Daniel Chapter 8 - Transcription of Video Five

1. And I lifted up my eyes. And I saw. And behold one ram standing before the canal. And he has two horns. And the two horns are high. And the one is higher from the second, and the higher is coming up last.			1. ואשא עיני ואראה והנה איל אחד עמד לפני האבל ולו קרנים והקרנים גבהות והאחת גבהה מן-השנית והגבהה עלה באחרנה
	2. I saw the ram butting seaward, and tsfonward, and negevward. And none of the beasts will stand before him. And there is no deliverer from his hand. And he will do according to his will. And he will expand.		2. ראיתי את-האיל מנגח ימה וצפונה ונגבה וכל-חיות לא-יעמדו לפניו ואין מציל מידו ועשה כרצנו והגדיל
		3. And I, I was understanding. And behold a kid of the goats came from the west upon the face of the whole earth, and not touching the earth. And the kid, a horn of appearance between his eyes. And he came until the ram, the lord of the two horns, which I saw standing before the canal. And he ran unto him in the fury of his strength.	3. ואני הייתי מבין והנה צפיר-העזים בא מן-המערב על-פני כל-הארץ ואין נוגע בארץ והצפיר--קרן חזות בין עיניו ויבא עד-האיל בעל הקרנים אשר ראיתי עמד לפני האבל וירץ אליו בחמת כחו
	4. And I will see him arrive near the ram. And he was embittered unto him. And he struck the ram. And he broke his two horns. And there was no strength in the ram to stand before him. And he threw him earthward. And he trampled upon him. And there was no deliverer for the ram from his hand. And the kid of the goats expanded until much.		4. וראיתיו מגיע אצל האיל ויתמרמר אליו ויך את-האיל וישבר את-שתי קרניו ולא- היה כח באיל לעמד לפניו וישליכהו ארצה וירמסהו ולא-היה מציל לאיל מידו וצפיר העזים הגדיל עד-מאד
5. And at his power, the large horn was broken, and an appearance of four arose under it, to the four winds of the heavens.			5. וכעצמו נשברה הקרן הגדלה ותעלנה חזות ארבע תחתיה לארבע רוחות השמים

The Fourth Part of the Chiasm

And I will see him arrive near the ram. And he was embittered unto him. And he struck the ram. And he broke his two horns. And there was no strength in the ram to stand before him. And he threw him earthward. And he trampled upon him. And there was no deliverer for the ram from his hand. And the kid of the goats expanded until much.

We now leave the small chiasm, and return to the main chiasm. This is its fourth part, and it pairs with the second. In the third part Daniel described how the kid of the goats came from the west and attacked the ram. In this part he described how the kid utterly destroyed him. First how do we know this is a new part? The answer is verb tenses. At the end of the third part the verb tenses were in the past tense. Here the first verb is in the future tense, "And I will see him...". This verb also indicates that Daniel is still seeing himself in the vision, even though I very much doubt that the real Daniel lived to see the Greek conquest of Persia.

The other verb tenses of the fourth part also indicate that this part is meant to be the pair of the second part, as they are the exact inverse of each other. Here I have made a list of the sentences of each of the two parts. The sentences of the second part are on the left and those of the fourth part on the right.

There are two significant differences between the lists. The first and most obvious is that Daniel was far more descriptive of the destruction of the Archaemenid dynasty than he was of the expansion of the empire under its rule. The second is that every sentence in the second part of the chiasm has an equivalent in the fourth part, except for one, “he will do according to his will.” This means that whereas several kings carried out the expansion of the Median Persian Empire, the expansion of Greek power would occur under the reign of one king only.

For some history...
In May of the year 334 BC, Alexander began his military campaign against the Persian Empire. At the beginning of his campaign, Alexander confronted Persian forces at the battle of Granicus, but he did not meet the main Persian army under the command of king Darius III, until the battle of Issus in 333 BC, well inside the Persian Empire. There the Persians were defeated and Darius fled.

After the battle of Issus, Alexander proceeded down the Mediterranean coast, taking Tyre and Gaza. He then entered into Egypt where he was welcomed as a liberator. Leaving Egypt in the year 331 BC, he then turned to Assyria where he engaged Darius once more at the battle of Gaugamela. Again the Persians were defeated, and Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana, and Alexander marched down to Babylon, and from Babylon to Shushan.

By this stage the power of the Persian king Darius had been broken. As Daniel stated, before destroying the ram, the kid first broke its two horns, Greece destroyed the power of Persia, before destroying Persia itself. As for Darius, he was taken captive by Bessus, his Bactiran satrap, who then had him murdered.

Having destroyed Persia, Daniel said the kid would expand until much. This may lead one to think that Alexander the Great would go on to conquer an area much larger than the Persian Empire. Whilst it’s true that after the conquest of Persia, Alexander did go on to conquer the Indus Valley, his empire wasn’t that much larger than that of the Persians. So what was Daniel meaning when he said the kid expanded until much? I believe Daniel was referring to the locations of the Greek and Persian homelands within the world as known to Daniel. The Medes and the Persians occupied a fairly central location, therefore they did not need to travel so far to conquer their empire. Greece on the other hand was on the western margins, therefore to conquer more or less the same area meant having to travel much further away from the Greek homeland.

The Fifth Part of the Chiasm

And at his power, the large horn was broken, and an appearance of four arose under it, to the four winds of the heavens.

The first sentence of this part of the chiasm begins with a preposition attached as a prefix to an object, unlike the previous sentences, which began with a subject and verb combination. This indicates that a new part of the chiasm has begun.

This chiasm describes what we know from history. At the peak of his power and at a young age, on the 11th June in the year 323 BC, Alexander the Great died, without leaving a clearly designated successor. At first his half brother and yet unborn son were made kings with Perdiccas, a commander in the army, acting as regent. Some of the satrapies were given to the generals, namely those in Europe, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. The rest of the satrapies in the east were left in the hands of their native rulers. These military and political leaders were given the name Diadochi meaning successors.

However this arrangement, known as the “Settlement at Babylon”, did not ensure peace and unity in the empire. Almost immediately there were revolts by Greek veterans in the far east and the Athenians in the west. Both of these revolts were eventually crushed, but within a few months the seeds of civil war were sown. Fearing the increasing power of Perdiccas, the regent, four former officers, Ptolemy, the satrap of Egypt, Craterus and Antipater, both army commanders, and Lysimachus, the governor of Thrace all formed an alliance against him.

In the vision Daniel saw the appearance of four horns, at least I assume they were horns as Daniel didn’t actually say, arise under the large now broken horn. In the interpretation given him, Daniel was told that these four represented four kingships, not kingdoms rather kingships, that would arise from a nation. In the absence of one undisputed king, it could be argued that the Greek empire at this time had many kings, that is satraps and army commanders, Diadochi in short, but it was the actions of these four particular Diadochi, Ptolemy, Craterus, Antipater and Lysimachus that lead to the breakup of the empire. In the vision these four arose to the four winds of the heavens, the four compass directions, symbolizing dispersion.

Ptolemy provoked conflict with Perdiccas by snatching the body of Alexander the Great from its tomb in Macedonia and bringing it to Egypt. Perdiccas responded by sending Eumenes the satrap of Cappadocia to confront Craterus and Antipater, and he himself attempted an invasion of Egypt in May of 320 BC. Whereas Eumenes was victorious in battle, a battle that left Craterus dead, Prediccas was not. His soldiers revolted and his own colonels murdered him.

In that same year, the various parties reached another arrangement known as the Settlement of Triparadisus. This settlement really marked the end of the united empire. The satrapies were divided yet again with Antipater as regent. However the following year Antipater died and the divisions established under this arrangement revealed where future boundaries between independent kingdoms would be.

So with this Part One of the vision ends, and in his account Daniel moved on without pause to an entirely new set of events.