The seven heads of this wild beast stand for six major world powers featured in Bible history up to John’s day​—Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome—​and a seventh world power prophesied to appear later.​—Compare Revelation 17:9, 10.

6. (a) In what have the seven heads of the wild beast taken the lead? (b) How was Rome used by Jehovah in executing his own judgment on the Jewish system of things, and how did the Christians in Jerusalem fare?

⁶ True, there have been other world powers in history besides the seven​—just as the wild beast John saw was made up of a body as well as of seven heads and ten horns. But the seven heads represent the seven major powers that have, each in its turn, taken the lead in oppressing God’s people.

10. (a) What is denoted by the fact that on each of the ten horns there was a diadem? (b) What do the ten horns and the ten diadems symbolize?

¹⁰ The wild beast has ten horns on its seven heads. Perhaps four heads had one horn each and three heads two horns each. Moreover, it had ten diadems on its horns. In the book of Daniel, fearsome beasts are described, and the numbering of their horns is to be interpreted literally. For example, the two horns on a ram represented a world empire made up of two partners, Media and Persia, while the four horns on a goat represented the four coexisting empires that grew out of Alexander the Great’s Greek empire. (Daniel 8:3, 8, 20-22) On the beast that John saw, however, the numbering of the ten horns appears to be symbolic. (Compare Daniel 7:24; Revelation 17:12.) They represent the completeness of sovereign states making up the entire political organization of Satan. All these horns are violent and aggressive, but as indicated by the seven heads, headship resides in only one world power at a time. Similarly, the ten diadems indicate that all sovereign states would exercise ruling power simultaneously with the dominant state, or world power, of that time.

11. What is indicated by the fact that the wild beast has “upon its heads blasphemous names”?

¹¹ The wild beast has “upon its heads blasphemous names,” making claims for itself that show great disrespect for Jehovah God and Christ Jesus. It has used the names of God and Christ as a sham to achieve its political ends; and it has played along with false religion, even allowing the clergy to take part in its political processes. For example, the House of Lords in England includes the bishops. Catholic cardinals have played prominent political roles in France and Italy, and more recently, priests have taken political office in Latin America. Governments print religious slogans, such as “IN GOD WE TRUST,” on their bank notes, and on their coins they claim divine approval for their rulers, stating, for example, that these are appointed “by the grace of God.” All of this is actually blasphemous, for it attempts to involve God in the sullied nationalistic political arena.

13. (a) What calamity assails the wild beast early in the Lord’s day? (b) How is it that the entire wild beast suffered when one head received a death stroke?

¹³ Early in the Lord’s day, calamity strikes the wild beast. John reports: “And I saw one of its heads as though slaughtered to death, but its death-stroke got healed, and all the earth followed the wild beast with admiration.” (Revelation 13:3) This verse says that one head of the wild beast received a death stroke, but verse 12 speaks as though the entire beast suffered. Why is that? Well, the beast’s heads are not all in the ascendancy together. Each in its turn has lorded it over mankind, particularly over God’s people. (Revelation 17:10) Thus, as the Lord’s day begins, there is only one head, the seventh, acting as the dominant world power. A death stroke on that head brings great distress to the entire wild beast.

14. When was the death stroke administered, and how did a military officer describe its effect on Satan’s wild beast?

¹⁴ What was the death stroke? Later, it is called a sword stroke, and a sword is a symbol of warfare. This sword stroke, administered early in the Lord’s day, must relate to the first world war, which devastated and drained Satan’s political wild beast. (Revelation 6:4, 8; 13:14) Author Maurice Genevoix, who was a military officer during that war, said of it: “Everyone agrees in recognizing that in the whole history of mankind, few dates have had the importance of August 2, 1914. First Europe and soon after almost all humanity found themselves plunged into a dreadful event. Conventions, agreements, moral laws, all the foundations shook; from one day to the next, everything was called into question. The event was to exceed both instinctive forebodings and reasonable anticipations. Enormous, chaotic, monstrous, it still drags us in its wake.”​—Maurice Genevoix, member of the Académie Française, quoted in the book Promise of Greatness (1968).

15. How did the seventh head of the wild beast receive its death stroke?

¹⁵ For the dominant seventh head of the wild beast, that war was a major disaster. Along with other European nations, Britain lost its young men in traumatic numbers. In one battle alone, the Battle of the River Somme in 1916, there were 420,000 British casualties along with some 194,000 French and 440,000 German​—more than 1,000,000 casualties! Economically, too, Britain​—together with the rest of Europe—​was shattered. The huge British Empire staggered under the blow and never fully recovered. Indeed, that war, with 28 leading nations participating, sent the entire world reeling as if by a deathblow. On August 4, 1979, just 65 years after the outbreak of World War I, The Economist, of London, England, commented: “In 1914 the world lost a coherence which it has not managed to recapture since.”

16. During the first world war, how did the United States show that it was part of a dual world power?

¹⁶ At the same time, the Great War, as it was then called, opened the way for the United States to emerge distinctly as part of the Anglo-American World Power. For the first years of the war, public opinion kept the United States out of the conflict. But as historian Esmé Wingfield-Stratford wrote, “it was all a question of whether, at this hour of supreme crisis, Britain and the United States would sink their differences in the realization of [their] overmastering unity and common trusteeship.” As events turned out, they did. In 1917 the United States contributed her resources and manpower to bolster the war effort of the staggering Allies. Thus, the seventh head, combining Britain and the United States, came out on the winning side.

17. What happened to Satan’s earthly system after the war?

¹⁷ The world after the war was vastly different. Satan’s earthly system, although devastated by the death stroke, revived and became more powerful than ever and so won the admiration of humans because of its recuperative power.

18. How can it be said that mankind in general has “followed the wild beast with admiration”?

¹⁸ Historian Charles L. Mee, Jr., writes: “The collapse of the old order [caused by the first world war] was a necessary prelude to the spread of self-rule, the liberation of new nations and classes, the release of new freedom and independence.” Leading in the development of this postwar era was the seventh head of the wild beast, now healed, and with the United States of America moving into the dominant role. The dual world power took the lead in advocating both the League of Nations and the United Nations. By the year 2005, U.S. political power had led the more privileged nations in creating a higher standard of living, in fighting disease, and in advancing technology. It had even placed 12 men on the moon.