The first beast is the old Islamic Empire under the 7th head of that beast.
The Image of the first beast is the rise of Islam as a threat to the world once again, but still under 10 separate horns/kingdoms.
The scarlet beast (chap 17) is the image of the first beast under the rule of the fallen angel from the pit and is like an 8th head/empire on the first beast, with authority of the ten horns.
 
 

BEAST =empire

HEADS =past kings of mountains/empires

HORNS =kings/nations that are within an Empire

• Babylon the LION,

• Media-Persia the BEAR,

 
• The four generals ruling over the Grecian empire, the LEOPARD with Four Heads,

 
• And the BEAST WITH TEN HORNS.

The beast has seven heads. What are these heads? We read of them in Daniel.
 

They are the seven heads of the four Beasts that Daniel saw in his vision.
 

The head of a Lion, one a Bear, four are heads of the Leopard, and the last head has ten horns on it.

That is why the beast has a body made up of the Lion, Bear and Leopard. Heads and bodies usually stick together.

God reveals to John the meaning of the seven heads, but we must go to Chapter 17 to find out:
.

Greek word here, "horos", is almost always translated "mountain" rather than "hill." Mountains are often symbols of kingdoms in Scripture (cf. Ps. 68:15, Dan. 2:35, Obad. 8-21, Amos 4:1, 6:1). The OT is always our guide to understanding the meaning of the symbolism used in the Book of Revelation.

Some believe these to be the seven hills of Rome, but, as we have seen, the heads are that of a lion, a bear, 4 leopard heads of the Grecian Empire, and the last one, that of the antichrist's kingdom, with the ten horns, which is dazed by war, yet still alive in the end days to come back into power when the bottomless pit is unlocked.
Rome is not any of these.

One way to understand what the heads represent is to look back through what the Lord has given us in prophecy. Revelation is the last set of clues, for lack of a better word, that the Lord has given us.

Beginning with Rev 17, we have heads that are hills, or mountains, and also kings. Chapter 13 showed us the clue so we will go back to Daniel and see what the four beasts were. In Daniel, we are told that these four beasts are kingdoms that rise up from the earth. So if the beast of Rev 13 has the heads of these beasts, then each head would represent one of the kingdoms that each beast was. Looking at the leopard with four heads, we can go back to the Ram and Goat vision. We see that this was Greece and was turned over to four generals becoming four separate kingdoms that warred with each other. Two of these Grecian kingdoms we can read about in the king of the North vision. The Leopard's 4 heads represent these same four kingdoms of the Grecian Empire. These empires are also seen in the statue dream in Daniel.

FIVE HAVE FALLEN by John's time.

FIRST
Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar II, known as The Destroyer of Jerusalem. It fell in 457 BC to Media-Persia.
(This is the head in Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the statue and the Lion, the first of the four beasts Daniel saw).

SECOND
Media-Persia. Along with Babylon, they also acquired Palestine. Cyrus issued the decree for Israel to return to their land.
(This is the chest and arms of the statue, also the vision of the Ram, and the bear in the vision of the four beasts).

THIRD, FOURTH, & FIFTH
These are three of the four heads of the Leopard, which is the Grecian Empire split into four empires.
(The first three heads (the East, West, and South) were conquered and occupied by the Roman empire before John was given the visions of Revelation, but the Lord says one head of the Grecian kingdom remained alive. )

SIXTH
"One is"  This was Parthia. Arsaced Dynasty which included Mithridates I of Parthia. The last of the Grecian Empire satrap to survie beyond the first century AD.
Since the 7 heads are the same 7 that are on the bodies of the 4 beasts of Daniel and are also the same 7 heads on the composite beast of Rev 13 and 17, then the 6th head was one of the four heads of the leopard beast of Greecian Empire.  Parthia concord Babylon.  See Parthian History

(Note: These four are the belly and thighs of the statue dream, and also the goat with 4 horns, and the Leopard with 4 heads in Daniel's visions.)
 

Notice how all of Daniel's visions are always talking about the same empires over and over again, but that God keeps adding more information in each of the visions to further identify where the last beast will be located!!
 

SEVENTH
"one is about to come" This head is for a time when the Jews are back in the land of Israel.  This is an important thing to understand because most of the prophecies are centered around Israel and her nieghbors.  The Jews must be back in the land of Israel for this Head/empire to have an impact on them.  This is the head with the ten horns or kings of ten Islamic nations in the middle east.  This head was killed as by the sword which took place at the end of WWI. After that the nations of the Middle east were divided and kings appointed for these countries.
(This is the fourth beast of Daniel and also the First beast of Revelation,  that the eighth head/empire will rise out of.)

An EIGHTH
Which is really one of the seven heads coming back into power when the dark angel from the abyss is let out and in control of it. He units the ten horns/nations of the Midlle East under his rule. Please remember that it is a head that died, which is the whole Empire, not just a leader. Therefore, it isn't that the head of Iraq will be killed and brought back to life, but it was the whole last seventh head with the ten horns which was the Islamic empire that died and will come back to life.
 

.

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.

They worshipped the dragon (satan) through the beast (Islam).
.

Lexicon for Strong's Number
1093 ge {ghay}
can also mean = a country, land enclosed within fixed boundaries, a tract of land, territory, region

The word "all" in this case is like when it is said that ALL Jerusalem came to the river to be baptized by John. We know ALL didn't, but SOME OF EVERY SORT DID. Some of every tribe of the Jews.

The beast was given power over every sort of peoples from all nations, that the beast attacked and conquered.
.

So the binding of these nations together comes out of hatred for the Holy Covenant.

(Dan. 7:24; as for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will arise; and another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings.)

The fourth beast in Daniel has ten horns, but they were not kingdoms yet, but became kings with the separation of the lands of the Middel East after W.W.I.  They are also the ten toes on the statue in King Nebuchadnezzar's dream. They are the weak part of the statue: the clay, and when they are crushed, the whole statue falls.

The Ottoman Empire had ten provinces within it that were on the map that the British used to draw new borders for a new Middle East.

"In 1922, Churchill succeeded in mapping out the Arab Middle East along lines suitable to the needs of the British civilian and military administrations. T. E. Lawrence would later brag that he, Churchill and a few others had designed the modern Middle East over dinner.- David Fromkin in "The Smithsoneon" (Fall 1990)

     Quote:

      "In the peace settlement that followed the First World War, the Allies divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and Britain was allocated mandatory power over the territory of Iraq under the authority of the League of Nations. Modern Iraq had never existed in its current form and the mandate of Iraq was cobbled together from the Ottoman provinces of Basrah, Baghdad and Mosul. In 1921 Britain imported a king, Faisal, to be the king over this new kingdom."

                                                     Ten Horns
                                                 1. Turkey
                                                 2. Syria
                                                 3. Lebanon
                                                 4. Egypt
                                                 5. Jordan
                                                 6. Arabia
                                                 7. Persia (Iran)
                                                 8. Mosul*
                                                 9. Basrah*
                                                 10. Baghdad*
 

[B]The last 3 countries were not given kingdoms.[/B] They were uprooted and a whole new country was created. [B] The new country was called Iraq[/B]-meaning "the well-rooted country"-in order to give it a name that was Arabic.

All the other provinces/countries existed in the Islamic empire, but not the country called Iraq. Three countries lost their rights to be separate peoples as they were now to be one kingdom, the new nation/kingdom of Iraq.

Is it the eleventh horn? The last king from the North?

The Islamic Empire devoured the same lands and people as the first three beasts had owned. Babylon, Media-Persia, and Greece.