Daniel 8

Daniel 8:1-27

DANIEL’S VISION OF THE RAM AND HE GOAT Daniel 8:1-27. DR. McCARTNEY, Ex-Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, tells us that when once delayed for some hours in the town of Dijon, France, he went into its venerable Cathedral.Among the things seen there, this most profoundly impressed him,—the finely wrought stone pulpit, and just underneath it a figure of the recording angel with tablet in one hand and a pen in the other. The face of the angel was upturned toward the pulpit waiting to hear and to record what the preacher should say.Then McCartney reasons, “Always that angel stands below our pulpits. He is not waiting to put down things which the congregation might like to record in pleasure or displeasure, but, whether or not the words of the preacher are true to the Gospel with which he is trusted.”That thought makes preaching serious business, and it should compel the conscientious man to be careful of his words and fairly confident of his position. While the Bible, as a Book, is extremely clear in statement and comparatively easy of comprehension, yet there are points, particularly in the prophetic Books, where only diligent study, aided by the guidance of the Holy Ghost, can save one from serious misunderstanding; and if that one be a preacher, from possible false teaching.The Book of Daniel belongs in a peculiar way to that category. Its prophetic character, sweeping, as it does, in a preview, centuries and even millenniums, makes its meaning questionable at points; and so necessitates a combination of conscientious study, genuine courage, and above all, the guidance of the Holy Ghost.Fortunately for the student, this chapter is a bit freer from danger in the matter than other chapters of the volume. This is due solely to the circumstance that an angel interpreted Daniel’s dream and the interpretation is dependable.The dream here involved The Conquering Ram; A Furious He Goat, and A Horrible Little Horn.THE RAM The vision is carefully dated. “In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first” (Daniel 8:1). There are those who hold to scorn this statement. They declare it is even doubtful that Belshazzar ever reigned at all. Consequently they regard this painstaking statement, a work of supererogation. But so often in human history, statements found in the Bible, to be disputed by some, are at last clearly proven, either by the archeological spade or the discovery of testimony from some secular, yet authoritative source, that he who attacks this careful dating on Daniel’s part, runs a decided risk of loss of reputation as a scholar or scientist.The one thing that is in favor, at least, of Daniel’s statement in the matter, is the circumstance that seems to be increasingly clear, namely that Belshazzar acted as Vice Regent for the space of three full years.So Daniel did not fall into the absurdity of an impossible date, such as would have been true had he said, In the fifth year, or the tenth year of the reign of king Belshazzar. The Bible, because of its moral demands, is a much hated Book. But when its enemies get down to the somewhat delicate endeavor of discovering faults in it, they find that they have entered upon a difficult task; and that the statements of Scripture remarkably respond to the tests of time.

Many books are affected by time, as are eggs and milk; it addles them; but for this Book time results, as it does for wine; it only enriches its character. Divinely inspired dates are dependable.The vision is also located.“It came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai”. The palace of Shushan is declared by Pliny and Arian to have been on the river Eulaeus; while Herodotus maintains that it was on the banks of the Choaspes. When it is remembered that one of these rivers is a branch of the other; and when it is further kept in mind that, in a dream, localities, events and personages may be brought together irrespective of their actual local proximity, we are still without occasion of criticism.At the time Daniel had this dream he was a captive in Babylon, but like Joseph in Egypt, his character and competence had brought him to the highest office and honors. And yet, neither office nor honors could bring this man to forget his beloved homeland. In body he was a captive; in soul, he was free. In body he was in Babylon; but in spirit, in the land of Israel.How like life is that! More than once, when in England or some other of the old countries, have I dreamed of home, and was as vividly in this pulpit, back in this city on the banks of the Mississippi, as I had ever been when fully awake.

There is, therefore, nothing far-fetched in the inspired report. Like all revelation it runs true to both reason and experience.The vision is related. Daniel even descends to minutiae, in the matter.“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. “I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great” (Daniel 8:3-4). You have not forgotten, of course, that Nebuchadnezzar had two dreams. The first, recorded in the second chapter of this Book, was of the great figure that stood on a plain-head of gold; shoulders of silver; belly and thighs of brass; legs of iron; feet part of iron and part of clay; toes, iron mixed with miry clay.The second dream of the king is recorded in the fourth chapter. It was of a great tree in the midst of the earth, of matchless height, reaching unto Heaven, adorned with fair leaves and laden with fruit, under the shadow of which the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven dwelt, and all flesh was fed of it.And when Daniel interpreted the two dreams he showed that they referred to the same set of facts. Possibly the second one was given of God in order to quiet any fears that either the king or the Prophet might have had concerning the meaning of the first.So in Daniel’s experience a second dream is given that the points of parallelism might substantiate the first, for in this second dream a certain section of history is shown to parallel that of the first.In Daniel’s first dream the Medo-Persian nation was like to a bear, raising itself up on one side; and the Grecian nation was symbolized by a leopard which had on the back of it four wings of a fowl; whereas in this second dream, Medo-Persia is represented by the ram with two horns, one higher than the other, for in this dual monarchy Persia had come up last, but had risen beyond its companion kingdom of Media.The war the Medo-Persian king waged was westward, northward and southward. The armies of Cyrus swept toward the Mediterranean and Black seas, toward the Persian Gulf; and they marched victoriously on and on until all western Asia and Egypt were subject to them.When it is remembered that Daniel uttered this prophecy long before the facts that followed it, inspiration has, in its fulfilment, a scientific demonstration. Moses wrote: “When a Prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is’ the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously” (Deuteronomy 18:22).While Jeremiah says: “The Prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the Prophet shall come to pass, then shall the Prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him”.By both the negative and positive side of this law, Daniel was a Prophet indeed.

For twenty-seven hundred years history has run into the mould of his prophecy. The conquering ram came, and his conquests are a record of secular history as well as of sacred prediction, and so the rise of Greece the he goat!Once more the language of the Prophet is appropriate. “The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter; and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure”.THE FURIOUS HE-GOAT “And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. “And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. “And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. “Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven” (Daniel 8:5-8). The change of figures indicate forms of civilization. In this connection it is interesting to note that Nebuchadnezzar’s dream pictured world kingdoms, first as a great human figure made up of precious metals, so colossal and imposing in appearance as to lead the king to materialize his dream and set it up in the plain as an object worthy of worship. That was Humanism—in its initial form.His second dream was of a great tree, the wide-spreading branches of which were covered with beautiful leaves, provided at once shade, rest and fruit for all flesh—Nature worship!Such is man’s opinion of the civilization that he produces. In his sight it is both great and glorious. But when Daniel dreamed world governments took on bestial features instead, and he saw them under the voracious and brutal figures of a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a beast indescribable in nature and character.It is a characteristic of false prophets to see beauty in world powers and to prate about constant improvement and the approaching perfection of civilization. It is an equal certainty that no true prophet ever speaks after that manner.

He gives, not man’s estimate, but God’s estimate of world kingdoms. They are not beautiful from the standpoint of Him who sees all and perfectly comprehends their bestial nature.In this second dream of Daniel’s, the animals accepted as types of Medo-Persia and Greece are domestic. Sheep are such naturally docile animals that they are selected in Scripture as a type of saints; and yet, an infuriated ram is a warrior to be feared. A goat is by nature less domestic, and his feeding habits, failing to discern between the grass of God’s provision and bits of leather and other refuse of the earth, make it impossible for him to be selected as a type of saints. His domestication fits in to represent such a civilization as Greece enjoyed where letters and art as well as physical development and passion for pleasure reached their acme.And yet it will be noted that these domesticated animals, types of new forms of civilization, come together in deadly combat, and notwithstanding the fact that they have a certain specie-relationship their fury knows no bounds, and the battle is to death.“I saw him (the he goat) * * smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand” (Daniel 8:7). Here also prophecy was converted into history. The notable horn between the eyes of the he goat was Alexander the Great. He is the man who, rising up 334 years B.C., practically leaped across the Hellespont conquering and to conquer as he swept on with battle after battle until he had broken the power of Persia and Media combined, and became the undisputed monarch of the world. It is he of whom it has long been said that he wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. And when, at 32 years of age, he died as a result of a career that was as intemperate and beastly as his 12 years of battles had been brilliant, four of his generals divided the government between them, and Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus and Ptolemy appropriated the kingdoms of Syria, Egypt, Macedonia and Asia Minor, and so fulfilled this prophecy to the last letter.Highly civilized nations, then, are not less destructive and cruel. Man knows nothing of a civilization further back than between 6,000 and 7,000 years.

In other words, he has absolutely no information of any civilization more remote in time than that recorded in the Scriptures,—a profound argument in favor not only of their veracity but of their completeness, and as we trace civilization, whether as sacredly recorded in the Scriptures or as exhumed from the archives of the past, we find that its supposed progress is not associated with an increasing disposition to peace.I think it may be consented that Greece and Rome enjoyed higher forms of civilization than characterized Babylonia and Medio-Persia, but fighting, instead of decreasing, increased; and Miltiades, Alexander, and the Caesars made for themselves immortal reputation, not as statesmen but as warriors; not as philosophers, but as fighters!This age carries no indication of war-cessation. On the contrary it is fast fulfilling the prophecy of the Saviour Himself of “wars and rumors of wars’” for “the last days”.Recently Kirby Page, a socialist, a representative of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in “The World Tomorrow,” published a summary of 555 replies to the questionnaire at Muskingham College, directed and edited by Prof.

J. J. Smith. This questionnaire involved over forty questions concerning war. Among them this question.“Does the Bible predict wars until the final Coming of Christ?”Three hundred, thirty of these 555 answered “Yes.” Sixty-six answered “No.” One hundred, forty-four could not tell, and 15 refused to answer.The probabilities are that the 144 were ignorant of the Bible, and the 66 were Modernists and consequently incapable of discerning its meaning. But it is a fair tribute to the Bible study of the day to find that 330, or considerably more than a majority of those to whom this question was submitted, answered unhesitatingly “Yes, the Bible so predicts!”And, sad to say, the present prospect is for an early and frightful fulfilment of all that the Scriptures say upon that subject.Two years ago Ludendorff prophesied that Europe would be in another war at this time.

The world is congratulating itself that this prophecy has not found fulfilment so soon, although Japan and China, representing so large a part of Asia, are still in conflict. Russia has expressed her expectation of being ready for war to enforce her Communistic ideas upon the world by 1934.

The best informed militarists of the earth are practically uniform in their agreement that the day of the next World Conflict is not far away.No less an authority than David Lloyd George tells us that discoveries made almost at the end of the last war, had it not ended just when it did, would have produced horrors indescribable, and that when we have another, new terrors that no man ever dreamed, will drive us to a distraction past human imagination.Prof. Lewin of Berlin University was reported a while ago as having said, “There are now known 25 varieties of poison gas against which all antedotes and preventatives are useless.”Dr. W. Dyson tells us that “If we cannot excise the war spirit we must be prepared for the adoption of still more appalling methods of destruction; for example, the liberation of disease germs, a systematic study of spreading pestilence, not to speak of a thousand kindred forms of destruction now being made ready for the next conflict.”Little wonder that one writer says, “Unevangelized science knows no pity;” nor yet that God remarks in Holy Scripture, “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh”.THE LITTLE HORN“And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. “And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. “Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. “And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered” (Daniel 8:9-12). Then the Heavenly saint interprets:“And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. “And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. “And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the’ Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. “And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days” (Daniel 8:23-26). The origin of this little horn identifies it. It does not come out of Rome as did the diverse king of the seventh chapter, but is of Grecian descent instead. The fact is that the seventh chapter of Daniel compasses, as we have seen, the entire Gentile period including the final coming of the antichrist and the King of all the world, the Saviour.But this eighth chapter ends with the breaking up of the Grecian government and the rise of Antiochus. There is so much in common between the character in Daniel 7:24-26 and that one of Dan 8:9-12 that one is tempted, at first blush, to identify the two. But when it is remembered that in Daniel’s prophecy, and in fact, in practically all prophetic Scripture, Greece plays its part and passes from the scene of action forever, while Rome, last of the four world kingdoms, only breaks into bits as the feet break into toes, and abides in this somewhat shattered form, until the end of the Gentile age, it is easily understood that he who concluded the Grecian period, is only a prototype of the beast that shall come to place and power and exercise oppression in ((the end of this age”.We come, then, in this eighth chapter toA-, THE Whether one read after the pre-or post-millennial writer, he finds them agreed that Daniel refers here to Antiochus Epiphanes and sets forth at one and the same time his history and presents him as the type of the man of sin. Perhaps no one in all human history, Judas himself not excepted, so strikingly symbolizes the beast of Revelation as did Antiochus Epiphanes.Antiochus came into power as a usurper (Daniel 11:21). He named himself Epiphanes, or “the illustrious,” and his oppressed subjects changed the descriptive epithet to “Epimanes” the “mad” or “the insane.”On some of the coins he gave himself the title “Theos,” or “god.” “A mouth speaking great things”.Like the antichrist, of whom he is the type, he made war against the saints—the Jews, plundering Jerusalem and slaying 80,000 men, women and children; and carrying away 40,000 more, additional, as prisoners, he sold them into slavery. He plundered the sanctuary, blasphemed the Name of God, stole the gold and silver vessels, including the golden table and the altar of incense, rifled the subterraneous vaults, seizing at least 1800 talents of gold; and then to prove his utter contempt and hatred for the place even, as well as for the people who worshiped there, he sacrificed a sow—the most unclean animal,—upon the holy altar, and sprinkled the temple with the broth thereof.To further perfect himself as a prototype of the antichrist, he put down the Jewish feasts, abolished the Sabbath, did away with circumcision, struck a deadly blow against all the ordinances of the Jewish religion. He burned their sacred books, and drove a multitude of them to mountains and deserts and caves. He erected a temple to Zeus, over the very altar of Jehovah and commanded sacrifices to be presented there.

Strangely enough he started these heathen sacrifices on Kisleu 25, or December 25, thus by anticipation, staining our Lord’s birthday.He compelled even the Jews to bring their sacrifices to this altar on the pain of death if they refused, and more than one faithful Jew paid the price of martyrdom for refusal.But, even as the antichrist, when he comes, will finally meet his fate at the hands of the true Christ, so Antiochus was headed for opposition and eventual trouble.Mattathias, the priest of Modin, headed the first armed resistance and, like Moses in Egypt, he struck down, with his own hand, a brother Jew who was ready to obey the godless orders of Antiochus. When at last Mattathias died, Judas the Maccabee became the head of the company that Mattathias had led in revolt, and his brother Simon joined him in the leadership of the revolution.While Antiochus was indulging himself in a licentious festival at Daphne, Judas defeated his leader.The bankruptcy of the fortunes of Antiochus began from that time.

Judas recaptured Jerusalem, restored and cleansed and reconsecrated the sanctuary, reinstating its ceremonials, and from that time the fortunes of Judaism waxed, and those of Epiphanes waned.The very moment when he expected to carry a big force against Jerusalem and recapture it, a fatal malady struck him. Braving the sufferings of the same, he ordered his charioteer to drive him rapidly toward Jerusalem where he expected to crush all opposition; but the chariot, in its mad race, was overturned and Antiochus was flung to the earth and severely injured. A few days later, on the borders of Persia, he died, half insane with remorseful conscience. This was the rise and fall of this little horn.As a type of the coming antichrist his conduct was well-nigh complete. Strangely enough, his history lasted “a time, times, and half a time”, “forty and two months”, “one thousand two hundred sixty days”, three years and a half. In fact, the type failed at no point.He came to his supremacy by flatteries, he wore out the saints of God, he blasphemed the holy Temple, he profaned the Holy Name, and set himself forth as god.

He sought to crush the entire people of God, and carried on for three years and a half, and then met a miserable fate!Herein is the comfort of believers. The antichrist will surely come; his heavy hand of oppression will be upon God’s people again, upon the Jew; he will change times and seasons; he will desecrate holy places, convert them into bacchanalian hostelries; he will kill all who refuse his orders, but he will continue for three and a half years only, and then suddenly will be cut off without mercy.Daniel concludes this chapter in the same perturbation its perusal superinduces for students of the same, he “fainted, and was sick”, “astonished at the vision” (Daniel 8:27).But, of course, Daniel’s Book does not terminate here.

When we move into the ninth chapter we move toward that Blessed Hope, the Coming and final King, the King of Glory. And when once we merge from the darkness of man’s administration into the dawning light of His promised Appearance, our despairing hearts will revive with hope.Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his articles, describes a ship caught in a storm off a rocky coast. Any moment it might strike and go to pieces. Terror reigned with all on board. One man, more daring than the rest, crawled through a perilous passage to the pilot house. Coming there he found the pilot lashed to his post, his hands on the wheel, and saw him turning the ship little by little to the open sea.

When the pilot saw the terror-stricken face of the intruder, he smiled.The man hurried back to the deck below, shouting as he came, “All’s well! All’s well!

I have seen the pilot and he smiled! All’s well!”The panic was averted; despair was changed to hope: fear and sorrow took wings; arid confidence and joy reigned supreme.So when the antichrist has come and taken the helm of the world, has run it into the rocks and shoals, and threatened it with eternal disaster, suddenly another will appear, the Pilot divinely appointed; and when He has put His hand to the wheel, and the smile of His face is seen by the saints, then, oh, then, the world itself can become calm, contentment can be its conscious experience, for when Christ is once in possession and directs the destiny of the earth, every Christian in it can shout for joy, “All is well!”