The four kingdoms in Daniel
The book of Daniel seems to be the source of many end-time interpretations. Let’s take a closer look at what this is all about, starting with the basics.
The four kingdoms
Chapters 2 and 7 of Daniel each give us a glimpse of four successive kingdoms — chapter 2 through the vision of a statue, chapter 7 through a set of beasts. Both chapters present the kingdoms as following one after another: chapter 2 does so explicitly, while chapter 7 shows it through the beasts conquering and replacing each other.
Chapter 2 gives us a clear starting point, since the first kingdom is Babel. Babel was destroyed by the Medo-Persian Empire. Some commentators treat the Median and Persian empires as two separate, successive empires, but that doesn’t match history — the two were already united before they destroyed Babel.
The third kingdom is the Greek empire under Alexander the Great, who conquered the Medo-Persian Empire. After Alexander’s death this empire split into four, which were eventually absorbed into the fourth and final kingdom, Rome.
Chapter 7 paints the same picture through different imagery, beginning with Babel:
“And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. 4 The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it.”
Babylon was symbolized by a lion in both statues and portraits, and Jeremiah likely draws on the same image when he describes the judgment of Edom in terms of a lion and eagle.
Next come the Persians:
“And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, ‘Arise, devour much flesh.’”
The bear raised up on one side pictures the joint Median-Persian Empire, in which the Persian side was smaller at first but eventually took the lead. The three ribs, together with the command to “devour,” describe its three major conquests: Lydia (547 BC), Babel (539 BC), and Egypt (525 BC).
Then the Greeks:
“After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it.”
The leopard captures the rapid expansion of Alexander’s kingdom from Greece all the way to India in less than two decades. After his death, the kingdom split into four successor states — the four heads.
Finally, the Romans:
“After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet.”
Rome conquered the last of the Greek successor kingdoms and became the greatest empire yet, crushing everything with iron strength — the same iron that appears as the material of the fourth kingdom in chapter 2.
The end of the kingdoms
Both chapters end the same way: with a divine event. In chapter 2 it’s described as “a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces" and “the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”
This recalls the cornerstone identified elsewhere as Jesus Christ, who is the foundation of the Church. He was not made by “human hand,” and he became the ruler of the world, giving the church his authority to rule. Chapter 7 shows the same intervention from another angle: the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man overcome the kingdoms, and he sets up an eternal kingdom.
So who is this Son of Man? In Daniel’s own context, it’s Israel — they receive the kingdom under the title the Son of Man. But this finds its fulfillment in Jesus as true Israel, and it’s worth noting that Son of Man is the only title he ever uses for himself.
There is more
Chapters 2 and 7 clearly describe the same four kingdoms, ending in Rome at the time Jesus is born and conquers the empires on the cross. But a few details don’t quite fit that reading. Chapter 2 mentions further kingdoms represented by the feet of the statue. The stone in chapter 2 — Jesus’ first coming — didn’t destroy the whole statue at once, since Rome remained standing for more than 400 years afterward. The description of the fourth beast in chapter 7 doesn’t fully match Rome either: it’s called fearful and dreadful, different from all the beasts before it, and given ten horns, yet Rome wasn’t especially different from earlier empires in those respects, and the ten horns never map cleanly onto anything fixed in Roman history. And the scene of the Son of Man’s coming in chapter 7 reads like a final judgment, yet if this were simply Rome, not much would actually change once that judgment fell.
There’s a good deal of debate about how to resolve this; here’s my own view, borrowed in part from others. The story doesn’t end with Jesus coming to earth — it starts a major change in world history: the church now rules the earth. Through the spread of the gospel in worship, prayer, witness, and perseverance, the world is changing.
But how much are we actually taking advantage of that? Instead of a new world, history gives us crusades, inquisitions, and forced conversions built on the fear of hell. At the same time, the change in rulership isn’t obvious in the way we might expect, because Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. As Jesus and the church take over rule of the earth, we have to ask ourselves what it actually means to rule in God’s kingdom.
Rome is the last of the four kingdoms to hold direct rule over Israel. After the new covenant established through Jesus, God’s people are scattered across the whole earth, and there is no longer a single empire that encompasses them all.
There’s much more controversy surrounding the ten kings and the three horns — a subject Daniel himself inquires further about in chapter 7 — but that discussion belongs in the context of the book of Revelation, where we meet the evil trinity and the ten kings again.