True Beast

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.

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