Ready to Fight my Battle
Daniel experiences an epic vision of future events that will come to pass. The rising power of Persia and Greece is on its way, including persecution to the people of God. While we resist evil, we must not forget the greater enemy - Satan, the saints' adversary. We expect trials and prepare ourselves for spiritual warfare because the kingdom of darkness is advancing. Yet, Christians will win the war when they stand with God and his army.
Two years after the vision recorded in Daniel 7, Daniel received a second vision. Daniel himself tells the reader about the vision in the first person throughout and recounts the interpretation supplied by a heavenly being. He briefly dates this experience to the third year of Belshazzar (Dan 8:1). Since we don’t know when Belshazzar began his coregency with Nabonidus, we can only approximately date the vision to sometime between 550 and 539 BC, toward the end of the Babylonian Empire.
As we will see, this vision, like the previous one, is highly symbolic and needs interpretation. The connection to history is made more concretely to specific nations, so there is not the same disagreement among scholars that we saw in the previous chapter as to which nations the figures point to. Still, as will become clear, the overall theme remains the same: in spite of present difficulties, God is in control, and he will have the final victory.
THE VISION BY THE ULAI CANAL (DAN 8:2–14)
In this vision, Daniel finds himself by the Ulai Canal near Susa. Susa is one of the main cities of Persia, which, as we will see, plays a central role in the vision. The setting outside the city allows space for the action that will follow in the vision.
At first, a lone ram appears (Dan 8:3–4). Like any ram it has two horns, but this ram is distinctive in that one of its horns is longer than the other. The significance of this and other details of the vision will become obvious in the interpretation that follows. Then this ram strikes out in every direction, and nothing can stop it. No other animal could challenge it, and so the ram “became great” (Dan 8:4).
That is until the appearance of a goat “with a prominent horn between its eyes” (Dan 8:5–8). This goat attacked the ram from the west and broke off the ram’s two horns. Without its horns the ram was defenseless and soon destroyed. Now the goat “became very great” (Dan 8:8). But then during its height, the goat’s horn was broken off and replaced by four other horns.
Now the vision focuses on the horns, and the attention turns to yet another horn that grew out of one of the four new ones (Dan 8:9–14). This horn grew south and east toward the “Beautiful Land”; the fact that the devastation that follows concerns the sanctuary of the Lord and its rituals makes it clear at this point that we are talking about Judah.
Indeed, the power of this horn is such that it even challenges the powers of heaven since it touched the host of heaven and even threw down and trampled some of the “starry host,” which references the angelic realm. It affected the worship of God by suspending the daily sacrifice and throwing down the sanctuary (temple). God’s people become another victim of this powerful horn. Interestingly this devastation is said to be caused by “rebellion,” presumably by the people of God themselves.
At the end of the vision, Daniel reports that he heard a conversation between two angels or “holy ones.” One asks the other “how long” will this last? How long will “the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, the surrender of the sanctuary and the trampling underfoot of the LORD’s people” last (Dan 8:13)? The response: “It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated” (Dan 8:14).
THE INTERPRETATION (DAN 8:15–27)
From Daniel’s sixth-century-BC perspective, none of this would have been clear to him. He needed heavenly help to understand. We will see that this vision describes events that occur between the time of Daniel and the mid-second century BC. Thus, I will be able to fill in some details not provided by the angelic interpreter but will be careful to point out when we go beyond the information that the angel provides.
While Daniel is trying to understand the vision, he notices someone who looks like a man standing near him, who turns out to be the angel Gabriel, whom we know from elsewhere in Daniel (Dan 9:21) as well as the New Testament (Lk 1:19, 26) as the angel commissioned to speak on behalf of God. An unidentified voice, probably to be understood as God’s, orders him to inform Daniel of the meaning of the vision. Gabriel thus begins by telling him that the vision concerns the “time of the end” (Dan 8:17), though it is not immediately clear whether he means the end of time or the end of the present oppression or perhaps some other end.
Moving to the content of the vision, he gets right to the point where he identifies the first animal, the ram with the two horns, as the combined nations of Media and Persia. The goat is Greece and the prominent horn is its first king, who later readers would know refers to Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), though that identification would be beyond the knowledge of someone who lived in the sixth century BC. The breaking off of the first horn represented Alexander’s death at a young age, and the four horns that replaced it the four generals—often referred to as the Diadochi—who divided the vast Greek Empire between themselves when Alexander died.
The violent and destructive horn at the end of the vision that would wreak havoc on the people of God and their worship is here described as emerging from the four horns and as a “fierce-looking king, a master of intrigue.” This king will rise up “when rebels have become completely wicked” (Dan 8:23). He will oppress the “holy people” (Dan 8:24), those who are God’s faithful followers, and will even challenge God himself, “the Prince of princes” (Dan 8:25). But in spite of his success, “he will be destroyed, but not by human power” (Dan 8:25).
Gabriel then announces that the vision of the “evenings and mornings” (Dan 8:26) is true, by which he points back to the “2,300 evenings and mornings” (Dan 8:14) that will take place between the desecration and the reconsecration of the sanctuary—that is, the temple.
Daniel’s reaction is interesting. His energy is obviously spent by the experience, and he still does not understand. After all, the events so described are in the far future. That said, he was not completely debilitated and “went about the king’s business” (Dan 8:27).
CONCLUSION
We can understand Daniel’s confusion. God gave him the vision before the end of the Babylonian Empire. Persia and Greece were both on the rise at that time, but they were certainly not the powers that they would become in the following decades and centuries. The four horns and the little horn would have been completely unknown to a sixth-century Daniel, but we know the little horn that became large is Antiochus Epiphanes, who in the mid-second century BC brought unprecedented persecution on the faithful people of God while some of their countrymen (the rebels in the vision) became his collaborators. We will have more to say about Antiochus at a later point, but he culminates the anticipated persecution of God’s faithful (in spite of present difficulty).
That said, the vision sees a determinate end to the persecution. He will be able to despoil the temple but only for a limited period—2,300 evenings and mornings. There is some ambiguity in this number, but I suggest it is intentional so that this number, while communicating a decisive end, cannot be used to determine a date on a calendar. What is certain is that it is coming to an end. Because, after all, God is in control, and he will have the final victory.
24 His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints.
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.