The vision (and prophecy) of the conquering Ram with two high horns and the conquering Goat with one big horn
(Prophecy)
During the rule of the Babylonian king Belshazzar, the prophet Daniel was taken in a vision from Babylon in Mesopotamia all the way to the providence of Elam by the Ulai canal there on the other side of the Tigris River:
Daniel 8:1-2
“In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, I, Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside the Ulai Canal.”
In this vision, Daniel was not only seeing a new location many miles away from where he actually was, but he looked up in front of him and saw a ram (that is a grown male sheep) in front of him with two massive horns:
Daniel 8:3
“...I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns, standing beside the canal, and the horns were long.…”
But he noticed one of the horns was longer than the other but the smaller horn then grew as long as the longer horn:
Daniel 8:3
“... One of the horns was longer than the other but grew up later.”
The ram then began to run around and charge in three of the four main directions: the west,the north,and the south (as other possible animals in the visions were conquered by the charging ram) and the ram did what it wanted and became very powerful:
Daniel 8:4
“I watched the ram as it charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against it, and none could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased and became great.”
This vision made Daniel deeply think about what this all meant, but as he was trying to comprehend it a goat with a huge horn in between it’s eyes came gliding in from the west of Elam:
Daniel 8:5
“As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between its eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground.”
It then approached the powerful ram and suddenly charged at it in massive rage and destroyed its two horns and trampled on the ram:
Daniel 8:6-7
“It came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at it in great rage. I saw it attack the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering its two horns. The ram was powerless to stand against it; the goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it, and none could rescue the ram from its power.”
Then the goat became the most powerful animal in the vision and just as it was victorious at beating up the ram it’s huge horn in between its eyes broke off at the base and then four different horns grew up in its place very high.
Daniel 8:8
“The goat became very great, but at the height of its power the large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.”
Then Daniel saw another horn growing on top of one of the high four horns; it began small and then grew bigger and bigger stretching toward the south, east, and especially towards the promised land inhabited by ancient Israel (that would be the west and what Daniel called here ‘the beautiful land’)
Daniel 8:9
“Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land.”
It grew until it could reach stars in the sky in the vision (or possibly even angels) and whacked some of them out of the sky and the horn smashed them in the ground:
Daniel 8:10
“It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them.”
This horn thought it was as great as God’s general of his army (possibly an angel) because it took away the right to sacrifice to God and even threw the very temple of God down in destruction:
Daniel 8:11
“It set itself up to be as great as the commander of the army of the Lord; it took away the daily sacrifice from the Lord, and his sanctuary was thrown down…It prospered in everything it did,..”
This very weird vision was finally explained by a ‘man’ that appears in the vision (which is actually an angle named Gabriel):
Daniel 8:15-19
“While I, Daniel, was watching the vision and trying to understand it, there before me stood one who looked like a man. And I heard a man’s voice from the Ulai calling, ‘Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision.’…he came near the place where I was…[and said]…’Son of man,’ he said to me, ‘understand that the vision concerns the time of the end.’…He said: ‘I am going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath, because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end.’”
The ‘man’ here in the vision is revealed to be the angel, Gabriel; and he reveals this vision Daniel just saw is symbolically referring to future events that would happen many years later from this time.
He then begins to ‘decode’ the symbols in the vision and what they are referring to starting with the ram with two large horns:
Daniel 8:20
“The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia.”
So, the ram symbolizes the kings of Media and Persia (and thus symbolizes the armies and even kingdoms of Media and Persia): thus, it can be concluded the two horns on the ram symbolize the two kings and also armies/kingdoms of Media and Persia.
Daniel 8:21
“The shaggy goat is the king of Greece,…”
So, the Goat that floated in from the west symbolizes the king of Greece (and thus symbolizes the army and even kingdom of Greece) and Gabriel even decodes what the massive horn between the goat’s eyes represent:
Daniel 8:21
“…and the large horn between its eyes is the first king.”
So like the two massive horns on the ram symbolize kings (and partially their armies) this one massive horn symbolizes the first king of Greece (this cannot mean the literal first king of Greece ever because Greece at this time [which was not really considered one nation like Media and Persia but rather many different nations at this time: mostly in the form of city-states with a common heritage/identity] have had many different kings for many centuries now going all the way back to at least 2000 B.C.; what Gabriel has to mean is this will be the first king of Greece [possibly a united Greece] to go out and conquer other nations and especially conquer the ruling Media and Persian forces and win.)
So, Gabriel then reveals what is symbolized by the giant horn breaking off the goat and being replaced with four long horns:
Daniel 8:22
“The four horns that replaced the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation but will not have the same power.”
So, the breaking off of this massive horn symbolize this king and his kingdom he creates from defeating Media and Persia will be destroyed and his kingdom will be split into four kingdoms (possibly with four different kings) who will never have the victorious glory as the first king and his kingdom.
Then Gabriel finally explains what the small horn that grew massive on one of the long four horns symbolized:
Gabriel says this little horn that grew massive on top of another horn symbolizes an evil, aggressive, yet powerful king that would come to rule one of these four kingdoms in the last years of these Greek kingdoms (before possibly being destroyed):
Daniel 8:23-25
“In the latter part of their (these four Greek kings and their kingdoms) reign,…a fierce-looking king, a master of intrigue, will arise.”
So, the extra horn that grew out of one of the four horns on the goat symbolizes an evil yet powerful future Greek king that will come to rule one of the four kingdoms right before they were destroyed.
Gabriel goes on to describe that this king would grow very strong (symbolized by the little horn growing to be massive) given by someone else’s power that would devastate the future Jewish nation, ban sacrifices, and desecrate God’s future holy temple as well as causing massive destruction and deceit to be rampant. But he would succeed at all the evil things he would do and think of himself a great leader and wonderful ruler:
Daniel 8:24-25
“...He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy those who are mighty, the holy people(Israelites). He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. “
The description goes on to say this particular Greek king would ban sacrifices to God, destroy his holy temple, and throw the truth of God down (possibly the meaning of the symbol of the horn throwing down the stars/angels of heaven to the ground)
Daniel 8:11-12
“…[he]…took away the daily sacrifice from the Lord, and his sanctuary was thrown down….the daily sacrifice were given over to…[him]…and truth was thrown to the ground.”
Finally, Gabriel said just when these oppressed people (probably including Israelites) finally felt safe, this evil king would destroy many of these people and fight against even the prince of princes (possibly God or the Messiah) and after his stand against the prince of princes he would be destroyed by a non-human power (God would most likely destroy him):
Daniel 8:25
“…When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.”
So, with this, the angel Gabriel decodes the symbolism of what the vision Daniel just saw:
This vision was a symbolic prophesy of the distant future (the last days right before the appointed time of wrath) of what would happen in the future concerning the future empires and kings to dominate the world:
This vision states after the Neo-Babylonian empire (the present empire ruling the known world [Middle East]) the nations of Media and Persia would then come together to conquer the Neo-Babylonian empire and even Babylonia and other nations to the west then north and then south of Elam establishing a big empire from the former Neo-Babylonian empire. But when this empire is ruling, a king will begin to rule in one of the Greek ‘nations’ (mostly city-states) and begin conquering nations and fight against the empire of Persia and Media and successfully destroy these kings (and their military) in battle and conquer their empire and even their own nations (Persia and Media are near where this vision is taking place in Elam by the way! and someone from Greece would come from the same direction as the goat: from the west of Elam!) then this Great Greek empire founded by this great king would be broken into four separate kingdoms under separate Greek kings: these kingdoms would continue until at the very end of these four Greek kingdoms existence (possibly before being conquered) a Greek king ruling one of these four Greek kingdoms that would specifically dominate the kingdom in the south, east, and West (especially it seems the kingdom he rules will dominate the holy land: that is the land formerly inhabited by ancient Israel!). this particular Greek king would become very powerful and evil: he would kill many and destroy many in his future reign: he would especially attack and kill Israelites/Jews and ban all sacrifices to their God as well as destroying the new temple of God! In his reign he would try to ban all truth of God and deceit would run rampant. And just when these oppressed people thought it was safe, he will attack and even oppose God or the Messiah to finally be destroyed by God.
So, did this happen after Daniel’s vision around 600-550 B.C.?
Fulfillment in history (and partially in the Bible)
This prophetic vision had already been fulfilled completely and can now be found in history books (in fact, if your familiar with ancient empires and kings of the Middle East/Mediterranean this prophetic vision and it’s decoding just might have sounded very familiar to what has been described in a modern history book!) and this fulfillment is also partially recorded in last books of the Bible in the Old Testament:
Media and Persia conquer The Neo-Babylonian empire
Not many years after this prophetic vision, Daniel himself witnessed the very beginning of this prophecy begging to be fulfilled: as the last Chaldean king of Babylon, Belshazzar, was having a huge royal party in his royal palace in Babylon; a finger wrote on the wall inside the palace:
Daniel 5:1-5
“...King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them… Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall,…”
Daniel told the king what it meant: it meant for the king’s pride God had judged the nation to be destroyed and divided by the conquering Medes and Persians:
Daniel 5:22-26
“But you, Belshazzar, his son, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven….God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end….Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
shortly after Daniel said this (that very day at night), the combined army of Media and Persia had invaded the city of Babylon and taken over: mainly the Median army invaded the city and began killing the ruling Chaldeans living here: they eventually entered the royal palace and found the king and killed him and the Medes under their king Darius took over Babylon: this officially brought the Neo-Babylonian empire to an end and was the beginning of the Medio-Persian (Median and Persian) empire.
Daniel 5:30-31
“...That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom…”
So, the very beginning of the vision was fulfilled in Daniel’s lifetime shortly after the vision itself: The Neo-Babylonian empire was conquered by the combined military of Media (under king Darius) and Persia (under king Cyrus) who then took over the empire to make their own.
This Median/Persian takeover and Median/Persian kings are recorded/hinted in the rest of the Bible: including the rest of the book of Daniel, the book of Nehemiah, and the book of Ezra as ruling over the captive descendants of the original southern kingdom of Judah (commonly called Jews at this point) and giving decrees to them to return to their homeland in the Levant.
Media and Persia take over Mesopotamia (including Babylon), The Levant, Asia minor, Egypt and some of the Caucasus to form the Median/Persian empire
Once they successfully conquered Babylon, Darius/ (Median king) and Cyrus (Persian king) now ruled the lands formerly conquered by the Babylonians/Chaldeans this included Mesopotamia and a majority of the Levant (including the holy land of ancient Israel): but they would not stop there they would expand the former land of their new empire: by conquering the nations of the Asian minor and some of the lower Caucasus region and much of Egypt, and even the southern nations of Greece very successfully! This fulfilled the prophecy that Persia's and Media's army would successfully fight and conquer lands to the west of Elam (Mesopotamia and Levant), to the North (Asia minor and Caucasus) and then the South (Egypt) that eventually became a part of the first Persian empire/Achaemenid’s empire (This also is what the uneven horns of the Ram symbolize: the longer horn represented the Median rule of the earlier empire that came first, and the short horn that grew to be the same size as the taller horn symbolized the future Persian rule of the empire that came after the Median one).
The First Greek king to conquer the Midian and Persian kings/armies and to form the first Greek empire.
Hundreds of years later; While the Persian empire was at its height (and had attacked many Greek nations and even Thrace by this time) Alexander became king of the Greek nation of Macedonia: a nation at the far end of the main Greek area in Europe and at this time had conquered most of Greece (and many Greek islands off the Greek mainland like Crete) and formed the first Macedonian Empire: virtually uniting all of the Greek mainland nations in a way) under Alexander’s father King Phillip the 2nd. The new king, Alexander, led the Greek Macedonian army (along with other armies of conquered Greek nations under the Macedonian empire in Greece) to conquer the Asian minor: who were part of the Persian empire; so basically, he attacked Persia (and Media). Despite being greatly outnumbered and overpowered by the massive Persian empire; through Alexander’s very wise and intelligent military leadership he conquered the whole Asian minor and took the land away from the Persian empire But Alexander did not stop there:
he continued to take more and more land from the Persian (and also Median) empire war after war of successful conquest from the west until he came to Mesopotamia where often begin to face off with the king of Persia himself: Darius the third [1]. Alexander always successfully defeated him in battle despite still being more powerful: he ran from the battle often out of fear of the conquering Greeks: much like the ram was unable to stop the goat with its large horn from conquering him, the armies of Media and armies/king of Persia (Darius the third) were unable to stop Alexander and his army from taking over what was left of their empire and even original homelands [1]. So, Alexander then took Babylon, then Susa (where Daniel originally saw the vision) and eventually began conquering the homelands of Persia and Media themselves (also right near Susa/Elam where the vision was seen!) fought against these united nations and successfully won and destroyed the last armies of these nations and the Persian (and Median) Empire: thus, fulfilling the next part of the prophecy:
that a king of Greece (revealed to be Alexander the Great) would conquer the combined kings/forces of Media and Persia (revealed to be Darius the third and) and successfully conquering their empire to form the first (and only) Greek/Macedonian empire and one of the Greatest empires ever known at this time made by a single king that was unlikely to even succeed! (This is also the same prophesied very powerful king that rules with great power told by the angel Gabriel in "The prophecy of kings")
The Greek empire and first king become are destroyed in their height of power and divided into four kingdoms by four different kings.
However, shortly after Alexander’s major and massive victory and formation of this massive empire he shockingly died without a heir to his great empire: so, the empire began to crumple without a true ruler while several Greek/Macedonian generals who were close to Alexander fought for their part of Alexander’s former empire. Eventually the empire was divided by mainly four generals that became kings over the boundaries set: they were Lysimachus, Cassander, Ptolemy, and Seleucus these Macedonian generals basically divided the massive Greek empire into four kingdoms named after them!
Fulfilling the next part of the prophecy: That this king (revealed to be Alexander the great) and his empire (The Macedonian/Greek empire) would be destroyed and in their place four different Greek kings (revealed to be Lysimachus, Cassander, Ptolemy, and Seleucus) who would divide the former empire up into four different kingdoms (revealed to be The Cassander kingdom, The Lysimachus kingdom, The Ptolemy empire, and The Seleucus empire) [2].(This is also the same prophesied breaking up of his empire to the four winds/directions of heaven/sky told by the angel Gabriel in "The prophecy of kings")
In the later part of the four Greek kingdom’s dynasty, an evil Greek king would come to power and begin to try to oppose God, ban sacrifices to him, destroy the new temple of God, and try to destroy Israelites/Jews
Why it’s not at first clear who the evil Greek king would be, as the descendants of the original kings came to rule the four kingdoms hundreds of years later their arose a pretty evil king from the Seleucid empire named Antiochus the 4th: a descendant of the original king Seleucus who came to rule the Seleucus empire in 170 B.C.[3].
He was well known for being very mean and cunning (a nickname for him was ‘Antiochus Epimanes’ or Antiochus the mad! ) he was like a tyrant to his people and even killed his own brother to take over his father’s empire! He often would bribe others in order to keep his kingdom (a king who knows deceit and is very sinister/evil).
He also glorified himself as a God incarnate; he would often claim to be the human incarnation of Zeus he added the name ‘Epipanes’ to his name meaning ‘illustrious/manifested’ in Greek hinting of his divine manifestation of Zeus. He even printed ‘Θεὸς Ἐπιφανής' (pronounced: Theos epiphanies) meaning ‘God manisfest’ on his coins in his empire. He also wanted his subjects to begin become more Greek in their culture (or Hellanized) especially in worshiping Greek gods like Zeus, Most of the Pagan nations/people under the Seleucid rule were fine with this, except the descendants of the southern kingdom of Judah in this empire who had come back to their God and began to worship him only (this was especially the case in the newly reestablished southern kingdom of Judah; now called ‘Judea’ who had rebuilt the temple to God and promoted the worship of their God.) This made Antiochus the 4th very angry at Judea for resisting worshiping his Greek gods. Eventually he begins to conquer more of the Ptolemy empire to expand his Seleucid empire (most likely fulfilling the prophecy of the ‘little horn’ stretching to the south, east, and the ancient promisedland [West] ) .
However, when he began to conquer the center of the Ptolemy empire in Egypt he lost and was humiliated. He returned back to Jerusalem to find the people rebelling against his policies, so it seems he took out his frustration out on Jerusalem: he killed many people in Jerusalem and forbid the worship of their God and even forbid obedience to him: like circumcision! He finally took over the newly rebuilt temple and put a blasphemous idol of Zeus inside it and began to sacrifice pigs (a very unclean animal unworthy of sacrifice according to Jews and the law) and poured the blood in the alter (some even recorded that he tried to force the priest to eat the pig sacrifices because it was forbidden for them to eat pig by the food laws found in the Law):
by doing this he made a mockery out of their God (and even tried to even indirectly attacked their God ) by desecration his holy temple and doing things he hated/forbid: thus fulfilling the prophecy that the horn would knock the truth of God down (by suppressing it in Judea and other Jewish communities beyond) try to destroy Israelites (Jews), knock down his temple (by desecrating it) and even try to fight God/the messiah himself (by trying to make a mockery of him and destroy his temple, the knowledge of him and his law, and even his own people!). Eventually the Jewish people had enough of his tyranny and formed a rebellion under the leadership of the Maccabees to take back their temple and Jerusalem and then their nation to worship and obey their God:
Even though they were greatly outnumbered, they successfully defeated king Antiochus and his army and drove then out of Jerusalem and Judea and reclaimed the temple. After this, Antiochus abandoned the newly established western part of his empire to go back to defend the eastern part of his empire that was being neglected and even attacked by the newly established Parthian armies. As he was on his way back (conquering and destroying along the way) he got a mysterious illness that made him very sick and he eventually died from this mysterious illness: thus finally fulfilling the end of the prophecy hundreds of years later: that the ‘little horn/evil Greek king’ (revealed to be king Antiochus the 4th) would oppose God and be destroyed by a non-human power (which was the mysterious illness that he got)[3].
Right after this happened, the main four Greek kingdoms fell (three of them to the growing Roman empire) and Antiochus’s Seleucid empire mostly fell to the invading Parthian forces to form the Parthian empire: thus, leading to the final destruction of the Greek empire and completely fulfilling the prophetic vision of the Ram and the Goat.
Sources:
[1]
Wikipedia “Darius III”
Website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_III
[2]
[A]
“After Alexander’s death his empire was divided among his four generals…”
From The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great by Joshua J. Mark World History encyclopedia on November 01 2018
Website:
[B] The Collector “Who Were The Diadochi of Alexander The Great?” By Antonis Chaliakopoulos on Mar 26, 2021
Website:
https://www.thecollector.com/who-were-the-diadochi-of-alexander-the-great/
[3]
[A] Biblical Archeology society “Antiochus Epiphanes—The Bible’s Most Notoriously Forgotten Villain” by John Gregory Drummond on December 19, 2022
Website:
[B] Wikipedia “Antiochus IV Epiphanes”
Website: