Daniel 7:3

Daniel 7:3 Meaning and Explanation

And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

King James Version (KJV)

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Four great beasts, each unlike the others, rise up out of the churning sea.

What Does Daniel 7:3 Mean?

Out of the storm-tossed waters emerge four great beasts, each different from the rest. The vision unfolds in pictures: where chapter two showed a single statue of descending metals, here the same span of history appears as a succession of fierce creatures rising from the deep. Daniel will later be told plainly that these beasts are four kings, or kingdoms, that arise in the world.

The empires of the earth are shown not as noble figures but as beasts -- powerful, predatory, untamed. It is an honest portrait of dominion built on conquest. Yet they merely come up, allowed their season; they do not reign forever. The vision sets earthly kingdoms in their place so that, when the everlasting kingdom appears, the reader will know which one endures.

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What does Daniel 7:3 mean?

Four great beasts, each unlike the others, rise up out of the churning sea.

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