7:2. I saw in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great sea.
7:3. And four great beasts, different one from another, came up out of the sea.
Four great beasts. . .Viz., the Chaldean, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires. But some rather choose to understand the fourth beast of the successors of Alexander the Great, more especially of them that reigned in Asia and Syria.
7:4. The first was like a lioness, and had the wings of an eagle: I beheld till her wings were plucked off, and she was lifted up from the earth, and stood upon her feet as a man, and the heart of a man was given to her.
7:5. And behold another beast, like a bear, stood up on one side: and there were three rows in the mouth thereof, and in the teeth thereof, and thus they said to it: Arise, devour much flesh.
7:6. After this I beheld, and lo, another like a leopard, and it had upon it four wings, as of a fowl, and the beast had four heads, and power was given to it.
7:7. After this I beheld in the vision of the night, and lo, a fourth beast, terrible and wonderful, and exceeding strong, it had great iron teeth, eating and breaking in pieces, and treading down the rest with his feet: and it was unlike to the other beasts which I had seen before it, and had ten horns.
Ten horns. . .That is, ten kingdoms, (as Apoc. 17.12,) among which the empire of the fourth beast shall be parcelled. Or ten kings of the number of the successors of Alexander; as figures of such as shall be about the time of Antichrist.
7:8. I considered the horns, and behold another little horn sprung out of the midst of them: and three of the first horns were plucked up at the presence thereof: and behold eyes like the eyes of a man were in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things.
Another little horn. . .This is commonly understood of Antichrist. It may also be applied to that great persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes, as a figure of Antichrist.