The Ten Horns at the Present Time
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The Vatican
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Spain |
Portugal |
France |
Britain |
Austria |
Italy |
Luxemburg |
Switzerland |
Belgium |
Netherlands |
"As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will arise; and another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones... And he will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One...and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and a half a time. But the court will sit for judgement, and his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him." Daniel 7:24-27 (NASB)
The above flags identify the 10 Kingdoms predicted in the prophecies of Daniel 2, 7, Revelation 13 & 17, as they appear today. However, for most contemporary readers it is more difficult to identify the 10 Kingdoms as they appeared at the earliest time of these prophecies' fulfillment in the 6th century A.D.
The details of the history of the first couple of centuries following the fall of the last of the Caesars, in 476 AD, are quite obscure. Quite a few scholars of biblical prophecy have claimed to be able to identify the 10 Kingdoms in their original forms only to be refuted by later scholars who pointed out details either in the prophecies or in the histories of the candidate kingdoms that did not correlate. This disagreement among Historicists should not be seen as evidence of the weakness of the interpretive method any more than the wide variety of scholarly opinions about the authenticity of the Gospels should be accepted as evidence against the reliability of the New Testament. In fact, the variety of opinions about the proper identity of the original 10 Kingdoms has led naturally to further research on the part of many historicist writers over the past few centuries. As time goes on, continuing study exposes the flaws in some of these interpretations providing students of prophecy with the opportunity to refine our understanding of the biblical texts and their fulfillment.The 16th century historian, Niccolo Machiavelli listed these ten successor kingdoms to the Roman Empire in Western Europe during the reign of Emperor Zeno:
The Heruli, Suevi, Burgundians, Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons.
The prophecy in Daniel 7 describes 3 being uprooted: the Heruli were in 493; the Vandals in 534, and the Ostrogoths in 553. Because the situation was very fluid in the early centuries after the collapse of the Roman Empire, the details of which peoples occupied which territories at any given time are complex. But E. B. Elliott, in his commentary, Horae Apocalypticae suggests the following lists as examples.
E. B. Elliott observes that there were 10 kingdoms present in the period 486-490:
- Anglo-Saxons
- Franks
- Allemans
- Burgundians
- Visigoths
- Suevi
- Vandals
- Heruli
- Bavarians
- Ostrogoths
But he also argues, convincingly, that the primary period intended by both Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, is about 532-33 AD... So at that time, he lists the following 10 kingdoms:
- Anglo-Saxons
- Franks of Central
- Alleman-Franks of Eastern
- Burgundic-Franks of South-Eastern France
- Visigoths
- Suevi
- Vandals
- Ostrogoths in Italy
- Bavarians
- Lombards*
See our animation, The Rise and Fall of Empires for a visual illustration of the ten kingdoms of Europe.
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