Daniel 8

Daniel 8 is the second of the vision accounts in the latter half of the Book of Daniel. It follows the vision of the four beasts in Daniel 7, which is dated to the first year of Belshazzar. The text, written in Aramaic from the middle of chapter 2 through chapter 7, returns to Hebrew beginning with this chapter.

Outline

• Verses 1–2 In the third year of King Belshazzar, Daniel sees himself in a vision at Shushan (Susa), the citadel in the province of Elam, beside the river Ulai.
• Verses 3–4 A ram with two horns pushes westward, northward, and southward, and no beast can stand before it. Of its two horns, the one that came up last is the higher.
• Verses 5–8 A male goat coming from the west breaks the ram's two horns with a notable horn between its eyes. That great horn is then broken, and in its place four horns come up toward the four winds of heaven.
• Verses 9–12 From one of them a little horn comes forth and grows exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. It tramples some of the host of heaven and of the stars, takes away the daily sacrifice, and casts down the sanctuary.
• Verses 13–14 Holy ones ask, "How long?" and the answer comes that after two thousand and three hundred days the sanctuary will be cleansed.
• Verses 15–19 One called Gabriel comes to Daniel and tells him that the vision concerns the appointed time of the end.
• Verses 20–22 He explains that the ram represents the kings of Media and Persia, the male goat the king of Greece, the great horn its first king, and the four horns four kingdoms that will arise after him.
• Verses 23–26 A king of fierce countenance, skilled in deceit, will arise, destroy the holy people, and stand up against the Prince of princes, yet he will be broken without human hand. Daniel is told to shut up the vision.
• Verse 27 Daniel faints and is sick for some days, then rises and attends to the king's business. No one understood the meaning of the vision.

Key Verses

• Daniel 8:14 "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." — This is the verse on which the interpretive debates over the chapter converge.
• Daniel 8:16 "Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision." — This is the first place in Scripture where Gabriel is named.
• Daniel 8:25 "But he shall be broken without hand." — The verse shows that the wicked king's end depends on God's intervention.

People and Places

• Daniel: The one who saw and recorded the vision. In verse 17 he is addressed as "son of man."
• Belshazzar: King of Babylon. The third year of his reign provides the date of the vision.
• Gabriel: The angel who interprets the vision.
• Shushan (Susa): A city in the province of Elam that later became a royal capital of Persia.
• The river Ulai: A river near Shushan, where Daniel saw the vision.
• Media: The kingdom symbolized, together with Persia, by the ram.
• Greece: The kingdom symbolized by the male goat.

Points for Reflection

• The great horn and the four horns: The text itself names only Media-Persia and Greece. Identifying the first king as Alexander the Great and the four horns as the kingdoms into which his empire was divided after his death is an interpretation drawn from outside the text, though it is widely accepted.
• The little horn: Many interpreters identify it with Antiochus IV of the Seleucid dynasty, who halted the sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple in the second century BC. The rededication of the temple became the origin of Hanukkah. Some evangelicals read the figure as pointing beyond Antiochus to the end-time Antichrist as well.
• The two thousand and three hundred days: Some take this as 2,300 days, while others count the evening and morning sacrifices separately to arrive at 1,150 days. The Seventh-day Adventist Church, reckoning each day as a year, interprets it as the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, which began in 1844. Most other Protestant denominations do not accept this interpretation.
• Date of composition: Conservative scholars regard the chapter as prophecy given through Daniel in the sixth century BC, whereas critical scholars hold that it was written in the second century BC during the time of Antiochus. How one understands the nature of the chapter depends on which view one takes.
• Connections with the New Testament: Gabriel appears to Zacharias and to Mary in Luke 1. The image of the little horn trampling the sanctuary is also sometimes read alongside 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4.