We are going to leave Revelations for a moment and look at Daniel Seven. This will give us an important understanding of Revelations 13.

Most commentators say these descriptions of beasts are from Babylon, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. Because the pictures are the same as those talked about already by Daniel, but if you look at the words, you see that cannot be. Daniel 7:12 says that the first three beasts exist for a time after the fourth beast is destroyed. While you can make some argument that Greece, Persians, and the Romans may still exist, Babylon is gone and never coming back. Many of the other things in Daniel 7 are very similar to Revelations. The 100 million saints and the millions of angels. The rise of the Antichrist and his defeat and judgement. You see that the beast of Revelation 13 is made up of the first three beasts of Daniel 7. Because Daniel 9 and the seventy weeks are so important to understanding earlier chapters, I put them in much earlier. I would suggest going back and reading it again.

Daniel 7 has the same format and covers the same period as the views in Revelation. It adds some essential information as to who the nations are. Up to Daniel 7, we get Daniel's life and times. Daniel 8:11 covers Daniel's time up to 1844, or the beginning of the age of Laodicea. Revelations covers the period from there until the end.