DANIEL'S VISION

THE BOOK OF DANIEL

CHAPTER 8

DANIEL'S VISION

DANIEL'S VISION STUDY ON DANIEL'S VISION STORY WITH DANIEL'S VISION MESSAGE ON DANIEL'S VISION PROPHECY

Great to have you back for more great Bible stories from the Old Testament book of Daniel. To start off with, let's familiarize ourselves with the time period and setting of our story. The events of this chapter happened two years after Daniel's dream that we studied in Chapter 7, but it is still before the lion's den incident.

Daniel is a Prophet of God ... An Israelite, captive in Babylon, although he has been well favored by the two kings that he has served under, Nebuchadnezzar and his son Belshazzar, because of his incredible gift of interpreting dreams and visions.

Daniel refers to the incident you're about to read about, as a vision. In this vision, Daniel was in the palace at Shushan, which was the capital of Persia at that time, in the ancient city of Elam, by the river of Ulai. Today, this would be somewhere in the southwestern area of Iran.

In Daniel's vision, he saw a ram, standing in front of the river, with two tall horns, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. The ram was pushing westward, northward and southward. No beasts dared challenge him and nobody could be saved from him. He did whatever he wished and became very strong.

Then an he-goat came from the west carried through the air, and the goat had a prominent horn between his eyes. He charged at the ram in great fury and power and attacked, breaking his two horns, leaving the ram no strength to remain standing. The goat threw him to the ground and stamped on him, and nobody could save the ram from the goat.

When the he-goat became strong, his great horn was broken and instead of it, there came four horns from the four winds of Heaven, and out of one of them came a little horn, which became very strong, toward the south, the east, and toward the pleasant land. It became very powerful, opposing the host of Heaven, and some of the host and the stars, it threw down to the ground, and trampled on them.

He esteemed himself equal to the prince of the host, and he took the daily sacrifice away and the temple was pillaged. The he-goat accomplished and prospered much.

DANIEL'S VISION LESSON WITH DANIEL'S VISION EXPLANATION AND DANIEL'S VISION SUMMARY

Then Daniel heard a holy one say, How long will this last? And another Angel answered, Two thousand and three hundred days, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

While Daniel tried to understand the meaning of the vision, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him, and a voice from the banks of the river called to him and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. As he approached Daniel, it terrified him and he fell on his face, but Gabriel said, Understand that the vision will be at the time of the end.

Daniel then fell into a deep sleep with his face toward the ground but Gabriel set him upright and explained the vision.

The ram, having the two horns are the kings of Media and Persia, an empire growing to the north, south and west, and the he-goat is the king of Greece, west of the Medo-Persian Empire. The great horn between his eyes is the first king, then there will be four after him which will not be of his bloodline, but will come from different places.

Then there will arise a fierce king, clever with trickery. He will exercise great power, derived from the devil, and he will cause great destruction, and will prosper and destroy the strong and the saints. He will magnify himself in his heart and by his craftiness, in a time of peace, he will destroy many. He will also stand up against the Prince of princes, but he will be destroyed without even being touched.

Gabriel continued, The vision of the times that you've seen is true, but keep it to yourself, because it won't happen for a long time. Daniel fainted and was sick for days, then got up and returned to his work for the king. The vision astonished him, but he really didn't understand it.

We've probably all heard it said that history repeats itself. Well, There is a very interesting thing about this vision of Daniel's. You see, it happened already, just as Daniel prophesied, and the book of Revelation indicates, as well as the Angel Gabriel explained, that it will happen during the End Times.

Let's take a look at that period in history, when these things already came to pass for just a moment, shall we? There was indeed a king from Greece that took over the Medo-Persian empire. You've probably heard of him before, he was known as Alexander the Great.

DANIEL'S VISION INFORMATION WITH DANIEL'S VISION MEANING AND DANIEL'S VISION DISCUSSION

You can investigate this in history books if you like, and you'll find that Alexander's kingdom was not passed down to his heirs at his death, but rather, it fell among many ... But particularly, it was divided into four kingdoms. To the west of Alexander's kingdom, became the Roman domain, the area that the Bible refers to as Macedonia was ruled by Antigonus, the area formerly known as Asia was taken over by Seleucus, and Egypt was conquered by Ptolemy.

By and by out of Greece there came along the little horn, whose name was Antiochus Epiphanes. In addition to his tyrannical ruling of every place he conquered, he reigned terror on Israel for three and a half years, pillaged the temple, took away the daily sacrifice and built an idol on God's altar. He made the Jewish people build temples, set up idols in every city, offer swine to them every day, and forsake the worship of God. Anyone who didn't obey him was threatened to be punished. He murdered many, burned the city, took thousands and thousands captive and appointed guards to make sure the Jewish people did as he commanded.

Now, remember that in Daniel's vision, Gabriel told him that he (the little horn) would be destroyed without even being touched. It just so happened that Antiochus Epiphanes, in his pursuit to terrorize yet more people in Persia, was challenged by them, driven away and lost much of his army in the conflict. At the same time, the Jewish people began to strengthen themselves against Antiochus by opposing his commanders in Judea, and when he was told of the defeat, coupled with the beating he took in Persia, it literally drove him mad, and he died of insanity, admitting just before his death that he was being punished for the misery that he had brought upon the Jewish people.