Last modified 2024-06-10
There are three beasts in the book of Revelation 1) The Sea Beast (The Roman Empire, personified in Nero), 2) The Land Beast (King Herod), 3) the Beast from the Abyss.Revelation 11:9 Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, 10and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while.
This is the imagery of the Beast with seven heads (Rev. 17:3, 7,9; q). 13:2). (2) These seven heads are said to represent both seven mountains and seven kings (17:9, 10). (3) Of the seven kings, ‘five have fallen,” “one is” reigning, and one is to come to rule for a little while” (17:10).Rev 1:1 to show unto his servants things which must SHORTLY come to pass Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is AT HAND.
Rev 2:5 (Church of Ephesus) or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Rev 2:10 (Church of Smyrna) Do not fear what you are about to suffer... Be faithful until death
Rev 2:16 (Church of Pergamum) Repent therefore; or else I am coming to you quickly,
Rev 2:7 BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth
(should be "land", i.e. tribes of Israel)will mourn over
(because of)Him. Even so. Amen.
This "coming" was not what you call the physical 2nd coming of Jesus back to earth, (I prefer to name them, not number them) but a coming in judgment against the Jews in 70 AD in the form of sending "his armies" to destroy the apostate Jews by having Titus sweep across the land of Judea, conquering every city (to cover his back side) and end up at Jerusalem to besiege it and conquer it, destroying the temple, to end the age, and end Jewry, and end the spiritual "old world creation".Matt 22:6 and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. 7"But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. "every eye will see Him"
does not mean literally EVERY EYE on planet earth, but virtually every person in the known world, civilized world, Roman empire, etc. would "see" as in know or hear about, or perceive that God had rendered a judgment on the Jews. The slave markets all over the Roman empire were glutted with Jews after this, all knew that their temple got torn down and as the rebel leaders were paraded (some got drug) through the streets of Rome (John who led the zealots and held the temple area) and formally executed, everyone knew, everyone "saw" what had happened. This is the"soon coming day of the Lord"
spoken of everywhere else in the New Testament", the "day of wrath", it is why John says inRev 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,
which should be interpreted "By the power of the Spirit" I saw a vision of what would happen in the future, from 66 to 70 AD on the coming "day of the Lord" which is not a literal 1 day, just search the old testament for "day of the Lord", it means "time of Gods judgment" against Israel, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, etc.Dan 7: “In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream...I saw in my vision...the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea 3) and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another 4) The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a mans heart was given to it.” This clearly is a reference to Babylon, the first beast or kingdom, and to Nebuchadnezzar who was given the heart of a man (regenerated). 5) And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it; and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. 6) After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also 4 heads; and dominion was given to it. 7) After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. Few commentators deny that Daniel’s 4th beast is the Roman Empire. Now compare it to the Beast of Revelation below (they both even have 10 horns), and see that the Roman Empire had subsumed all the characteristics of all its predecessor kingdoms (remember the metal man in Daniel, of Gold head, silver chest, bronze legs, and iron/clay feet).
Rev 13:1,2 “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 2) And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat and great authority.”
It is hard to miss the parallels between John’s beast and Daniel’s. The metal man in Daniel (the whole man, representing all 4 empires, over time) got smashed into pieces (as one unit) by a rock hewn without hands (i.e. Jesus). Jesus promises his saints (in 62 AD when John wrote the book of Revelation) who were going through the tribulation (Rev 1:9 I, John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation ...) that He would judge their two great enemies (the Harlot, drunk with the blood of the saints) and the Beast (Nero/Rome). The beast (Nero/Rome) started persecuting Christians shortly after Neros burning of 1/3 of the capital city, to remake it after his artistic taste (many Romans died in this fire). When Nero saw that he could not quell the rumors, that He had set the fire, he decided to blame it on the Christians.) so in the latter part of November 64 furious persecution broke out upon the innocent church.Rev 13:18 “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and this number is 666”.
The Beast by Gentry states on p. 34 “Interestingly several scholars of the last century Fritzsche, Holtzmann, Benary, Hitzig and Reuss each stumbled independently upon the name Nero Caesar almost simultaneously. (see Charles Revelation 1:367 and Farrar, Early Days p. 471, n.4 for proof of this). We have seen that the Greek spelling of Neros' name has the value 1005. A HEBREW spelling of his name was NRWN QSR (pronounced Neron Kaiser). It has been documented by archaeological finds that a first century Hebrew spelling of Neros' name provides us with precisely the value of 6661 Jastrow’s lexicon of the Talmud contains this very spelling.2 NRWN QSR added up to 666 in Hebrew, (as you know, back then their alphabet was also their number system, so 1-2-3 was represented alef, beth, gimmel in Hebrew). Everyone’s name (in Hebrew) added up to some sum.Revelation 13:5,7 “and there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months... 7) And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.”
Stay tuned, as this article grows, in the future to document all the other ways the Roman Empire qualifies as the Sea Beast of Revelation, and how Nero qualifies as the Beast (individual man) of Revelation in other places, how Herod qualifies as the Land Beast (the Greek word Gamma eta sigma "pronounced gase, rhymes with case" in Revelation is mistranslated "earth" in several places, where it should be translated "land" i.e. land of Israel. The land in the Book of Rev. often symbolizes the Land of Israel, i.e. the Land Beast is the ruler over the land of Israel (who receives his power from Rome) at this time. There is also a connection of The Beast symbol to Rebel Emperors throughout time, which David Chilton has put forth in his book "Days of Vengeance" a commentary on the Book of Rev.