Introduction
In the Book of Revelation, there are three beasts that each have seven heads and ten horns; the Dragon, the Sea Beast, and the Scarlet Beast. Given their strange appearances, they are not literal beasts. Since they all have seven heads and ten horns, they must be related. Since they are different beasts, they represent different things. [Show More]
| These beasts include:
The Great Red Dragon (Rev 12:3), which gives power and authority to the Beast (Rev 13:2),
The Beast that comes up from the Sea (the Sea Beast), whose mark, at the end of time, will be put on the foreheads of people (Rev 13:1, 16-17), and
The Scarlet Beast on which the harlot sits (Rev 17:3).
Presumably, the Image of the Beast (Rev 13:15), since it is an image of the Sea Beast, also has seven heads and ten horns. |
The Beast, whose mark in the time of the end will be put on the foreheads of people (Rev 13:15-16), receives its authority from the Great Red Dragon (Rev 13:2; 12:3). The purpose of this article is to identify the Dragon.
The Beasts explain Daniel 7.
Revelation’s three seven-headed beasts, of which the Dragon is one, are part of the series of animals and horns in Daniel 7. This statement is justified as follows:
Firstly, it is a general principle that later prophecies explain and expand on earlier prophecies. [Show More]
| Daniel 2 is the base prophecy. Daniel 7 explains it in more detail. Daniel 8 and Daniel 11 provide still further details. Since the Book of Revelation is grounded in Daniel’s prophecies, and given this general principle, Revelation’s beasts provide further detail of the empires symbolized in Daniel. |
Secondly, Revelation’s seven-headed beasts have the same number of heads and horns as the animals in Daniel 7. [Show More]
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Daniel 7 uses four animals as symbols for successive empires:
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- Lion (Dan 7:4)
- Bear (Dan 7:5)
- Leopard with four heads (Dan 7:6)
- Dragonlike Beast, “dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong,” with 10 horns (Dan 7:7)
While the four animals in Daniel 7 in TOTAL have 7 heads and 10 horns, Revelation’s beasts EACH has 7 heads and 10 horns:
Horns – While the first three animals in Daniel 7 do not have horns, the fourth animal “had ten horns” (Dan 7:7). Revelation’s beasts have 10 horns each.
Heads – While the other three animals have one head each, Daniel’s third animal, the Leopard, has four (Dan 7:6). So, Daniel’s four animals have seven heads in total, equal to the number of heads of each of the beasts in Revelation.
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Thirdly, Revelation’s beasts exist at the same time as Daniel’s animals, implying that they are related. [Show More]
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Both Daniel’s animals and Revelation’s three seven-headed beasts exist during the entire Christian Age; from before Christ’s birth until His Return:
The animals in Daniel 7 cover the time from the ancient Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Grecian Empires to the Roman Empires. The 11th horn, which grows out of the Roman Empire, then continues to exist until Christ returns (Dan 7:26-27).
Revelation’s three seven-headed beasts cover the period from before Christ’s birth (Rev 12:4-5) to His Return (Rev 19:11, 19-20).
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Lastly, the Beast, which receives its authority from the Dragon, inherited its appearance from Daniel’s animals. [Show More]
| Revelation’s Sea Beast has the appearance of a leopard, bear, and lion (Rev 13:2). These are the first three animals in Daniel 7. Furthermore, the Sea Beast receives its power, authority, and throne from a ‘dragon’ (Rev 13:2), which is an apt description of Daniel’s fourth animal. |
These similarities imply that Revelation’s beasts are related to Daniel’s animals and are the same types of things as Daniel’s animals, namely kingdoms and nations (cf. Rev 17:9-12). This confirms that Revelation’s beasts are more specific explanations of the animals, heads, and horns in Daniel 7.
Daniel 7
Daniel 7 describes world history using a series of animals, with multiple heads and horns. [Show More]
| To present an overview of world history, from the Babylonian Empire until Christ’s return, Daniel 7 uses four animals symbolizing four successive empires. From the fourth and last animal, 10 horns grew. After them, an 11th horn grew up by uprooting three of the previous horns. It was small at first but grew and eventually dominated the other horns. It is different from the others because it blasphemes God and persecutes His people. It will only be destroyed when Christ returns. This 11th horn is the main character in Daniel 7. |
Daniel 8 uses two animals as symbols for empires, explicitly identified as Medo-Persia and Greece. Daniel 7 uses four animals as symbols for successive empires but does not identify the animals. By comparing the descriptions of the animals in Daniel 7 and 8, another article identifies the four empires in Daniel 7 as follows:
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- Lion (Dan 7:4) = Babylonian
- Bear (Dan 7:5) = Medo-Persian
- Leopard with four heads (Dan 7:6) = Grecian (Macedonian) Empire of Alexander the Great
- Dragonlike Beast, “dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong” (Dan 7:7) = Roman Empire
Daniel’s horns symbolize the fragmentation of the Roman Empire. [Show More]
| The 10 horns in Daniel 7 are explained as that, “out of this kingdom ten kings will arise” (Dan 7:24). This is interpreted as that, while each of the first three empires (Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greece) would each be replaced by one single empire, the fourth empire, identified as the Roman Empire, will fragment into multiple kingdoms. The number “ten” is possibly not exactly literal. (cf. Dan 1:20) |
The Dragon is the Roman Empire.
Revelation’s Dragon symbolizes the Roman Empire.
Firstly, when Revelation first describes the Dragon, it opposes Jesus Christ, meaning that it symbolizes the Empire that ruled when Jesus was on earth, which is the Roman Empire. [Show More]
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When Revelation first describes the Dragon, it stands before the woman, ready to devour her Child (that is, Jesus) as soon as He is born. But it fails, for Jesus was caught up to God (Rev 12:3-5).
Here, the Dragon is described as having 7 heads and 10 horns (Rev 12:3). Since heads and horns represent “kings” (cf. Rev 17:9-10, 12) and since “kings” symbolize earthly kingdoms (Dan 7:17, 23), the Dragon symbolizes the earthly kingdoms through which Satan works. Since it is described as active when Jesus was on earth, the Dragon represents the empire that reigned when Jesus walked this earth, which was the Roman Empire.
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Secondly, as stated, the fourth animal of Daniel 7 has been identified as the Roman Empire, and there are several indications that Revelation’s Dragon and Daniel’s fourth animal are two symbols of the same thing:
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- Since the Dragon has 7 heads and 10 horns, it is part of the series of kingdoms in Daniel 7. [Show More]
| This is already discussed above. For example, the Dragon has 7 heads and 10 horns (Rev 12:3), which is the same number of heads and horns as the animals of Daniel 7 have in total. |
- Rev 13:2 mentions the Dragon together with the first three animals of Daniel 7, the lion, bear, and leopard. [Show More]
| The Sea Beast receives something from each of four animals (Rev 13:2). It receives its appearance from the first three of the four animals in Daniel 7, the lion, bear, and leopard (Rev 13:2; Dan 7:3, 5, 6) but receives “his power and his throne and great authority” from the Dragon (Rev 13:2). Mentioning the Dragon together with the first three animals in Daniel 7 implies that it is the fourth animal in Daniel 7. |
- Daniel 7 does not say what kind of animal the fourth is, but the way it is described sounds like a dragon. [Show More]
| Daniel 7 describes it as “dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong, and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet” (Dan 7:7). That sounds like a dragon. |
- Both Daniel’s fourth animal and the Dragon give rise to the Antichrist. Since there is only one Antichrist, the Dragon must be Daniel’s fourth animal. [Show More]
| Both the 11th horn of Daniel 7 and Revelation’s Sea Beast are described as the Antichrist, God’s main enemy on earth, cursing God and persecuting His people (Dan 7:25; Rev 13:6-8). Furthermore, both will only be destroyed when Christ returns (Dan 7:26-27; Rev 19:20). Therefore, they are one and the same entity. Then we note that both the Dragon and Daniel’s fourth beast cause this Antichrist to exist:
In Daniel, the 11th horn grows out of the fourth animal (Dan 7:7-8).
In Revelation, the Dragon gives the Sea Beast its throne, power, and authority (Rev 13:2).
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Not always the Roman Empire
Revelation’s Dragon does not always symbolize the Roman Empire. Revelation 12 uses ‘Dragon’ as a general name for Satan’s forces in a series of ‘wars’. [Show More]
| Revelation 12 describes five ‘wars’ between Satan and Christ, beginning before Christ’s birth and ending with the end-time persecution of God’s people, and always describes Satan’s forces as ‘the Dragon’:
(A) First, the Dragon confronts the woman who is about to give birth to Christ (Rev 12:3-4). Here, this woman symbolizes God’s people before Christ’s birth.
(B) Once her Child is born, the Dragon attacks the Child, but the Child is “caught up to God and to His throne” (Rev 12:5).
(C) After the Child has been caught up, war breaks out in heaven between the Dragon and his angels, and Michael and his angels (Rev 12:7).
(D) After the Dragon has been defeated in heaven and thrown down to earth, it again attacks the woman (Rev 12:13-14, 6). She now represents God’s New Testament people. [Verses 6 and 14 describe the same period; the “time and times and half a time”. See here.]
(E) After the Earth has helped the woman (Rev 12:16), the Dragon “went off to make war with the rest of her children” (Rev 12:17). This refers to the end-time war against God’s people.
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One of those wars is the war in heaven, where the Dragon’s angels made war with Michael’s angels. In that context, ‘the ‘Dragon’ is explicitly identified as Satan. (Rev 12:7-9; cf. 20:2)
As another example, the “time and times and half a time” (Rev 12:14) is the same as the 42 months during which the Sea Beast has authority (Rev 13:5). In other words, during this period, “Dragon” serves as an alternative symbol for the Sea Beast and does not represent the Roman Empire.
In Rev 12:3-5, the birth of Christ, the Dragon explicitly has 7 heads and 10 horns, which are symbols of earthly kingdoms (Rev 17:9-12). Since the Dragon wars against the male Child, it symbolizes the Roman Empire in that instance.
While Revelation 12, in a series of wars, always describes Satan’s forces as ‘Dragon’, Revelation 13 describes some of those same wars in more detail and distinguishes more specifically between Satan’s forces; the Dragon, the Sea Beast, the Earth Beast (Rev 13:11), and the Image of the Beast (Rev 13:15).
For example, in Rev 13:1-2, the birth of the Beast, the Dragon is mentioned together with the preceding empires. In that context, the Dragon specifically symbolizes the Roman Empire, and the Beast symbolizes the organization that continued the authority of the Roman Empire after it had fragmented into various nations, also symbolized in Daniel by the 11th horn. The next articles identify it.
Not the same Heads and Horns
A common mistake is the assumption that the heads and horns in Daniel symbolize the same things as the heads and horns in Revelation.
The horns are not the same. For example, Daniel’s fourth animal actually has 11 horns (Dan 7:8), not 10, and the 11th is the main character in Daniel 7. It becomes the Antichrist. There is no such Antichrist-horn in Revelation. In Revelation, the beast itself is the Antichrist. [Show More]
| The following are further differences:
1. In Daniel, there first are 10 horns. Then an 11th comes up, and uproots three others (Dan 7:8), leaving 8 horns standing. In Revelation, the ten horns are united (Rev 17:12-13).
2. While the ten horns in Daniel 7 symbolize the kingdoms into which the Roman Empire fragmented, the ten horns in Revelation are limited to the end-time. They will, for example, make an end to the harlot (Rev 17:16), which symbolizes false religion or false Christianity.
3. The ten horns in Revelation are described in Revelation 17:12-17, and they have no similarity with the ten horns in Daniel 7.
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The heads are also not the same. For example, in Revelation, the sixth head exists after five “have fallen” (Rev 17:10). In contrast, in Daniel, the sixth head exists at the same time as the previous three heads. [Show More]
| In Daniel, we first have the lion with one head, then the bear with one head, and then the leopard with four heads. The sixth head, therefore, is the fourth head of the leopard. But the four heads of the leopard symbolize the four parts of the Greek Empire, and they existed simultaneously. The last one does not exist after the others have fallen. |
Revelation takes things from the Old Testament but gives them new and different meanings. For example, in the Old Testament, the ancient city of Babylon was built on the banks of the river Euphrates. In Revelation, Babylon becomes the name for the Harlot, and the Euphrates becomes “the waters which you saw where the harlot sits,” symbolizing “peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” (Rev 17:15).
In the same way, the heads and horns in Daniel receive different meanings in the book of Revelation. In Daniel 7, the Seven Heads represented specific kingdoms and parts of kingdoms. The Ten Horns are the various nations into which the Roman Empire fragmented. In Revelation, the heads and horns have lost their original literal meaning and become symbols. [Show More]
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The Seven Heads symbolize the seven phases of history from Babylon until Christ’s Return. (Read Article.)
The Ten Horns symbolize the end-time coalition of the world kingdoms (Rev 17:12-13). Contrary to the typical artist’s representation of these beasts, all ten horns are on the seventh and final head.
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