Revelation 13:1-2; Seven Heads and Ten Horns

Revelation 13:1-2 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. 

The Antichrist will be a man (2 Thess. 2:4), but at some point in his life, he will be indwelt by a powerful demon from the abyss. This demon-possessed man will be a gifted orator, an intellectual genius, possess great charm and charisma, and have immense leadership power. Added to those natural qualities will be the hellish power of Satan. The result will be a person of superhuman power, vast intelligence, and consummate wickedness.

While all unbelievers are children of Satan (John 8:44), no one in human history will be more completely the devil’s child than the Antichrist. His “family likeness” to Satan becomes strikingly apparent from John’s description of him as having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems. That same grotesque description was applied to Satan in 12:3: “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. ” The description of Antichrist emphasizes the importance of the ten horns by mentioning them first and associating the diadems with them instead of the heads.

Horns in Scripture symbolize strength and power, both for attack and defense (cf. 1 Sam. 2:1, 10; 2 Sam. 22:3; Job 16:15; Pss. 18:2; 75:4–5; 89:17, 24; 92:10; 112:9; Jer. 48:25; Mic. 4:13). In this passage, they represent the great power of the kings who will rule under Antichrist’s absolute authority. Ten fits the imagery of the fourth beast in Daniel 7:7, 24, and is a symbolic number representing all the world’s political and military might. Antichrist will rise from among these ten (Dan. 7:16–24) and will not rule merely ten nations, but the entire world (cf. Dan. 7:23). Unlike the seven heads, which represent successive world empires, all of the rulers symbolized by the ten horns will rule at the same time (cf. 17:12).

 MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2000). Revelation 12–22 (pp. 41–42). Chicago: Moody Press.