The image thus represents the rule of the heathen as one world-empire, the dominion being exercised successively by four kingdoms and by the divisions of the fourth; in the destruction of these last the heathen world-empire is forever annihilated, and the eternal kingdom of God subdues and rules the whole earth. What is said about the second and third kingdoms is too general to identify them; the iron strength and destructiveness of the fourth, and its divisions with their mingled strength and weakness, naturally suggest Alexander and his successors, and this impression is strengthened by the one specific trait in the whole picture; the vain effort to make iron and wet clay combine signifies, we are told, an equally futile attempt to bind the divided kingdoms together by intermarriages (Dan. ii. 43). We know from the historians that attempts to ally the kingdoms of the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria by dynastic marriages were repeatedly made in vain, and the author of Daniel himself, in c. 11, refers to these alliances and their disastrous failure in plain terms.
The vision of Daniel in c. 7 brings in the four empires under the symbol of four monstrous beasts. The fourth, more terrible and more destructive than the others, has ten horns ("out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise," vs. 24); another horn, "with the eyes of a man and a boastful mouth," arises which roots out three of the ten. Daniel sees how he makes war on the "holy men" (i.e. the Jews) and prevails over them (vs. 21); the interpreting angel describes in more detail the crimes of the last king: he will utter speeches against the Highest, and wear out the holy men of the Most High, and try to change (religious) seasons and law (religion). God's people will be delivered into his power till the expiration of three and a half years (cf. xii. 7). Then the proud king and his kingdom will be annihilated and the universal and eternal empire of the Jews established.
Still more definite is the description of the doings of the "little horn" which springs up on the head of the great he-goat in the vision of c. 8. Here the interpreter becomes explicit: the he-goat is by name the Macedonian empire. The little horn is a king who shall arise in the latter time of the divided kingdoms of Alexander's successors. This king magnifies himself against the chief of the heavenly host, casts down his sanctuary, takes away his daily burnt-offerings, and destroys the holy people; and is then himself suddenly "broken without hand." In the further explanation given to Daniel in ix. 26 ff., the cessation of the daily sacrifice is to last half a week (of years), i.e. three and a half years; the profanation of the sanctuary and suppression of the sacrifices and the persecution of the Jews occur again in xi. 31 ff. (cf. xii. 5-12). In connection with this we hear of setting up of a "desolating (or appalling) abomination," in the temple. The common use of "abomination" (loathsome thing) for idols or other objects of heathen worship leaves no doubt that some such object is meant here: the king not only stopped the worship of the God of the Jews in his own temple, but established in its place a heathen cult. It is, indeed, not improbable that the words translated "appalling abomination" are an intentional distortion of the proper name of the heathen god Baal Shamaim, i.e. Jupiter.