Deeper Reflection
The “fourth kingdom” (“fourth beast”) is “different from all the other kingdoms” (v.23). The “little horn” that “arise[s] after” the “ten kings” is “different from the previous ones” (v.24). They are “different” in terms of the increase in intensity and extent of their beastly power: they “devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it” (v.23).The increased intensity of beastly powers is manifested in blasphemous arrogance: they “speak out against the Most High” (v.25). The arrogant wicked “curses and spurns the Lord”, because “all his thoughts are, ‘There is no God’” (Psa 10:3-4). When beastly powers “wear down the saints of the Highest One” (v.25) in “waging war” and “overpowering” them (v.21), they may feel or wonder, “Where is God in this?” These beastly powers “make alterations in times and in law” (v.25) that results in “social and moral upheaval and chaos.”⁵⁴The beasts today can be persecutors of God’s faithful people: terrorists who blow up innocent people; oppressive capitalism that treats human beings as commodities to be used, and discarded when they are no longer useful; and powerful nations that “exploit the political weakness of developing countries in order to maximise their own profits” ⁵⁵.The sovereignty of God is described as God’s people “will be given” by God “into his [“little horn”] hand” (v.25). While we suffer in “his hand”, we are actually secure in God’s sovereign hand. And we are in “his hand” only “for a little while” (1 Pet 1:6-7) – “for a time, times, and half a time” (v.25).

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⁵⁴ Christopher J. H. Wright, 160 ⁵⁵ Iain M. Duguid, 118-119