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.

Revived Roman Empire: Correcting a Hermeneutical Error

29 March 2014:  Where in the Word of God should one go to read a prophetic text, even so much as a single sentence, which is  descriptive of the concept of a revival of the Roman Empire?  I have searched all of the prophetic texts, of which the prophetically quintessential 2nd and 7th and 8th chapters of Daniel  plus the 13th chapter of The Revelation of Jesus Christ are the most vividly descriptive, and I came away with... nothing. These things and recent discussions with fellow students of Biblical eschatology once again have served to remind that what I believe is an error in hermeneutics that needs to be addressed at the minimum and corrected at some point. This is my attempt at a correction.

By the same token one can go online and search the phrase "revived Roman Empire" or some closely related phrase and find active links to 800,000 articles and literary works which discuss it at length. The vast majority of those articles and literary works support the concept, and even identify the revival of the Roman Empire as a sure sign of the arrival of the last days. And don't get me wrong here, I am as guilty as the next guy (or gal) in having previously made use of the phrase "revived Rome" when discussing things of an eschatological nature. It seems to be a natural and widely accepted practice. But is it purely Biblical? The short answer is no,  the eschatological concept of a "revived Rome" is not Biblical, it is a man-made assumption.

What was the key detail of the God-breathed interpretation given by the prophet Daniel to Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar about the fourth kingdom represented in his vision? In Daniel 2 the interpretation regarding the first the world empire, that of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, in contained in all of two verses (37 and 38). The next two subsequent world empires (Medo-Persia and Greece) each share one-half of the single verse within Daniel 2:39. But then from Daniel 2:40-43 the interpretive attributes of the fourth empire are given some very good detail which denotes the importance of this empire as the world's last empire. The key God-breathed detail here is that the two legs of iron resolve themselves to a pair of feet each containing ten individual toes. Those ten toes, the essential elements or nations of  the Roman Empire, exist to this day.

In Daniel 7:7-8; 23-27 even more detail is given about the fourth beast in a God-breathed vision Daniel received just prior to the fall of Babylon to the Medo-Persian Empire. These two sets of verses in Daniel 7 say absolutely nothing about the fourth beast falling only to be revived again. This beast is continuous throughout time, from its first appearance in ancient history where it supplanted the Greek third beast to its destruction in the future by Jesus Christ at the conclusion of the 70th Week.

In Daniel 8:23-26 where the angel Gabriel is providing an even more detailed interpretation of his vision regarding of the Greek conquest of the Persian Empire, once again there is the central theme of continuity from those ancient times to the present and future times of the 70th Week. I would advise the reader to continue reading the Book of Daniel, chapters 9 through 12 as the unrelenting prophetic narrative is continued to the conclusion.

Revelation 13 is the basis of the interpretive artistic imagery seen above. It is also the God-breathed reiteration of all that was revealed to the prophet Daniel through earlier visions and Gabriel's interpretations.

As a more current benchmark reference for this subject I submit to you that Don Koenig's article "In God's eyes the Roman fourth beast still rules the world" at his ThePropheticYears.Com website fulfills this role. You can also find reference my own "Daniel 7: The Key Prophecy Confirming a Roman Antichrist." Both of these articles cover slightly different aspects of the correct Biblical instruction. However, the essential element, as Don states in his article, 

"There is no other worldwide Gentile kingdom in scripture between the time of the ancient Roman Empire and the time that the latter-day prince makes a seven-year covenant with Israel at the end of the Gentile age (Dan 9:27). Therefore, in God’s eyes we must still exist in the era of the Roman fourth beast that is recorded in the book of Daniel (Dan 2:40, 7)."

The bottom line here is that as a sign that the last days have arrived one need not bother to look for a revival of something that from the Lord's perspective never ceased to exist. There is no break in the Biblical prophetic narrative where the fourth beast ceased to exist only to be revived again in the last days. You want to see the sign of a revived Rome, to see the fourth beast empire, then look outside your front door, look on a map, look no further than where you are living right now if that place is anywhere in Europe west of the Russian Federation, anywhere in the entirety of the Western Hemisphere, and also in certain nations in Africa and the Western Pacific rim. In these same locations you will also find "Tarshish and all their young lions" as declared by the Lord to the prophet Ezekiel.

So, Rome never fell, and there is no "revival of the Roman Empire" that we need to see occur prior to the 70th Week. The fourth world empire is here now and it is a global power: economically, politically and militarily. And consider this if you're interested in looking for a definitive sign of the last days. Daniel 11:21 contains a detailed precursory view of the coming Antichrist and his sudden rise to global power. That precursor was manifest in the person of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the supreme ruler of the Hellenic (Greek) Seleucid Empire. The man who will be the Antichrist leading the already existent fourth world empire will be one of the leaders of an existing Western nation who will suddenly, and by intrigue or the aid of a few of the elite of the peer leadership around him, take full control of the already existing reigns of power of the already existing political structure, exactly as Antiochus IV Epiphanes did with the Seleucid Empire in the Daniel 11:21 template of 2,189 years ago. That man could very well be any one of the men seen standing in front of national flags and symbols in a lineup of Western leaders at any of the numerous summits or peace negotiations seen on the evening news. He just hasn't been revealed yet.

Marana'tha!