At the end of the vision, we see that Daniel does not completely understand the vision. Remember, Daniel is living in the 70-year prophecy of captivity because of Israel’s rebellion. This is significant because the 70-year prophecy is coming to a close. When the 70-years of captivity is complete, Israel will return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple, city and establish their services and such. Daniel is thinking that the sanctuary will be rebuilt soon. In the vision, he sees the sanctuary cleansed sometime after these empires. He sees the sanctuary cast down, but in his mind it is already cast down for Babylon already destroyed it. We can understand why he is so confused by what he sees in vision because he does not quite understand that most of the visions are things to come that is beyond his time.
We are going to see there is something very specific about the prophecies of Daniel. If you recall the Old Testament prophets: Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Nahum, Haggi, and all the minor prophets; we see something very specific in that God is telling them to give the people a message. God says, “Go unto Israel and say unto them….” HOWEVER, the book of Daniel does not do that – in fact at the end of the book of Daniel you see God telling Daniel to seal up the book because it is for the time of the end. This is an important distinguishing point because a lot of the prophecies in Isaiah and Jeremiah were primarily for the people of that time and have been fulfilled. Unfortunately, people will take those prophecies and apply them to the future. Now, there are some secondary applications that we spoke of some time back when we began our Daniel study. Primarily, Daniels visions catapult us into the future because the largest part of his vision deals with the end of time.
Simple Take-Aways
In Daniel 2 we have Babylon (head of gold), Medo-Persia (chest/arms of silver), Greece (belly/thighs of bronze), and Rome (legs of iron, feet/toes of iron mingled with clay). The feet and toes of iron and clay are really an extension of the fourth kingdom which is Rome. The feet and toes represent the divided Roman Empire into ten kingdoms, and the ten kingdoms have a clay element (little horn) that comes up among them. Clay represents a professed people of God, yet it is mingling with the iron…the world…in a way that is not pleasing to God. The stone cut without hands comes and destroys the image and it hits the image upon the feet of iron mingled with clay. A simple lesson from this is that believers should not mingle with worldliness.
In Daniel 7 we see the same kingdoms. The characteristic that we now see is an enlargement of these kingdoms. The iron teeth fourth beast sporting ten horns with another little horn rising, parallels the legs of iron AND the feet/toes of iron mingled with clay. The iron* being pagan Rome and the ‘little horn’ and clay* being the religious power that rises out of pagan Rome. So, what we see God doing is using one symbol for Rome, and apply it to two different powers…pagan Rome then this religious power that comes out of Rome…HOWEVER both are the fourth kingdom.
*Iron in Daniel 2 is depicted in the legs, feet/toes as a mix; and in Daniel 7 iron is depicted as teeth – pagan empire elements of Rome. The religious power that rises is depicted as the clay in the feet/toes which mingles with the iron in Daniel 2, and the religious power in Daniel 7 is depicted by the ‘little horn’ that rises out of the fourth beast among the ten horns. The ‘little horn’ is part of or connected to the fourth beast, so we are really looking at one power.
This little horn rises from Rome after its divides. In Daniel 8, we see its rise from one of the four winds which indicates it rises from a fixed point. Some mistakenly say that it rises out of one of the four division of Greece that followed Alexander the Great’s death. Contextually, is does not come out of rather it comes after Greece. In fact, the bible says in the latter part of their kingdom, in other words when the Grecian kingdom is declining is when this little horn is rising. In Daniel 8, we now see the little horn as one symbol describing two powers. If we look at the description of the little horn it matches the description of the little horn in Daniel 7. Why did we go through this narrative? Because it is this little horn that rises after the fall of Rome that is desecrating the sanctuary, which leads us to a very important conclusion. Whatever sanctuary that is being desecrated, it cannot be the literal temple in Jerusalem because that temple was destroyed in 70 AD. In fact, it was destroyed during the reign of the pagan Roman Empire. Since the little horn rises after the Roman Empire, whatever sanctuary it is attacking must be something that is not yet known or understood to the children of Israel.
The prophecy of the “little horn” in Daniel 7 together with its parallel, “the leopard beast” in Revelation 13:1-10, and the “man of sin” in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8 have always been considered by Christians as dealing with the subject of the antichrist. Daniel’s prophecy which points us back into historic time clearly places the rise of the “little horn” among the nations of Western Europe, sometimes after the dissolution of the Roman Empire (A.D. 476). It would be characterized by a religious nature, and would not only speak great words against God, but would also change His times and Law, and would persecute His people for an extended period of time. Only a system of apostasy could adequately fulfill these prophecies.
God has informed us about the succession kingdoms, the persecution of is people, and the effort of the little horn to distract the attention of the world from the work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary.