Daniel 8

Prophecy is hard and after it has had years and years of people sifting through the details, what was prophesied could be misunderstood because of so many different interpretations of the prophecy. So it is with Daniel chapter 8.

Most believe as I do that Daniel had this dream before any of these things have taken place, but all has been fulfilled since.

I believe that Daniel has received a vision of some of the events that will happen to his Jewish brothers and sisters.

I also believe that we are seeing a type or example of the anti-christ. Just as some of OT events are types of Jesus Christ!

1 John 4:3 “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”

In my extreme humble opinion, Daniel is made to see future events of types of anti-christ.

Verses 1-2........Shushan or Susa.......Esther 1:2 “That in those days, when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace,” .......also in Nehemiah 1:1 “The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace,” ........Ulai was the Hebrew name for a river near the city of Susa. It was known as Eulaus to the Greeks.

Vision..... this would be 2 years after chapter 7, but before chapter 5.

He was asleep it seems as he was in ch. 7

Verse 3-4 & 20..........The Ram with one horn higher than the other......horns in Scripture signifies kingdoms, power.......This ram as we will read is the Medes-Persians empire...........

It conquers from the east (why it is not listed) the west, south, and north.

The longer or higher horn represents Persia under Cyrus as they would start out small but grow strong and large.

No other country or nation could stand against it. This empire did as it pleased because of that and became great.

To recap the symbols for the Mede-Persia empire was the chest and arms of silver, the bear with bones in it’s mouth, and the ram.

Verses 5 & 21........The he-goat or male goat had one horn coming from the west which is Greece or Macedonia......this goat didn’t touch the ground, signifying speed.

1. The Greeks were under the rule of Alexander the Great.

Verses 6-7 & 21.........Greece was extremely outnumbered....I believe they said it was 10 Medes-Persians to the Greeks 1.

The history channel states that the numbers were like 250,000 to 50,000.

Alexander’s skillful battlefield strategies are still studied today.

The vision shows Alexander as very angry. His father Philipp II, King of Macedonia, was assassinated by the captain of his bodyguards. It is said this angered Alexander to the point that he was going to prove his father. This seems to be the motivation behind his great conquest to conquer territory.

He was 20 when he succeeded his father and joined Macedonia with Greece, through savvy strategy, as some historians put it.

The goat shattered the 2 horns of the ram......Mede-Persia had lost its power.

Greece with Alexander as king was too strong, no country or kingdom could go up against them.

Verse 8 & 22........Alexander the Great fell, he magnified himself, just as his name did “the Great”.

At his peak of conquering and power, the large horn was broken.....meaning Alexander died it seems without incident.

Alexander died at the age of 33......there are 2 accounts of his death.....he had went to India, wanting to conquer that area, but he never got to.......

On either 10 or 11 June 323 BC, Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, in Babylon, at age 33.There are two different versions of Alexander's death, and details of the death differ slightly in each. Plutarch's account is that roughly 14 days before his death, Alexander entertained admiral Nearchus and spent the night and next day drinking with Medius of Larissa. Alexander developed a fever, which worsened until he was unable to speak. ..........In the second account, Diodorus recounts that Alexander was struck with pain after downing a large bowl of unmixed wine in honour of Heracles, followed by 11 days of weakness; he did not develop a fever, instead dying after some agony.

He died not by being conquered but by, some say “natural causes”.

Very important he left no heir to his throne.......Four horns come up in place of the large horn........

4 kingdoms........When Alexander (the large horn) died, he left two sons, Alexander IV and Herakles, both of whom were murdered. After a period of infighting and struggle, the empire came to be partitioned among four Greek military leaders (“four prominent horns”)

This division took place roughly according to the four directions....(four winds of heaven)

There were 4 generals in Alexander’s army that fought for these areas.

Cassander......Greece

Lysimachus......Part of Macedonia and Asia minor

Ptolemy.....Egypt

Seleucus......a large part of the middle east including Jerusalem.

Verse 9.......A little horn came out of the Seleucid horn.......toward the Beautiful land which is Israel.

He started small and grew big. This is speaking of Antiochus Epiphanes.....

Now in chapter 7 the little horn represents the anti-christ in the end times......the reason both are described as “little horns” is that both reveal a time to come (for Daniel) where God’s people will be horrifically persecuted for just being God’s people.

In the future still to come, the revealed anti-christ will do the same, profane the temple, set himself up as God and make war with God’s chosen!

Antiochus did the same and it is a fact in history.

He came to power after his brother King Seleucus was murdered, then he reaked havoc.

Verse 10-12 & 23-25....this is picture of the persecution toward the Jews and the king’s stopping of sacrifices, making mockery of the temple, and opposing the One True God!

It states that Antiochus will magnify himself as equal with God (prince of host or commander of the host).

Verse 12.....The Jews were given over to Antiochus, it seems to say because of their transgression........

may allude to the sins of the Jewish people themselves that brought about divine judgment in the form of Antiochus’s persecutions, the particular acts of sin perpetrated upon Israel by Antiochus,31 or both. Probably the first alternative is correct because the books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees report that many in Israel were not faithful to their God and even adopted the idolatrous Greek religion (cf. 1 Macc 1:11–15, 43). These sins would have brought about God’s chastening in order to purify the nation.

Verses 13-14........Without introduction two heavenly beings suddenly appeared on the scene. Daniel “heard” an angel (“a holy one”) “speaking” (to another angel). A second angel (“holy one”) said to the one who was speaking, “How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled?”

The angel’s question is, How long would temple worship cease and the persecution of the saints described in Daniel’s vision continue? No services would be held in the temple because it would be defiled by Antiochus, and idols would be set up in the temple precincts.

The case for the 2,300-day view seems conclusive, indicating that the period in view covered six years and almost four months. December 164 (the reconsecration of the sanctuary) is the termination date given in the text, thus the 2,300 days began in the fall of 170 B.C. Something significant must have occurred at that time that marked the beginning of the persecution, and such an event did take place. In 170 B.C. Onias III (a former high priest) was murdered at the urging of the wicked high priest Menelaus, whom Antiochus had appointed to that position for a bribe. From this point trouble between Antiochus’s administration and the Jews began to brew (cf. 2 Macc 4:7–50). In 169 B.C. Antiochus looted the temple and murdered some of the Jewish people (cf. 1 Macc 1:20–28). The altar to Zeus was not set up until 167 B.C., but the persecution had been going on long before that event. According to the 2,300-day view, therefore, the whole persecution period (the time that the saints “will be trampled underfoot”) was involved, not just the span from the cessation of the sacrifice and the desecration of the sanctuary until the rededication of the temple. Verse 14 concludes by stating that after this period of persecution, the temple would be “reconsecrated.” Just over three years after the altar to Zeus was set up, Judas Maccabeus cleansed and rededicated the temple on December 14, 164 B.C. (cf. 1 Macc 4:52). Today the Jews celebrate the Feast of Hanukkah {Feast of Lights}(“dedication”) to commemorate this momentous event (cf. John 10:22).

At the end of verse 25.... “he shall be broken without hand” (without human agency)

Antiochus died, some reports has him dying from insanity and his bowels rupturing (disease of the bowels).

After hearing of this......The time period covered, 2,300 days, figures to about 6 1/3 years. We believe this prophecy was fulfilled before the birth of Christ, during the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV (Epiphanes). Antiochus desecrated the temple in Jerusalem and severely persecuted the Jews from about September 171 BC to December 165 BC. When Antiochus died, the Jews purified and rededicated the temple, just as Daniel had predicted. These events are commemorated in the celebration of Hanukkah..

Both Alexander the Great and Antiochus Epiphanies are types of anti-christ......one cunning, smart, and savvy......the other cruel, and vile! Both are representative of the 2 periods in the Tribulation.

This was also written to warn the Jews of things to come.

It was a very emotional vision for Daniel and the understanding of something that was to come was hard and exhausting and even fearful!

Verses 15-18......While Daniel was gazing at the vision, “trying to understand it,” suddenly he was confronted by an imposing figure who had the appearance of “a man” (gāber). The word gāber is derived from a root that means “strong or mighty,” and the term here describes a “mighty” being in human form. Though the angel Gabriel has been suggested, this being is best understood to be God himself. In the following verse it seems to be the “voice” of this same person heard ordering Gabriel to explain the vision, demonstrating his superiority over that important angel.

This verse contains the first instance in Scripture where a holy angel is designated by name. Gabriel is a prominent angel, also appearing to Zechariah, who was the father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:19) and to Mary (Luke 1:26). Michael (cf. 10:13, 21; 12:1; Jude 9; Rev 12:7), called the archangel in Jude 9 and represented as a leader among the holy angels in Rev 12:7, is the only other holy angel named in Scripture.

Probably in this context “the time of the end” should be taken to mean the end of the events prophesied in this chapter, namely, the persecution of the Jews and their deliverance in the Maccabean period. Antiochus IV is certainly in view here.

The Seleucids, like the Ptolemies before them, held a suzerainty over Judea: they respected Jewish culture and protected Jewish institutions. This policy was drastically reversed by Antiochus IV, seemingly after what was either a dispute over leadership of the Temple in Jerusalem and the office of High Priest, or possibly a revolt whose nature was lost to time after being crushed. Antiochus issued decrees forbidding many traditional Jewish practices and began a campaign of persecution against devout Jews. This triggered a revolt against his rule, the Maccabean Revolt.[13] Scholars of Second Temple Judaism therefore sometimes refer to Antiochus' reign as the 'Antiochene crises' for the Jews.[14] These decrees were a departure from typical Seleucid practice, which did not attempt to suppress local religions in their empire.[15]

Books of Maccabees[edit]

📷Mina of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Local revolts against the Seleucid Empire were not unusual, but most were not successful. The revolt that Antiochus IV had triggered in Judea was unusually well chronicled and preserved, however. According to the book of 2 Maccabees, while Antiochus was campaigning in Egypt, a rumor spread that he had been killed. In Judea, the deposed High Priest Jason gathered a force of 1,000 soldiers and made a surprise attack on the city of Jerusalem.[16] Menelaus, the High Priest appointed by Antiochus, was forced to flee Jerusalem during a riot. King Antiochus returned from Egypt in 168 BC, enraged by his defeat; he attacked Jerusalem and restored Menelaus, then executed many Jews.[17]

When these happenings were reported to the king, he thought that Judea was in revolt. Raging like a wild animal, he set out from Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children, a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery. — 2 Maccabees 5:11–14[18]

After restoring Menelaus, Antiochus IV issued decrees aimed at helping the most enthusiastically pro-Greek faction of Jews (usually called "Hellenizers") against the traditionalists. He outlawed Jewish religious rites and traditions and the Temple in Jerusalem was changed to a syncretic Greek-Jewish cult that included worship of Zeus. The city of Jerusalem was sacked a second time in the disorder. Antiochus established a military Greek citadel called the Acra in Jerusalem to serve as a stronghold for Hellenized Jews and a Greek military garrison. This happened from 168–167 BC.[19]

Traditionally, as expressed in the First and Second Books of the Maccabees, the Maccabean Revolt was painted as a national resistance to a foreign political and cultural oppression. In modern times, however, scholars have argued that Antiochus IV was more intervening in a civil war between the traditionalist Jews in the country and the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem.[20][21]

The revolt also led to the writing of the Book of Daniel, where a villain called the "King of the North" is generally considered to be a reference to Antiochus IV. The portrayal of Antiochus there attacking the holy city of Jerusalem but eventually meeting his end would influence later Christian depictions of the Antichrist.[22]

The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, what he called the Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 prophecy during the Second Great Awakening led him to the conclusion that Daniel's "cleansing of the sanctuary" was cleansing of the world from sin when Christ would come, and he and many others prepared, but October 22, 1844 came, and they were disappointed.[1][2][3][4]

These events paved the way for the Adventists who formed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. They contended that what had happened on October 22 was not Jesus' return, as Miller had thought, but the start of Jesus' final work of atonement, the cleansing in the heavenly sanctuary, leading up to the Second Coming.[1][2][3][4]

“Jesus and Alexander died at thirty-three, One lived and died for self; one died for you and me. The Greek died on a throne; the Jew died on a cross; One’s life a triumph seemed; the other but a loss. One led vast armies forth; the other walked alone; One shed a whole world’s blood; the other gave His own. One won the world in life and lost it all in death; The other lost His life to win the whole world’s faith. Jesus and Alexander died at thirty-three, One died in Babylon; and one on Calvary. One gained all for self; and one Himself He gave. One conquered every throne; the other every grave. The one made himself God; the God made Himself less; The one lived but to blast, the other but to bless. When died the Greek, forever fell his throne of swords; But Jesus died to live forever Lord of lords. Jesus and Alexander died at thirty-three, The Greek made all men slaves; the Jew made all men free. One built a throne on blood; the other on love, The one was born of earth; the other from above; One won all this earth, to lose all earth and heaven; The other gave up all, that all to Him be given. The Greek forever died; the Jew forever lives. He loses all who gets, and wins all things who gives.” (Charles Ross Weede)