The Composite Beast Clue-Rev 13:2

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.

-Rev 13:2

Revelation 13 is a chapter that catapults us beyond the preliminary clues found in Daniel about a windbag called the “little horn,” into a New Testament description of his nature and character. Whereas Daniel 7 speaks of a latter-day “beast empire” that bites and devours the whole world that the little horn arises out of, here in Revelation we are introduced to the Antichrist himself as a beast in his own right. In fact, one of the first things revealed about him is this mystery about a leopard, with the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion.

The key to understanding this chimera, this composite, symbolic animal is the leopard part. It represents essentially “what he is.” A leopard is a predatory animal, carnivorous cunning and opportunistic in his hunting. Donald Trump’s aggression and his attitude that everyone is his rival is well-known. Joe Scarborough once quoted from Rudy Giuliani before Trump became President, something to the effect that,

“he’s never seen anyone ‘come out of a room’ like Trump. Everyone one else accepts that everyone in a deal has to come away with something. But not Trump. If he doesn’t come out with everything, and everyone else with nothing, it really upsets him.”[1]

The leopard does his hunting at night when he is least detected, symbolic of someone who “hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds be reproved” (Jn 3). In other words, someone who does his evil deeds in secret while pursuing a very different public face. So likewise, Donald Trump has a hidden private life that would make a crow blush, as the song puts it.

Donald Trump, like all sociopaths and criminals, is careful to bury his dealings in secrecy. He will fight like a banshee to keep from getting exposed.[2] Wild, slanderous accusations hurled at everyone else of the things he’s actually doing himself is but a small example.

Leopards are also very good at covering their tracks, so as to confuse anyone that might detect their presence. Trump is famous for getting people to risk jail and other dangers in order to “carry out the boss’s wishes” mob style, as one small example. He does this by suggesting things obliquely. All around him know what he wants, while he can plead in court that he never actually told anybody to do anything illegal.

Even his open behavior is set up to obfuscate and confuse. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer/attorney has mentioned how every year at tax time, 80 piles of his company’s tax filings would be laid out on a huge conference table high up in Trump Tower! Most of his declared subsidiaries are actually vehicles for hiding money and ineligible spending, declaring losses or lowering his tax liability. All of it is designed to bury government regulators in a labyrinth of minutiae and dead end alleyways that they simply don’t have the time or manpower to waste on, thanks to decades of Republicans “starving the beast.”

Yes, this man covers his tracks very well indeed. “By his cunning he will cause deceit to prosper under his hand and he will consider himself superior” (Dan 8:25 Living Bible).

Another interesting thing about leopards is that when they encounter an animal bigger and stronger than them, they will quickly turn and scamper back up into a tree. When Trump faces actual opposition, this big bad piece of man meat will fold his cards, back down, whine like a cry baby, go into a pity party, lash out with false accusations and name-calling, and blame everyone else. Anything but a Presidential “the buck stops here.”

Steve Villano, born into the New York Genovese crime family, had this to say about him:

“Despite his posturing as a New York power player, Trump cowered in front of [local Teamster president] John Cody, behaving more like a bagman, than a big man. As recently as last October, Cody’s son Michael told Christopher Dickey and Michael Daly of The Daily Beast  how Donald gave Cody whatever he wanted: ‘Trump was a guy who would talk tough, but as soon as you confronted him, he would cry like a little girl. He was all talk, no action.’”

Actually, he is the dog who gets kicked by someone above him, who turns right around and kicks the dogs below him. You know, sort of like the parable of the Unmerciful Servant who chokes an underling over 100 pence after being forgiven 10,000 talents (Mt 18:23-35). in other words, someone who is clueless about how to justly wield power. He is a man deeply envious of the Mob Boss John Codys of the world, and explains why he wants to be Top Dog of, well, everything!

This identity with a leopard-predator people should take more seriously. It’s been said that toward the end of World War II when Germany was clearly going to lose, Hitler refused to surrender as a form of punishment of the German people who had “let him down”! No, none of it was his fault and his band of conspirators. It was all the fault of the German people![3]

Hoof and Mouth Disease

The clue about having the feet of a bear also ought to send a chill down your spine. In spite of Trump’s incessant mantra of “Russia Hoax!,” the truth is his collusions with Russia go back decades, not just to the 2016 election. Trump was placed high on the list of most desirables to recruit by the KGB, once he married Ivana back in 1977. She was a citizen of Czechoslovakia, a Soviet satellite nation at the time. The rare citizen who was allowed to travel to the West was expected to yield up favors in return or else their family would get in trouble.

The couple were of such interest that the KGB-dominated Czech intelligence placed two agents in New York for 10 years watching this wanna-be-celebrity businessman. In 1987 he yielded to a KGB invitation to an all-expenses paid trip to Moscow.[4] As soon as they returned, this notorious skinflint spent nearly $100,000 on a full-page ad in the three biggest newspapers in the US. In it he was advocating that the US pull all its troops out of Japan!

This was at a time when literally no one in the US was even talking about such a subject, let alone taking that position. The KGB at the time however, was in the middle of a campaign to stir up the Japanese public to do exactly that. Do you really think he just went ahead and paid for that himself?

It is incidents like that in his life that Donald Trump may be more than just a Russian asset (a useful idiot), but an outright Russian agent, a knowing collaborator and therefore a traitor. If so, he’s worse than a Manchurian Candidate, who at least was brainwashed. Donald Trump does these things knowingly and willingly.

And openly. Part of this predator’s thrill is that of being his “brand”—a scoundrel who loves being a scoundrel, and throwing it in our faces. This is why he admires Putin so much, because there are few people on the world scene today who more perfectly approximate a Bond villain than Vladimir Putin.

It also sheds a clearer light on Trump’s theft of highly-classified documents. He can bog down his credulous supporters with endless, childish demands that he has the right to declassify whenever he wants, “even with his mind.” It’s all a distraction from the obvious fact that he’s stolen them on behalf of Putin and other fellow dictators around the world, to either blackmail the US government into submission, or sell them outright for money.[5]

There are many other examples of Trump’s connection to Russia over the years. Cohen for instance has mentioned how much Trump is enamored of Putin’s dictatorship, openly pining for the same situation here in the US, presiding over a mafia capitalism. Indeed, building properties around the world for mobsters to launder their money through is his company’s business model, as both his sons have admitted.[6]  

As for the clue about the mouth of a lion, does anyone even need this explained to them?

Dancing With The Devil

The verse ends with a statement that this beast gets his power, his seat (position), and authority from Satan. And Satan can only give that of course with the permission of God.

Because it’s true—Donald Trump is “God’s Chaos Candidate,” but not to shake things up for the better, but for our judgment. “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God:” (I Pet 4:17). Anyone who falls for this con man/demagogue deserves what they get. Trump is a great test from God, to sift through the chaos of American Evangelicalism especially, to find out who are the sheep and who are the goats, which are the wheat and which are the tares.

It isn’t like He’s making it hard for us. Donald Trump just screams “false messiah” at every turn. As I’ve said before, you either get who this man is or you don’t.

What I find so amazing and alarming, at this point at least, is just how few Christians recognize who this guy is. One thing that gives me hope is that this clue is mentioned in Revelation 13, during the time of the Great Tribulation when Trump will have become this false hero on a white horse and already instigated one of the two wars that bookend this terrible period. In other words, at a time yet future. All the same, this prominent clue is easy to interpret even now.

[1] Not a literal quote but an approximation.

[2] This of course is the biggest quality his clueless followers consistently admire in him, that “he’s a real fighter.” Yeah, for fraud. Real heroes like Superman fight for “truth, justice, and the American way.” (Boy, does that date me! It’s a famous phrase from the 1950s Superman show.)

[3] Cassidy Hutchinson, top aide to Mark Meadows, testified under oath that when told the rioters were calling for the hanging of Mike Pence that Trump’s response was that “Mike deserves it.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/28/trump-pence-deserved-it-hanged-capitol-attack In her new book Enough, she claims Trump was chanting along with the crowd for Mike Pence to be hung. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cassidy-hutchinson-trump-hang-watched-rioters-chant-hang/story?id=103495123

[4] They were flown over on July 4, 1987, because the KGB just can’t help but throw it in our face.

[5] This was the take of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer when the documents scandal first hit the news. He remarked that this was “Donald saying, You wanna come after me, you want to prosecute me? I’ll release these docs to your enemies.” (Not a verbatim quote, but something to that effect).

[6] https://thehill.com/homenews/news/332270-eric-trump-in-2014-we-dont-rely-on-american-banks-we-have-all-the-funding-we/  or https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/politics/2018/02/21/trump-jr.-reportedly-admitted-many-familys-assets-russia/110675572/, etc.