Daniel 7:12

As concerning the rest of the beasts..... The other three which represent the Babylonian, Persian and Grecian monarchies: they had their dominion taken away; not at this time when the fourth beast,

As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away.

They had their dominion taken away; the prophet chiefly intends the fourth empire, and therein the proud, blasphemous horn; yet did not wholly omit to speak of the three first empires, and what became of them. He saith they were wholly taken away, that is, successively, as histories tell us. The beast and the horn perish together, for the Holy Ghost tells us that the horn shall prevail against the saints till the Ancient of days come to sit in judgment, and because the session of judgment in Daniel’ s vision was principally to pluck up by the roots that wicked horn, following, Daniel’ s expectation had failed him, if the horn had not perished with the beast. Besides, the state of the beast under the horn was to be a time, times, and the dividing of time, , of which more when we come to it.

Daniel 7:12 As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.Ver. 12. As concerning the rest of the beasts.] The four great monarchies, as was before noted, had their times and their turns - their rise and their ruin. Yet their lives were prolonged for a season.] Such is the Lord’ s lenity, respiting his enemies for a time. The Persian and Turk are yet puissant princes. The success that the Antichristian rout yet hath in some places maketh good that which was sometimes said of dying Carthage, Morientium nempe bestiarum violentiores esse morsus, i.e., The bites of dying beasts are more violent than ordinary.

(12) The rest of the beasts—i.e., the three first beasts which Daniel had seen coming out of the sea. He now learns what had befallen them. Their dominions had passed away, and their lives had been prolonged up to that definite point and time which had seemed fit to God, and no further. The period of life allotted to them by God was only a little while. (On “times” and “seasons,” see Note on Daniel 2:21.)

12. the rest of the beasts] Commentators are divided as to whether the three beasts of Dan 7:4-6, or the seven horns left after the three had been rooted up (Daniel 7:8), are intended: but the expression used (‘beasts’) strongly favours the former interpretation. In the abstract, it is true, the latter interpretation might be deemed the more probable; for, as the ‘beasts’ represent successive kings, or kingdoms (Daniel 7:17; Daniel 7:23), the dominion of the first three would naturally be at an end long before the period of the judgement on the fourth, whereas the seven ‘horns’ might well be conceived as subsisting still. In point of fact, however, the kingdoms, though in reality successive, are in the vision represented as contemporaneous: nothing is said in Daniel 7:3-7 about the disappearance of one beast when a second appears; all continue visible, side by side. So in ch. 2 the four kingdoms represented by the image are destroyed simultaneously: the entire image remains intact until the stone falls upon the feet (representing the fourth and last kingdom), when the whole of it breaks up together. they (indef.) took away their dominion] i.e. (see on Daniel 4:25) their dominion was taken away (R.V.). but a prolonging in life was given them (A.V. marg.)] The three first beasts are humbled, but not, like the fourth beast, destroyed; their dominion was taken away from them, but they were permitted to remain alive; i.e. the Gentile powers, represented by the beasts, were to survive for a while as nations, though deprived of empire. until a time and a season (Daniel 2:21)] i.e. until the unspecified time, determined for each in the counsel of the Most High (Keil).

As concerning the rest of the beasts - They had been superseded, but not destroyed.

12. The prophet sees that while all the beasts had been destroyed really by divine fire, the destruction of the fourth beastly kingdom (the Syrian) was much quicker and more complete than the others.