Ram vs. Goat - Interpretation

Daniel 8:15–16 “15 Then it happened, when I, Daniel, had seen the vision and was seeking the meaning, that suddenly there stood before me one having the appearance of a man.

16 And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, who called, and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.””

Lets stop right there for a moment and talk about Gabriel…

Gabriel is…

1.1 One of the Three Angels Named in Scripture

Out of the legions of angels that God created, only 3 of them are named… Gabriel, Michael and… of course, the fallen angel… Lucifer.

Gabriel’s…

1.2 Name Means: The Mighty One

There are some who believe that he is an “Archangel”, which is a very specific title that we won’t get into this morning, however, Gabriel is never called an archangel in Scripture.

Gabriel is directly mentioned 4 different times in Scripture and each time he is…

1.3 A Messenger

Our passage today is the first place in Scripture that Gabriel is mentioned…

We will see him again in our study through chapter 9, helping again to explain prophecy...

He is the one who tells Zacharias that his wife Elizabeth will give birth to John the Baptist…

And Gabriel is the one who appears to Mary with the great message that she was the virgin who had been chosen to give birth to Jesus.

As soon as Gabriel enters the scene Daniel is immediately floored…

Look at the next couple of verses…

Daniel 8:17–19 “17 So he came near where I stood, and when he came I was afraid and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.”

18 Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground; but he touched me, and stood me upright.

19 And he said, “Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation; for at the appointed time the end shall be.”

Gabriel comes on the scene and Daniel immediately falls to his knees… and the Gabriel starts to speak… He says “Understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.”

And at the sound of Gabriel’s voice… Daniel faints… When it says “he fell into a deep sleep,” this literally means he fainted.

It is the response of extreme emotional excitement so that there is an abnormal loss of consciousness, and he just passes out. Daniel is so emotionally overwhelmed by this whole experience that he passes out cold.

Gabriel, the angelic messenger, tells Daniel “I’m going to teach you what this means… and what you are seeing reaches to the final ruler and the final persecution of Israel.”… “the latter time of the indignation”.

Now, I don’t believe that details that Daniel records in the first half of this chapter reveal the Antichrist, however, I do believe that Gabriel’s interpretation does and I’ll tell you why when we get there.

But lets move on… Secondly, this interpretation speaks of…

2. Two Future Empires

vv.20-21a “The ram which you saw, having the two horns—they are the kings of Media and Persia.

21 And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece… ”

I don’t want you to miss the accuracy of this… not only does the vision reveal the next two world empires after the Babylonian empire… but it reveals them in chronological order.

First up is…

2.1 Medo - Persian: 539 B.C.

The fulfillment of the first part of this prophecy comes just 12 years after Daniel recieved it… Remember, Daniel recieved this vision right around 551bc.

Herodotus, the historian, tells us... the sixteenth day of Tishrei, 539 B.C, which figures out to be the 11th or 12 of October...

That night the Medes and the Persians outside the city of Babylon built a dam on the Euphrates river which flowed under the wall of the city.

They diverted all of that water from the Euphrates, into a swampland, except a little shallow portion. And when the water began to fall, in the midst of the Belshazzar’s banquet (found in Daniel 5), it came down to about the knees or the waist of the soldiers.

They marched underneath the wall on that shallow riverbed, went into the city, killed the guards, threw open the gates, and the whole Medo-Persian army descended on that city in one unified attack.

It was under the rule of the Persian King, that Daniel was thrown into the Lion’s Den.

According to Donald Campbell, in his Commentary of the book of Daniel “It has been said that Cyrus (the Persian King) and his son, were invincible and established the largest empire the world had seen to that day.”

This empire was represented in Daniel’s vision by the ram with 2 horns…

And then the second empire that is mentioned…

2.2 Greece: 334 - 331 B.C.

I put both of these dates down, because the first attack against the Persian empire was in 334bc and the final attack was in 331bc, which would have been the official start of the Grecian empire.

In Daniel’s vision, this empire was seen as the rapidly moving goat that came against the Ram.

Theologian, Geoffrey King said this “The goat is the symbol of Greece. (and here’s why)... The first colony of Greece was directed by an oracle to get a goat for a guide and build a city, and in gratitude to that goat for leading them aright, they built the city and they called it Aegae, the goat city. King goes on to say…

And of course, you are familiar with the fact that the waters around Greece are to this day called the Aegean Sea, the goat sea.

The goat has always been the national symbolic figure of Greece. Figures of a goat are found on many of the ancient Macedonian monuments.”

Back in our passage, Gabriel tells Daniel, at the end of v.21, speaking about this goat… “… The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king.”

Looking back at the details of the vision, remember what Daniel saw this goat doing…

Daniel 8:6–7 “6 Then he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing beside the river, and ran at him with furious power.

7 And I saw him confronting the ram; he was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram, and broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled him; and there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand.”

This indicates that there would be one main person that would lead the Greeks into battle against the Persians…

3. The First King is Alexander

Best known throughout history as Alexander the Great.

Again, for us this is history, but for Daniel, he was describing events that wouldn’t take place for another 200 years!… and he does so, with pinpoint accuracy… which is only possible if the information came from an omniscient, sovereign, God.

In Daniel's vision, he saw a goat (representing Greece) with a big, single horn (Alexander the Great) defeating a ram (symbolizing Medo-Persia). And that's exactly what happened in real life.

According to the historical record; In 334 BC, Alexander came from the west with thirty-five thousand troops, crossed the Hellespont (which is the strait separating Macedonia from Asia Minor), and defeated the Persian army at the Granicus River (which is in Turkey). He freed all the Greek cities of Asia Minor from the Persians.

Another battle took place in Syria, near Antioch, in the year 333bc and then in 331bc Alexander fought with the Persians one final time before crushing them forever.

Here is an interesting fact about Alexander…

3.1 He Knew and Believed Daniel’s Prophecy

The most prolific compiler of Jewish history in the first century AD was a historian known as Josephus. One of his primary works is a 20 volume set that is called the Antiquities of the Jews, which he wrote around the year 94AD.

This historical record traces Jewish history from the time of Creation up until the time that he passed away. Josephus drew on the written and oral histories available to him. His accounts of many events in Jewish history, especially during the 400 silent years (the period between the Old and New Testaments), have been a standard resource for nearly two thousand years.

In his writings, Josephus detailed the movements of Alexander the Great in significant detail, and his record of Alexander’s decision not to capture and destroy Jerusalem is one that I found very interesting.

Josephus explains it like this…

Alexander was making his way down the coast of Phoenicia, destroying cities as he went. Leaving Gaza in ruins, he moved his armies toward Jerusalem. Jaddua, the high priest in Jerusalem, heard this news and was understandably distraught. He called the people to fast and pray for God’s protection. In a dream, God told Jaddua that they should adorn the city, open the gates, put on their finest garments, and go out to meet Alexander as he neared the city.

When Alexander approached and saw the multitude of citizens in their finery, a multitude of priests in their white-linen garments, and the high priest in his purple and scarlet vestments, he approached and saluted them. The multitudes, in one voice, saluted Alexander in return.

Alexander’s generals and officials thought he’d lost his mind. One of them asked Alexander why he condescended to give honor to the high priest of the Jews when all other people bowed to adore Alexander.

Josephus records Alexander's response, which in all honesty, i find to be truly remarkable. I believe it demonstrates God’s sovereignty over Alexander in order to fulfill His plans for His people.

Here is Alexander’s reply as recorded by Josephus: “I did not adore [the high priest], but that God who hath honoured him with his high-priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, [wearing this] very [priestly dress], when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is, that having seen no other in [this priestly dress], and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.”

So Alexander claimed to have had a dream of this very high priest, telling him that he would win in his battle against the Persians. And he also concluded that by obeying this dream or vision, that his army would be divinely blessed as they came against and defeated the Persian army.

Alexander acknowledged the Jewish high priest as the divine messenger he had encountered in his dream. By showing respect to the high priest, he understood that he was also honoring the God who had chosen the high priest.

The story doesn’t stop there… According to Josephus, Alexander accompanied the priests and multitude to the Temple: “When he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high-priest’s direction, and magnificently treated both the high-priest and the priests.

And when the book of Daniel was showed him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended.”

Think about that for a moment… When Alexander was presented with the book of Daniel, he came across the portion we are currently studying.

It dawned on him that Daniel had described the very events he was currently experiencing, recognizing himself as the great horn of the goat, prophesied two centuries earlier.

I am not how he reacted to v.8 that says “Therefore the male goat grew very great; but when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven.”

Maybe he skipped over that part… however, we will not.

Gabriel tells Daniel in v.22 “As for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power”

Here we see that…

3.2 The Horn is Broken and Replaced

Historians tell us that Alexander the Great went on to Babylon after subduing Egypt and at the age of 33, indulged himself in a great drunken feast with his generals and died of a combination of malaria and acute alcoholism.

Alexander had completely conquered the Persian empire faster than any in history. But in the end, he was unable to conquer his own passions.

He had conquered the known world and was in utter despair because there were no other countries or empires to take over… He tried to use alcohol to drowned his sorrows and it took him to a very dark place in life and eventually lead to his death.

However, it is worth noting that during his mission of world domination, he built roads, he united the east and the west and he brought the common Greek language to the people.

This was a major help in the future as the Apostles went out and spread the gospel of Christ.

After his death, the power of Greece was turned over to Alexanders 4 main generals… these are the four horns that replaced the broken one in v.8 and the four kingdoms of v.22. But none of these four would ever possess as great an empire or power as Alexander.

Next week we will continue our history lesson as we talk about the little horn of v.9 and how he compares to the Antichrist that is still to come in our future.

Closing:

But before we close, I have simple yet strong question to ask you…

Do you trust God’s Word as much as Alexander the Great?

He was a Pagan Ruler, who read Daniel’s prophecy, believed it to be true and believed that he was going to be the one to fulfill it… so much so, that he went into battle with substantially less soldiers than that of the Persian army...

How much more should we, as God’s children, trust what our heavenly Father tells us in His word??

God’s Word is Holy!

God’s Word is without error!

and God’s word is trustworthy!

God said it, I believe it, that settles it!

Prayer:

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