Daniel saw four beasts coming up out of the sea: one like a lion with eagles’ wings, one like a bear, one like a leopard with four wings and four heads, and a terrifying fourth beast with iron teeth. The fourth beast had ten horns, and another “little horn” rose among them. Daniel 7:3–8
Daniel 7:1–3 opens by dating Daniel’s experience to Belshazzar’s first year as Babylon’s king and by presenting the vision as a written report. Daniel sees violent movement in the sky affecting a “great sea,” as if powerful forces are stirring the waters. From that sea, four huge animals emerge. This passage marks a shift from court stories to Daniel’s first-person report of night visions. The narrator emphasizes that Daniel wrote down the dream and communicated its main points, framing what follows as a careful summary rather than an exhaustive transcript.
Daniel 7:1–3 starts a new kind of material in the book: a first-person report of a night vision. The text explicitly dates the experience to “the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon,” places Daniel on his bed, and presents what follows as a written summary of the dream’s “main points,” not necessarily every detail.
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Daniel 7:3-8, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
3Four great animals came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
4The first was like a lion, and had eagle`s wings: I saw until the wings of it were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand on two feet as a man; and a man`s heart was given to it.
5Behold, another animal, a second, like a bear; and it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth: and they said thus to it, Arise, devour much flesh.
6After this I saw, and, behold, another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird; the animal had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
7After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth animal, awesome and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the animals that were before it; and it had ten horns.
8I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.