Horns

 

In the third year of melek Belshazzar, a vision appeared to Daniel. Behold! A ram was standing in front of the Ulai Canal. It had two long horns, and the longer one came up after the shorter one. (8:1-3)

 

This sounds a lot like chapter 7, but the first beast matches the bear, not the lion. Since we’re getting toward Babylon’s end, starting here makes sense. God’s focusing on the next kingdoms in line.

 

Daniel 2	Kingdom	Daniel 7	Daniel 8
Head of Gold	Babylon	Winged Lion
Chest and Arms of Silver	Medo-Persia	Bear	Ram
Belly and Thighs of Brass	Greece	4-Winged Leopard	Goat
Legs of Iron	Rome	Strange Beast	Little Horn
Feet of Iron and Clay	Fragmented Rome	Ten Horns	Little Horn

 

 

By now you know we’re going to develop this parallelism as we go. And let’s not forget that each vision starts political and ends spiritual. Each vision has more spiritual emphasis than the one before it.

We’re also starting to see a fourth pattern. God presents each vision in chronological order. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream started with Babylon, and then went through the world empires in sequence. The vision of the four beasts follows the same program, and so does this one.

The explanations don’t follow this rule. Daniel explained Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in sequence, but when Daniel had his first vision, he asked about the fourth beast, not the first three. That’s because the fourth beast was the most important one. The same sort of thing happens here.

This vision starts with a ram — a sacrificial animal. That makes us think of the Temple services. But this image goes back much further. When God made his covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, He told Abraham to bring a ram to sacrifice. He also sacrificed a goat (Gen 15:9–10), another animal we’ll see in the vision.(1) Later, when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, God provided a ram for that sacrifice (Gen 22:13).

Please don’t get me wrong here. I’m not trying to say that the ram or the goat represent the Temple. They’re just part of the atmosphere. The scenes I mentioned were so much a part of Daniel’s identity that he would have noticed them instantly, even though the vision doesn’t directly use them that way. They give the vision a spiritual flavor from the beginning.
           
Daniel saw the ram butting westward, northward, and southward, and no other beasts could stand before him, nor was there anyone to rescue from his power; but he did as he pleased and became great. (8:4)

 

 

The ram represents Medo-Persia (8:20). Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon to his west and much of central Asia to his north. His heirs conquered Egypt to the south, and tried to enter Greece to the far west. Medo-Persia truly magnified itself. And this brings us another pattern.

This time, the pattern’s inside a single revelation. Daniel uses gadal (great) to describe Medo-Persia. Because Medo-Persia conquered wide regions, that’s pretty natural. As the vision goes on, each kingdom will be “greater” — bigger than the one before it.

 

While Daniel watched, a male goat with a single horn between his eyes came from the west. Without touching the ground he smashed the ram and trampled on him, destroying his horns. (8:5-7)

 

Alexander the Great was unstoppable. He moved his Greek army so fast it almost seemed to move over the ground without touching it (8:21). The goat became very great, but at the height of his power, his large horn was broken off (8:8).(2) In its place grew four prominent horns toward the four winds of the heavens. This should sound familiar. It’s another description of how Greece broke up.(3)

Out of one of them grew a small horn (8:9a). This sounds simple, but this sentence gives interpreters fits because the Hebrew is complicated. What did the horn grow out of? The winds? Or the horns? The answer will tell us how to understand the vision. Hang in there with me.

Most words in English don’t have gender. A table or a car is just a table or a car. But if you remember your high school Spanish, a table (la mesa) is feminine, and requires feminine adjectives. A car (el coché) is masculine, and must have masculine adjectives. Pronouns have to use the same gender as the original noun. Hebrew gender works just like Spanish.

 

verse 8	four (horns) (4)	toward the four winds	of the heavens
	arba (qeren)(5) (fem)	le arba ruhot (fem or masc)	ha shamayim (masc)
verse 9		from the one	from them
		umin-ha ahatat (fem)	mehem (masc)

 

At first glance this doesn’t seem to solve anything. We can slide the words from verse 9 left one column and still get gender agreement. Or can we?

In theory, either the horns or the winds could be the antecedent for “them.” But “them” is masculine and “horns” is feminine so that won’t work. Even if it could, “horns” isn’t in the original sentence, so it can’t be an antecedent for anything. This means that “them” has to refer to either “winds” or “heavens.”(6) The compound phrases “toward the four winds – of the heavens” and “from the one – from them” are parallel in structure.(7) This tells us that the little horn comes from one of the four winds of the heavens.

Now to a western mind, that seems a little silly. Since when do horns come out of winds? They come out of animals! The little horn should be a branch of one of the four prominent horns. But God isn’t bound by our sensibilities. A horn symbolizes royal power, and God raises up kingdoms (2:21). So when the little horn comes out of one of the winds of the heavens — where God lives — it suggests that God has a hand in what’s going on. This emphasis makes us think about Revelation 12 and 13 where the same symbolism is used to represent both Satan and the kingdoms he controls. There’s a distinct satanic flavor to the little horn.

The expression “four winds of the heavens” is an idiom that refers to the directions of the compass. So this kingdom doesn’t literally come out of the winds. It’s just coming from one of the four cardinal directions.

Let’s not stop there. In the last chapter, we saw that the little horn represented the blasphemous power of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dark Ages. And this brings up yet another pattern. When God uses a symbol a second time, He’s telling us to look back at the first place He used it to see what it means.(8) We’ll check this comparison in a moment.

The little horn became exceedingly great (8:9). It magnified itself to be equal to the Commander of the heavenly army (8:11).(9) That’s as big as you can get. This character isn’t content to rule the world. He has to take over God’s territory. That’s blasphemy. And it’s Satan’s big sin (Isa 14:12-14, Ezek 28:2, 6).

 

Ram	“great”
Goat	“very great”
Little Horn	“exceeding great” — equal to God —

 

The Medo-Persian Empire was large. The Greek Empire under Alexander was larger. The empire of the little horn is even larger. This can’t be anybody but Rome. It conquered Egypt toward the South, Persia toward the East, and Palestine — the Beautiful Land (8:9). And that sounds like I just contradicted myself, because “Rome” and the “Roman Catholic Church” aren’t quite the same thing.

The expansion we just saw is horizontal — across the surface of the earth. That’s the ordinary way for kingdoms to expand. This part is Imperial Rome. But it doesn’t stay horizontal. It grew up to the army of heaven and caused some of the army and some of the stars to fall to the earth and trampled them down (8:10). This vertical expansion isn’t pagan Rome. It’s the little horn we saw in chapter 7 — the idolatrous power attacking the throne of God. It’s the Roman Catholic Church.

At the same time, we need to remember the same sort of activity in the Muslim parts of the Roman Empire. Islam also stands in stark opposition to the gospel, and actively tries to destroy Christianity. So, while it isn’t identical to Romanism, it matches its assault on God’s throne. It also came out of the Roman beast, and grew through the same period.

Just like in chapter 7, the little horn can’t actually reach into heaven. But God’s ministry for man works on earth. So the little horn attacks God’s people on earth. It tramples on them (8:10) when they stand firm for the One True God.

The little horn removed the continuity from Him, and the foundation of His sanctuary was thrown down (8:11).(10) OK, what’s a continuity?

The first thing we notice is that the continuity belongs to God, the Commander of the army, since that’s who the little horn takes it from. It’s also related to the sanctuary, where God dwells (Exod 25:8).

If we check out how this Hebrew word is used in relation to the sanctuary, we’ll see that it describes all the routine “continual” parts of the Temple services. The bread of presence is in the Temple continually. The high priest wears the breastpiece of judgment continually as a memorial. The olive oil in the lampstand is replenished continually and so on. When all the parts are put together, the continuity describes God’s priestly ministry for us.

God designed the tabernacle so He could be close to His people. “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His sanctuary” (Pss 89:14; 97:2).(11) Priests mediated righteousness and justice in the earthly tabernacle. Since the Cross, Jesus is our intercessor in the heavenly Temple (Heb 6:19–8:2, 1 Tim 2:5).

The little horn’s vertical expansion comes after the Cross. This means that we’re looking at a ministry on earth that tries to replace Jesus’ ministry in heaven. It’s a rival that prevents the individual from coming directly to God (cf. Heb 4:15–16). This is the Roman Catholic ministry of human priests, prayers to saints, prayers to Mary and so on.(12) I know, that’s not a politically correct answer, but it’s true.

 

The Little Horn
Daniel 7	Daniel 8
Starts small, then grows (7:8)	Starts small, then grows (8:9)
Attacks God and His people (7:8, 20, 21, 25)	Attacks God and His people (8:10–11, 24)
Strength from others (7:8, 20)	Strength from others (8:24–25)
Involves the time of the end (7:8, 21–22)	Involves the time of the end (8:19)

 

The little horn was given an army and control of the continual services so that he was able to throw truth to the ground and cause transgression (8:12).(13) People who devoutly followed the Roman Catholic prescriptions were sucked into its idolatry. They were blinded by placing their faith in a human institution instead of God. For over a thousand dark years, the Roman Church prospered as the only constant power on earth. But the scene is about to change.

The vision of beasts and horns is over. In fact, this is the last vision Daniel will record. But there’s a lot of explanation still to come. The first part is a Q & A session.

 

Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to that particular one who was speaking, "How long will the vision about the continuity apply, while the transgression causes horror, so as to allow both holiness and the host to be trampled?" And he said to me, "For 2,300 evening morning; then holiness will be properly restored." (8:13–14, lit.)

 

I changed a couple of words from the usual translations. The New American Standard Bible’s “regular sacrifice” is now the literal Hebrew continuity. “Holy place” is now literally translated holiness. Instead of interpreting the Hebrew, we’ve translated it.

This changes an answer that doesn’t seem to match the question into a simple, direct response. The first holy one asks How long will the little horn’s desolating sacrilege be allowed to trample on God’s holiness and holy people? The answer is simple and direct — almost. After 2,300 evening/morning, holiness will be vindicated.(14) That is, after a period set by God, the little horn’s assault on the saints will be reduced by putting God’s holiness back where it belongs. Of course, God’s holiness hasn’t been disturbed in any real sense, so this has to mean that God’s people will have free and open access to “His holiness.”

I know this sounds strange. Our difficulty comes from misunderstanding the tabernacle. Hebrews calls it a “parable” (Heb 9:8). It was a visual explanation of grace, and did two main jobs. First, it housed the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant, the sanctuary where God’s presence lived.(15)

Next, the tabernacle made it possible for the people to get close to God through the priestly ministry. Once Jesus died on the Cross, the earthly tabernacle wasn’t needed anymore. The last sacrifice had been made, and anyone anywhere can come directly to the God’s throne (Heb 4:16). But when the Roman Catholic priesthood came on the scene, this access to God was blocked. Yes, an individual could still ask God for grace and help, but if he was caught, the Church might kill him for heresy.

The risk of being burned at the stake drove most people to simply go along. After over 1,500 years, knowledge of the heavenly Temple and our access to it through prayer (Rev 5:8) was largely lost. Even the reformers didn’t tackle the heavenly Temple in their work. They were too busy with salvation by faith, grace, and a host of other, more pressing issues. It wasn’t until the failure of the Millerite movement in the United States that anyone seriously studied the heavenly Temple’s role in salvation.

 

What & When is the 2,300 evening/morning?

I’m not sure enough about the 2,300 evening/morning to be dogmatic. I know that sounds strange. After all, I’m the “expert” writing this book that’s supposed to tell you all you need to know about Daniel.

This is one of those places where things aren’t entirely clear. We’ll look at a couple of the theories so you can see how experts have tackled this problem. Our first group is the Maccabees. They lived in the second century BC when Judea was ruled by Syria. Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlawed Judaism as part of his campaign to impose a Greek society. He made the Jews eat pork, sacrifice to idols, and so on. He even had a statue of Zeus set up in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Jews under Judas Maccabeus threw the Syrians out. They rededicated the Temple. This anniversary became Hanukkah, the feast called “the Dedication” in John 10:22. From the time Antiochus first corrupted the high priest until the Maccabees threw him out of Palestine was six years and three months, close to 2,300 literal days.(16) A number of famous commentators hold this position.

There are problems here. First, the little horns in chapters 7 and 8 are the same character, and he comes a long time after Christ. Second, 2,300 evening/morning is a symbolic representation of time, and it pertains to the time of the end (8:17). The second century BC doesn’t fit.

Our next possibility takes the evening/morning language as a way to point us to the evening and morning sacrifices. Each evening and morning gets counted, adding up to 1,150 days. This clearly matches the tapestry of the vision. The Maccabees recorded the date Antiochus put up the statue on the altar and the date proper sacrifices resumed (1 Macc 1:54, 4:52, 53). The Temple was rededicated and the daily sacrifices were restarted exactly three years and ten days later. It’s possible to fiddle with the Hebrew calendar to make that into about 1,130 days. This idea has the same problems the last interpretation had, but many interpreters like this approach.

The next possibility uses the same counting. But this time the trampling looks to the power behind the little horn: Satan. Jesus’ ministry was three and a half years long. He was baptized around the Feast of Tabernacles and died on Passover. If we take a specific combination of leap and non-leap Jewish years, we can get to 1,150 days for this period. The basic logic is that the focus of the prophecy is on the vindication of God at the Cross. Mankind has been restricted from direct access to God since patriarchal times. But once Christ died, we became able to “come boldly before the throne” (Heb 4:16, KJV). One renowned linguist has been studying this, and it’s worthy of consideration. But once again, it seems to be looking to the wrong era.

The fourth approach uses strong linguistic clues to link the prophecy of Daniel 9 and the 2,300 evening/morning.(17) It then takes the year/day principle to get to 1844. Supposedly this is the date of the heavenly Day of Atonement begins. Unfortunately, while the timing matches the career of the little horn, the context doesn’t. The prophecy is about a marauding evildoer, not about saints coming for cleansing.

A final approach takes the same timing, but finds fulfillment in the Millerite movement itself. Prior to that date, the heavenly Temple had no significant value in Christian studies. But when the Millerites’ prediction of the end of the world in 1844 failed, they found themselves studying the Temple in depth. In this activity, God’s holiness, the foundation of His sanctuary, is properly restored.

Every one of these approaches has problems. Critics argue against year/day reasoning. Others debate the linkage between Daniel 8 and 9. The very nature of the event in 8:13–14 is argued. No one has a conclusive answer.

It would be really nice to be able to point to something as clear as the seventy years of desolation for Jerusalem. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 586 and the second Temple was dedicated in 516. But we just can’t find nice clean end points in history. For that matter, even a nice clean starting point isn’t all that obvious. The very nature and length of the period is open to debate.

Maybe the wisest answer is to see the focus and let the details slide. God’s reputation is under attack. At the appointed time, His holiness will be vindicated. Whether that’s past or future isn’t all that important. If God wants us to have a better understanding, He’ll fill in the gaps. Remember that the time period in 7:25 wasn’t explained until the book of Revelation was written over 600 years later.

 

And now, back to our story . . .

God sent Gabriel to give Daniel understanding of the vision (8:16). He told Daniel that it pertains to the time of the end, the final period of the indignation (8:17, 19). That is, it’s not terribly interested in events close to Daniel’s time. Then Gabriel zips through the easy stuff we’ve already covered. The ram represents Media and Persia. The shaggy goat is Greece, and the large horn is its first king (8:20–21). Then the four horns are lesser kingdoms that rise next (8:22). Then things get interesting.

In the latter period of their rule, that is, toward the end of the fragments of Alexander’s kingdom, when the transgressors have run their course, a king that is insolent and skilled in intrigue will rise (8:23). Let’s unpack this.

Transgressors is a term reserved for rebels. They can be rebels against a king or rebels against the covenant. Since the context of the divine covenant runs through every part of the book, that’s where we should look. And since we’re looking for covenant-breakers, we’re looking for people who were closely associated with the divine covenant — the Jews.

This gives us a key element of timing. The Jews ran their course through Jesus’ ministry, then their house was left to them desolate (Matt 23:38). Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed in AD 70. Nothing was left of the Jewish nation. A while after this, the insolent king pops up.

This language makes it quite clear that we’re not talking about any ordinary king. This guy insults God. And that brings us right back to the little horn. And once more we see that same sort of descriptions we saw in chapter 7 and the first part of this chapter. He’s mighty, but not by his own power. He destroys holy people to an extraordinary degree (8:24, cf. 7:25). He’s shrewd and interested in deceit. He opposes the Prince of Princes (8:25). We’re looking at papal Rome.

I know I’m not being “tolerant.” In today’s world we’re supposed to avoid being critical of anyone. But that’s not how God works. He condemns evil. And any organization that opposes Him is evil. It doesn’t matter how peaceful and sincere someone looks. It’s the relationship that person has with the Redeemer that matters. And the Roman Catholic Church takes people away from God.

Once more I have to be careful to say that I’m not condemning any individual Catholic. I’m condemning the organization. One surgeon I work with is a Roman Catholic and a wonderful Christian. I believe he is saved. But that’s tough sledding in his church.

Daniel was doing fine until Gabriel said, The vision of the evenings and mornings is true, but keep the vision secret.(18) Now he’s back to the strange time period, and it didn’t have any starting point to figure things out. He’s exhausted and sick for days. Nobody was around who could explain it (8:27).