Daniel 7:23

7:23 “This is what he told me: ¹ 

‘The fourth beast means that there will be a fourth kingdom on earth

that will differ from all the other kingdoms.

It will devour all the earth

and will trample and crush it.

Daniel 3:25

3:25 He answered, “But I see four men, untied and walking around in the midst of the fire! No harm has come to them! And the appearance of the fourth is like that of a god!” ² 

¹ tn Aram “thus he said.”

² sn The phrase like that of a god is in Aramaic “like that of a son of the gods.” Many patristic writers understood this phrase in a christological sense (i.e., “the Son of God”). But it should be remembered that these are words spoken by a pagan who is seeking to explain things from his own polytheistic frame of reference; for him the phrase “like a son of the gods” is equivalent to “like a divine being.”