4:12 Its foliage was attractive and its fruit plentiful;
on it there was food enough for all.
Under it the wild animals 1 used to seek shade,
and in its branches the birds of the sky used to nest.
All creatures 2 used to feed themselves from it.
7:4 “The first one was like a lion with eagles’ wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off and it was lifted up from the ground. It was made to stand on two feet like a human being, and a human mind 3 was given to it. 4
1 tn Aram “the beasts of the field.”
2 tn Aram “all flesh.”
3 tn Aram “heart of a man.”
4 sn The identity of the first animal, derived from v. 17 and the parallels in chap. 2, is Babylon. The reference to the plucking of its wings is probably a reference to the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity (cf. chap. 4). The latter part of v. 4 then describes the restoration of Nebuchadnezzar. The other animals have traditionally been understood to represent respectively Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome, although most of modern scholarship identifies them as Media, Persia, and Greece. For a biblical parallel to the mention of lion, bear, and leopard together, see Hos 13:7-8.