“The first one was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I kept on beholding until its wings were plucked out, and it was lifted up from the earth and was made to stand up on two feet just like a man, and there was given to it the heart of a man.

Daniel 7:1-6.

8. What did those three beasts symbolize, for how long?

⁸ Those three huge beasts out of the windswept sea pictured three rulerships. They pictured the same rulerships as represented in the gold head, the silver breasts and arms, the copper belly and thighs of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream image, namely, the Babylonian World Power, the Medo-Persian World Power and the Grecian World Power. These world powers occupied that period of the “times of the Gentiles” from the desolating of Jerusalem and the land of Judah in 607 B.C.E. and down to 30 B.C.E. In the previous year the last one of the four Hellenic kingdoms that resulted from the Grecian Empire of Alexander the Great suffered decisive defeat by the naval forces of ancient pagan Rome.