hotcoffee
New Member
Daniel 8:9 Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land. 10 It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them. 11 It set itself up to be as great as the commander of the army of the Lord; it took away the daily sacrifice from the Lord, and his sanctuary was thrown down. 12 Because of rebellion, the Lord’s people[a] and the daily sacrifice were given over to it. It prospered in everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground.
a.Daniel 8:12 Or rebellion, the armies
Remember now, we're talking about the Goat [Greece or Alexander the Great, according to the commentaries] that started out with just one horn, then it broke off and four more took it's place. Now another horn is growing out one of the horns. This is not the little horn of Chapter 7. It's a small horn.
I would encourage you to go over to the Precept Austin commentary for Verse 9. This particular commentary has been so useful to me during the study of Daniel. In this commentary of verse 9 it gives us the history of the 30,000 Jews during the period 175-164BC. This is the small horn according to the commentary. Now I'm going to have to read about the Maccabees. It's sounds like a very interesting tale, for sure.
Now another commentary offers us the breakdown just what happened in these verses to show us that this is a ruler not the antichrist of Chapter 7.
- Antiochus Epiphanes exerted his dominion toward the south, toward the east, and toward the land of Israel.
- Antiochus Epiphanes murdered other rulers and persecuted the people of Israel (cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground, and trampled them).
- Antiochus Epiphanes blasphemed God and commanded idolatrous worship directed towards himself (exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host).
- Antiochus Epiphanes put a stop to temple sacrifices in Jerusalem (by him the daily sacrifices were taken away).
- Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the temple (the place of His sanctuary was cast down).
- Antiochus Epiphanes opposed God and seemed to prosper (he cast truth down to the ground. He did all this and prospered).
The commentaries seem to agree that host and stars in these verses are actually a description of the Jews themselves. That makes sense, actually, since according to the Maccabee story, the Jews just joined the crowd instead of keeping their traditions.
I found this quote in the commentary.
Antiochus's suppression of the Jews came to a head in December of 168 b.c. when he returned in defeat from Alexandria. He ordered his generals to seize Jerusalem on a Sabbath. There he set up an idol of Zeus and desecrated the altar by an offering of swine and sprinkling the pig's juices in the sanctuary. Sacrifice stopped because the temple was desecrated.
1 Maccabees 1:29-32 and 1:52-61 describe how Antiochus persecuted the Jews. 1 Maccabees 1:41-50 describes his blasphemies. By some estimates he was responsible for the murder of more than 100,000 Jews.
