Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/295

point of view of the present of the seer. The five fallen βασιλείς (sovereignties) are Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Medo-Persia, and Greece (Hengst., Aub., Christ.), and not Assyria, Chaldea, Persia, Grecia, and the kingdom of the Seleucidae, as Hofmann, with Ebrard and Stier, affirms. The reception of the Seleucidae or of Antiochus Epiphanes into the rank of world-rulers, depends, with Hofmann, on the erroneous interpretation of the apocalyptic beast-image as representing the reappearance of the Grecian world-kingdom, and falls with this error. The chief argument which Hofmann alleges against Egypt, that it was never a power which raised itself up to subdue or unite the world under itself, or is thus represented in the Scriptures, Aub. (p. 309) has already invalidated by showing that Egypt was the first world-power with which the kingdom of God came into conflict under Moses, when it began to exist as a nation and a kingdom. Afterwards, under the kings, Israel was involved in the wars of Egypt and Assyria in like manner as at a later period they were in those of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae. For this reason Egypt and Assyria are often named together by the prophets, particularly as the world-powers with which the people of God committed whoredom, yea, by the older prophets generally as the representatives of the world-power (2Ki 17:4; Hos 7:11; Hos 12:1; Hos 9:3; Hos 11:5, Hos 11:11; Mic 7:12; Isa 52:4; Isa 19:23-25; Jer 2:18, Jer 2:36; Zec 10:10). On the other hand, the Seleucidan appears before us in Daniel 8 and 11:1-25 as an offshoot of the Grecian world-kingdom, without anything further being intimated regarding him. In Daniel 7 there is as little said of him as there is in Zechariah's vision of the four-horsed chariots.
The sixth sovereignty, which “is” (ὁ εἷς ἔστιν), is the Roman world-power exercising dominion at the time of John, the Roman emperor. The seventh is as yet future, and must, when it comes, continue a short time (ὀλίγον). If the sixth sovereignty is the Roman, they by the seventh we may understand the world-powers of modern Europe that have come into its place. The angel adds (Rev 17:11), “The beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth (king), and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” By that which is called “even the eighth” can properly be meant only the seventh. The contrast lying in the καὶ αὐτὸς ὀγδοός demands this. But that instead of the seventh (Rev 17:10, ὁ ἄλλος the beast itself is named, therewith it is manifestly intimated that in the eighth the beast embodies itself, or passes into