The Beast Described (verses 1-3a)

“Then I [more accurately, “The dragon”] stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. 2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority. 3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed.”

We see that this first beast rises out of the sea. We notice a very strong resemblance between this beast that comes forth out of the sea and the dragon himself, both “having seven heads and ten horns.” The dragon has seven crowns on his [seven]heads.”The dragon and this sea beast differ in the fact that the dragon has seven crowns for his seven heads, but the sea beast has seven heads and ten crowns, wearing its ten crowns on its ten horns, rather than its heads. [Revelation 12:3 says that the dragon wore the diadems, the crowns, on his heads: “And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.” This sea beast has “seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns.”] That’s a very minor point.

Some writers think that this beast that is described here, this beast out of the sea, with its seven heads and its ten crowns, and so on, represents something very specific. We don’t dispute the fact that to the 1^st Century eye who read this, no doubt, the Roman Empire would have been foremost in their minds. They would have, perhaps, understood this without any hesitation at all. But some writers say that these seven heads of the sea beast represent seven specific Roman Emperors, seven Roman Caesars, all of whom were extremely brutal and terrible despots—men like Nero and Caligula and Trajan and Domician and those. Well, that may, in fact, be so. That, indeed, may have been what those early Christians thought about. But, here’s the point. Evil follows evil, and just when we might think that evil is on the run, that we don’t have to worry about it any longer, there is evil to take the place of that, just as there has always been. And assuming that that IS what the Holy Spirit had in mind, had in view there— the beast with the seven heads and that they represented seven specific Roman Emperors—they are all gone. They’ve been dead and gone with their effects for hundreds of years. But more evil despots have followed, haven’t they? You see, the world, even in our day, never runs out of these evil despots. No, Satan never runs out of evil, nor does he run out of evil men to be his followers.

This sea beast is a wild beast, which is the actual word in the Greek language—an animal. According to some scholars, this could even mean having the understanding of being a person with beastly attributes—a monster. The image is clear; it is representative of something that is completely savage, something that is brutal, something that is ferocious. The important point there is that the blasphemous words were on him [“…and on his heads a blasphemous name.”], which indicates a total irreverent attitude toward God and all that is sacred.

Verse 2 tells us that this sea beast was like a leopard; it had the appearance of a leopard. It had feet like that of a bear. It had the mouth of a lion. This picture, this image, is really unmistakable, isn’t it? This beast is the personification of evil. This beast is one whose purpose, whose intent, whose complete being, is evil altogether, whose words and actions are blasphemous, that is, his words and actions are completely contemptuous of God and all things sacred.We also see his blasphemous nature in verses 5 and 6. This is the image, then; this is the image that John has; this is the way that he portrays it, not only to his 1^st Century readers, but to us, as well.

Notice that there is a strong similarity between this beast from the sea and the beast of Daniel’s vision. In Daniel’s vision, the beast came from the sea, as well, but in his vision, there were four beasts, one resembling a leopard, one resembling a bear and one resembling a lion [and a fourth beast different from the other three]. In John’s vision, however, there is only one beast. This beast combines within himself the description of the four beasts rising out of the stormy sea in Daniel’s vision. Daniel 7:1-7: “In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts.

2 Daniel spoke, saying, ‘I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. 3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. 4 The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

5 ‘And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: “Arise, devour much flesh!”

6 ‘After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it.

7 ‘After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.’”

We see in Daniel’s vision that there are four distinct, different, beasts. In John’s vision, there is something of a combination of those beasts. We see in John’s vision, this “sea beast” looked like a leopard, but it had the feet of a bear; it had a mouth like a lion; it has ten horns, like the fourth terrible beast in Daniel’s vision; and his seven heads were the sum of all the heads of Daniel’s four beasts. These are all animals, who are wild—remember we said that in the original Greek language the word “beast” had the understanding of being a wild beast, a wild animal? These are all wild animals, these are all ferocious animals, these are all carnivorous animals. They conjure up those ideas in that day; they conjure up those same ideas in our day.

Now, Daniel desired to know the meaning of the four beasts of his vision, and he was told in Daniel, chapter 7 and verse 17, that these four beasts in his vision represented four kings, four earthly kings, or four earthly kingdoms, that would “rise out of the earth” [“Those great beasts, which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth.”]. Those four kingdoms are understood to be four kingdoms that are now already past—in fact, were already passed (with the exception of the Roman Empire) at the time that John wrote this. They were the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and then the Roman Empire. That is the understanding of those four beasts in Daniel’s vision.

Think about it from this point of view: As we think about what this sea beast in John’s vision represents, we see from the vision of Daniel—remember the similarities between the two visions—that those four beasts represented what were, and what would become of, four evil empires, so to speak, four very world-dominant powers at that time. These four empires were characteristically evil in their existence.