24. ten horns--answering to the ten "toes"
(Da 2:41).
out of this kingdom--It is out of the fourth kingdom that ten
others arise, whatever exterior territory any of them possess
(Re 13:1; 17:12).
rise after them--yet contemporaneous with them; the ten are
contemporaries. Antichrist rises after their rise, at first "little"
(Da 7:8);
but after destroying three of the ten, he becomes greater than them all
(Da 7:20, 21).
The three being gone, he is the eighth (compare
Re 17:11);
a distinct head, and yet "of the seven." As the previous world kingdoms
had their representative heads (Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar; Persia, Cyrus;
Greece, Alexander), so the fourth kingdom and its Antichrists shall
have their evil concentrated in the one final Antichrist. As Antiochus
Epiphanes, the Antichrist of the third kingdom in
Da 8:23-25,
was the personal enemy of God, so the final Antichrist of the fourth
kingdom, his antitype. The Church has endured a pagan and a papal
persecution; there remains for her an infidel persecution, general,
purifying, and cementing [CECIL]. He will not
merely, as Popery, substitute himself for Christ in Christ's
name, but "deny the Father and the Son"
(1Jo 2:22).
The persecution is to continue up to Christ's second coming
(Da 7:21, 22);
the horn of blasphemy cannot therefore be past; for now there is almost
a general cessation of persecution.
JFB.
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