The sea beast that appears in Revelation 13 is a composite of beasts from Daniel 7, with features of leopard, bear, and lion and seven heads equal to the total number of heads on the beasts that Daniel sees in vision.
But the beast is also a parody of Yahweh, who threatens to tear and devour Israel like a lion, leopard, and bear (Hosea 13:4-8). And he is a parody of David, the king who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and who fights like a bear robbed of her cubs (cf. 2 Samuel 17:8).
Of course, because the Davidic king is the true bear and lion, he can overcome the lion and the bear, and every uncircumcised Philistine.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
