GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
DANIEL 7:23
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23 “This is what he said:
‘As for the fourth beast,
there will be a fourth kingdom on earth.
It will be different from all the other kingdoms.
It will devour the whole earth,
trampling it down and crushing it.
Once again Daniel turns to poetic lines. Since an angel is speaking, it makes me wonder whether the angel was speaking this way, or that it was just easier for Daniel to remember his awesome words in this way, or perhaps if the angel might actually have been singing?
The fourth beast was similar to the others in that it was an earthly kingdom and of course subject to God’s will and to God’s power. But it was different from them in many ways. The most important would be in its (Rome’s) savagery. Three verbs describe the destruction that Rome would carry to the world: “devouring, trampling, crushing.” Devouring in this case must relate to the other two words. Rome would not assimilate or incorporate nations so much as annihilate them. When Rome passed through a region, what it left behind was Roman. Roman roads, Roman villages, Roman cities. Rome often allowed its retired soldiers to build or take homes for themselves in faraway lands, partly to plant Roman culture and loyalty to the Empire, but also to quickly form legions (armies) if necessary against local uprisings. Former soldiers would fight together to protect their own homes.
There is no reason to chase down the entire history of Rome here, either the early Republic, the later Empire, or, last of all, the “Holy Roman Empire” which was, as the saying goes, neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. But a sketch might be made. Some time following the Trojan War (which took place about the time of the early Israelite Judges Othniel or Ehud), legend has it that two brothers (Romulus and Remus) founded a settlement on the western coast of Italy on the Tiber River. That was in the thirteenth century BC. In Israel, Saul, David, Solomon, and the kings of Israel and Judah came and went during the intervening years before little Rome began to expand into more than a cluster of hilltop villages. Not long after the death of Daniel, the group of western Italian settlements coalesced into a unified city. The Roman Republic, as it was called, began in 509 BC. This much can be learned from the most ancient surviving graves. A king named Servius built a wall around the city. Other kings replaced the fords of the Tiber with bridges, and roads to nearby places were built. The Roman tradition of driving carts and wagons on the left side of the road dates at least as far back as this. Wheel ruts in stone quarries furnish permanent evidence of the heavier carts overrunning the wheel ruts of lighter ones going in and out with their loads of marble and granite. The hills and valleys and private roads made the city an impossible tangle for people finding there way from here to there, until Sulla forced some changes to make impossible twisting alleyways and goat tracks into passable streets. Pompey and Augustus beautified the city, and that brings us to the time of the birth of Christ (Luke 2:1).
Rome had been fighting against the Phoenicians in Syria, North Africa, and in the Mediterranean Sea between. These Phoenician or “Punic” wars in the third and second centuries BC saw Rome facing some defeats, but finally sacking Carthage in North Africa and making most of the entire shoreline of Africa from Morocco to Egypt into Roman territory. The wheat fields fed the legions. The salt mines provided the most important cash “crop.” Roman soldiers demanded salt or the money to buy it wherever they were stationed (at least in part to make local food palatable and to keep meat reasonably free of spoiling for months at a time). Our terms “salary” (from the Latin word for salt) and “be worth your salt” come from this form of payment.
The old Republic was replaced by the Empire under Augustus, but not long after Christianity was made legal and even compulsory in 313 AD, the Empire fell in 476.
Rome would march on modern Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, France, the Netherlands, and even Britain. The Latin language mingled with many others, but for the most part Latin remained Latin for a very long time. Yet at the time of Christ, Greek was still the local language of trade and communication in Israel. The Jews spoke Hebrew or Aramaic at home and at worship, and the Romans spoke Latin at the dinner table and within the ranks of the army. Mark’s Gospel in particular shows traces of Latin in everyday usage when calling the sergeants by the Latin word “centurion” rather than the Greek “penteconter” that is in the other Gospels (Mark 15:39, 44, 45). And even Matthew uses the Latin word “Praetorium” for the Praetor’s palace on the north side of the temple (Matthew 27:27).
This passage proclaims the law with its warning about the Roman armies. The reader should remember that in this case, the Antichrist is not being depicted, since this is not the little eleventh horn, but the beast itself, that is described. While Rome would be beneficial to an extent for the spread of the Gospel, the Romans truly did devour, trample and crush without mercy wherever they marched. Paul and Peter were put to death in Rome by the Roman Caesar, surely in the same year, and perhaps at the same time: Paul (a Roman citizen) with a sword, and Peter and his wife by crucifixion. Here again we have the basic message of the book of Daniel, a sermon on the First and Fourth Commandments. God is almighty, and only he gives authority to governments and parents to look after the needs of their people. Therefore we owe obedience to our parents, and also to the government, but most especially to God the Most High himself. Give him glory, and ask his forgiveness for your sins and ask him for all of the other blessings he promises and gives.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Archives at St Paul’s Lutheran Church https://splnewulm.org/daily-devotions/ and Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: www.wlchapel.org/connect-grow/ministries/adults/daily-devotions/gwfy-archive/2025
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Daniel 7:23 The Romans