Deciphering the Clues of Revelation (4)
What does the seven-headed beast of Revelation 17 represent, and how does it releate to the fourth beast of Daniel chapter 7?
This is Part 4 of a 5-part series. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
In my previous article, I began a discussion of the beast with seven heads from Revelation 17 and attempted to unpack its meaning in light of John’s frequent reminder that his vision relates to his own perspective in time (i.e. the mid to late first-century), as well as to events that would soon take place.1 As I pointed out, in Rev 17:10, John identifies the beast’s “seven heads” with “seven mountains” and “seven kings.” Since Rome was known as the city of seven hills,2 an obvious solution to the riddle of the “seven kings” would be to connect them with the first seven Caesars of Rome.
In his book, The Climax of Prophecy, Richard Bauckham observes that “it cannot be denied that 17:9-11 provides in some sense a numbered sequence of emperors and locates the time of writing within this sequence.”3 The challenge, however, is that scholars often begin the sequence at different starting points. “The only obvious procedure,” in Bauckham’s view, “would be to begin with Julius Caesar.”4 Working with this assumption, the chart below shows the potential relationship between Daniel 7 and Revelation 17:
In the description of the beast that appears in Rev 13:1-2, John provides several clues that he’s alluding to Daniel’s fourth beast,5 particularly since it “comes up from the sea” (Dan 7:3; Rev 13:1), has “ten horns” (cf. Dan 7:7; Rev 13:1), as has other features that are reminicent of the vision in Daniel 7 (cf. Dan 7:4-6). One important difference, however, is that whereas the ten horns of Daniel’s fourth beast represented “ten kings,” in John’s vision, the beast’s seven heads refer to “seven kings.” As I argued, this could have something to do with the specific period in which the book of Revelation happened to be written.
If John wrote Revelation while Nero was still the reigning Caesar (i.e., sometime between 54-68 AD), this would explain why he says in chapter 17 that five kings are “fallen,” and one “is” (Rev 17:9), since Nero was the sixth Caesar from Julius. When John says of the seventh king, “he must remain only a little while,” this too fits with what we know of Galba, whose reign lasted a brief period of only seven months. Though this interpretation is certainly possible, I believe there may also be another explanation of the seventh king which I’ll unpack in the final article in this series.
The most challenging portion of Revelation 17 relates to verse 11 in which John writes, “As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.” Since John has described a seven-headed beast, why does he here refer to an “eighth”? Is this a reference to Otho, who succeeded Galba? If so, it’s hard to see why, since this particular Caesar’s reign was relatively insignificant, lasting a mere three months. Another odd fact is that the beast itself appears to be the one referred to as “an eighth,” rather than one of the heads. It would make sense for John to say that another head appeared on the beast, refering to the arrival of a new king, but instead he says that the beast is somehow identified as an eighth, while at the same time it “belongs to the seven.” No wonder this calls for a mind with wisdom!