Synopsis of the Present Truth

CHAPTER 3. The Vision of Daniel Eight

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER THREE.
1. What symbols are introduced in Daniel 8?
2. Where are these symbols mostly explained
3. What does the ram with two horns represent?
4. What do the two horns symbolize
5. Which was the higher?
6. How did this come up last
7. Who was Cambyses?
8. Whom did Cambyses marry
9. Who was Cyrus?
10. When was Babylon taken by Cyrus?
11. Who was then placed on the throne of the kingdom?
12. What name is given to Cyaxeres in Daniel 5:31?

The symbols of this chapter are mostly explained in the chapter itself. The ram with two horns, the higher of which came up last, represented the kings, or the kingdom, of Media and Persia, the two horns symbolizing the two elements in the nation, the Medes and Persians. The Persian came up last and attained the controlling influence. Hostilities first broke out between the Babylonians and the Medes, whereupon Cyaxeres, king of the Medes, summoned to his aid his nephew Cyrus, the son of his sister who had been married to Cambyses, the king of Persia. Cyrus, responding with an army of 30,000 Persians, was at once placed by Cyaxeres in command of the joint forces of the Medes and Persians. On the taking of Babylon, B.C. 538, Cyaxeres (who is called Darius in Daniel 5:31), as civil ruler, took the throne. On his death, two years later, B.C. 536, he made Cyrus his successor, and the same year, Cambyses, the father of Cyrus dying, Cyrus was brought also to the Persian throne. The two were then united in one; and thus was founded the Medo-Persian empire, the ruling house being in the Persian line. This power pushed its conquests especially in the directions named, northward, westward, and southward, till in the days of Ahasuerus, Esther 1:1, it reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia. SYNPT 17.1

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER THREE.
13. When did Darius die?
14. What change then took place in the position of Cyrus?
15. How extensive was the Persian empire in the days of Ahasuerus? Reference.
16. What is symbolized by the rough goat?
17. What by the great horn between his eyes?
18. What does this show in relation to the use of the word king in these prophecies?
19. Who was the first king?
20. When and how did he become master of the world?
21. How was this horn broken?
22. Give the date of his death, and his age at the time?
23. What estimate of Alexander is given by Prideaux?

The rough goat is explained to be the king of Grecia. Verse 21. The great horn between his eyes was the first king. Id. This shows that the word king as first used has the sense of kingdom; as it would be absurd to speak of the first king of a king. This first king was Alexander the Great, who having defeated the last Persian king, Darius Codomannus, at the battle of Arbela, Oct. 1, B.C. 331, found himself master of the world. This horn was broken and four came up in its place, denoting the four parts into which his empire would be divided. Eight years after the battle of Arbela, Alexander gave himself up to beastly drunkenness to that degree that he died Nov. 12, B.C. 323, aged only 33. Prideaux gives a just estimate of the man when he calls him “the great cut-throat of the age in which he lived.” In the name of Aridaeus, then called Philip, bastard brother of Alexander’s and also an idiot, and by Alexander’s two infant sons, Alexander Aegus Hercules, all being under the guardianship of Perdiccas, the unity of the empire was for a time maintained. But it did not take long to put these all out of the way, and within fifteen years after Alexander’s death the kingdom was divided into four parts, between his four leading generals: Cassander had Macedon and Greece; Lysimachus had Thrace and those parts of Asia that lay upon the Hellespont and Bosporus; Ptolemy had Egypt, Libya, Arabia, Palestine, and Coele-Syria; and Seleucus had Syria and all the East. These kingdoms are called, in brief, Macedonia, Thrace, Syria, and Egypt. They date from about B.C. 308. SYNPT 18.1

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER THREE.
24. How was the unity of the empire for a while maintained?
25. How long before these were all put out of the way?
26. What then took place?
27. Name the four kingdoms.
28. Name their respective rulers.
29. What is the date of their rise?
30. What is denoted by the little horn?
31. To whom is this symbol sometimes applied?
32. Why can it not apply to Antiochus Epiphanes (pronounced An-ti-o-kus E-pif-a-neez)?
33. What kingdom does answer to the little horn of his prophecy?

The little horn denotes a succeeding kingdom to arise in the latter part of the reign of the four horns, a kingdom of fierce countenance, strange language, a wonderful destroyer, to stand up against the Prince of princes, and at last to be broken without hand. This horn was not Antiochus Epiphanes, as claimed by some, for he was not “exceeding great” in comparison with Medo-Persia and Grecia that went before. He did not increase his dominions, was not another horn, but only one (the 8th in order) of the 26 kings that constituted the Syrian horn of the goat. He did not stand up against the Prince of princes (Christ), but died 164 years before our Lord was born. SYNPT 19.1

This horn must symbolize Rome, as in the parallel visions of Daniel 2 and 7. Rome came out of one of the horns of the goat, as it conquered Macedonia B.C. 168, and in 161 became connected with the people of God by its league with the Jews; 1Mac.8; Josephus’ Antiq., b. xii., c. x., sec.6; Prideaux, vol.ii., p, 166; thus becoming a subject of prophecy, and appearing to the prophet to come out of the Macedonian horn. It extended its conquests toward the east, south, and pleasant land (Palestine), making provinces of the following countries: Syria, B.C. 65,; Palestine, B.C. 63; Egypt, B.C. 30. It stood up against the Prince of princes, nailing Christ to the cross. By Rome the daily was taken away and the transgression of desolation set up; that is, there was a change in the religion of the empire, Paganism (the daily desolation) was taken away, and the papacy (the transgression of desolation, or the abomination that maketh desolate) was set up. Daniel 12:11. An host was given him: the hordes of barbarians the overran the empire, but were converted to the papal faith. SYNPT 20.1

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER THREE.
34. How can Rome be said to come out of one of the horns of the goat?
35. In what directions did Rome extend its conquests?
36. When were Syria, Palestine, and Egypt made Roman provinces?
37. How did Rome stand up against the Prince of princes?
38. What is meant by the daily?
39. How was the daily taken away by Rome?
40. What was put in its place?
41. To whom was the host of verse 12 given?
42. Who constituted this host?

This horn of Daniel 8 must not be confounded with the little horn on the fourth beast of Daniel 7. That symbolized the papacy exclusively. This embraces Rome through its whole career, both pagan and papal. In other words, this horn of Daniel 8 is the same as the great and terrible beast of Daniel 7 in both its phases. SYNPT 21.1

In verse 14 is introduced the period of 2300 days, the sanctuary, and its cleansing. All the vision was sufficiently explained to the prophet with the exception of the time. But Daniel says, verse 27, “I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.” Although Gabriel had been commanded to make him understand it, Daniel fainted before an explanation of the time was reached, and the angel was obliged to postpone further instruction. SYNPT 21.2

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER THREE.
43. Is this horn the vision of Daniel 8 the same as the horn of the fourth beast of Daniel 7, and why?
44. What is introduced in verse 14?
45. How much of the vision had been explained to Daniel?
46. Yet what does Daniel say in verse 27?
47. To what must this have reference?
48. Why did not Gabriel go on till he had explained to Daniel every part of the vision?
49. Had he been commanded to explain it?
50. What may we therefore still look for?