Page 221 - Daniel

ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could
stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his
power. He did as he pleased and became great.

The two-horned ram Daniel saw is revealed in verse 20 to be Medo-
Persia, with the horns representing its major kings. The fact that the ram
represents both the Median and Persian Empires in their combined states

rather than as separate empires is another important proof that the
critics are wrong. The critics attempt to prove that Daniel’s reference to
Darius the Mede means that Daniel erroneously taught two empires, first
a Median and then a Persian. This, of course, is contradicted by history,
and the critics attribute to Daniel what he did not teach. The problem is
their faulty interpretation. Young says, “Neither here or elsewhere does

Dan. conceive of an independently existing Median empire.” 13
Historically, it was the combination of the Medes and the Persians that
proved irresistible for almost two hundred years, until the time of
Alexander the Great. 14

Illustration of what the ram in Daniel 8 might have looked like in Daniel’s vision.

The portrayal of the two horns representing the Medo-Persian Empire
is very accurate, as the Persians coming up last and represented by the
higher horn were also the more prominent and powerful. The directions

that represent the ram’s conquests include all except east. Although
15
Persia did expand to the east, its principal movement was to the west,
north, and south. This prophecy is so accurate that it is embarrassing to
the critic who does not want to accept a sixth-century Daniel who wrote
genuine prophecy.

Keil observes, “in the Bundehesch the guardian spirit of the Persian
kingdom appears under the form of a ram with clean feet and sharp-