Revelation 13:2

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.

We know that Satan is the power behind this Beast because we have been told that Satan is the dragon. The passage tells us that the Beast is not only a world empire  but a person  as well (the dragon gave “him” his power).

There are seven heads on the beast and they represent the seven gentile world empires. The three empires before Daniel were Samaria, Egypt and Assyria. The four from Daniel’s time are Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman. Revelation 13:2 describes the attributes of these last four beasts or world empires. These descriptions are in reverse order in Revelation than what Daniel describes because in Daniel we were looking forward to their time and now in Revelation we are looking back in time. Therefore, the Leopard was the Greek empire, the Bear was the Medo-Persian Empire and the Lion was the Babylonian Empire. The fourth beast world empire from Daniel will have the combined attributes of all of the three before it. Consequently, the Roman Empire is the fourth Beast that rises out of the sea and is the seventh head of the dragon.

Rome fell from within but the wreckage has always been in place and several leaders have tried to put it back together again. The last attempt until now was with Hitler but today we see the revival of the Roman Empire taking shape in Europe. It is called the European Union (EU).  The EU as of this writing has 27 members. They intend all members to join together in one central government, constitution and currency.

There are also plans to merge North Africa and some of the Middle East into this union and if that happened we would see a revived Roman Empire on much the same borders as the old Roman Empire. I think that will turn out to be the case. The ten kings mentioned might not be heads of nations at all. There are those that plan to govern the region through ten zones .  At some point in the not too distant future, the present EU or the wreckage of it will evolve into the final ten horned Beast.

This revived Roman Empire is further defined in Daniel’s prophecy that explains the vision of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan chapter 2). This vision as well, describes all the Gentile world powers until God sets up His kingdom on earth. The feet and ten toes on the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue are the ten kings in the last phase of the Roman Empire. At that time, a rock made without hands hits the toes of the image and pulverizes it.  The ten toes in this vision of Daniel represent the same leaders as do the ten horns in Revelation.  The ten toes are the ten horns that have power with the Beast for one hour and it is they that will be crushed by the stone cut out of the mountain made without hands. Daniel speaks to the king of Babylon explaining the king’s dream:

Daniel 2:39  And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

40  And the  fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron:  forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

41  And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

42  And  as the toes of the feet  were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

43  And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

44  And  in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed:  and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

45  Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

A complete study on the prophecies of Daniel is way beyond the scope of this commentary. For how the prophecies in the book of Daniel relate to end time events and the end time Beast, I recommend these books: “The Handwriting on the Wall”, by David Jeremiah or “The End of the Days”, by Bloomfield.