2 And I saw in a vision²; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision², and I was by the river of Ulai.
3 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.
4 I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.
cf. verse 20.
We are told who this kingdom is in verse 20, it tells us the ram with two horns and the kings are Media and Persia. We know that Darius was a Mede and Cyrus was half Mede and half Persian, but is associated with Persia.
As we study chapter eight, we will see that there are striking similarities when this prophetic vision is compared to chapters two (the image) and seven (the four beasts).
In this chapter, Medo-Persia is the first power instead of Babylon. This vision was given to Daniel before Babylon fell. So, God was telling him ahead of time about the demise of Babylon. When this vision became a reality, Babylon had fallen to the Medes and Persians.
We discovered that God is spending a little bit of time on Medo-Persia and in later chapters – Greece, so that we can get our footing; but He is emphasizing a power that comes from the north and who goes southward, eastward, and toward the pleasant land (verse 9) which we will see in a future posts. This power has been identified as Rome, at first it is political/pagan Rome making the assaults horizontally, but then in verse ten we will see a transition from pagan to ecclesiastical indicated by its assaults vertically against heaven.
We see Medo-Persian Empire symbolized by the ram. It had two horn one rising higher than the other. The two horns indicative of two kings and we know that there were, Darius and Cyrus. One was stronger than the other, as indicated by the higher horn. This correlates with the bear in Daniel 7. The Medes and the Persians were in an alliance, but the Persians came up stronger after the Medes. The ram is pushing northward, westward, and southward; so this means that they came from the east. See map below.
In Daniel 7:5, we had the bear lifted up on one side which parallels with the horn that was higher than the other. The bear had three ribs in its mouth, representing the conquest of Lydia (northward), Babylon (westward), and Egypt (southward). Medo-Persia came from the east.
In 8:4 where is says, “…he did according to his will, and became great.” This illudes to this power magnifying itself, which we will see is a them among these conquering nations.
Hebrew words to describe vision:
¹ Mareh, represents appearance, sight, vision (not used in vs. 2-4, added here for reference)
²Chazown, represents revelation, sight, vision
They are both translated as vision, however, there is a significance to the use of the two differing words and that is to delineate that there are two visions in chapter 8. For now, just take note and we will get into this further in upcoming posts.
01/03/2024 Updated added a map and Hebrew references.