The ram that thou sawest having the two horns they are the kings of Media and Persia.
Daniel has just seen a ram and a goat fight in a vision, and now the angel names the players. Here the picture turns into plain history: the ram's two horns stand for Media and Persia. That one line unlocks the rest of the vision.
The interpretation given here is not a scholar's guess added later. The book of Daniel explains its own images. One writer shows how this verse and the next settle which empire follows which.
The believer does not look at history and find things that puzzle him. He takes up his Bible and finds the answer before he even leaves the prophecy. Daniel 8:20-21 makes it plain. The empire of the united Medes and Persians gives way to the Greek kingdom, which splits into four at Alexander's death.
History does confirm all of this. But confirming is not the same as explaining, and the same writer keeps the two apart.
We may turn to history as a way of honouring prophecy. But history confirming a fulfilled prophecy is a very different thing from explaining what it means. Only the Spirit of God explains prophecy, as He explains all Scripture.
The angel names two kingdoms, yet Daniel saw one ram carrying both horns.
Here we clearly see what made Medo-Persia different. It is described as a double empire, unlike the one before it and the ones that came after. That mark belonged to it alone.
Verse 20 explains the two horns. The vision had already noted that one horn was taller and came up later. That detail tracked a real shift of power inside the empire.
One horn being higher than the other foretold that one part of the empire would gain the upper hand over the other, and that this ruling power would rise last. We know this is just what happened. Darius the Mede crushed the power of Babylon. Then he gave way to Cyrus the Persian, who quickly took the lead in the Persian Empire.
Commentators differ over how far a "king" in these visions means one man or a line of rulers. One writer uses this verse to show the word covers more than one man.
Daniel 7:17 and Daniel 8:20 plainly contradict the narrow meaning that some would give to the word "king." There has been a past application, but it is only the first instalment of the grand future fulfilment.
In chapter 7 these same empires appear as wild beasts. Here the picture changes, and one writer sees a reason for it.
In God's sight the Medo-Persian and the Macedonian empires were only "beasts," no better than Babylon before them or Rome after them. Yet God still valued the kindness done to His people while He was disciplining them. That is why the symbols change in Daniel 8 compared with chapter 7. In this special light they appear as clean animals. First, Medo-Persia is now seen as a ram, and second, Greece as a male goat.
When Daniel saw this vision, the empire named in verse 20 had not yet come to power.
Before the Medo-Persian empire won its victories, Daniel already saw its downfall in his mind, because the ram with two horns stood for that power. The Persian horn became the leading one, yet it came up last.
That timing is the point. No human mind could map the rise and fall of empires by clever guessing.
The Babylonian Empire was still standing at the time of these visions. Only inspired prophecy could have foretold the fall of that mighty empire and the rise of other empires, whose path lay completely hidden from human sight in the centuries ahead. Daniel is therefore a very remarkable proof of inspiration.
- Named. The angel says the two-horned ram is Media and Persia. The Bible explains its own symbol.
- Dual. Two horns on one animal mark a double empire. No other power in Daniel's visions had that mark.
- Last. The taller horn came up last. So Darius the Mede gave way to Cyrus the Persian, who took the lead.
- Clean. Chapter 7 shows wild beasts; here a ram and a goat. God noticed the kindness these empires showed His people.
- Pledge. The past fulfilment is only a first instalment. A greater fulfilment is still ahead, so verse 20 anchors prophecy that is not yet finished.
And the rough goat is the king of Greece; and the great horn that was between his eyes is the first king.
Here the vision names its own symbols, and it does so while Babylon still ruled. That raises two questions: does a "horn" mean one man or a line of kings, and why point to these empires at all?
The Holy Spirit supplies the interpretation, so no reader has to guess who these powers are.
Who can miss how clear the interpretation is? The Holy Spirit Himself supplied it. There is no need to reason about the date or the scene of the vision: verses 20 and 21 settle it for any simple mind. The Macedonian conqueror and his overthrow of the great king appear most vividly in verses 5-7 compared with verse 21. History can illustrate this, and it does. But no believer needs more than what is given here to be clearly and intelligently certain about the prophecy and how it applies.
The animal's speed in the vision matches the pace of the career it pictures.
As Daniel was watching this ram, he saw a male goat come from the west. It moved so fast that it did not seem to touch the ground. Between the eyes of the goat was a notable horn. This rough goat, we know from verse 21, is a figure of the Grecian kingdom, and the great horn a figure of the first king. In few and striking words the passage sets out the career of Alexander the Great.
The Hebrew word behind "Greece" here is Javan, a name found in the family lines of Genesis.
Javan was the fourth son of Japheth. "From these the coastland peoples spread." Genesis 10:2, 4; 1 Chronicles 1:5, 7. Matching this is Isaiah 66:19, where God sends His messengers to Javan, to the coastlands far away, where His glory will be made known. In Daniel 8:21 the Hebrew word is the same, so Alexander the Great is king of Javan. This agrees with Daniel 10:20; Daniel 11:2; and Zechariah 9:13, where Javan means Greece.
What snapped was the horn, not the beast — and it snapped at the moment of greatest strength.
The kingdom of Media and Persia spread and became great until its adversary, Greece, arose. This had one horn (Alexander), which overthrew and trampled the ram. But when "he was strong the great horn was broken." Alexander died a young man at Babylon. The horn — not the goat — was broken, and four horns came up in place of the broken horn. After Alexander's death his generals quarrelled, and at last they divided his empire among four of themselves.
Commentators differ over what a horn stands for. One writer answers the claim that a horn always means a line of kings.
Mr. Gaussen insists that a horn is always a succession of kings; but it is no such thing. A horn is a power; sometimes it is a succession of kings who have a moral unity. But this expression is also applied to Christ. He has seven horns on His head, the perfection of power; certainly there is no question of a succession in that case. The great horn is called the first king (Daniel 8:21). It seems clear enough to me that the Spirit means this to apply to Alexander himself.
Another writer points to the next verse, which cuts the other way.
Daniel 8:22 reads the same way in every good version I know. It refutes the notion that a horn is always personal. It shows that a horn may sometimes have an official sense, taking in the idea of "a kingdom."… The great horn is the one said to be broken, and four horns arose in its place. The text explains these as four kingdoms that will rise out of the nation.
The prophecy brings in Persia and Greece not for their own sake, but to place what comes later.
Daniel 8 gives details of what happens on another side of Judea, with reference to the Jews. Persia and Greece are the two eastern empires that followed Babylon, which ruled when God gave this prophecy. They come in only to point out the countries where these events take place, and to set them before us in their historical order. The king of Greece overthrows the Persian empire. His own empire is later divided into four kingdoms. Out of one of them arises the power that forms the main subject of the prophecy.
This prophecy names a kingdom and describes the break-up of its founder's empire centuries before it happened.
At Alexander's death the Grecian Empire was divided among his four generals. How exact and accurate Scripture is. These events needed centuries to be fulfilled. Knowing them beforehand is absolutely irrefutable proof of divine inspiration.
- Named — Scripture itself names the goat as Greece and the horn as its first king, so no one has to guess.
- Swift — the goat crossing the ground without touching it pictures the speed of Alexander, the great horn and "first king".
- Broken — the horn snapped at the height of strength, not in defeat. Alexander died young at Babylon, and four kingdoms rose from his empire.
- Disputed — a horn is a power. It can mean one man, as with Alexander, or an office and a kingdom. No fixed rule fits every horn.
- Purposed — Persia and Greece mark out the place and order for the power that later troubles the Jews. Such accuracy, centuries ahead, is proof of inspiration.
Now that being broken, whereas four stood up in its stead, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not with his power.
The angel is explaining Daniel's vision: the goat's great horn has been broken at the height of its power, and four horns have grown in its place. Here he says what those four stand for — and adds one limit on them.
The verse looks back to a single power that no rival could match. One writer shows how different its end was from that of other conquerors:
No other horn comes up to dispute with that conspicuous horn. Yet it was broken, as neither Nebuchadnezzar nor Cyrus was. Alexander did come from the west without touching the ground, and in the fury of his power he ran at the Persian power that had been mighty until then... Yet in the strangest and saddest way Alexander's course was cut short. He was a young man of thirty-two, still making plans that reached further than any ruler before him. And his generals began, as they often do, to fight one with another... After a few years' conflict emerged four kingdoms, four notable horns. Give if you can, out of any history, anything that so clearly answers to the vision.
History names the four kingdoms that grew out of Alexander's empire:
It is impossible not to see in this picture exactly what came to pass in history. Alexander's brief but victorious career was cut short in the middle of his triumphs. In time the empire was divided into four kingdoms: Syria, Egypt, Greece and Thrace.
The angel does more than report the split. He adds one point about the four:
These kingdoms have already been named. But the angel adds one detail: they will not have the power of the one before them.
The weakness lay in the empire itself. The four kingdoms did not come from outside conquest — the empire broke up from within:
It was not smaller in extent than the empires before it. But as an empire it was not held together, and it had hardly any capital city. An army had to be left in Greece under Antipater to keep the peace. When Alexander died, the empire was not conquered by others; it fell to pieces on its own.
Does a "horn" in Daniel always mean one person? Kelly answered a man who wanted to reword this verse to escape its plain sense:
If people are allowed to change the plain meaning, and even the translation, of a text that goes against them, then no truth is safe from denial. Daniel 8:22, as it stands in every good version I know, refutes the idea that a horn always stands for a person. It shows that a horn may sometimes be used in an official sense, taking in the idea of "a kingdom."... I do not hesitate to say that the English Bible gives the clear and certain sense of the Hebrew. A comparison with verses 8 and 9 confirms it.
The four kingdoms are not the subject of the chapter. They mark out where the real subject appears:
The two empires of Persia and Greece, the empires of the East, followed the empire of Babylon, under which this prophecy was given. They are brought in only to point out the countries where these events are to take place, and to set them before us in their historical order. The king of Greece overthrows the Persian empire. His own empire is later divided into four kingdoms, and out of one of them rises the power that forms the main subject of the prophecy.
Kelly named Antiochus Epiphanes, a later ruler of the Syrian kingdom, as the first fulfilment — with a fiercer king still to come:
I do not doubt that Antiochus Epiphanes was the first, or historical, king described here. But look on to the last holder of that power, when the end of the indignation (that is, God's indignation against Israel) arrives in the latter day... The representative of the Syrian kingdom (the king of the North) at the close is to have extraordinary power, mainly through foreign support, and a craft that will deceive and destroy the Jews in days still to come.
- Broken. The great horn is Alexander, cut off at thirty-two in the middle of his plans. No rival horn had beaten him.
- Divided. Out of the one nation came four kingdoms — Syria, Egypt, Greece and Thrace — after his generals fought among themselves.
- Diminished. The angel adds that the four would not hold the power of the one before them. The empire never held together and fell apart on its own.
- Defined. A horn here can stand for a kingdom, not only a person — a key to reading Daniel's other horns.
- Directed. The four are named to fix the map. From one of them rises the power that is the real subject of the prophecy — Antiochus Epiphanes in history, and, in Kelly's reading, a fiercer king still to come.