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THE RAM AND THE MALE GOAT, PART 1 WHAT
THE 2300 DAYS IS NOT
In
the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me—to me, Daniel—after the one that appeared to me the
first time. I saw in the vision, and it so happened while I was looking, that I was
in Shushan, the citadel, which is
in the province of Elam; and I saw in the vision that I was by the River Ulai.
Then 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. I saw the ram pushing 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. (Daniel 8:1–4, NKJV) The
prophecy of the Ram and the Male Goat is the second prophecy God gave Daniel.
Daniel refers to this vision as “after the one that appeared to me the first
time,” the first time being the prophecy of the Four Beasts in chapter seven.
This prophecy was given to him in the third year of Belshazzar’s reign, 551
b.c. This
prophecy was given to Daniel in the form of a vision, as with the previous
vision, the characters are depicted by animals, horns, and another little horn.
This prophecy features two animals identified as a Ram and a Male Goat, or as
the King James Version styles it, a He Goat. The
Ram symbolizes the Medo-Persian Empire, which is clearly stated in verse 20,
“The ram which you saw, having the two horns—they are the kings of Media and
Persia.” The word ram is the Hebrew word ah-yil,
meaning strength. This word is used to denote various things that are strong,
such as a ram, a strong man, and strong trees. This word appears 185 times in
the Old Testament; 156 times it is translated ram, 21 times post, 4 times mighty
men, 2 times trees, and lintel and oaks one time each. It is not coincidental
that the ram was the symbol used by the Persians, such as the eagle is the
symbol of the United States. The
Male Goat is used to symbolize the Greek Empire as revealed in verse 21, “And
the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes
is the first king.” Male goat, or he goat in the King James Version, is two
Hebrew words: aze tsaw-feer. Aze means
goat, particularly a female goat, but by implication, it refers to the strength
of the goat. Tsaw-feer means a male goat. The two words together indicate a very
strong goat. Adam Clarke comments on this male goat: A
goat was a very proper symbol of the Grecian or Macedonian people. . . . Two
hundred years before the time of Daniel they were called Aegeadae, the goat’s
people. . . . Caranus, their first king, going with a multitude of Greeks to
seek a new habitation in Macedonia, was advised by an oracle to take the goats
for his guides; and afterwards, seeing a herd of goats flying from a violent
storm, he followed them to Edessa, and there fixed the seat of his empire, and
made the goats his ensigns or standards; and called the place Aege or Aegea, the
goats’ town; and the people Aegeadae, the goats’ people. Later in history,
Alexander the Great named his son Alexander Aegus, Alexander the goat. It
was assumed in our study of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and the prophecy of the
Four Beasts, based on our knowledge of history, that successions of kingdoms
forward from Daniel’s time would be Babylon to Medo-Persia to Greece to Rome.
In this prophecy the two middle kingdoms of this succession are identified in
plain language. This fact alone confirms the assumptions made concerning the
succession of empires in the previous prophecies. It also confirms to us the
foreknowledge of God; that He knows what the future is and will be. Daniel
writes in verse two that he saw a vision and in this vision he saw himself in
Shushan, which was the capital city of Persia. It is strange that our beloved
commentator, Adam Clarke, writes “Daniel was at this time in Shushan, which
appears to have been a strong place, where the kings of Persia had their summer
residence.” The prophecy came to Daniel in 551 b.c., the third year of
Belshazzar’s reign. Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 b.c. and we know from
the fifth chapter of Daniel that Daniel was present at the fall of Babylon. The
reader will recall that Daniel translated the writing on the wall and promoted
Daniel to third ruler in the kingdom on the very night Darius the Mede overthrew
the city. There is no way Daniel could have been in Persia when he received the
vision, he only saw himself in Shushan in the vision. The fact that he saw
himself in Shushan in the vision suggests that he would someday be there to
experience some of what this prophecy reveals. It
is interesting to learn from this prophecy that another little horn would grow
up. In the prophecy of the Four Beasts, the little horn mentioned there turned
out to be Herod the Great, who rose up to be the king of Palestine under the
Romans and whose reign marked the time at which Messiah and His kingdom would
come to the world. This little horn is not the same as the one in the previous
prophecy because it is associated with the Male Goat, the Greek Empire. He is
not the same as the large horn on the goat, and he was not one of the four horns
that came up after the large horn was broken off. We are told in verse nine that
this little horn came out of one of the horns and grew “exceedingly great
toward the south, toward the east, and toward the Glorious Land.” Most of this
prophecy has to do with the actions of this little horn against God’s people. The
vision troubled Daniel and while he was trying to understand what the vision
meant, someone having the appearance of a man spoke to the angel Gabriel telling
him to explain the vision to Daniel. In verse 17 Gabriel tells him “that the
vision refers to the time of the end;” and in verse 19 he says, “for at the
appointed time the end shall be.” Some have construed this to mean the
prophecy concerns the end of time, the return of Christ, or the end of the
world. Gabriel explains the vision in verse 23–25, and it becomes apparent
that the end of time two which the prophecy concerns is the end of the time of
the little horn. What
Daniel learned from the vison made him sick. Verse 27: “And I, Daniel,
fainted and was sick for days; afterward I arose and went about the king's
business. I was astonished by the vision, but no one understood it.” The
events in the vision were to happen hundreds of years in the future—a time in
which Daniel would not even be alive. He saw these events would severely impact
the “holy people,” the Jews who in the future would be under the rule of
this little horn. The shock of what he saw overloaded his nervous system causing
him to faint and be sick for several days. He eventually recovered and went back
to work. Daniel writes that he shared this vision with some others, possibly the
prophet Ezekiel, but no one could understand it. For the rest of his life, this
vision and what it meant for the “holy people” haunted him. Some
things in this vision have led certain modern prophecy teachers to a wrong
conclusion. Particularly, two things in the prophecy of the Ram and the Male
Goat were exploited and used to predict the return of Christ and the end of
time. The first thing is the 2300 days mentioned in verse 14, which is the
number of days after which the sanctuary shall be cleansed. The second is
Gabriel’s statement in verse 17, “the vision refers to the time of the
end.” Tying the two things together, it has been imagined that after 2300
days, assumed to be prophetic days, the sanctuary, whatever that is, should be
cleansed and the end would come. In
particular, the Adventists, Seventh-Day Adventists, rely on the manipulation of
this prophecy for what they believe to be the prophetic indication and
foundation of their movement. First, they connect the 2300 days of Daniel
chapter 8 with the 70 weeks of Daniel chapter 9. It is believed that the 70
weeks prophecy is really a continuation of the prophecy in chapter 8. The 70
weeks prophecy predicts the return of the Jews to Judah, which happened in 457
b.c. In their thinking, 457 b.c. is the starting date for the 2300 days. Next,
they assume the 2300 days is actually 2300 years. The justification for this is
what can be called the day-for-a-year principle. The prophetic use of a day to
represent a year appears twice in the Old Testament: Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel
4:6. According
to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely
forty years, and you shall know My rejection. (Numbers 14:34, NKJV) And
when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear
the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a
day for each year. (Ezekiel 4:6, NKJV) In
the verse from Numbers, God is pronouncing judgment on the Israelites for their
refusal to go into the Promised Land. Spies were sent into the land and came
back with a fantastic report on the wealth and fertility of the land, but a
discouraging report on the fierceness of the inhabitants. The Israelites refused
to go into the land and God sentenced them to wander in the Sinai Peninsula for
forty years, one year for every day the spies were in the Promised Land. This
does not appear to qualify as a prophetic principle. The
passage from Ezekiel was delivered long after the Israelites were in the
Promised Land. In fact, the kingdom had been long divided, the northern kingdom
having been carried away into oblivion, and the southern kingdom was soon to be
held captive in Babylon. The prophecy actually begins in verse four where God
has Ezekiel to lay on his left side for 390 days, indicating God’s judgment on
the House of Israel, the northern kingdom. In verse six, Ezekiel lays on his
right side for forty days, the sign of God’s judgment on the House of Judah,
the southern kingdom. The 390 days indicates the number of years Israel sinned
against God, which is reckoned from the rebellion of Jeroboam and the division
of the kingdom. The forty days for Judah are the years since Josiah’s
reformation from which Judah backslid. While this is interesting, it is not
germane to Daniel’s prophecy. The point here is that the days Ezekiel laid on
his side represented years, and while it can be said the days are prophetic
years, this does not constitute a prophetic principle that must be applied to
the word “days” in this prophecy or any other prophecy. Context
has everything to do with interpreting scripture, even prophecies. The Hebrew
word of day is yowm, and the word for
days is yamim. Neither of these words
appears in Daniel 8:14. The word translated “days” in our English Bibles is ereb
boqer, meaning evenings and mornings. The reason the words for evenings and
mornings is used instead of the word “days” is because of the continual
reference in the chapter to the daily sacrifices in the temple, verses, 11, 12,
and 13, which were made every evening and every morning. It is also made clear
in verse 26 where the prophecy is called “the vision of the evenings and
mornings.” It is plain to see from the context of the prophecy that the 2300
days have to do with the daily sacrifice and cannot be interpreted to mean 2300
prophetic years. As
mentioned earlier, the Adventists use the prophecy of the 70 weeks to fix the
start date for their 2300 prophetic years. Starting at 457 b.c. and looking
forward 2300 years takes their reckoning to October 22, 1844. In their thinking,
this was the date on which the sanctuary was to be cleansed as stated in verse
14 and for Christ to return bringing the end, verse 17. History painfully
records that there was no earthly sanctuary to cleanse on that date and Christ
did not return. Adventists were waiting, having sold their property and personal
possessions, but they were not caught up with Christ. The event became known as
The Great Disappointment. In response to the disappointment, they changed their
doctrine to teach that on that date Christ cleansed the sanctuary in heaven. In
Adventist thinking, why did the sanctuary need cleansing? They held that the
little horn in this prophecy was papal Rome. They believed the little horn in
chapter 7 to be papal Rome therefore this little horn must be the same since it
is a little horn. They also believe that the cleansing of the sanctuary refers
to the process of the Day of Atonement recorded in Leviticus 16 where the sins
of Israel were ceremonially cleansed by the blood of Christ. To them, the
sanctuary was symbolic of the church and the church had been desecrated by Roman
Catholicism by sins of the people and the priests. According to their belief,
the confessed sins of the people were transferred to the heavenly sanctuary
through confession and the celebration of the mass. On October 22, 1844, it is
supposed that Christ had had enough of this and spiritually cleansed the
heavenly temple. With
the supposed cleansing of the temple in heaven, the time of the end came. The
end of what time? The Adventists believe the prophecy means the end of prophetic
time. Uriah Smith, famous Adventist author who was not involved in the Great
Disappointment explains what Adventists mean by the end of time. In his book,
Thoughts, Critical and Practical on the Book of Revelation, he comments on
Revelation 10:5–6, which reads: And
the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand
to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven,
and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are,
and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no
longer. (King James Version) He writes: It
must therefore mean prophetic time shall be no more; not that time should never
be used in a prophetic sense . . . but no prophetic period should extend beyond
this message; they should all close here. Arguments on the prophetic periods
show that the longest ones no not extend beyond the autumn of 1844.[1] Smith
cleverly avoids the folly of 1844 as if it never happened. In saying the
Revelation declares that prophetic time shall be no more, he ties the words of
the angel to the 2300 days of Daniel and comes to the conclusion that no
prophetic period can extend beyond 1844. This limits all prophetic projections
to the time and message of the Adventists. We
now know what the 2300 days are not. As this prophecy is unveiled we will come
to the correct understanding, which happens to be recognized by the vast
majority of Bible commentators.
[1]
Smith, Uriah, Thoughts,
Critical and Practical on the Book of Revelation,
Steam Press: Battle Creek, MI, 1875,
ppg 195, 196
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