<p>13:11 <em>And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon</em>- The beast of :1 arose from the sea, the area adjoining the earth / land promised to Abraham. This one specifically arises from within the land promised to Abraham. The beast of 13:1 was empowered by the dragon, and this next beast also speaks as the dragon. The same teaching or philosophy is being taught. But he has horns like a lamb. Lambs, newborn sheep, don't have horns. Goats do. So the idea is that this beast has two horns, perhaps two leaders or entities associated with it, which claim to be Christian, or perhaps claim to be as Jesus. Islam also believes in a return of Jesus, so perhaps these are false prophets, false Christs within the radical Islamist system, who claim to be the returned Jesus.&nbsp;</p><p>It&rsquo;s worth mentioning that the Koran teaches that the final punishment of the Jews will involve faithful Muslims becoming as a beast of the earth to Israel: &ldquo;And when the time for the fulfilment of our word against them will come, we shall bring forth for them a beast from the earth who will speak to them because people did not believe in our Sign&rdquo; (Sura 27.82). Perhaps Mohammad was again getting his Bible references garbled (note how the Koran assumes Haman and Pharaoh lived at the same time, Sura 28:6); perhaps he actually had in mind &ldquo;the beast arising from the earth&rdquo; of Rev. 13:11 which has a mouth speaking great things against Israel. Radical Islamists seek to fulfil the Koran as literally as possible; but because it contains so many fragments of Bible prophecies, they are effectively striving to fulfil latter day Bible prophecy&nbsp;</p><p>The beast of the earth must look back to the common phrase &quot;beast of the earth&quot; in Genesis (e.g. Gen. 1:25). The serpent is an epitome of the bestial desires found in the beasts, and is thus the prototype 'beast' of later prophecies.&nbsp;The serpent being the greatest of the beasts (Gen. 3:1,14) points to the latter-day beast being supreme over the other nations. The most basic principle behind the symbolism of the beast is found in Gen. 1:28, where man is told to &quot;have dominion over&quot; (Heb. 'to break to powder', cp. Dan. 2:35) the beasts.&nbsp;&nbsp; This was to teach him the need to dominate the bestial instincts of the flesh. Thus the beasts are set up as representative of the flesh. It is therefore understandable that the devil (sin), the beast and the serpent are linked in Rev. 12:9, and that Prov. 28:15 parallels &quot;a wicked ruler&quot; with a wild bear or lion; the beast epitomizes the sinful person who controls it.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>As the serpent deceived Adam and Eve, so the beast will deceive the Jews and weak Christian believers of the last days. The serpent/beast in its first century Jewish manifestation is described as seducing the saints through the subtle reasoning of the Judaizers (2 Cor. 11:3). These people used many &quot;fair speeches&quot; (Rom. 16:18 cp. Jude 15), suggesting that their prototype, the serpent, persuaded Eve to eat the fruit after a lengthy series of discussions, albeit unrecorded. &quot;Yea, hath God said...&quot; (Gen. 3:1 AV) implies the continuation of an unrecorded conversation.&nbsp;The beast's agents of the last days will likewise use the tactic of extended public speeches using superficially deep arguments.&nbsp;Their political arm will be doing the same to destroy the morale of natural Israel, after the pattern of Rabshakeh's speeches to the Jews during the Assyrian invasion. Being an apostate Jew he may possibly have a latter-day equivalent in a Jewish leader, who deserts to the Arab cause, urging Israel to capitulate.&nbsp;Likewise there may be a specific &quot;man of sin&quot; who similarly tempts spiritual Israel.&nbsp;The description of him in 2 Thess. 2:3 is framed in terms of Judas - implying that he will be an apostate Christian?</p><p>The judgment of the serpent was by the voice of God (cp. Christ, the word) walking through the garden, summoning the sinful parties to judgment.&nbsp;This easily looks forward to Christ's second coming, and the judgment by Him in His role as the word made flesh (Rev. 19:13; Gen. 3:8). The beast has always been associated with a pseudo-spirituality, an aping of true God manifestation; the four beasts of Dan. 7 and Revelation (dragon, sea beast, earth beast and scarlet beast) are a pseudo-cherubim.&nbsp;There is a connection between the beasts of God manifestation and the cherubim in Rev. 4:7;&nbsp;indeed, the Hebrew word for 'beast' seems to be the equivalent of the phrase &quot;living creature&quot; used in Revelation concerning the cherubim.&nbsp;The beast and beasts therefore represent systems which falsely claim that they are the vehicle of God manifestation.&nbsp;This most clearly fits the claims of jihadist Islam. With all this in mind, it must be significant that Is. 14:29 speaks of Assyria as a &quot;cockatrice&quot; born out of &quot;the serpent's root&quot;, i.e. she was the seed of the serpent. &quot;His fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent&quot; is the language of Isa. 6:2 concerning the seraphim. Thus the Assyrian seed of the serpent is associated with a pseudo-seraphim, and a false God manifestation. The Assyrian invasion is the prototype of the traumas of the last days in Israel.</p><p>Dt. 32:24 connects the 'beasts' of the surrounding nations with the Genesis serpent:&nbsp; &quot;I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust&quot; (cp. Gen. 3:14).&nbsp;There is also a connection between the serpent and beasts in Is. 30:6.&nbsp;&quot;The teeth of beasts&quot; coming down upon Israel will be finally fulfilled in the jihadist desolation prophesied in Joel 1:6,7, where the Assyrians of the future (Joel 1:15) are described as having Israel between their &quot;cheek teeth&quot; tearing the bark off the Israeli vine and fig (cp. Is. 9:12 concerning the Philistines / Palestinians).</p><p>Israel being the sheep of God's pasture is a common Bible figure.&nbsp;&nbsp; Whenever their shepherds were negligent over a prolonged period, the figure was extended to describe the 'wild beasts' of the surrounding nations invading the land and mauling the flock.&nbsp;Hos. 13:6-8 is typical of those passages which speak in these terms.&nbsp;Verses 7 and 8 liken these nations to the lion, leopard and bear, all of which are nations mentioned in Dan. 7, which are constituents of the huge system of Arab domination described in Dan. 2. These three beast nations are all part of one &quot;wild beast&rdquo;, as the nations of the image in Dan. 2 are all part of the same latter-day confederacy headed by 'Babylon': &quot;I will be unto them as a lion:&nbsp;as a leopard... as a bear... <em>the</em> wild beast&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; Likewise Is. 56:9,10;&nbsp;Jer. 30:16 and Ez. 34:5 feature the beasts of Babylon and the surrounding nations as preying on the flock of Israel due to their sleepy shepherds.&nbsp;&nbsp; After Israel's spiritual awakening <em>they</em> will become like a beast among the 'sheep' of the jihadist nations (Mic. 5:8), continuing the theme of the Jews doing to the Arabs as they did to them. It is possible that Dt. 28:26 also refers to the beasts of the surrounding nations:&nbsp;&quot;Thy carcase shall be meat... unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away&quot; (AV).&nbsp;This alludes to the fowls being frayed away while the covenant was made to Abraham.&nbsp;Thus while Israel abode in the covenant, the neighbouring nations surrounding them were kept away.&nbsp;Similarly Ez. 34:25 associates the making of the covenant with Israel in the last days, with the &quot;evil beasts&quot; leaving the land. Time and again Israel's neighbouring enemies are likened to &quot;wild beasts&quot;. The list of references is impressive: Hos. 2:12;&nbsp;Ez. 5:17;&nbsp;14:15;&nbsp;Ps. 80:13;&nbsp;Jer. 7:33;&nbsp;15:3;&nbsp;16:4;&nbsp;19:7; Dt. 7:22. Job's Sabean invaders are called &quot;the beasts of the earth... the beasts of the field&quot; (Job 5:22,23).&nbsp;It is possible that &quot;beasts&quot; in these passages can be read as an intensive plural - i.e. 'the great beast', which symbolizes all of Israel's various enemies.&nbsp;&nbsp;This equivalence of the multitude of these enemies with a singular beast is seen in Ez. 34:28, which parallels &quot;the heathen&quot; (enemies of Israel) with &quot;the beast of the land&quot; (singular).&nbsp;Rev. 17 similarly exhibits <em>the</em> (singular) beast as comprising a number of nations (heads/horns).</p><p>Ps. 74:19 RV asks God not to deliver His people &ldquo;unto the wild beast&rdquo;. This is one of the Asaph Psalms, written in the context of the restoration. The &lsquo;beast&rsquo; threatening to destroy Judah then was a confederacy of her surrounding neighbours. Ps. 73:13,14 likens these enemies to a many headed dragon. Another such Psalm, Ps. 83, asks for protection against a confederacy of 10 such nations. In all this we have a remarkable type of the last days after the pattern of Daniel and Revelation-a beast with 10 horns, seeking to devour the recently returned people of God from off their land. <br />There is repeatedly the theme that Israel&rsquo;s enemies are confederated together under one confederacy which has one leader. Ps. 118 can be shown to be relevant to Hezekiah at the time of the Assyrian invasion (see George Booker, <em>Psalm Studies</em>). He speaks of how &ldquo;all nations compassed me about&rdquo;, i.e. the surrounding Arab nations confederate with Assyria. And yet Hezekiah speaks about them as if they are really headed up by one individual: &ldquo;Thou you singular didst thrust sore at me&rdquo; (Ps. 118:13). The beast is to punish people by beheading them (Rev. 20:4)- and it's only Islam at the moment which legally practices beheading as a form of execution.</p><p>The symbology of the beast was particularly used concerning Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon's king, was given a beast's heart and lived with them (Dan. 4:16) to show his personification of the beast.&nbsp;&quot;The beasts of the field, i.e. the surrounding nations, were given into his control (Dan. 2:38), thus they constituted part of the beast of Babylon, &quot; the noisome beast&quot; of Ez. 14:21.&nbsp;Babylon's army is likened to &quot;beasts&quot; in Jer. 34:20,21.&nbsp;As God gave power to Assyria and Babylon to achieve His will (Is. 10), so He will to the latter-day beast (Rev. 13:5,7). The description of the beast leading people into captivity (Rev. 13:10) shows another connection with Assyria/Babylon, whose trains of captives were well known.&nbsp;&nbsp; The beast causing men to worship it (Rev. 13:12) recalls Nebuchadnezzar's decree concerning the statue on the plain of Dura (Dan. 3:1,5).&nbsp;The historical &quot;beast of the field&quot; was associated with the wilderness (Is. 43:20), as the beast of Rev. 17:3 is a wilderness power.</p>