13 And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. 2 And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. 4 And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”
5 And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. 6 It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. 7 Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, 8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. 9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear:
10 If anyone is to be taken captive,
to captivity he goes;
if anyone is to be slain with the sword,
with the sword must he be slain.
Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.
That this 'beast' should be taken as referring to the general idea of the opposition of world government against the people of God seems to be confirmed when we realise that what John saw on this occasion certainly owes much in its imagery to one of the visions in the Book of Daniel, chapter 7, where we see four beasts coming forth from the sea. John's vision 'amalgamates' all the characteristics of Daniel's four beasts in one composite picture. This alone should indicate that John is not speaking about any one particular world-power, although he would certainly apply the vision to the circumstances of his time, to the Roman Empire which even then was persecuting so terribly the Church of God. But the vision has a much wider application, and must be taken to refer to all the world powers down the ages of history that have set themselves up against His people. This is the 'Incarnation' of the Dragon's attitude of opposition against the man-child of chapter 12, and the woman that brought him forth, an opposition that continues throughout the age. Thus, we read in 3 of one of the heads of the beast wounded to death, and being healed. One application of this is surely relevant to John's own day, when the persecution under Nero was revived after his death by his successor, Domitian. But another, and similar, death and resurrection has been evident in our own time, when that 'maniac of ferocious genius' as Churchill called Hitler, terrorised the world and was cut down, only to give way to a still more terrible and fearsome manifestation of evil in the ascendance of Communist totalitarianism. Such is the interpretation we must place on the emergence of the two beasts from the sea.