Clearly God uses symbols and symbolic or figurative language to communicate His thoughts to us.  Nowhere is that more obvious than in the book of Revelation.  When we say we take a literal approach to interpretation of scripture it obviously doesn’t mean we don’t recognize symbols and figurative language as such.  However, when we see such clear symbolism as a big red dragon, or a seven-headed beast with ten horns on one of its heads, it does not mean that we can say that other things need to be taken as symbolic, such as the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel, or the 1000 year reign of Christ on this earth.  The “golden rule” for the literalists is that if the natural sense makes sense we should not look for any other sense.  Granted many who claim to be literalists and hence appeal to this rule, do not in fact follow it consistently, and therein lies the weaknesses of their interpretations.

For example, when it comes to this beast with seven heads and  ten horns it has been spiritualized and allegorized by some, such that it has no prophetic or predictive significance (discussed in the article about Methods of Interpretation). However even the literalists and futurists have come up with interpretations that are misleading based more on presuppositions than the actual wording of the text.  A popular view for much of the 20th century was that the seven heads on the beast represented the seven hills of Rome, and that the Beast itself represented the Roman Catholic Church.  Hence the Antichrist would probably be a Pope.  This evolved into an interpretation still prevalent today that the ten horns of the seventh and eighth head of the Beast would actually be a “revived Roman Empire,” embodied in the European Union (EU) or the European Common Market (ECM), and the ten horns would be ten nations in the EU.  The Antichrist would then be European, probably a president of the EU. Now that we are approaching 30 nations in the EU (instead of 10) some have evolved further to the “Ten-bioregions Theory.”  So does a literal interpretation give us Rome because its on seven hills, The Pope and the Roman Catholic Church?  Do we get the EU and a European leader coming to power over the whole world, beheading Christians and desecrating the temple in Jerusalem from taking prophetic scripture literally?  Maybe not!

Yes this beast John wrote about is mysterious, as is much of the end-time prophecy, but is it so encrypted that we can’t figure it out without having to resort to such forced interpretations and speculation?  The answer is resoundingly NO!  In fact, if we let it, scripture does interpret itself, as far as it goes.  So what does it actually tell us about this beast?  Put aside your presuppositions and pay close attention to what God inspired John to write:

^“1And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.  Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.” (Revelation 13:1)

“⁷And the angel said to me, ‘Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.  ⁸“The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come. ⁹Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits,¹⁰and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. ¹¹The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction. ¹²The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. ¹³These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.” (Revelation 17:7-13 emphasis added)

First, we don’t see any mention of Rome or the seven hills of Rome (which is actually eight or nine or more depending on which hills one chooses to include).  What we do see is a very clear interpretation of the seven heads, and the seven hills: “they are seven kings.”  So much for the seven hills of Rome, and the whole Papal Antichrist and Roman Catholic Church theory – no basis for it in scripture except by a great deal of speculation and forced interpretation.

Furthermore, those seven kings include five who had fallen as of the time John was writing this (about 95-96 AD).  They include one that was extant during the period of time John was writing, which is pretty easily identifiable as the Roman Empire.  But we are then told that the “King” that was to come – the head with the ten horns, would not be the one that was in his (John’s) time – i.e. not Rome.  In fact it was a future king that would only be in power for a short time.  So much for the revived Roman Empire theory.

Some will then contend that this seventh head, the seventh king, is the historic Islamic Empire, which was one that followed the Roman Empire – especially in the Middle-east.  But we are told that it will be an empire, or kingdom, which will be short-lived.  Islamists captured Jerusalem in AD 638 and have been a prominent presence in the Middle-east since before then.  That Islamic empire is not in any literal sense “short-lived.”  It does not really meet the “literal” requirement, though it is a step in the right direction.

Scripture is clear that his seventh head, or kingdom, also itself called a “beast,” is short lived but gives rise to an “eighth beast” who then reigns over the ten-horns.  Those “ten horns” are again interpreted for us as being ten contemporary kings, which derive their authority from, and give authority to that eighth beast, which we refer to as “the Antichrist.”  But again, they only exist for a short while – “one hour” (this we of course have to take as symbolic or figurative language) – not for millennia, nor even a few hundred years, as in the case of most of the other candidates proposed in other theories.

So now we know that this end-times beast is actually a kingdom, or an empire, which is not Rome but comes some time later, but only exists for a short period of time.  We also know that out of this seventh empire (“beast”) comes a ruler who puts together a coalition of ten nations, to become the eighth beast, the Antichrist.  This is not speculation, or guesswork, it is what we are explicitly told in our text, Revelation 17.

But that is not all that we are told.  John also gives us several more vital pieces of information:

^“1And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.  Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. ²And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.” (Revelation 13:1-3 emphasis added)

Going back to that 13th chapter of Revelation we see a description of this eighth head or beast of chapter 17.  John describes it as looking like a leopard, but having the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion.  Some tell us that the leopard and bear and lion just represent some characteristics of this beast, but if so why the symbology?  Why not just say the beast is powerful, strong and tenacious, and swift?  Perhaps the answer is because such an interpretation allows them to still argue that it is the Roman Empire (see John Walvoord’s commentary).  Here again we have the explanation and interpretation of these symbols.  As John wrote repeatedly to the seven churches in the 2nd and 3rd chapter of Revelation – “he that hath an ear let him hear.”  However, as is often the case in letting scripture interpret itself, we have to go to other passages to find the interpretation.  This time it is the book of Daniel. Interestingly enough Daniel uses these very same symbols of the leopard, the bear and the lion, and then tells us who they are, or gives us enough information that we can easily and unmistakably determine what they represent.  In Daniel 7 we have four beasts described, which include a lion, and bear and a leopard.  There we are explicitly told what these beast represent:

“These great beasts, which are four in number, are four kings who will arise from the earth.” (Daniel 7:17)

In the eighth chapter we again see two of these same beasts using different symbols. the ram with two horns (Daniel 8:1-4) and the male goat or “shaggy goat” (8:5-8).  Then we see the interpretation of those symbols:

“²⁰The ram which you saw with the two horns represents the kings of Media and Persia.  ²¹The shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king. ²²“The broken horn and the four horns that arose in its place represent four kingdoms which will arise from his nation, although not with his power.” (Daniel 8:20-21)

So we are explicitly told that the second and third of these beasts represent the Medo-Persian and the Greek or Alexandrian Empire.  This would then be two of the kings, or empires that had already come and gone as of John’s time when he wrote the prophecies cited above.  Since we know that the Medes and Persians conquered (or followed) the Babylonian Empire, it is not difficult to deduce that the first beast, the “lion” of Daniel 7, must represent that Babylonian Empire (which is also corroborated by the prophecy in Daniel 2 with the image of a man in which the head is interpreted to be Babylon).

With these interpretations in mind we can understand that the Beast that John saw coming up out of the sea, was some combination of the former Babylonian and Medo-Persian and Alexandrian Empires.  And indeed, John tells us in that passage from Revelation 17 (cited above) that the seventh beast is “also an eighth and is of the seven” (note that the word “one” as in “one of the seven” has been added by the translators in the NASB).

Daniel goes on to tell us that out of that “shaggy goat” or Alexandrian Empire would come four horns, which represent four kingdoms – which we know from history actually happened as it was divided between four generals, Cassandra, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus.  Daniel then goes on to describe a king that would arise “in the latter part of their rule” (8:23), which would come out of one of those four horns or kingdoms. He refers to this later king as “a small horn.”  We see this small horn, or “little horn” previously described in the seventh chapter of Daniel’s prophecy, which comes out of the fourth beast of that chapter, the one with seven heads and ten horns – the same beast we see in Revelation 13 and 17.  That “little horn” is further described as the one who persecutes and dominates God’s people, destroys the temple and stops the sacrifices, and “magnified itself to be equal with the Commander of the host” (8:11).  Later in Daniel 9:27 and 11:31 where more detail is given, this is called “the abomination of desolation,” to which Jesus also makes reference in Matthew 24:15.  That is what is known as the Antichrist when he desecrates the temple, and sets himself up as God (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 and Revelation 13).  We know that it is the final end-times beast or ruler because Daniel tells us that it is, and because he identifies it as the one who is actually destroyed by Christ Himself when He returns in judgment (Daniel 7:8-11; 8:25; 9:27; 11:45; 2 Thessalonians 2:8).

We also know that this kingdom of the “little horn” will only last for a short time at the end.  Daniel tells us it will be for “time, times and half a time” (Daniel 7:25, 12:7; Revelation 12:14), which is also interpreted for us as 42 months (Revelation 11:2, 13:5) and 1260 days (Revelation 11:3, 12:6).  It also equates to 3 1/2 years, which would be the last half of the 70th week of Daniel 9:27, where a week represents seven years.  Daniel’s 70th week is understood to be the seven-year tribulation period and the Antichrist breaks his covenant with Israel halfway through that seven year period – which is 3 1/2 years, or 42 months, or 1260 days, or time, times and half a time (understanding a “time” to be a year).  This then is that final kingdom which will be for only a short time, 3 1/2 years in its ultimate form of global domination after crushing Israel and desecrating and destroying the temple.

Thus far we just have what scripture explicitly tells us, letting scripture interpret scripture.  We have an empire that will in some way incorporate the previous Babylonian, Medo-Persian and Greek or Alexandrian Empires (the lion, bear and leopard).  We have a king or ruler that will come from one of the four generals or divisions of the Alexandrian Empire, and he will lead a coalition of 10 nations.  If it is to be made up of those preceding three empires it must be a middle-eastern bloc of nations (not Europe).  If a ruler comes from that area, and such a block of nations, any time in the foreseeable future, he will have to be Islamic – a Moslem.  For these and many other reasons, especially an accurate interpretation of Daniel’s prophecies, the Revived Roman Empire theory does not seem a very viable option (which is the subject of another article, and a book by this author, “The Beast, The Antichrist, The Harlot Babylon”).

Daniel also goes on in the 11th chapter to give us a rather detailed prophecy of what would transpire after the empire of the  “shaggy goat” is divided four ways, taking us up to the “king that will arise,” which he also refers to as “a despicable person” (Daniel 11:21).  He focuses on two of those kings or lines of kings or kingdoms, which he refers to as the “king of the North” and the “king of the South.”  We can easily determine these to be the northern Seleucid line that was mostly Syrian, including the former Assyrian empire region, and the southern Ptolemaic line that ruled mostly in Egypt.  As we follow Daniel’s accounts it is incredible in the accuracy of the detail with respect to what has actually occurred from the time of Alexander’s death up to about 165 BC.  That was when the Syrian Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanies destroyed or sacked Jerusalem, desecrated the temple, and stopped the sacrifices. Hence we have this historic figure which in many respects fulfilled Daniel’s prophecy in 11:21-34.  However, in 11:35 Daniel then indicates that he is looking ahead to “the end time,” a time “still to come at the appointed time” (Daniel 11:35).  In the 40th verse he explicitly tells us that what he is prophesying is about what will happen “at the end time,” and indeed the rest does not find any fulfillment in history.

Informed scholars who see the literal nature of these prophecies (hard not to see when so much has been literally fulfilled) see the obvious connection between Daniel’s “little horn,” the prophesied “abomination of desolation” (Daniel 11:31 & Matthew 24:15), and the historic Antiochus IV Epiphanies.  For this reason he is believed to be a prototype of the future personage known as the Antichrist, but not the complete fulfillment of that prophecy.  However, many of those same scholars seem to miss the fact that this prototype of the Antichrist is actually Syrian, or we could say Assyrian, rather than Roman (or Jewish, or European, or American, or Russian, or anything else).  He is from the Seleucid line of the former Greek empire.  Hence it seems that perhaps it is most logical to be looking for someone from that Mesopotamian area, from those cultures which are the modern product of the former Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Greek empires, which became the Seleucid or Syrian line.

Again we could take into consideration what scripture explicitly tells us about this personage which will arise in the end-time:

“²⁴The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, ‘Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand, ²⁵to break Assyria in My land, and I will trample him on My mountains. Then his yoke will be removed from them and his burden removed from their shoulder. ²⁶This is the plan devised against the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations.’” (Isaiah 14:24-26)

^“4For thus says the LORD to me,  ‘As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey, against which a band of shepherds is called out, and he will not be terrified at their voice nor disturbed at their noise, so will the LORD of hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.  ⁵ Like flying birds so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem.  He will protect and deliver it.  He will pass over and rescue it. ⁶Return to Him from whom you have deeply defected, O sons of Israel. ⁷For in that day every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your sinful hands have made for you as a sin.⁸ And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man, and a sword not of man will devour him.  So he will not escape the sword, and his young men will become forced laborers.  ⁹ His rock will pass away because of panic, and his princes will be terrified at the standard,’ declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace is in Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 31:4-9)

“⁴ And He will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD His God.  And they will remain, because at that time He will be great to the ends of the earth.  ⁵ This One will be our peace. When the Assyrian invades our land, when he tramples on our citadels, then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight leaders of men.  ⁶ They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod at its entrances; and He will deliver us from the Assyrian, when he attacks our land and when he tramples our territory.  ⁷ Then the remnant of Jacob will be among many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on vegetation.” (Micah 5:4-7)

When we see that John tells us that it is the city of Babylon which will be city which will “reign over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:18), why would we look for some other city such as Rome?  Micah mentions the “land of Nimrod,” in connection with this land of Assyria and the Assyrian.  Scripture tells us that Nimrod, the son of Cush (Noah’s grandson), founded both Babel and Assyria and even built Nineveh, the eventual capital of the Assyrian Empire (Genesis 10:8-12).  We know that the Syrian empire of the Seleucids including Antiochus IV Epiphanies, subsumed most of the old Assyrian Empire which was centered in northern Mesopotamia (today northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, and southeast Turkey) and at its peak included Babylon (Iraq), Persia (Iran), Armenia and Egypt.  While this does take some connecting of the dots, the dots are all there spelled out in scripture.  Daniel paints the picture, like a woven tapestry.  Combine that with what John reveals in Revelation, and we see the mystery virtually solved for us.  There will be a future empire, or kingdom, which will involve a coalition of ten nations – like the ten toes of the image of Daniel 2, or the ten horns of the seven headed beast.  They will come from an empire of sorts made up of those Mesopotamian cultures and regions, a kind of revival of the former Assyrian, Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Greek empires (which don’t have that much in common with the old western Roman empire, which is now Europe).  The countries in that region now are the mid-eastern bloc, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and some may include the North African nations of Sudan, Ethiopia and Libya (to name some but probably not all). What this bloc of nations have in common is their religion – they are virtually all Islamic nations.

What most people don’t know is that Islam is descendant from, and shares a lot of elements in common and historically with the early Babylonian religions probably originating with Nimrod and his father Cush..  Although Islam features the monotheistic god, “Allah,” even Allah seems to be descended from the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian moon god. Renowned historian Will Durant writes:

“Within the Ka’aba, in pre-Moslem days, were several idols representing gods. One was called Allah; three others were Allah’s daughters, al-Uzza, al-Lat, and al-Manat. We may judge the antiquity of this Arab pantheon from the mentions of Al-il-Lat (Al-Lat) by Herodotus (fifth century B.C. Greek historian) as a major Arabian deity. The Quaraish paved the way for monotheism by worshipping Allah as chief god …” (Durant, The Story of Civilization)

From archeological evidence we see that Allah was considered the chief god among many others, long before Mohammed arrived on the scene. Mohammed simply proclaimed him to be the only god, but actually retained many of the pagan rituals and symbols associated with him, such as the crescent moon (the current symbol of Islam which was the symbol of the Babylonian moon god), kissing the Black Stone, and praying toward Mecca. Thus we have an element of commonality and a thread of continuity that is present in the evolution of major world religions from Babylon of Cush and Nimrod’s time down to the Babylon of today with its Islamic religious system (for more on this see “The Beast, The Antichrist, and The Harlot Babylon, by this author).

Much of what we see in the way of descriptions of this kingdom of the Beast, and the Antichrist himself, seems to be describing what we now can recognize today as Islam, and probably an Islamic leader.  That is not to say that the Antichrist will necessarily be an Islamic religious cleric, an Imam, or a Caliph, or the Mahdi (or Twelfth Imam).  According to Revelation 17:15-18 there is a difference between the Harlot, also referred to as Babylon, and the ten-horned beast, and the latter ultimately attacks and destroys the former.  It seems that the Harlot Babylon represents more the religious aspect or element of the kingdom of the Beast, which helps the Antichrist come to power.  There is a mutually interdependent relationship, each deriving power from the other – the woman rides the Beast, and yet we are told she reigns over the kings of the earth (Revelation 17:18).  That religious power would have to be Islam, and the Antichrist comes to power posing as a Moslem.  But once He has the power, he sets himself up as God, abandoning the Islamic pretensions, at which time he turns against and destroys the Islamists who carried him to power.  For this reason it seems unlikely that this Beast, the Antichrist, would actually be an Imam or Caliph.  However, it is conceivable that he might deceive some of them into thinking that he was their promised messiah figure, the Mahdi or Twelfth Imam.

Which is a better match to the prophecies about the Beast and the end-times? On the one hand we have Europe.  The EU is currently on the brink of financial disaster as of this writing. It is seemingly powerless to resist the rising beast that is Islam, even within their own borders.  She is almost entirely dependent upon Islamic nations for oil.  How believable is it that she will soon become the most powerful kingdom in the world, persecuting and beheading Christians and Jews, and conquering and destroying Israel and Jerusalem, desecrating the Jewish temple?

On the other hand we see the rise of Islam.  Despite the constant infighting between the various sects and organizations they are becoming wealthier and more powerful everyday, and they largely control much if not most of the world’s vital resource – oil.  Today Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power – Katy bar the door once that happens.  The aggressive terrorist nations are being met with pathetically ineffective resistance from the western powers, more like appeasement than a determination to win.  Russia and China seem to be more allies with them in their mutual competition with the West, especially Europe and the United States, than they are opposed to their expansion and aggression.  But it is only too apparent that the rapidly degenerating and apostatizing western powers, do not have the will or stomach to effectively fight the advance of Islam, and may not really have the ability to defeat her given the fragile nature of our interdependent economies, and our dependence on foreign sources for oil. Without mid-eastern oil Europe is a disaster area, and without Europe the U.S. is economically in such desperate straits as to be powerless to help herself, let alone anyone else. Furthermore, which of these empires has a history of hating and killing Jews and Christians, and has long employed beheading to execute her enemies (see Revelation 20:4)?

We are seeing what appears to be a paradigm shift in mainstream evangelical thinking about the end times with respect to who these end-times Beasts of Revelation and Daniel will be, just as there was in the previous century.  Bible scholars began to see that prophecy could be taken literally, as Israel reappeared on the scene again as a nation, and the allegorical approaches to interpretation was no longer necessary to make sense of it all.  Similarly men are now realizing that taking it even more literally is producing much more believable scenarios, which are actually much more biblical.  Once we realize that the Beast is probably not the Roman Catholic Church and the Antichrist doesn’t look that much like a Pope, we can begin to question how in the world so many men found Rome in prophecy at all.  A more careful examination of Daniel and John’s prophecies, and a more accurate look at history along with a more realistic assessment of recent and current global developments, have led many today to see an Islamic bloc of  nations, with an Islamic leader, as the 7th and 8th Beasts of Revelation.

There is much more to the discussion of this topic, and more arguments which support these conclusions, some of which are discussed in the e-book, “The Beast, The Antichrist, The Harlot Babylon” by this author.