12: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 8:1-14

[Darris McNeely] We are now ready to get into the eighth chapter of the Book of Daniel, and this is overview of the Persian and the Greek Empire. So as we kind of keep that in our mind we spent the last class talking a lot about the fourth beast of Daniel 7 and Rome. So we're going to now fall back into the second and third beasts of Daniel 7, now portrayed in Daniel 8 by two different animals, a ram and a goat, right? So kind of keep that straight as we get into it. But we are going to be talking about Persia, the ram, and Greece represented by the goat in this very interesting part of another vision that Daniel receives. It says in verse 1 of Daniel 8.

Daniel 8:1 "In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after the one that appeared to me the first time." 

That would be what we had in Chapter 7. We are still at the time of King Belshazzar, which means we are still in the time of which empire?

[Man 2] Babylon.

[Darris McNeely] Babylon. We're still in the Babylonian Empire. And remember, we're taking Chapter 7 and 8 in a chronological order after Chapter 4. So Babylon is still in place, Daniel's there, and this is where he receives the vision.

Now, one other program or textual note beginning with Chapter 8 here, with this vision, the language returns to Hebrew and the Aramaic ends, all right? The Aramaic ends. And the reasons for that are because what we are dealing with in these two empires, and as Daniel begins to trace this, it is dealing with the history as it relates to Israel, more as it relates to Israel with these two empires of Persia and Greece as it relates to the Jewish people and Israel. Keep in mind that Persia under Cyrus, Cyrus is the king that issues the decree for the Jews to return to Jerusalem. And that begins that restoration. And so that direct connection is there as well.

The Greek Empire will have a direct influence upon the Jewish people and Israel, and that's going to be deepened, or the story will be told in more detail as we move further toward the end of the Book of Daniel, primarily in Chapter 11. We will deal with that in a great big blow-up of the history of the Greek Empire, especially as it pertains to the story of Israel with a great deal of overlay there. So that's rather fascinating sometimes. I know we have not drilled deep enough on this, and I didn't before I started teaching the Book of Daniel and getting into all of this history and understanding how it relates to more than just prophecy. It relates to the people of God, the Jewish people, the remnant of Israel in the story after the return from Babylon to Jerusalem, and Daniel's concern for his people. We're going to see his prayers and the 70 weeks prophecy and a lot more detail dealing with the story, the influence of Israel in this.

And through that, we then have a lot to learn about how these powers, these Gentile powers, not only interact with the Israel of God but also the Church today. And I think that a reason, a big reason, the detail of Daniel 8 and 9, 10, and especially 11 and 12, and really from this point forward in the Book, as it is, there's more there for us to learn today in what we need to learn to understand our times but also to be prepared for the times of tribulation and when these final events take place. I think God gives us a lot more in this than we have dug out. Now, we'll focus on history, but we'll have to focus on that history with the intent of what does it mean for us today. Why, again, does all this matter?

I talked in the last class about why Europe matters. I hope I at least left you with a little bit better understanding in this. We're going to look at, in a sense, why Israel matters, why Israel matters. And that would include Israel, the people of God, both the Old Testament nation, the New Testament church, of which we are a part, but even more particular, the state of Israel in the world today in the land and the reason they are there and what that means to the purpose and the plan of God, and what we should learn from that, again, with what the Bible tells us. All of this we get into in the Book of Daniel. Has a lot to I think turn the light on for our understanding of our world today, where it's going, and what we should know and be doing within the Church. So let's now get back into this. Let's look at verse 2 of Daniel 8. Daniel said…

Daniel 8:2 He said, "I saw in the vision, and it so happened that while I was looking that I was in Susa the Citadel, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision that I was by the River Uli." 

This is about 230 miles east of Babylon. Today would be in the area of Iran. And he's taken to this in a vision that I was in Susa and I was by the River Uli. This particular place, Susa, or Susa, eventually become one of the capitals of the Persian Empire. And it's a known site today. A couple of pictures, at least, you know, that tell you a little bit of this. But some of it has been excavated by archeologists in that particular area. It's one area I've not been to. Going on to verse 3. 

Daniel 8:3 "I lifted my eyes and saw, and there standing beside the river was a ram which had two horns and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last."

All right? Now, so this ram is a symbol of the Persian Empire and well accepted as that, even we know from a lot of iconography of the Persian period. This is a particular plate taken from that period of the Persian Empire showing a two-horned ram. We know from images that we have that when the Persian kings would go to war and they would be at the head of their armies, they would be wearing a headdress that of a ram with horns. And so the symbolism, the connection here is very easy to understand describing this middle Persian power and this time in the form of a ram.

Now, back in Daniel 7, it was described as a bear. And of course, in Daniel 2 it was the silver chest and arms of the image. So it kind of changes as we go along, but we're talking about the same power here. It mentions that one of the horns was larger than the other. And the horn that grew up later outstripped it in size. This is taken to understand or to mean the two parts of the Persian Empire that are Persia and the area of Media, Persia and Media, which is why it's sometime called the Medo-Persian Empire, all right?

Now, Media was an older empire, but Persia came on and dominated and is represented by the horn that's higher of the two, all right? And we typically just refer to it as the Persian Empire. And Cyrus the Great is the one who creates that by his genius and his conquering as it was. If you remember, we talked a couple of classes back about the Median Empire or the Lydian Empire, which was over in the city of Sardis, which we'll study in the Book of Revelation. Cyrus the Great conquered the Lydian Empire at that city of Sardis. And I'll tell you the story about that when we study the message to the church at Sardis. It has kind of a connection there. So this ram symbolizing Persia here pushes in verse 4…

Daniel 8:4 “westward, northward, and southward so that no animal could withstand him, nor was there any that could deliver from his hand, but he did according to his will and became great.” 

Again, this kind of wraps in with it being called a ram, but think about the bear of the Daniel 7 image and you see the power of this empire and the reach and the extent of it. And in fact, if you kind of look at the map here, the empire comes out of this region over here, and it ultimately takes in all of Asia Minor, present-day Turkey, and goes down to the borders of Egypt, taking over the land of Israel.

In fact, the Persian Empire even tried to go over and conquer Greece, and they made two efforts to do so. If you look at this map sometime, you'll see the lines in green and blue here, there were two different attacks by Persian kings to cross over into Greece and take over Greece. They both failed. They both failed. The stories, well, it's a good part of history. There's a...I love to mention the movies that kind of tell this. If you've ever seen the movie the "300" it tells you a part of the story of the Persian effort to conquer Greece and the Spartans who stopped them. They were the 300 Spartans, all of them killed, but it shows you in that movie the mammoth size, bearlike size of the Persian Empire as they crossed over the Aegean area into Greece under King Xerxes in that particular movie.

And, by the way, Xerxes is portrayed in that movie, the "300," he's the one king who makes the second effort to conquer Greece. That is the same king of the Book of Esther, the same king of the Book of Esther called Ahasuerus, okay? And so in history, he's also called Xerxes, and that movie kind of tells a part of that story. He's defeated ultimately. Even though in the movie he wins, he kills the 300 Spartans, but in the ultimate story, the Greeks get their act together. Greece is just a bunch of warring city-states at this time. They're not unified, but they get their act together and twice they push back on Persia.

Now Xerxes in the story, in history, he goes back over and that's where he kind of...that's where the story of Esther comes in after he gets beaten by the Greeks. Moral of the story is he should have stayed home and just lived happily ever after with Esther and her beauty and her charm and her abilities and he would have saved himself a whole lot of grief because he did come to grief by being defeated by the Greeks. It didn't in his empire. It was still a very large empire. But that sets up the story for what happens next here in the biblical account. In verse 5.

Daniel 8:5-7 "I was considering, and suddenly a male goat came from the West, across the surface of the whole earth, without touching the ground and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I'd seen standing beside the river, and ran at him with furious power. And I saw him confronting the ram. He was moved with rage against him, attacked the ram, broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him, and he cast him down to the ground, trampled him, and there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand." 

All right? Total takeover by this ram that comes from the West. Now, the ram is understood to represent the kingdom of Greece under Alexander the Great, and it comes from the West. We talked about him a couple of classes back, I told you about his interesting mother. And he comes to the throne as a young man. His father, Philip II built the army, the Macedonian army. Macedonia is where Alexander was born. That's the northern area of Greece. And his father, Philip II builds this big army. Essentially, because Persia had twice tried to conquer Greece, now the Greeks are getting their mojo going, and they're going to take on the Persian Empire. That was Philip's intent, and he was going to kind of combine the powers of Greece and do that. But as I told you in the story, he gets killed. He gets killed. And, you know, it is a very dysfunctional family and a lot of intrigue.

But Alexander, his son, now takes over the army and he's a young man, and he takes that army and he's that ram, I'm sorry, he's the goat that comes from the West with such lightning speed and conquers completely the entire Persian Empire.

And that is a part of the story here. Here's a goat from Greece. It kind of gives you, you know, a little bit of a symbol there. But here is a bust of Alexander the Great. I will tell you, anytime you go into a museum of any note in the world, Europe, and probably in America, you're going to find a bust of Alexander the Great. He is immortalized, he was lionized, he was looked upon, then deified. He is big in history. I mentioned earlier that he's probably the greatest general of history. I'm not saying that he was the kindest, the gentlest, and the most noble because he was vicious, he was cruel. He would put to death any of his men that dared cross him. And he did. But he was a genius at tactics, and he had the loyalty of his men to do this.

And essentially, Greece wanted revenge upon Persia. This is what's behind it. Twice, Persia tried to take over Greece, and finally, they got it together and they said, "You know what? This isn't going to happen a third time." And Alexander is the one who takes it on and begins in the year 334. He crosses over into the land mass of Asia. And he doesn't cross at...it's Byzantium at that. No, it doesn't even exist. We're talking long before Constantine. He comes across somewhere down here near the Dardanelles region and he makes a crossing there. They actually built temporary bridges to do these things. Xerxes did that. And that's another part of the fascinating story of how they moved these armies across these bodies of water.

But Alexander brings his man over here, and he just starts rolling up Persia. And it begins in the year 334 BC when he does this, and he's going to do it within 11 years. Alexander invades the Persian Empire in 334, okay? This is where the story begins. And by the year 323 BC, I'm getting all this crossed up here today, by year 323, Alexander dies. So you do the math, approximately 10 to 11 years, he conquers everything you see on this map down into Egypt, plus what is not on this map all the way over into what is today India, and up into near parts of Central Asia today, Afghanistan and all. It's all his. He does that in less than 11 years. And he's young.

You look at what he accomplished, and that's why generals and conquerors and despots down through the ages have always looked at Alexander and what he did and wanted to be like Alexander. And certainly few...I mean, Napoleon looked at him, Hitler looked at it, the Caesars looked at Alexander. He was a role model. This image is taken from the movie that came out about 20 years ago. Colin Farrell played Alexander. I recommend that movie to watch as well to get an overview of the story of Alexander the Great. It's got his mother's love of the snakes in there as well. So you might get a little bit squeamish in part of that, but it was a pretty good movie, the most recent that was done.

And again, books are still being written. Studies are still being done about Alexander the Great and what he did in his conquest of the Near East. The story, you know, there are some maps in your handouts that you have. This particular map shows his march across Asia Minor down into the land of Israel, to Jerusalem, down into Egypt. And then he backtracks and he just keeps going eastward into Babylon and Persia and further East as well.

Alexander the Great, and let me kind of take a little sidebar into him just to show again why he's important here prophetically and what builds from him into the later Books of Daniel and the stories that we're going to encounter with his successors in this empire that he builds. Alexander creates the Greek Empire, right? And that's huge. In any study of Western civilization, you begin with the study of the Greeks typically, although some historians are realizing that there's a lot more taking place before then. But the traditional starting point has always been with Greece, and then they go to Rome.

But from what we gain in the Bible, there's good reason to look at the Greek Empire, the Greek influence, particularly beginning with Alexander, because as he conquers these nations, as he does what... The scriptures show that he did...nobody could... There was no one that could deliver from his hand.

Verse 4 says, "He did according to his will, and he became great." He was Alexander the Great for a reason. But what Alexander wanted to do was to create a Greek world. A Greek world. Now that's important. He wanted to create one world, and he wanted it to be Greek. He wanted to spread the Greek language, the Greek culture, the Greek religion of all the gods and goddesses. And he thought it was the best and the brightest and the most beneficial for mankind. And he wanted to create one world, call it globalization, call it one-world government, call it one-world conspiracy, whatever you want to do. That's what he wanted to do. Frankly, that's what every great despot of history has wanted to do.

Every one of the revivals of the horns of Daniel's fourth beast, they wanted to conquer the world and make it in their image, all the way down to Hitler, who wanted to create this Nazi Reich a 1000-year Nazi national socialist reign upon the earth and turn the world into, you know, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Germans. That's what he wanted to do. He didn't do it.

What's the mind behind all of these dictators wanting to create one world, one global world? Keep in mind when we get to, again, Revelation 17 and 18, that's what we're going to be studying. But Alexander was very forthright about that. There was a power behind him and his armies and this Greek empire that wanted to remake the world and kind of pick up where they were dispersed at the Tower of Babel, okay? So make your connections here. Do you understand the Satanic influence and power that's behind all of these systems?

And so Alexander sets out to do this, and he makes great headway. He encouraged his generals to marry indigenous women all along. He had big weddings and he'd have his troops marry the women from these regions. Now, these guys were gone, you know, from 334 to, you know, 323 especially. They were on the road a lot. Well, they were desiring to get married, and they did, generals and others. They had children. Alexander had other children. I've read that to this day, through DNA studies, they can trace the DNA of Greek troops under Alexander still in the countries of that part of the world. DNA pretty hangs around for a while, as we say.

And so he wanted the peoples to intermingle, and he wanted to create this Greek culture. Now, he didn't succeed. I've already described his death in Babylon. His troops have revolted against him. He didn't succeed. But that doesn't mean the dream dies.

When we come into Daniel 11 especially, we'll see some of the intrigues that influence the people of God, the Jews in Jerusalem under one of the successors of the Greek Empire, of Alexander. And to understand what we're reading in the Bible, you have to understand one key thing, and that is that as a result of what Alexander did in spreading Greek culture, everybody wanted to be Greek. That's why the style that... You see this bust? If I didn't told you it was Alexander, he was Greek, you might have thought it was a Roman or somebody else. That is because the sculptures, the busts, the paintings from this whole period, from Alexander through Rome, are essentially influenced by this type of art, all the way down to heads and statues and certainly in buildings.

The Greek architecture, you look at the Parthenon, the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens today and you see it in its glory or any other Greek temple you see. You can see that in buildings in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, other places in the world today where that Greek architecture has been copied and brought down into the modern world, retaining its influence. And right on down the list of not only architecture but culture and government. Everybody wanted to be like the Greeks, even the Romans who come on and become very strong, they wanted to be Greek too. That could be the bust of a Roman emperor if you didn't know it was Alexander because they copied that. They wanted...

And so when it comes to the Jews in Jerusalem and Israel, right here where the Greeks influence was there, it becomes a problem when the Greek boys and girls, especially the boys, the Jewish boys and girls, want to be Greek.

You ever want to be like the world? Ever wanted to look like the world with your styles, hair, dress? Sure, we copy, and to whatever degree, we adapt our style today, and sometimes our parents say, you know, "No, no, here or there," right?

In the Jewish world of this time, for a Jewish young man, they wanted to be Greek. That meant that we were leaving the Church or not modeling godly conduct or behavior of dress, etc. And that becomes a problem. We'll come back to that in Daniel 11. What I'm just showing is the influence of what happens here in this story with Alexander and his conquest in just 11 years in the world that he created. It's the stuff of large studies down to this day that is I think important to understanding the matters within the Church. All right. So we have brought it down through verse 7. Let's pick it up here at verse 8.

Daniel 8:8 "Therefore, the male goat grew very great, but when he became strong, the large horn was broken." 

Now, this large horn is understood to be Alexander the Great. And he dies, as I said, in the year 323. And he's 33 years old. And so he was like a shooting star. He came on bright, he shot across the sky of his day, and he did big things, but then he disappeared. He died. He died at Babylon. And in place of it, four notable ones or horns came up toward the four winds of heaven, okay? And so we kind of look at this.

And, you know, before we go to that, let me tell a story. Let me tell a different story. So let's kind of put a place marker there. And let's go back to Jerusalem and tell a story of Alexander coming down here, all right? As Alexander the Great rolled back the Persian empire, he made a right-hand turn, and he comes South, and he puts up a big siege at the city of Tyre, prophetically, we know about Tyre, and he comes near to Jerusalem.

Now, there's a story from the Jewish historian Josephus. This may be the first time I've introduced Josephus to you, but Josephus was a first-century Jewish historian, and he wrote a big history about Israel, about the people of Israel, and especially the events of the first century where he lived. And it's a firsthand account, and it's a primary source of a lot of Israelite history and the first-century setting in Israel or Judah at the time of the Roman conquest.

But as he tells the story of his people, of the Jews, he tells the story of the time when Alexander the Great came into the area near Jerusalem. And Alexander essentially wanted... He sent a message to the people in Jerusalem to surrender. It wasn't a strategic city necessarily, there wasn't a big army there, but he wanted them to surrender. And the Jews sent a message back, "Look, we pledged allegiance to the Persian king. And unless and until he's gone, we still want to obey that."

Well, according to Josephus in telling the story, that kind of riled up Alexander. And so he takes some of his army and he goes up towards Jerusalem. Now, there's the fear that he's going to wage a war and destroy Jerusalem. But what happens is the high priests come out, and this is a picture that kind of shows that story. And the high priest puts on his priestly garments. You see the headdress there and the ephod and the robes and everything kind of making that to look a bit like it may have been at the time. And he comes out and he meets Alexander, who's coming with his army outside the walls of Jerusalem. This is the high priest of the temple in Jerusalem. And he's carrying a scroll of the Book of Daniel.

And Josephus tells the story that the high priest sits down with Alexander and unfurls the scroll that we're reading right now here in Chapter 8, and he reads it to him and he says, "You are that goat. This was foretold by Daniel in Babylon 300 years ago." Now that's pretty good, right? He's saying, "In our Holy Books, you were foretold to be doing what you're doing." According to Josephus, that mollifies Alexander. He allows them to maintain their autonomy. He doesn't harm them. And he goes on. I think part of the story is that he even looks into the temple and wants to see that.

Now, this is a part of the story in Josephus. Modern historians discount that. They say it never happened. I don't agree with that because Josephus is largely accurate in what he writes. And there's not a reason to fabricate a story like this in the history that he is writing at the time under the circumstances that he's doing so. And I also think that there's something else to understand. In this particular picture, Alexander is the one who's kind of bowing his head toward the high priest.

Alexander thought of himself as the son of a god. And all along the routes that he's conquering, Alexander always visited the temples to pay homage to the gods and goddesses. In fact, when he is down in Egypt, he makes a trip by himself and he goes way out into the desert to a particular temple that is out there because he wants to see that. And in some of the temples in the great complex at Karnak on the Nile, they tell you when you go there, he actually built his own temple around some of the temples to the Egyptian gods to show that he was greater.

It would make sense that he would want to at least see the temple in Jerusalem having heard stories about it because he was interested in religion. I think he did go to Jerusalem. And I think that what Josephus tells us even pointing out from the scroll of Daniel where he was prophesied, I think it makes sense and happened as part of the story there. So Josephus is a historian you don't hear too much about today. You used to hear a lot about him in the Church. When I was growing up, a lot of sermons would be ministered. My pastor would be reading excerpts from the book of Josephus about Jewish history as it pertained to the Bible. And we jokingly would say at that time that Josephus was the fifth Gospel to... It was referenced so much within the Church. I don't reference Josephus other than in class. I don't preach about him, but different times in different situations today. So that's the story from Josephus of Daniel going to the temple.

Now, as we pick up the story here, it says that these four notable horns come up toward the four winds of heaven. This is understood to be the four generals who divide up Alexander's empire after his death in the year 323. And I did mention this in a previous class that of those four, there's only two that you should remember, and I'll put their names on the board, again, a general named Ptolemy. Wait, let me put that down here. Ptolemy and Seleucus. The other two, their names were Cassander and Lysimachus. They basically battle for about 20-plus years among themselves. And when it's all said and done, they divide up the territory, essentially as you see on the screen, the yellow being the Seleucid Empire of the king of the North, and then the grayish area that of the king of the South.

And that's why these are the two to remember because, in the biblical narrative, Ptolemy and his successors become...in Daniel 11, they become what is called the King of the South. So you need to remember that one. And Seleucus and his progeny become the king of the North. And we will see that in Daniel 11. And understanding that is critical to understanding the prophecies there. So these are the two of the four notable horns that you need to remember in the story. Now look at verse 9. 

Daniel 8:9 "Out of one of them," that's one of these four horns, "came a little horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land." 

All right. Now, I told you again earlier, we're going to see another little horn. This is that second little horn of Daniel 8 now, all right? 

Daniel 8:10 And it says that, "It grew up to the host of heaven and it cast down some of the hosts and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them." 

So this is a pretty strong horn. Now, in Daniel 7, we identified the little horn as the papacy. In this Chapter, we identify it with one of the kings that come out of the king of the North or the Seleucus Empire, and he's a guy named Antiochus Epiphanes, E-P-I-P-H-A-N-E-S, Antiochus Epiphanes. This is the little horn of Daniel 7, okay? I'll put just a little horn right there. All right. So we have a little horn in Daniel 7. And here's how you know that they're different and here's how you remember them. So listen carefully. In Daniel 7, the little horn comes out of the fourth beast. And who's the fourth beast? Which empire?

[Man] Rome.

[Woman] Rome.

[Darris McNeely] Rome. In Daniel 8, the little horn comes out of this goat. And who have we identified the goat as? Greece, Alexander. That's how you know they have to be different just as if you were just to read the narrative. They have to be different than they are. And so this little horn comes out of the Greek empire. And this is all part of what we've been talking about, all right?

Now, Seleucus, as you see in the map, he's got this big area and his influence is strong. What happens? These two kingdoms just fight back and forth. That's what Daniel 11 is all about. It's the intrigue and the battling back and forth of the king of the North and the king of the South over a period of time and various dynasties for control. And so this one little horn, he cast down some of the hosts, some of the stars. We see those stars identified in…

Daniel 12:3 as, “Those who are wise that will shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.”

In Daniel 12:3, that's referring to the people of God. Well, this little horn casts down some of the host, some of the stars to the ground and tramples them. So we can make a connection there to the impact of this horn, Antiochus, upon the people of God. And we'll see that more in Daniel 11.

Daniel 8:11 "He even exalts himself as high as the prince of the host. And by him, the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down." 

Now here's a reference to daily sacrifices. He exalts himself against the people of God, and not only the people of God but the God of the people or the prince. His name actually means...Antiochus Epiphanes means kind of the God incarnate. He literally looked upon himself and wanted to be worshiped as a God, if not a semi-God. So he takes this name Epiphanes. Antiochus is the family name.

Now, just a side note in the Bible, in the Book of Acts, you see cities called Antioch. Here's one right here. There's another one right over here. There were actually several more, but that's a dynastic name, the Antioch king family, and they built a city and they put their name on it. But we do see these two cities in the Book of Acts, and we'll talk more about that, but know that they come from this period of the Greeks. Again, to understand the influence of what is taking place here stretches well into the story of the New Testament and also has implications for us here.

Daniel 8:12 Says, "Because of transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices, and he cast truth to the ground. He did all this and he prospered." 

Now again, I'd reference to daily sacrifices. In verse 11, we had a reference to the place the daily sacrifices were taken away.

Now, what Antiochus literally did for a period of about three years in Jerusalem was stop the twice-daily sacrifices at the temple. And he did that because he was really upset with the Jews. They were kind of a cantankerous people. They were even fighting amongst themselves. And then they would fight against their common...well, it wasn't their common enemy. The reason the Jews were fighting amongst themselves is some of the Jews were wanting the Greeks to come in and make a more all-Greek. And they were actually building, you know, Greek temples and stadiums and athletic fields and... All of that was going on in Jerusalem. There was a faction of the Jews who saw that was good for business, and they were compromising, while there were other Jews who were holding onto the faith once delivered, and that sets up a conflict.

But the temple sacrifices were going on. And because of that inter-Jewish conflict, Antiochus comes in, and he kind of clamps down on the role and the authority there and he stops the daily sacrifices. He casts truth to the ground. Going on, in verse 13.

Daniel 8:13 Says, "I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who was speaking, 'How long will the vision be, concerning the daily sacrifices and the transgression of desolation, the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot?'"

Sanctuary is a temple, the host are the sacrifices. And so the priesthood, the temple, the sacrifices, they were all operating. Antiochus Epiphanes comes in and he stops them for a period of time. Now, the question is put here in Daniel 13.

Daniel 8:14 "For how long? And he said to me, 'For 2,300 days,'" 2,300 days. 

So there's a period of time here. And so these 2,300 days of this particular prophecy here are rather interesting. We don't normally pay a whole lot of attention to them in the Church. We've written very little about it over the years. The best understanding that we have, and we studied this in doctrine committee, prophecy committee many, many years ago as we were going through certain prophetic topics.

And this is best understood in verse 14, these 2,300 days to refer to a literal period of 1,150 days that historically transpired during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes when he stopped the sacrifices at the temple. And commentators understand this. We have felt that the best way to look at this is historical because it is referring to the sacrifices. There were two sacrifices a day. And so they were trampled underfoot. And so they were suspended. And so the 2,300 days divided in half by 2 sacrifices, since that's the topic that is here. And the idea here is evening and morning that is referenced behind the word days here. The evening and morning. There's a footnote to this in many Bibles. And the Greek word for morning and evening is what is being used here.

And so to understand it as referring to a literal cessation of the twice-daily offerings leads us to look at this as basically a historical event. And only by type would there be an extension into the time of the end when sacrifices would seem to be stopped again at the temple in the time of the end. But Antiochus literally did that. And so we don't put any more weight to these 2,300 days in terms of some other prophetic fulfillments like we do with what we will read about in Chapter 12 at the very end of Chapter 12. And we'll come back to...well, we'll cover Chapter 12 when we get there. But this is basically understood as a historical period when between the years 168 and 165 BC Antiochus stopped the daily sacrifices.

Now, just a little bit of a side note, we will end it at this point and pick up with verse 15 next time. But looking to the future, this and other prophecies in Daniel in Chapter 11 that we'll talk about, as well as the 70 weeks prophecy lead us to a conclusion that sacrifices will again be a part of the story in Jerusalem. And you would have to have a temple or some type of, you know, beginnings of a temple, at the very least, an altar, if not a full temple, which scriptures indicate that we're talking about a temple that would have to be built for religious purposes in Jerusalem, in Israel, ahead of us into the future, which is a monumental topic to get into. And usually, I do that with the classes when we come to Revelation 11.

That takes us through verse 14. We'll pick up next class with verse 15 and the interpretations, a little bit more of what we have read, and finish this up shortly next time. And then we will get back to... double back to Chapter 5 and cover the fall of Babylon at that time.