Have you ever wondered about Daniel’s fourth kingdom? Some scholars say it’s Greece, while others believe it’s Rome. But what happens when we test these ideas against what Daniel actually says?

Daniel’s Prophecies: Setting the Scene

The Book of Daniel is set during a time when Judah was ruled by the empires of Babylon and Persia. In Chapter 2, Daniel saw a giant statue made of four metals which foretold these two empires would be followed by two additional empires. His central message? During the fourth kingdom, God would set up an eternal kingdom. It would start small and grow to include people from every nation, worshiping the Highest One, a figure Daniel called one like a son of man. Jesus referred to Himself as this Son of Man and claimed to be the king of this eternal kingdom.

1. The Four Kingdoms

To many Christians Daniel’s, prophecy was related to these four kingdoms with Rome being the fourth kingdom during which the eternal kingdom would start:

  1. Persia: Conquered by Greece in 331 BC.
  2. Babylon: Conquered by Persia in 539 BC.
  3. Greece: Eventually replaced by Rome in 63 BC.
  4. Rome: The kingdom during which God’s eternal kingdom was to begin.

The Secular Scholars’ View

Secular scholars believe Daniel isn’t prophetic at all. They argue the book was written around 164 BC, during the Greek persecution of the Jews, to provide hope during tough times. To fit this view, they claim the fourth kingdom Daniel wrote about was Greece, not Rome. If true, they argue that Daniel was wrong about God’s eternal kingdom following Greece and that early Christians, including Jesus, either misinterpreted or reinterpreted his writings to promote their beliefs.

Let’s compare the two views—Greece vs. Rome—and see which fits Daniel’s text better. We’ll look at three key points:

1 . Medes then Persians or Medes and Persians Together

Secular scholars argue Daniel saw the Medes and Persians as two separate empires. This allows them to have four kingdoms ending with Greece. But history tells us the Medes and Persians were united under Cyrus at the time they conquered Babylon. Daniel himself treats them as one entity. In Chapter 8, he describes the kingdom as a ram with two horns – one longer than the other – symbolizing the Medes and Persians together, The ram’s smaller horn then grew larger than the other symbolizing the historic fact that the Medes once led the two peoples with Persia rising to lead later. Splitting the Medes and Persians into two separate empires ignores the fact that Daniel treats them as one beast.

It also creates a mismatch with Daniel 7. There he saw a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a terrible beast representing the four empires. The bear was raised on one side and had three ribs in its mouth. These ribs would seem to represent the Persians’ and Medes’ three major conquests. The fact that it was raised would best fit the imbalance in the Persian and Median relationship. The leopard had four wings insinuating speed of conquest and four divisions. This would match Greece much better than Persia. However, the secular view must now equate the bear with the Medes alone and the leopard with Persia alone. Greece then would be equated with the “terrible beast”, but this creates another issue in chapter 7.

2. The Eleven Kings

In Chapter 7, Daniel describes the fourth kingdom having eleven kings arise after dominion moves to the that kingdom:

[Dan 7:7-8 NASB20] 7 “After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. 8 “While I was thinking about the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the previous horns were plucked out before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like human eyes, and a mouth uttering great [boasts.]

If the fourth kingdom was Rome’s, from annexation of Judea in 63 BC to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, we see this fulfilled as:

  1. Pompey
  2. Julius Caesar
  3. Augustus
  4. Tiberius
  5. Caligula
  6. Claudius
  7. Nero
  8. Galba
  9. Otho
  10. Vitellius
  11. Vespasian

Vespasian, the eleventh king, outlasted Galba, Otho, and Vitellius during the chaotic “Year of Four Emperors.” This event preceded the First Jewish Roman war and the fall of Jerusalem. This aligns perfectly with the vision and the fact that Daniel said, in chapter 9, both the city and temple would come to an end.

However, scholars claiming the fourth kingdom is Greece struggle mightily here. From Alexander the Great to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, they count only eight kings, not eleven. Their explanation? Daniel must have been “rounding numbers.” But that doesn’t align with the specific details Daniel provided. They, then, must resort to mixing kings from different divisions of the Greek empire or different areas altogether to form a hypothesis.

This is particularly suspicious because they date the book of Daniel to 164 BC specifically because his prophecies in chapter 11, leading up to the Greek period, are so precise. Too precise in their view. They believe he must have written them after the events had occurred. If this is the case, why would he paint a picture, after the fact, of events that don’t fit the Greek empire. The easy answer is he was prophesying the Roman empire.

3. The Seventy Weeks Prophecy

Finally, Daniel 9 outlines seventy weeks (or 70 sets of 7 years) leading to:

  1. The arrival of an anointed one (Messiah).
  2. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.
  3. The accomplishment of these objectives: to finish the wrongdoing,, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place

Starting with Artaxerxes I decree to rebuild Jerusalem in 457 BC, Daniel’s timeline moves 69 sevens or 483 years 27 AD, the start of Jesus’ ministry. The final 7, in our view, is split into two 3 1/2 year periods surrounding the 40 year generation Jesus came to.

  • 3 1/2 Years – 27 AD – Passover 30/31 AD – Jesus generation
  • 40 years to repent
  • 3 1/2 years – Passover 70 AD – 73 AD from the siege of Jerusalem to the siege at Masada which ended the war.

This is why this period is called the “second Exodus”. Jesus’ sacrifice and the subsequent fall of Jerusalem ending the Mosaic systems fulfilled the objectives of the prophecy.

Secular scholars, struggle here as well. They need to force this time into the period from Persia to Greece, because the decrees to rebuild were given under Persia. How do they get around this? First, they ignore Daniel’s stated start of the prophecy – the decree to rebuild. They run the first 49 years and the subsequent 414 years concurrently. But, that’s not enough. They start the first 49 years at the destruction of Babylon and the 414 years at the original deportation of Jews to Babylon in 605 BC. Neither of the periods are started at the decree to rebuild as the prophecy specifies.

What Does This Mean?

The secular view of Daniel’s prophecies falls apart under scrutiny:

  • The Medes and Persians were one united empire, not two.
  • There weren’t eleven kings in Greece during their dominion over the Jews forcing scholars to find creative alternatives.
  • The timeline of seventy weeks fits Jesus and Rome, not Greece.
  • There should be none of these issues if Daniel is writing after the fact as the purport.

Conclusion

This leaves us with a clear conclusion: Daniel wasn’t pointing to Greece but to Rome, and his prophecies lead directly to Jesus as the king of God’s eternal kingdom. His accuracy pointing to events centuries beyond his view can only be ascribed to the hand of God.