Daniel 8 contains some amazing prophecy as the vision literally foretells future events that we can see very specifically fulfilled in retrospect from our vantage point in history. My Life Application Bible gives some of the details (blue writing), and this sermon from John MacArthur gives us more details (green writing).
I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns, standing beside the canal, and the horns were long. One of the horns was longer than the other but grew up later. I watched the ram as he charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against him, and none could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. Daniel 8:3-4
The two horns were the kings of Media and Persia. The longer horn represented the growing dominance of Persia in the Medo-Persian empire.
On all the rulers of Persia or the Medo-Persian Empire...they bore a ram, or the head of a ram, on some part of their garments or some part of their armor. Especially when they went to battle...When a Persian general or a Persian monarch stepped in front of his troops for a battle, he represented a ram somewhere on his attire...In the signs of the Zodiac, which come, of course, from the occult, the sign of the Ram, Aries, has always been connected with Persia...Other historians tell us that the guardian spirit of the Persian kingdom appeared under the form of a ram with clean feet and sharp hooves. The ram, then, in ancient times, symbolized Persia, the Persian Empire....Daniel is saying there will come a Persian Empire made up of two parts. One part will be taller than the other, but the taller part will come along later. Now, let me tell you what he means by that. Not long after that, Cyrus came to power...Media was already a major power in the world. In fact, Media had helped the Babylonian Empire conquer Assyria in 612 BC. Media was a major empire. It was a pretty big horn. And there was a little horn, Persia. Persia was relatively insignificant. A very small country lying to the south, had a total of less than 50,000 square miles. Relatively insignificant, out in the middle of nowhere in a wilderness. But Cyrus was a Persian, and he was a genius. And Cyrus, when he came to power in Persia, began to grow. And though he started later than the Medes, he finally conquered Media in 550 BC, and he made Persia the greatest of the two. And so when the two were combined, with Persia being the greatest, though it started smaller, he established the Medo-Persian Empire....When the non-existent Medo-Persian Empire, non-existent in Daniel's time, came together, that is exactly what did. It went west, and it took Syria, and it took Asia Minor, and it took Babylonia. It then pushed north, and it took Armenia and all the region around the Caspian Sea. It pushed south, and it took Egypt, and it took Ethiopia. And it already occupied the east, and that's how it became the empire of that entire part of the world. Just exactly as Daniel said, it moved west, north, and south.
As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between his eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground. He came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at him in great rage. I saw him attack the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering his two horns. The ram was powerless to stand against him; the goat knocked him to the ground and trampled on him, and none could rescue the ram from his power. Daniel 8:5-7
The goat represented Greece, and its large horn, Alexander the Great. This is an amazing prediction because Greece was not yet considered a world power when this prophecy was given. Alexander the Great conquered the world with great speed and military strategy, indicated by the goat's rapid movement. Shattering both horns symbolized Alexander breaking both parts of the Medo-Persian empire.
The goat became very great, but at the height of his power his large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven. Daniel 8:8
Alexander the Great died in his thirties at the height of his power. His kingdom was split into four parts under four generals: Ptolemy I of Egypt and Palestine; Seleucus of Babylonia and Syria; Lysimachus of Asia Minor; and Antipater of Macedon and Greece.
Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. Daniel 8:9
Israel ("the Beautiful Land") was attacked by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the small horn) in the second century BC. He was the eighth ruler of the Seleucid empire (Babylonia and Syria). He overthrew Israel's high priest, looted the temple, and replaced worship of God with a Greek form of worship. A further fulfillment of this prophecy of a powerful horn will occur in the future with the coming of the antichrist.
God predicted the rise of the Medo-Persian empire and it happened exactly as He said it would.
He predicted Alexander the Great, and everything was fulfilled precisely as He said it would be.
He predicted the four generals and He predicted Antiochus - it all played out exactly as He said in His Word that it would.
Isn't that amazing?!
He has predicted that the antichrist will come and we know that will come true as well. But He has also predicted that the Prince of princes, God Himself, will have the ultimate victory no matter how powerful God's enemies may seem. The fulfillment of all the other prophecies gives us complete confidence in the fulfillment of this as well.
Tomorrow's passage: Daniel 11-12, 1 Timothy 1
1 comment:
Amazing prophesy! Thanks for all of that information Tammy.
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