Daniel 7:1

Daniel has a Vision of Four Animals Coming up from the Sea

7:1 In the first ¹  year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had ²  a dream filled with visions ³  while he was lying on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream in summary fashion. ⁴ 

Daniel 7:7

7:7 “After these things, as I was watching in the night visions ⁵  a fourth beast appeared – one dreadful, terrible, and very strong. ⁶  It had two large rows ⁷  of iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and anything that was left it trampled with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that came before it, and it had ten horns.

[7:1]  ¹ sn The first year of Belshazzar’s reign would have been ca. 553 B.C. Daniel would have been approximately 67 years old at the time of this vision.

[7:1]  ² tn Aram “saw.”

[7:1]  ³ tn Aram “and visions of his head.” The Aramaic is difficult here. Some scholars add a verb thought to be missing (e.g., “the visions of his head [were alarming him]”), but there is no external evidence to support such a decision and the awkwardness of the text at this point may be original.

[7:1]  ⁴ tn Aram “head of words.” The phrase is absent in Theodotion. Cf. NIV “the substance of his dream.”

[7:7]  ⁵ tn The Aramaic text has also “and behold.” So also in vv. 8, 13.

[7:7]  ⁶ sn The fourth animal differs from the others in that it is nondescript. Apparently it was so fearsome that Daniel could find nothing with which to compare it. Attempts to identify this animal as an elephant or other known creature are conjectural.

[7:7]  ⁷ tn The Aramaic word for “teeth” is dual rather than plural, suggesting two rows of teeth.