revelation 13:1

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

While the prophet Daniel saw prophetic visions of the rise and fall of empires that would take place over 2500 years spanning from his day to the end of time, John saw visions that would deal with the last three and a half years of earth’s history. The visions of Daniel, therefore, provide the backdrop for the visions of John. Both sets of visions share similar imagery. While John saw one ‘beast’ rise out of the sea, Daniel saw ‘four great beasts’ come up from the sea: “… I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. 3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.” (Daniel 7:2,3) Daniel was told the meaning of ‘four great beasts’: “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.” (Daniel 7:17) Daniel was then told that the ‘fourth beast’ was the fourth kingdom, “… the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.” (Daniel 7:23) A ‘beast’, therefore, is symbolic of a kingdom or empire.

The ‘seven heads’ of the ‘beast’ were told to John to be ‘seven mountains’ and ‘seven kings’: “And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. 10And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” (Revelation 17:9,10) The prophet Jeremiah gave insight into a ‘mountain’ being symbolic of an empire when he prophesied of the Babylonian empire as a ‘destroying mountain’: “And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD. 25Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.” (Jeremiah 51:24,25) The ‘seven heads’ being also mentioned to be ‘seven kings’, confirms them to be seven kingdoms or empires. That five of these ‘seven kings’ were mentioned to be fallen reveals that by the time the Revelation prophecy begins to be fulfilled, five of the seven empires will have fallen. The ‘beast’, therefore, is symbolic of an incorporation of seven empires of which five are historical, one is, and the other is yet to come. Since five of the empires are historical, the beast that John saw rise from the sea is symbolic of the one that ‘is’, even the sixth empire.

The ‘ten horns’ of the beast were interpreted to be ten kings: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings….” (Revelation 17:12) The ‘crowns’ being shown to be upon the ‘ten horns’ reveals the authority of the sixth empire to rest in the ten most powerful nations of the empire.

The ‘name of blasphemy’ signifies the spirit of blasphemy. Blasphemy is speaking evil against God. When the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils, Jesus referred to their accusation as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit for which there was no forgiveness: “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” (Matthew 12:31,32) The ‘name of blasphemy’ upon the heads of the beast reveals the spirit of blasphemy to be the spirit of the seven empires.