Wednesday, January 11, 2017

TEN TOES

The Roman Empire divided into Left and right foot per Daniel 2
11 January 2017:  This has been an ongoing work for some time now, through which I've read or studied umpteen eschatological books, papers and web postings on the subject the final "beast" empire. The vast majority of these focused on the European Union, or Europe exclusively, and that's not, pardon the pun, without iron-clad cause. The Roman Republic, and then Empire, began as a European, or more correctly, a Mediterranean power.  This can be seen in the above clickable image. This image begs for some detailed study with respect to several coming prophetic fulfillment's and issues discussed below. 

The angel Gabriel, in the 70 Weeks prophecy given in Daniel 9:24-27, specifically pointed to the Roman Empire as the origin of the Antichrist by saying "And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary." As we all know, Jerusalem and the second temple were destroyed by several Roman legions in 70 AD. But hold that thought because first we have to go back to the past of Daniel's lifetime in order to see the prophetic future more clearly.

In Daniel 2:36-45 the dream of Nebuchadnezzar regarding a statuesque image is vividly described and then interpreted with absolute perfection by Daniel after God had shown him the same dream and given him its meaning in a night vision. The fourth and final kingdom was symbolically described as having "legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay." Daniel 2:40-43 contains the details of the meaning of the final form of the fourth kingdom, the Roman Empire.

In Daniel 7 more details about this fourth empire, the fourth and final of the four and only four beast empires, are given. In verse 7 we read: "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." Pay careful attention here. What is the final beast with 10 horns doing? Would it be reasonable to interpret that this beast kingdom is at war and utterly crushing its enemies?

Now watch what happens as the interpretive narrative continues in verse 8: "I was considering the [ten] horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words."  

The fourth beast with ten horns is utterly destroying its enemies when suddenly from among the ten horns of this fourth beast an eleventh little horn comes up, and plucks three of the original ten horns out by its roots. This little horn is clearly the Antichrist. See also Daniel 7:19-20 where these events are repeated for what i believe is good interpretive measure. And they are again repeated for a third time in verse 24: 

"The ten horns are ten kings
Who shall arise from this kingdom.

And another shall rise after them;

He shall be different from the first ones,

And shall subdue three kings."


When prophecy is repeated three times in the Word of God its a pretty good indicator that something really, really, really important about future events is being stated. I am ashamed to admit that I had not noticed this important repetition previously, and that is after having studied this chapter of Daniel many, many times over. Yet last week I read it again and it was if I was finally seeing this prophecy for the first time, albeit in an entirely different light. This prophecy is in plain text; it means exactly what it says irregardless of the symbolism associated with it in other directly related prophetic verses. 

The fourth beast empire is at war, devastating its enemy when the Antichrist arises, he deposes three heads of state incorporating them into his own sphere. No wonder Daniel was troubled; I'm living in the days of this prophecy coming to fulfillment and I've never before thought of this prophecy in this way before. It is frightening to consider.


Western Part and Eastern Part of the Final Form Beast Empire

And about those ten toes from Daniel 2 on the two feet that are part iron and part clay. The map above shows that the iron legs above the feet are a literal type of symbol. Rome was a divided empire; you could literally draw a vertical line down the map between Italy and Greece and you'd have the Western Roman Empire, and the Eastern Roman Empire, which became the Byzantine Empire. (The line has been added to the above map for proper visualization of this point)

The western part, or more to the point, the toes on the right foot of Nebuchadnezzar's statue, are pretty easy to identify as they are the current major nations of western Europe: Italy, Spain, France, the UK and Germany. These nations can also be identified as "the merchants of Tarshish" of Ezekiel 38, and their young lions (former colonies) and their other regional allies will provide the bulk of the political and military power the final beast empire will have at its disposal for the Antichrist.

The eastern part, the five-nation group of the left foot is just a little bit more problematic, but I think its a solvable problem. Greece is easy. So too is Cyprus. And Israel. This new group of three and their mutual military alliance and financial and economic activities has been discussed here nearly one year ago. That leaves two nations to identify as toes on this foot. Turkey is an obvious choice. It will not be the same Turkey that we know today, particularly due to the aftermath of the brief Battle of Gog/Magog of Ezekiel 38/39. 

That leaves one toe to go. Given the prophetic demise of Syria in Isaiah 17, that nation is out. So too is Lebanon according to Joshua 13. Both of these nations have a national life expectancy that may well be measured in months or a very few years at most. Libya and Egypt and Sudan are covered and not to be considered according to Daniel 11:43. Jordan, the western-most part that matters, will be part of Israel when Psalm 83 has been fulfilled as seen in Ezekiel 39:11. So that leaves the nation recently noted here as emergent, even as we speak and into the near future - Kurdistan, or as Isaiah 19:24 refers to it - Assyria.

This interpretive view also clearly requires a whole lot of massive military and geopolitical change to occur, and most of it where war has been and is now running rampant. It should be obvious that all of the pre-70th Week prophetic wars will manifest profound changes in virtually every aspect of the Middle East as we know it today - political, religious, societal, financial, economic, military - all of these will be transformed into a new paradigm which can only be vaguely seen at this point in time.

This interpretive view is also standing on a potential threshold of providing a new understanding of what the "covenant among many" will be all about; that it very likely to be directly related to the final version of the last days "Roman Empire." A treaty of alliance between the western and eastern feet and toes of the fourth empire; a treaty which includes Israel as an integral part. And as for the betrayal of Israel in the middle of the 70th Week, what should we expect of the "son of perdition" who entered into this alliance by ripping three existent nations within it out by their roots?

Of these ten: Italy, Spain, France, UK, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Turkey, and Kurdistan/Assyria which three will be uprooted by the Antichrist, and from which of them shall he arise are the remaining and likely unknowable eschatological questions to be answered. There are strong clues as has been discussed here previously, but this will have to wait a finality as the watchmen continue to watch.

11 comments:

  1. Sean,

    "The fourth beast empire is at war, devastating its enemy when the Antichrist arises, deposes three heads of state within his own alliance of nations."

    With whom could be the 4th beast empire at war when the AC is arising? And… which nations will be involved in what kind of war? The current EU? Or the member nations of NATO? Against whom? Sorry but I don’t see it clearly what could happen besides the conclusive victorious (Psalm 83 related) wars of Israel in the Middle-East and the Ezekiel 38/39 battle after which the AC probably arises.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nora,

      It is an impossible task to try to read between the lines of prophetic text of Daniel 7:7-8.

      Nevertheless, these two verses say what they say in plain language; this prophesy will come to pass exactly as it was written.

      Delete
  2. This purely eschatological subject is too important for general or off-topic comments that would distract from a discussion of the information presented.

    Geneneral or off-topic commentary will be re-routed to an existing post that is more closely related to the content of the comment as is possible.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sean,

    Yes, I agree, there are many aspects (political and geopolitical) that are yet unknown, events that are in the future. For example, I’m wondering what will happen to all the other European nations like the current EU’s “Eastern part” (Poland, Romania, etc.) or the Scandinavian countries, the BENELUX countries (and basically all the other 25 current-member states of the EU). It’s not a direct question to you, don’t get me wrong please, I’m just wondering “aloud”. There’s a very strong possibility that the EU will cease to exist in its current form, maybe the political analysts who are warning of the EU’s soon breaking up are right. There’s already a big schism between the Western and Eastern bloc of nations within the EU because of the differences how the migration-crisis is handled. (I don’t equate the current Eastern bloc of EU member states with the future empire’s eastern leg, just to avoid another misunderstanding! I’m just describing the Eastern-European region of the current EU.) Also, the USA should be added somehow to the future beast-empire because of its military might but we don’t know yet how these things will exactly happen. As for the description of the 4th and final beast-empire in Revelations, I’ve always interpreted the part that describes its iron teeth and how it will destroy its enemies, as an introductory, general description of that final empire’s power and might and not that it will be involved in a war(s) at the time when the AC emerges. Of course I could be totally wrong, I’m open to new points of view. We all could make interpretation mistakes, so it’s totally a “wait and see” matter in the end. You mentioned that the future prophetic Middle-East wars will cause big changes. I’d like to add one more thing. Again, maybe I’m wrong about that but I think that the Rapture itself will have a great impact globally and we don’t know yet how it will change and shape the world but it will be a catastrophic or should I say cataclysmic global event. The Rapture will probably add too to these great geopolitical changes that are in the future.

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  4. Nora,

    All of these issues were addressed, albeit briefly, in TEN TOES. Other EU nations are either "young lions" (former colonies like the entire Western Hemisphere) of the western 5, or are regional allies of theirs (such as NATO).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sean,

    You're right. I was just wondering how those European nations (the ones not being in the future western leg) will relate to the beast-empire, I guess they will be allies or they will be “devoured”, they won’t have much option. When you’ve mentioned the Ezekiel 38/39 battle among the future prophetic events causing geopolitical changes, it made me think as well. Maybe the Antichrist will appear soon after the Ezekiel38/39 battle but I was thinking what if more time will pass between the Ezekiel 38/39 battle’s conclusion and the start of the final 7 years than it was previously thought by many prophecy students. (I mean what if instead of a few weeks or months, 1-2 or a few more years will pass between them.) Also, the appearance of the AC might happen sometime before the Ezekiel 38/39 battle. Maybe this is a far-fetched guess but what the Bible specifically mentions about him is that he’ll confirm that peace treaty among many but we’ve not given much detail about the circumstances of his appearance, (if I’m right about that). Of course I don't think that the confirmation of the peace-treaty might happen before Ezekiel 38/39, only the AC's appearance.

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  6. Nora,

    I think you're misunderstanding the interpretative view put forward here.

    Both feet in the image interpreted by Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar have five toes each.

    It is the toes of each foot that this view has attempted to identify with specificity.

    The rest of each foot contains the nations within that regional grouping of the empire.

    So, for the western foot while Italy, Spain, France, UK and Germany have been identified as the five toes of that foot, the remainder of the nations within the EU (i.e. Eastern Europe) are the rest of that foot.

    Here are the two sentences in "TEN TOES" which define this very point.

    "The map above shows that the iron legs above the feet are a literal type of symbol. Rome was a divided empire; you could literally draw a vertical line down the map between Italy and Greece and you'd have the Western Roman Empire, and the Eastern Roman Empire, which became the Byzantine Empire."

    I have added a new image (map) to help the furtherance of this point. I hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "So, for the western foot while Italy, Spain, France, UK and Germany have been identified as the five toes of that foot, the remainder of the nations within the EU (i.e. Eastern Europe) are the rest of that foot."

    Indeed! Thank you for pointing this out, it totally escaped my attention!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sean,

    I’ve been enjoying reading your blog since I recently found it. This post really surprised me because here you believe the word says the fourth kingdom made up of ten toes is at war during the rise of the final beast. (AC) And you believe the fourth kingdom has to be Rome. I’m curious you feel strongly that is has to be a revived Roman Empire divided between east and West (2 legs).

    Aren’t there other possible interpretations? Does the fourth kingdom have to immediately follow Greece, especially seeing that they are organized to fight in the time of the end? There have been other kingdoms that have ruled subsequently in the Middle East, in particular, over Israel. So why does it have to be Rome?

    For the record, I am asking because I want to take all doctrines out there being promoted and compare them....pros and cons. So I need to b clear on what you believe. I value your words.

    Shalom.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Paul,

    The text of Daniel 7, as I highlighted it in "Ten Toes" and other posts here, is quite lteral. The first rule of hermeneutics is to rely on the plain text verbatim. What does verse 7 say verbatim? What happens in verse 8? These verses are completely unambiguous in their prophetic meaning.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sean,
    Thank you for replying soon, although I still don’t know why you see the ten toes as coming from a revived Europe. The angel in Daniel 7 explained the fourth beast this way....

    “It will be DIFFERENT from all the other kingdoms and will devour the WHOLE earth, trampling it down and crushing it. 24The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom.“

    I know the UN around 2000 divided the world into 10 regions. I was thinking this final kingdom, since it is both DIFFERENT and affects the WHOLE earth might be bigger than the map you showed us at the top of your blog. As you know, many people divide the world into EAST and WEST. I was thinking is it possible the final 10 toed Kingdom would be bigger than your interpretation?

    Anyhow, I will keep looking and asking questions. I’m sure the LORD will someday make this all come together for me. Thanks again for sharing your insights. I apologize if I ask too many questions....it’s my nature. Lol

    Shalom

    ReplyDelete

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