In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream.
Daniel 7:1
I have named this website after Daniel 7 as I have become convinced this chapter is key to understanding our present day and coming events. There are 3 sections to this page:
1. Daniel 7 - What time period does it relate to?
2. Links between Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 (The Beast)
3. Interpretation of Daniel 7
I have started with this, because most Bible studies of Daniel 7 conclude that it relates to the same events as Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 2). That is, that the four beasts match the four historic empires from Nebuchadnezzar's image:
At first this looks likely, the first beast, a lion with wings of an eagle, is a symbol of Babylon. The fourth beast has iron teeth, like the iron in Nebuchadnezzar's dream.
However on closer examination it doesn't make sense. The four beasts of Daniel 7 co-exist. (In verse 11 the fourth beast is destroyed and thrown on the fire, and in verse 12 the first three beasts are stripped of their authority and allowed to live). That wasn't the case for the four empires of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, where each empire defeated and replaced the previous one.
Also the end of the vision seems to refer to God's Judgment at the time of Jesus Christ's Return - eg. verse 27 referring to all kingdoms being handed over to the holy people of the Most High.
Finally, as I will show in the next section, there are a lot of links between Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 - it looks like they refer to the same events. I therefore conclude that Daniel 7 relates to the time period leading up to the Return of Jesus Christ: the present day.
If you read Daniel 7 and Revelation 13:1-10 you will discover a lot of similarities between the two passages. The beast of Revelation 13 has attributes similar to all four of the beasts of Daniel 7. However it seems to be an amalgamation of all four of them:
So the two passages are very similar, potentially referring to the same thing, if the way Daniel has 4 beasts and Revelation only has 1 needs can be explained in any interpretation. My interpretation will show that both are equally valid views of the same thing.
My interpretation of Daniel 7 is that the four beasts correspond to the following empires in the world today.
The first beast (the Lion with Eagle's Wings) is a symbol associated with Babylon. But ancient Babylon was destroyed a long time ago, so I believe it refers to the Babylon from Revelation (eg. Revelation 17). I show here that the Babylon from Revelation represents the USA.
The second beast, as a bear, is recognizably a symbol associated with Russia, for example see here.
The third beast, that looks like a leopard, is perhaps the hardest to identify. Leopards live in sub-Saharan Africa and across South-East Asia. The strongest nation in this area that could be described as one of the four most powerful empires in the world today is China.
At the beginning of the vision, Daniel says:
Daniel said: "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea.
Daniel 7:2
The four winds of heaven correspond to North, South, East and West. Taken from either Israel, or Ancient Babylon (where Daniel saw the vision), the USA is West, Russia is North and China is East. However there is no obvious world Empire to the South, only Africa. So again we need to go to Revelation to get a full understanding of this beast, and I show it is the United Nations here.
Under this interpretation it explains why Daniel saw 4 beasts, but in Revelation there is only 1. The fourth beast encompasses the other 3: the USA, Russia and China are the most powerful members of the United Nations, permanent members of the UN Security Council. So Daniel seeing them as four separate beasts is not inconsistent with John, in Revelation 13, seeing them as one combined beast, with the same attributes as Daniel's four beasts.