The Ram and the He Goat


In Dan. 8: 3, Daniel sees a ram and is told that it is Media and Persia, which became a huge Empire conquering most of the Middle East.
Vs. 5 introduces a goat. This is Greece, under Alexander the Great and in the next two verses we see that he defeats Media and Persia.
In Vs. 6-8 The horn representing Alexander is broken off with his death and four smaller horns come up in it's place. These are his generals who split up the empire creating four main kingdoms:
The Beautiful Land was Israel.
.See Parthain history The Four Heads/Horns of the Grecian (Macedonia) Empire
 
 
Daniel 8, Verse 9
And out of one of them came forth a rather small horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east and toward the beautiful land.
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This little horn comes out of one of the horns of the Grecian empire. Now by the process of elimination we can see it is not the south or east horns.
Through history I found that it was out of the Seleucus Dynasty, the North horn (yellow on the map) that began attacking the kings of the South and East and finally took control over Israel fulfilling this verse. He was trying to expand his kingdom and unite the Empire once again, only this time under his rule.
Map:
Greece Splits into Four Empires
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Vrs. 10-12
and it will grow up to the host of heaven and cause some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down.  It even magnified to be equal with the Commander of hosts; and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him, and the place of His sanctuary was thrown down. 
And on account of transgression the host will be given over along with the regular sacrifice; and it will fling truth to the ground and performs its will and prospers.
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Seleucus had captured Jerusalem and held it under Seleucid rule. A Jewish man was trying to bring down Onias the High priest and had failed. He then betrayed his people by going to tell Seleucus of the treasures in the temple and Seleucus sent an army to retrieve the treasures, but then God sent angels to defeat them. So the army returned to tell the king. But Seleucus had died by the time the army reached him and in his place a despicable man had taken the kingship, Antiochus IV.
Antiochus IV was angered when he heard the news and what God had done, so he replaced Onias with Jason, opposing God. He appointed Jason to set up a new constitution and put a gymnasium on the Temple Mount and abolished the services and sacrifices at the Temple at this time.
In Vrs. 13 the question is asked,
"How long will the vision about the regular sacrifice apply, while the transgression causes horror, so as to allow both the holy place and the host to be trampled?"
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He is told,
"For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the holy place will be properly restored."
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"For 2,300 evenings and mornings" meaning 1,150 mornings and 1,150 evenings.
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The 1150 morning and 1150 evening sacrifices being abolished was what took place when Antiochus IV Antiochus IV  replaced the High Priest, Onias III, (Prince of the covenant) with Jason as High Priest who began Hellenizing Jerusalem. Menelaus then bought the bid for high priest and later killed Jason, but Menelaus was of the line of Benjamin not Levi.  This is a false High Preist, an abomination to God. Menelaus desecrated the Temple, ransacing it and taking the sacred vessels.  This is when the sacrifices would have beeen stopped.
Antiochus IV then went to Egypt for two months and the Jews heard he died in a war with Ptolemy and had a great celebration of his death. Antiochus had not died, and when he heard of this he returned and ransaced Jerusalem, and caused pigs to be sacrificed on the altar and the Jews were forced to either eat it or be tortured to death. Many chose death.  This sacrificing of pig on the altar caused a rebellion among the Jews and it took 3 years for them to defeat Antiochus IV and restore the Temple. The dedication of the Temple became know as Hanukkah. The miracle of the oil.
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 I believe that is why the angel said; "And the vision of the evenings and mornings which has been told to you is true." He knew the Jews would not count it from the time of the false High Priest stopping the sacrifices, but instead would count only from the time pigs were being sacrificed to Zeus. That is just my opinion.

 

 

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God continues to indentify the last days, Northern king, in the next vision given to Daniel called the King of the North.

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