The Eight Empires of the Beast Explained
by Bob Lawrence
April 16, 2002

I am going to try and make an effort here to unify all available prophecy into a single coherent timeline that provides a complete explanation of the eight "beast empires".  As a basis for this timeline, I have relied heavily on "The Sign" by Robert Van Kampen.  However, I have introduced some of my own theories into this as well.  Please bear with me, for this is not a trivial task.  I welcome your input, and I hope that I can learn something as well as teach something.  At the bottom of this explanation, I have created a graphical timeline that should aid us in this discussion.  What I haven't tried to do is provide a timeline for the Tribulation, Rapture, or the Day of the Lord, except to say that they all occur within the "70th" week.  It is also important to note that these topics, while quite interesting to discuss, are non-essential to salvation, and we shouldn't get to caught up in "what happened when?"

This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. (Revelation 17:9-11)

Each head is a king who has had a kingdom here on earth sometime in the past. The eighth (the Antichrist) is one of the original seven reincarnated. Most probably one of the first five since they had already come and gone at the time Revelation was written, and the past tense is used when referring to the "beast who once was, and now is not."  The kingdoms of each king are what I am referring to when I say "beast empire." A more accurate term might be "beast-head empire" or "empires of the beast's heads", but "beast empire" is an easier reference.

I was looking in my vision by night and behold... four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from one another.  The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle... And behold, another beast, a second one, resembling a bear... After this I kept looking, and behold, another one, like a leopard... After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth.  It devoured and crushed, and trampled down the remainder with its feet, and it was different from all the beasts that went before it, and it had ten horns.  While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering of great boasts. (Daniel 7:2-8)

Daniel also has a vision in which he sees these empires as actual independent beasts. He only sees four of them in his vision because the first two are already historical at the time of his vision, and the seventh is intentionally skipped (I will explain below). Daniel sees in his vision the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth empires (Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman). The eighth is hinted at by the ten horns, each horn representing a king in a ten nation confederacy.  The little horn refers to the Antichrist and how he will come to power and supplant three of the kings to form the eighth empire.

You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome.  The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.  You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them.  The iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found.  But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth... (Daniel 2:31-35)

Nebuchadnezzar's dream which Daniel interprets for him directly parallels his vision. In Nebuchadnezzar's dream, he is shown a statue with five levels (head of gold, chest & arms of silver, belly & thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet & toes of partly clay and iron). The first four levels correspond to the four beasts in Daniel's vision. The fifth level represents the eighth beast empire, which is paralleled in Daniel's vision of the ten horns (ten toes of the feet = ten horns).

Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy... So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with the plaza and a moat, even in times of distress.  Then after sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.  (Daniel 9:24-27)

Daniel's "70 weeks" of prophecy must also be considered when reviewing the beast empires. Gabriel revealed to Daniel that there would be 69 weeks (or 483 years, 1 day = 1 year) from the time that the decree to Rebuild Jerusalem occurred (given in 445 B.C. by Artaxes Longimanus) to the second coming of Christ. Christ's first coming was "cut off" at sixty-two weeks when Israel rejected their Messiah.  Then, in 70 A.D., forces under the Roman general Titus ("people of the prince who is to come") destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.  The days of the 70th week (the last seven years) are the end times spoken of in Revelation, and should have begun immediately following this destruction, but they didn't...

Why is the seventh beast empire missing in both Daniel's vision and Nebuchadnezzar's dream? Why has there been this long gap between Daniel's 69th and 70th week? The existence of the seventh beast empire was withheld from Daniel intentionally because it fell within the gap. God knew that Israel would reject Christ when he came, and that he would scatter Israel "among the nations" as a result. This is what caused the gap between the 69th and 70th week. The seventh beast empire is identified in Revelation because it was written after this great dispersal had already begun (90 A.D.).

Timeline of the Beast Empires