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The Ten Horns

 by Joe Haynes

Updated November, 2024

The flags below belong to the 10 Kingdoms predicted in the prophecies of Daniel 2 and 7, and Revelation 13 and 17, as they appear today. 

Most of those countries are familiar to people today. But when you go back before the map-altering events like the French Revolution, and World War I and II, many people haven't even heard of the kingdoms that existed in those places before the countries we know today. And that makes it hard for readers of the Bible today to make sense of the prophecies in Daniel 2 and 7, and Revelation 13 and 17, that predict ten kingdoms existing during those centuries. Daniel and Revelation predicted that these ten kingdoms, "ten horns" in the visions Daniel and John saw, would rise up from the territory of the Roman Empire when the Empire fell. The City of Rome's empire finally fell in the late 5th Century--around 476 AD. 

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.

But even though these prophecies were fulfilled a very long time ago, most Christians don't know about it. I think that's because, a) the wording of the prophecy is ambiguous enough that it packs a lot of history into a very simple description of horns emerging (and being uprooted--see below), and b) the events that fulfilled the prophecy are ancient and murky.

After the collapse of Rome's empire, Western Europe was very unstable. Mass migrations and wars meant the map had to be almost continuously redrawn. So even to ask the question, "Which ten kingdoms were predicted by the ten horns?" does not have a simple answer. It kept changing. But you know what stayed very stable in the midst of all that change? The number 10. So while the names and boundaries of the ten kingdoms changed a lot between the fall of the ancient Roman Empire, and the rise of the the modern countries of Western Europe, at almost any given century it was possible to name 10 kingdoms existing at that time within the boundaries of the old Roman Empire in the West. 

E. B. Elliott, in his commentary, Horae Apocalypticae suggests the following lists as examples.[3] Elliott observes that there were 10 kingdoms present in the period 486-490:

1. Anglo-Saxons

2. Franks

3. Allemans

4. Burgundians

5. Visigoths

6. Suevi

7. Vandals

8. Heruli

9. Bavarians

10. Ostrogoths

Elliott also makes a good argument 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:

1. Anglo-Saxons

2. Franks of Central

3. Alleman-Franks of Eastern

4. Burgundic-Franks of South-Eastern France

5. Visigoths

6. Suevi

7. Vandals

8. Ostrogoths in Italy

9. Bavarians

10. Lombards

The prophecy in Daniel 7 goes on to predict 3 horns being uprooted to make way for an 11th horn, a new kingdom that would rise from among the ten. In one of my sermons on Daniel 7, I explained it like this:

The Byzantines and later the Franks uprooted the Vandals, Ostrogoths, and Lombards from Italy and eventually 3 territories, Ravenna, the Pentapolis on the eastern coast, and the region around Rome itself, were donated to the Bishop of Rome so that he had lands to call his kingdom—today known as “the Patrimony of St. Peter”. An 11th kingdom from the ruins of the Roman Empire. [1]

This all happened in the last half of the 700's AD. [2] The Popes of Rome became Kings over three territories in Italy called "the Papal Estates." By 1870, those territories were taken from the Popes and those lands were united under the Italian flag. But the Popes were left as tiny rulers of a tiny state: the Vatican.

Likewise for the ten horns once dominated by the Popes, the situation has changed very much. The countries represented by the ten horns in Bible prophecy that exist today have different names than at most times in their histories. They have different borders than at most times in their histories. And they no longer have the one thing in common that both Daniel and John prophesied would unite them: allegiance to the Pope. But for a very long time, they did. So when you look at the illustration below, of today's 10 Horns under the dominion of the Popes of Rome, remember that for most of the centuries since the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, the ten kingdoms at that time bent their knee to the Antichrist. The fact is that most people in those ten countries now hate the Popes and their false church. And that's exactly what Revelation 17:16 said would happen: "And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute," (Rev. 17:16 ESV).