daily, constantly. The pastor often cannot reach personally everyone in the congregation so it is up to each one who is touching or close to another person to exercise influence on that person. The urging is not to be bossy or cantankerous but gentle, loving encouragement.
No comments:
Post a Comment