Daniel 7:7

7. Modern expositors are almost unanimous in explaining this as referring either to the Syriac-Egyptian kingdom, which filled the political horizon around the Mediterranean after the death of Alexander and his immediate successors (see Daniel 2:39; Daniel 8:20), or to these two successive dominions of Alexander and the Syrian kings regarded as a unity. We have already explained why we adhere to the former view and why the older opinion, that this fourth empire was the Roman, can no longer be maintained (Daniel 2:39). These verses, as Prince acknowledges, do not fitly describe the civilizing conquests of Alexander, but, as even Bevan sees, are “singularly inappropriate” when applied to his victories. They do, however, express precisely the Hebrew idea of the Seleucidae; and it is very suggestive that even the scholars who make Alexander the head of this empire, as Nebuchadnezzar was of the Babylonian, do not attempt to interpret these verses as actually referring to Alexander and his immediate successors, but acknowledge that the author of Daniel was really thinking of those Syrian kings who reigned several centuries after Alexander.

Since secular historians without theological bias have seen that the empire founded by Alexander came to an end with the death of Perdiccas (321 B.C.), there is no reason, historically, why the author of Daniel may not be allowed to be consistent with himself when he describes the chief activity of this fourth beast as occurring not in Alexander’s era (fourth century B.C.) but in the era of Seleucus and Antiochus Epiphanes. (See particularly chap. 11.) The argument which is made so much of by opponents of this view, that the Seleucid beast-empire was not “diverse” from all that had preceded it, is easily answered by the simple statement of the acknowledged fact that from the Jewish standpoint it was exceedingly different from all that had preceded. To the Jews no rulers since the Pharaohs had seemed so “exceeding dreadful” (Daniel 7:19); whose iron teeth and brazen nails were so “exceedingly strong” to devour the Hebrew patriots, and its mighty brutish feet to stamp them into the dust. (See Daniel 11:0) To seek this “diversity” from all other kingdoms in some difference in its origin, or its form of government, or its constitution, or in the conquering kings’ unwillingness “to leave the subjugated people in their former barbarism,” is to strangely miss the point. Gentile history was important to the Hebrew prophet only as it touched the Hebrew nation, and the fourth Gentile kingdom was “diverse” from the others because it was more cruel and brutal in its persecution of the “saints of the Most High” (Daniel 7:25). The ten horns do not symbolize that this empire was stronger than any which had preceded it. The horns represent ten kings (Daniel 7:24).