The Little Horn - Antiochus IV Epiphanes
Daniel 8:5
An important thing to realize is that the little horn of chapter eight in Antiochus Epiphanes all the way through the chapter. In Daniel chapter eleven the first 34 verses focus on the same history with reference to the Ptolemaic kingdom and the Seleucid kingdom, but starting at verse 35 there is a shift into the future and the remainder of that chapter focuses in the Antichrist. In Daniel chapter eight there is no shift that takes place, even though there are a couple of phrases which at first glance seem to indicate that. So we have the contrast between the little horn of chapter seven who is the Antichrist and the little horn of chapter eight which is Antiochus Epiphanes. He comes up out of one of the four horns. The large horn on the goat represents Alexander the Great. Alexander dies, that horn is broken off and is replaced by four horns, and then there is a little horn that grows out of one of those four horns. That is really important, one reason being that as we live in our crunch times with the rise of radical Islam there have been a number of people, several of whom are out of a Muslim background coming out of the Middle East, and they have a tendency to interpret a lot of things that they read in the Scripture from their immediate frame of reference without due diligence in word studies and theological studies. The result of that is that there in becoming more and more visibility given to a position that the Antichrist will come out of the old Assyria, which would be modern Syria and that area, and that the antichrist is Islamic. We will point out various reasons why we do not believe that is true. One of them is that the little horn of Daniel eight, which is Antiochus Epiphanes, is a type or picture of the future Antichrist. Antiochus Epiphanes was not Assyrian, he was not Arab; he was Greek. He was raised and educated in Rome.
The little horn of Daniel chapter seven arises from the fourth kingdom, which is Rome, whereas the little horn of Daniel eight arises from the second of the two kingdoms in chapter seven, which is Greece; so there is a different origin there. The eleventh horn in Daniel is the little horn that rips out the other three. The little horn in Daniel chapter eight is actually the fifth horn that comes out of one of the four earlier horns. Then little horn of Daniel seven will persecute Israel for three and a half years whereas the little horn of Daniel eight will persecute Israel for 2300 days. We have to keep in mind that these are very different scenarios.
Daniel 8:5 NASB "While I was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground; and the goat {had} a conspicuous horn between his eyes."
In the first part of Daniel chapter eight is the vision and then in the second half, starting in v. 15, Gabriel gives the interpretation of the vision.
Daniel 8:21 NASB "The shaggy goat {represents} the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king." Remember that when Daniel was writing this, this was all future—almost 200 years future—so this was clearly written as predictive prophecy.
Daniel 8:6 NASB "He came up to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal, and rushed at him in his mighty wrath." Rams are usually thought to be stronger and more powerful than goats, yet we have there this male goat which is going to take out the ram. It is interesting within the ancient world and the symbolism that they had for different nati9ons that the Persian empire was represented by a ram. The Persian king often went into battle with a ram's head in front of him and a ram's head was often pictured on their shields. The goat which comes up is also used as a picture of Greece. Both of these animals are used in astrology which dominated the thinking of the Persians and the Greeks. In the vision that Daniel has notice how God uses symbols that were known to people at that time and that they would relate to, so there is not a lot of guesswork as to who the ram is and who the goat is.
Daniel 8:7 NASB "I saw him come beside the ram, and he was enraged at him; and he struck the ram and shattered his two horns, and the ram had no strength to withstand him. So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was none to rescue the ram from his power." There were basically three major battles where the Greeks roundly defeated the Persians.
Daniel 8:8 NASB "Then the male goat magnified {himself} exceedingly…" Arrogance is typical of human political power. This is one of the great dangers in leadership, of course, whether one is a pastor, a teacher, a military commander, or a political leader. It is very easy to succumb to arrogance thinking that you are the greatest. When one is as great as Alexander the Great it is a particularly treacherous sin and mental attitude to have, and this typified Alexander because of his tremendous skill on the battlefield and conquering so many nations. "… But as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken; and in its place there came up four conspicuous {horns} toward the four winds of heaven." Alexander died in 323 BC when he was 32 years of age and there was no one strong enough to keep the empire unified, so it was then split between four of his generals. These are the four heads of the leopard that we see in chapter seven where the speed of the leopard is typified. "…towards the four winds of heaven" indicates a split in four directions.
The four generals were Ptolemy, Seleucus, Cassandra and Lysimachus. As far as the biblical account goes the third and the fourth don't relate at all. Cassandra initially took over Macedonia and Greece, Lysimachus, Thrace and Turkey, and before long Turkey became part of the Seleucid empire—within about a century. The biblical text focuses on what happened to Egypt and the Ptolemaic empire and the Seleucid empire. These power struggles that were taking place in the ancient world are no different from the power struggles that are taking place today. There was a struggle between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, and that is the area we need to focus on.
In verse 21 we are told that the shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece. Daniel 8:22 NASB "The broken {horn} and the four {horns that} arose in its place {represent} four kingdoms {which} will arise from {his} nation, although not with his power." They weren't as strong. [23] "In the latter period of their rule, When the transgressors have run {their course,} A king will arise, Insolent and skilled in intrigue." When we read the words "latter period of their rule" and we read the phrase "when the transgressors have run their course," there is a tendency to leap to a conclusion that this now shifts to future unfulfilled prophecy. Then in Daniel 9:24 where we have the well-known seventy weeks prophecy, it begins with the statement, "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression…" That sounds like the phrase "when the transgressors have run their course," but they are really two different concepts. One is talking about bringing an end to transgression, which is seen in the parallels in v. 24, "to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness." So the context there is something very different, it is referring to end times, the second coming scenario. In this passage, "when the transgressors have run their course," who are the transgressors? These are the ones who are ruling in the latter period of their rule. "Their rule" has to go back to the four kings that arise out of the broken horn. That locks us down to the fact that Daniel 8:23 is still talking about a historical event. It was future to Daniel but it is past to us. This occurred in the end of the fourth century BC, going up to events in the middle of the second century BC: 323-198 when the Ptolemies, the kingdom of Egypt, dominated Jerusalem and Judea and that part of the world. So when we read "in the latter period of their rule" it is talking about the fact that this insolent king comes up towards the end of this period of time. The period when the Seleucid empire dominated Jerusalem was from 198-167 BC—about 30 years. So this was clearly in the latter period of the domination by the Greek successors to Alexander. In 167 there is the Maccabean revolt and the beginning of the Hasmonaean kingdom.
There are three things about Antiochus Epiphanes that are pictures for us of the kind of person the end-time Antichrist will be. The first has to do with personality. He had a very attractive personality and was very popular at the beginning. He had military victories which added to his popularity and so at the very beginning he won the masses. And this is one of the ways that politicians and leaders typically endear themselves to the masses. They make promises, they promise prosperity and that there is going to be a chicken in every pot, two cars in every garage and everybody will have cable TV and a wireless internet connection. These are the things that politicians of all stripes promise the people because they basically understand the fact that that is what the masses want. They don't want to think, they just want to make sure that they have comfort. So many leaders gain power through their personality and through their own charisma.
Antiochus the Great went into Greece to try to stop the Romans and he was defeated soundly. The result was that the Romans imposed upon the Seleucid empire such a financial burden that the last couple of years of his life and the whole life of Antiochus Epiphanes he was concerned about increasing the size of his empire so that he could increase the tax base and tax revenue so that they could pay off the Romans and continue to live. So we see the same kind of problems in the ancient world that we have today. It all comes back to money; there was this huge economic issue that Antiochus was going to try to control.
Thirdly, he understands that it is a culture war. When he comes back from Rome and his time in Greece he realizes that what he needs to do is Hellenize his whole empire and he needs to Hellenize the Jews; he needs to make everyone think like a Greek. We have the same thing going on today. We have the modernists, the liberals, atheists and secular humanists who want to wipe out any influence of Christianity on the culture; and this culture war has been going on since the late 19th century. Antiochus understood that he could not consolidate his empire and control the area of Palestine unless he could wipe out the God of Israel and destroy Israel's religious beliefs. That, more than anything else, is what is going to typify the Antichrist.