In my Sunday School class we are studying the Book of Revelation, using (a well known author’s book). Your studies have been especially helpful because of all the details you go into, and your wonderful insight.
There is a question in the book that asks us to read Daniel 2: 37-45 and to tell how that passage sheds light on the beast seen by John in Revelation 17.
I have read your study on Daniel entitled “The End Times According To Daniel … Part One, Chapters 2 and 7”, and your study on Revelation 17. Again, your studies are especially helpful because of all the details and your wonderful insight. However, that question has me somewhat stumped, and am having trouble connecting the dots.
What is your response to that question? Can you please help me connect the dots?
Daniel 2:37-45 is a vision of a statue that represents Gentile Dominion, the time when Gentile powers would rule the world. By most accounts, the four kingdoms represented there are Babylon (gold), Media-Persia (silver), Greece (bronze) and Rome (iron), which is represented twice, first as the legs of iron and then as the feet of iron mixed with clay.
In Rev. 17 we see a woman riding a beast. In verse 9 it says that the seven heads of the beast are seven hills (implying Rome) and that they are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and one is yet to come. Like many, I believe that John wrote the Revelation in 95AD. At the time of his writing there had been five world kingdoms, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media-Persia, and Greece. The then current kingdom was Rome, and the one to come is the revived Roman Empire.
When you delete Egypt and Assyria which Nebuchadnezzar had recently defeated when Daniel interpreted his dream, the two lists are identical.