Four kingdoms of Daniel
The four kingdoms of Daniel are four kingdoms which, according to the
The four kingdoms
Historical background
The
The "four kingdoms" theme appears explicitly in
Daniel 2
In chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a statue made of four different materials, identified as four kingdoms:
- Head of gold. Explicitly identified as King Nebuchadnezzarof Babylon (v. 37–38).
- Chest and arms of silver. Identified as an "inferior" kingdom to follow Nebuchadnezzar (v. 39).
- Belly and thighs of bronze. A third kingdom which shall rule over all the earth (v. 39).
- Legs of iron with feet of mingled iron and clay. Interpreted as a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, but the feet and toes partly of clay and partly of iron show it shall be a divided kingdom (v. 41).
Daniel 7
In chapter 7, Daniel has a vision of four beasts coming up out of the sea, and is told that they represent four kingdoms:
- A beast like a lion with eagle's wings (v. 4).
- A beast like a bear, raised up on one side, with three Curves between its teeth (v. 5).
- A beast like a leopard with four wings of fowl and four heads (v. 6).
- A fourth beast, with large iron teeth and ten horns (v. 7–8).
This is explained as a fourth kingdom, different from all the other kingdoms; it "will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it" (v. 23). The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom (v. 24). A further horn (the "little horn") then appears and uproots three of the previous horns: this is explained as a future king.
Daniel 8
In chapter 8 Daniel sees a ram with two horns destroyed by a he-goat with a single horn; the horn breaks and four horns appear, followed once again by the "little horn".
Schools of thought
Rashi's interpretation
Rashi, a medieval rabbi, interpreted the four kingdoms as Nebuchadnezzar ("you are the head of gold"), Belshazzar ("another kingdom lower than you"), Alexander of Macedon ("a third kingdom of copper"), and the Roman Empire ("and in the days of these kings").[5] Rashi explains that the fifth kingdom that God will establish is the kingdom of the messiah.[5]
Christian interpretation
From the time of the
There are references in classical literature and arts that apparently predate the use of the succession of kingdoms in the Book of Daniel.
An interpretation proposed by Swain (1940)[9] sees the "four kingdoms" theory becoming the property of Greek and Roman writers at the beginning of the 2st century BC, as an import from Asia Minor. They built on a three-kingdom sequence, already mentioned by Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) and by Ctesias (fl. 401 BC).[10] Several other authors have since contested this dating and origin, placing the life-time of Sura and the Roman adaptation of the model in the 1st century BC.[11][12]
Christian Reconstructionists and Full Preterists believe that Daniel is completely fulfilled, and that the believers are now working to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.
Two main schools of thought on the four kingdoms of Daniel, are:
- the traditionalist view, supporting the conflation of Medo-Persia and identifying the last kingdom as the Roman Empire.
- the Maccabean thesis, a view that supports the separation of the Medes from the Persians and identifies the last kingdom as the Seleucid Empire.[13]
Roman Empire schema
The following interpretation represents a traditional view of Jewish and Christian
- the Babylonian Empire
- the Medo-Persian Empire
- the Greek Empire
- the Roman Empire, with other implications to come later
Jerome (c. 347–420) described this scheme in his Commentary on Daniel.[14] Within this framework there are numerous variations.
Use with the Book of Revelation
Christian interpreters typically read the Book of Daniel along with the New Testament's Book of Revelation. The Church Fathers interpreted the beast in Revelation 13 as the empire of Rome.[15] The majority of modern scholarly commentators understand the "city on seven hills" in Revelation as a reference to Rome.[16]
Second temple theory
Traditional views
Eschatological themes
For over two thousand years readers have speculated as to the meaning of the themes running through the Book of Daniel:[17]
- The four kingdoms: In Kingdom of God which will follow the four kingdoms and the "little horn".[18]
- Chronological predictions: Daniel predicts several times the length of time that must elapse until the coming of the Kingdom of God. A prophecy of Jeremiah is reinterpreted so that "70 years" means "70 weeks of years", and the last half of the last "week" is defined as "a time, times, and half a time", then as 2,300 "evenings and mornings", with further numbers of days at the very end of the book.[19]
- The "anointed one cut off": Daniel 9 makes two references to an "anointed one", which has had major implications for Christian eschatology. Daniel 9:25 says: "Until there is an anointed ruler will be seven weeks"; the next verse says: "After the sixty-two weeks the anointed one shall be cut off." Scholars take these as references to the high priest Joshua from the early Persian era and to the high priest Onias III, murdered in the 2nd century, but Christians have taken them both to refer to the death of Christ, which then provides a fixed point for calculating the time to the end of the world.[20]
- The "abomination of desolation": This is mentioned in Daniel 8, 9 and 11. In the New testament this was taken to refer to the eschatological future and the destruction of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:15, Mark 13:14), and later still it was interpreted as the Antichrist.[21]
- Martydom and resurrection: Daniel 11 tells how the "wise" lay down their lives as martyrs at the end-time persecution for resurrection into the final kingdom. Daniel 3 (the story of the Fiery Furnace) and Daniel 6 (Daniel in the lions' den) were read in this light, providing a prototype for Christian martyrdom and salvation through the centuries.[21]
Seventh-day Adventists
The prophecy of 2,300 days in Daniel 8:14 plays an important role in Seventh-day Adventist eschatology. The 2,300 days are interpreted as 2,300 years using the day-year principle.[22] According to the Adventist teaching, this period starts in unison with the Prophecy of Seventy Weeks in 457 BC and ends in 1844 AD.[23] It was thought that the end of this period would bring the end of days as advocated by the Millerite movement at the turn of the 19th century.
Chapter | Parallel sequence of prophetic elements as understood by Historicists[24][25] | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Past | Present | Future | ||||
Daniel 2 | Head Gold (Babylon) |
Chest and two arms Silver |
Belly and thighs Bronze |
Two legs Iron |
Two feet with toes Clay and iron |
Rock God's unending kingdom left to no other people |
Daniel 7 | Winged lion | Lopsided bear | Four headed / four winged Leopard | Iron toothed beast with little horn | Judgment scene Beast slain |
Son of man comes in clouds Gets everlasting dominion and gives it to saints.[26] |
Daniel 8 | Two-horned Ram (Media-Persia) |
Single-horned / four-horned goat Four winds (Greece) |
Little horn A master of intrigue |
Cleansing of the sanctuary Leads to → |
(Kingdom of God) | |
Daniel 11 –12
|
Kings (Persia) | North and south kings 4 winds (Greece) |
North and South Kings A contemptible person of intrigue (pagan and papal Rome) |
North and south kings End times (global religio-political government) |
Michael stands up Many dead awake to everlasting life | |
(Nations in parentheses are interpretation of symbols as given in the text. Nations in italic parentheses are Historicist interpretation. "One like a son of man" and "Michael" are understood to be the same being.) |
Most Adventist groups in the Millerite tradition hold similar beliefs about the
Like many reformation-era Protestant leaders, the writings of Adventist pioneer
Ellen White writes,
His word has given warning of the impending danger; let this be unheeded, and the Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare. She is silently growing into power. Her doctrines are exerting their influence in legislative halls, in the churches, and in the hearts of men. She is piling up her lofty and massive structures in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions will be repeated. Stealthily and unsuspectedly she is strengthening her forces to further her own ends when the time shall come for her to strike. All that she desires is vantage ground, and this is already being given her. We shall soon see and shall feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever shall believe and obey the word of God will thereby incur reproach and persecution.[28]
Baháʼí Faith
The
Methodists
Methodist theologian and historicist Adam Clarke proposed an alternative to the 1844 date as used by Seventh-day Adventists and followers of Baháʼí Faith. Clarke viewed Daniel 8 as a separate vision from Daniel 7. In his 1831 commentary on Daniel 8:14, he states that the 2,300-year period should be calculated from 334 BC, the year Alexander the Great began his conquest of the Persian Empire. His calculation ends in the year 1966, where he links to Daniel 7:25.[32]
The traditional interpretation of the four kingdoms, shared among Jewish and Christian expositors for over two millennia, identifies the kingdoms as the empires of
Jerome specifically identified the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 in this way.
The alternative view which sees the sequence ending with Greece and the Diadochi, thus excluding Rome, is not without historical precedent however. The pagan critic of Christianity, Porphyry, suggested a variation of this interpretation in the third century CE. In the following centuries, several Eastern Christians espoused this view, including Ephrem the Syrian, Polychronius, and Cosmas Indicopleustes.[36]
During the
Protestant Reformation
A series of Protestant theologians, such as
The theory was topical in the 1550s.
The Catholic Jean Bodin was concerned to argue against the whole theory of "four monarchies" as a historical paradigm. He devoted a chapter to refuting it, alongside the classical scheme of a Golden Age, in his 1566 Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem.[47]
In 1617, sculptures representing the four kingdoms of Daniel were placed above the doors of Nuremberg town hall:[48]
-
The lion represents the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. The bear represents the Persian King, Cyrus.
-
The leopard represents the King of the Greek Empire, Alexander. The fourth beast represents the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar.
Fifth Monarchists
In the conditions leading to the
References
- ^ Collins 1984, pp. 29, 34–35.
- ^ a b Niskanen 2004, pp. 27, 31.
- ^ Collins 1984, p. 80.
- ^ Matthews & Moyer 2012, pp. 260, 269.
- ^ a b Chabad Tanakh: Rashi's Commentary on Daniel 2
- ^ a b Herbert Butterfield, Man on His Past (1955), pp. 45–56.
- ^ Oellig 2023.
- ^ John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (1998), p. 93.
- S2CID 161334013.
- ^ Erich S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (1986), p. 329.
- ^ For a history of the debate and the arguments brought forward, see Oellig 2023, pp. 546–564
- JSTOR 294139.
- ^ John J. Collins, A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (2007), p. 282
- ^ "St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel (1958). pp. 15–157".
- ^ "The four beasts of Daniel, however, reappear in the monster of Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation, with ten horns, seven heads, bear's feet and a lion's mouth, which the Fathers of the Church took to be the Roman Empire." Gelston, et al., New heaven and new earth prophecy and the millennium: essays in honour of Anthony Gelston, p. 297 (1999).
- ^ Wall, R. W. (1991). New International biblical commentary: Revelation (207). Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson.
- ^ Collins 2013, p. 82.
- ^ Collins 2013, pp. 83–85.
- ^ Collins 2013, pp. 85–86.
- ^ Collins 2013, pp. 86–87.
- ^ a b Collins 2013, p. 87.
- ^ White, Ellen. "The Great Controversy 1888 Edition". Ellen G White Estate. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
- ^ White, Ellen. "The Great Controversy 1888 Edition". Ellen G White Estate.
- ^ Smith, Uriah (1944). Daniel and Revelation. Nashville, Tennessee: Southern Publishing Association.
- ^ Anderson, Roy Allan (1975). Unfolding Daniel's Prophecies. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press.
- ^ Daniel 7:13–27 see verses 13, 14, 22, 27
- ^ The Antichrist and the Protestant Reformation
- ISBN 0-8163-1923-5. Archived from the originalon 2007-05-31. Retrieved 2006-06-06.
- ^ Some Answered Questions by 'Abdu'l-Baha (Chapter 10)
- Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, CLXVI
- ^ Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, XXV
- ISBN 978-0529106346. Archived from the originalon 2012-12-05. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
- ISBN 978-1-58640-493-2.
- ^ "Jerome identified the four kingdoms analogously with the interpretation of the prophecy of Daniel 2, in a diachronic system. In the first kingdom, symbolized by the lion, he saw the Neo-Babylonian empire. He identified the bear with the Persian kingdom, the leopard with the Macedonian rule, and the fourth beast with the Roman empire." Fröhlich, "Time and times and half a time: Historical Consciousness in the Jewish Literature of the Persian and Hellenistic Eras", JSP Supplements, pp. 71–72 (1996).
- ^ Isabel Rivers, Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry: A Student's Guide (1994), p. 56.
- ISBN 978-9068315196.
- ^ Chris Given-Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (2004), p. 115.
- ^ C. A. Patrides, Joseph Anthony Wittreich, The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature: patterns, antecedents, and repercussions (1984), p. 45.
- ^ "Apocalypse". Apocalyptic Ideas in Old English Literature.
- ^ "PAL: Anne Bradstreet (1612?–1672)".
- ^ "Bishop John Lightfoot's Works (1684)". Archived from the original on 2006-12-15. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
- ^ Bryan W. Ball, A Great Expectation: eschatological thought in English Protestantism to 1660 (1975), p. 140.
- ^ Alexandra Kess, Johann Sleidan and the Protestant vision of history (2008), pp. 83–85.
- ^ Anthony Grafton, What was History?: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (2007), p. 171.
- ^ David Andrew Lupher, Romans in a New World: Classical Models in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America (2006), p. 163.
- ^ Paula Findlen, Athanasius Kircher: the last man who knew everything (2004), p. 177.
- ^ "Jean Bodin". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2018.
- ISBN 978-1572581227.
- ISBN 978-0571286867. Retrieved 10 February 2019.
... a number of new books ... share a common theme in stressing the normalcy and the wide extent of millenarianism in England in the seventeenth century ...
- ^
Compare:
Capp, Bernard (1972). The Fifth Monarchy Men: A Study in Seventeenth-Century English Millenarianism (reprint ed.). Faber & Faber (published 2012). p. 1665. ISBN 978-0571286867. Retrieved 10 February 2019.
The history of the Fifth Monarchists in the 1670s shows a continuing polarization of the movement, with the majority moving towards quietism and being accepted by other contemporary sectarians, whilst the minority became more deeply involved in violence and plots.
Further reading
- Bernard Capp (1972), Fifth Monarchy Men: Study in Seventeenth Century English Millenarianism, Faber ISBN 0-571-09791-X
- ISBN 978-0802800206.
- ISBN 978-0191649189.
- Deferrari, ISBN 978-0-8132-1310-1.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - Gerhard F. Hasel, "The Four World Empires of Daniel 2 Against its Near Eastern Environment," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 1979 12: 17–30
- Matthews, Victor H.; Moyer, James C. (2012). The Old Testament: Text and Context. Baker Books. ISBN 978-0801048357.
- Niskanen, Paul (2004). The Human and the Divine in History: Herodotus and the Book of Daniel. Continuum. ISBN 978-0567082138.
- Oellig, Marie (2023). Die Sukzession von Weltreichen. Zu den antiken Wurzeln einer geschichtsmächtigen Idee. Oriens et Occidens. Vol. 38. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. ISBN 978-3-515-13195-7.
- H. H. Rowley (1935), Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel. A Historical Study of Contemporary Theories.
- Ministerial Association, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (2005). Seventh-day Adventists Believe (2nd ed). Pacific Press.[ISBN missing]
External links
- John H. Walton, "The Four Kingdoms Of Daniel," JETS29 (1986), 25–36.
- Utopian and Historical Thinking: Interplays and Transferences (PDF)