Daniel 7:1-6

Daniel has a Vision of Four Animals Coming up from the Sea

7:1 In the first ¹  year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had ²  a dream filled with visions ³  while he was lying on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream in summary fashion. ⁴  7:2 Daniel explained: ⁵  “I was watching in my vision during the night as ⁶  the four winds of the sky ⁷  were stirring up the great sea. ⁸  7:3 Then four large beasts came up from the sea; they were different from one another.

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 ⁹  was given to it. ¹⁰ 

7:5 “Then ¹¹  a second beast appeared, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and there were three ribs ¹²  in its mouth between its teeth. ¹³  It was told, ¹⁴  ‘Get up and devour much flesh!’

7:6 “After these things, ¹⁵  as I was watching, another beast ¹⁶  like a leopard appeared, with four bird-like wings on its back. ¹⁷  This beast had four heads, ¹⁸  and ruling authority was given to it.

[7:1]  ¹ sn The first year of Belshazzar’s reign would have been ca. 553 B.C. Daniel would have been approximately 67 years old at the time of this vision.

[7:1]  ² tn Aram “saw.”

[7:1]  ³ tn Aram “and visions of his head.” The Aramaic is difficult here. Some scholars add a verb thought to be missing (e.g., “the visions of his head [were alarming him]”), but there is no external evidence to support such a decision and the awkwardness of the text at this point may be original.

[7:1]  ⁴ tn Aram “head of words.” The phrase is absent in Theodotion. Cf. NIV “the substance of his dream.”

[7:2]  ⁵ tn Aram “answered and said.”

[7:2]  ⁶ tn Aram “and behold.”

[7:2]  ⁷ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[7:2]  ⁸ sn The referent of the great sea is unclear. The common view that the expression refers to the Mediterranean Sea is conjectural.

[7:4]  ⁹ tn Aram “heart of a man.”

[7:4]  ¹⁰ 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.

[7:5]  ¹¹ tn Aram “and behold.”

[7:5]  ¹² sn The three ribs held securely in the mouth of the bear, perhaps representing Media-Persia, apparently symbolize military conquest, but the exact identity of the “ribs” is not clear. Possibly it is a reference to the Persian conquest of Lydia, Egypt, and Babylonia.

[7:5]  ¹³ tc The LXX lacks the phrase “between its teeth.”

[7:5]  ¹⁴ tn Aram “and thus they were saying to it.”

[7:6]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “this.” So also in v. 7.

[7:6]  ¹⁶ tn Aram “and behold, another one.”

[7:6]  ¹⁷ tn Or “sides.”

[7:6]  ¹⁸ sn If the third animal is Greece, the most likely identification of these four heads is the four-fold division of the empire of Alexander the Great following his death. See note on Dan 8:8.