Glossary

Seven Heads of the Beast (see also Beast)

Revelation chapter 17 presents the vision of a seven-headed beast. In verse 9 and 10, we learn that the seven heads are seven kings or kingdoms. “Five have fallen”—when John wrote this in the mid-90s A.D., five great empires centered in the Mideast, the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media-Persia, and Greece, had come and gone. “One is”—the Roman Empire was in power when John wrote this. “And the other”—the Antichrist’s final world empire—“has not yet come” (Revelation 13:1; Revelation 17:9–14).