Prophet Daniel: Book of Daniel 8 Commentary by Dr. William H Shea

Below is a bible study transcript on the prophecy of Daniel chapter 8 by theologian and archaeologist Dr. William H Shea.   This Daniel 8 commentary is perhaps the most informative and eye-opening study you will find anywhere on the internet.

This time allotment reminds me of a story of Mark Twain. I guess I am dealing in a lot of Mark Twain’s stories these days. And one time he told an audience, “if you asked me to talk for three hours I won’t charge you anything but if you ask me to talk for five minutes I’ll charge you five thousand dollars”.

And the reason is of course if he’s going to talk for only five minutes he has to prepare and he has to get everything just exactly allotted. So today we’ll give you the free lecture, the three-hour lecture.  

I will start with a story about Daniel 8. I don’t know for one hundred percent that the story is true. The story comes from Cuba. I asked some pastors in Puerto Rico when I was there and these pastors had been in Cuba and I asked them if they had heard the story. I also asked them if it was true or if they know for sure and they had heard the same story. They thought it was true but they were not one hundred percent certain.  

The story says not too long after Fidel Castro took over the country of Cuba. He was making a tour of the military bases in Cuba and he came to a base in southwestern Cuba. The Commandant of the base there said we have a young man here that we’d like you to see as he is giving us a lot of trouble.   

Fidel said, “well what’s the problem?” They said he won’t carry a gun and he won’t work on Saturday and he says he’s a Seventh-day Adventist. So Fidel said ok let me see him. I’ll find out if he’s a real Seventh-day Adventist or not a true Seventh-day Adventist.   

So when the soldier was brought in to be interviewed by Fidel Castro, supposedly the story goes, Fidel Castro said to him what does it say in Daniel 8:14 and tell me what it means. So you see Seventh-day Adventists are known by this verse in some quarters at least.   

One of the persons I have worked with in my career at Andrews University was Siegfried Horn and before he became a professor at the seminary he was a missionary to Indonesia. A German missionary for the Adventist church and one of the jobs that the government gave him was to interview refugees from China.   

And some of these refugees would come claiming to be Seventh-day Adventist and claiming that they were trying to escape religious persecution. And so he was given the job of interviewing them and trying to determine who were true Seventh-day Adventists and who were not.

And he told me that in the whole time that he did that job that he didn’t know of any mistakes that he made. And that he was always able to determine who were the true Adventists and who were just trying to sneak into the country.  

One more story from Cuba since we’re on the subject of Cuba. This one I heard personally from one of the pastors involved. You see a good number of pastors in Cuba, not too long after Fidel’s takeover, were put in prison camps for no other crime than preaching the gospel.

And so every Sabbath morning in this particular prison camp the Seventh-day Adventists would get together and hold their religious services.    And one of them told me that he overheard two guards chatting about Adventists.  

And one guard says to the other guard “you see that group over there they are Seventh-day Adventists, don’t have anything to do with them. If you beat them they sing hymns. If you starve them they get fat. And if you kill them they rise again on the third day”.[Congregation laughs]   

Due to transportation problems nowadays most Cuban Christians meet in house churches. And one of the great teachings of the Bible that they teach in those house churches is Daniel 8. So that’s our assignment and text for today.   And just as one point of a review if you remember Daniel 9 from yesterday we went through the nine summary points and the summary of the summary is there is a picture painted in Daniel 9 of Christ as a sacrifice.

The Ram in Daniel 8

All right now we go to Daniel eight and the first half of the chapter is very simple and straightforward.   Daniel 8:1 In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar the king a vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously. 2 I looked in the vision, and while I was looking I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam; and I looked in the vision and I myself was beside the Ulai Canal. 3 Then I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a ram which had two horns was standing in front of the canal. Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other, with the longer one coming up last. 4 I saw the ram butting westward, northward, and southward, and no other beasts could stand before him nor was there anyone to rescue from his power, but he did as he pleased and magnified himself.  

We have two symbolic beasts and these two symbolic beasts are the ram first and then a goat and the interpretation by the angel at the end of the chapter gives us the identification of these beasts.  

So let’s start with the ram. Daniel 8 verse three, “Then I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a ram which had two horns was standing in front of the canal. Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other, with the longer one coming up last. “.   

Now he is then taken in vision to the east. He’s in Shushan or Susa. And he’s where there is a canal or a river by that city and he’s standing on the west bank and he’s looking at the east bank and the ram is coming towards him. And the two horns were long but one was longer than the other and the longer one came up last.   

“And I saw the ram butting west and north and south and no other beast could stand before him. Nor was there anyone to rescue from his power but he did as he pleased and he magnified himself.”   

Daniel 8:20 tells us “the ram which you saw with the two horns represents the kings of Media and Persia”. So we call this the Medo-Persian beast and so the interpretation is very clear.    And as we know the history, the Medes were the stronger power earlier.

In fact, the Medes cooperated with the Babylonians to attack the city of Nineveh. They helped to conquer the city of Nineveh and that was the downfall of the Assyrian Empire.

And so the Medes were stronger first but later under Cyrus, the Persians come up. And in fact, under Cyrus, they take over the Median portion of the kingdom.    So the horn that came up later and came up higher represents the Persians. Medes were stronger first then the Persians started dominating and now we have this combined kingdom.

There were three directions of conquest by the Persians according to Daniel 8:4 and all of these were historically fulfilled.    Conquest to the north from Persia takes you into what we call Turkey today and Asia minor. And the kingdom there at that time that the Persians conquered was called the Kingdom of Lydia and the capital was a city that’s mentioned in the Book of Revelation, Sardis.   

Sardis was the capital of the country of Lydia and the kingdom there was known as the golden kingdom. This is the place where Croesus ruled and he was the king who according to legend everything he touched turned to gold.   

And there’s a reason why Sardis had that much gold there was a mountain nearby and the gold came out of that mountain and flowed down the river and they mined. They panned it. So that’s where the kingdom of Lydia got all of its gold and they were conquered by Cyrus in the year 546.  

And then to the west, we have the story of the conquest of Babylon right in the Book of Daniel. And we looked at how the names of the metals change on the very night that the kingdom fell.  

And then finally to the south was Egypt which was conquered by the son of Cyrus and his name was Cambyses. He marched into Egypt in 525 BC and he lived there until the year of his death. He then died on the way back to Persia.   

So all of this is accurately fulfilled in a very clear and evident historical manner.

Please note that an important part of this vision is directional movement directional. The ram goes to the north and the West and to the south.   

You see when you come to Daniel 2 you just have an image. And he just standing there. He’s fixed like a mannequin in a store window. When you come to Daniel 7 the beasts pop out of the water and they do certain things but are not yet directional. But this is very directional.    Basically the ram is charging west and the final encounter to the west was Greece and the Persians invaded Greece twice.

And the first time was under Darius the Great, Darius the first and that was the year 490 BC. And from it, you have an event which will be celebrated in August of this year. The decisive battle during the invasion took place at Marathon – The Battle of Marathon.   

The news of the battle from the Battle of Marathon was taken from Marathon to Athens by a runner who happened to go twenty-six miles. And so that marathon event is celebrated by the marathon in the Olympic Games that will take place this summer.   

Darius the first was not successful. He was turned back. So his son’s Xerxes tried it again and he did better he conquered the city of Athens and burned it down. But he lost his fleet to the Greeks so he had to retreat.    So there were these two invasions of Greece in 490 BC and 480 BC by the Persians.   

Well, you know the law of physics is for every action in one direction there’s an equal and opposite reaction in the other direction. And sure enough, that’s what the goat does see the goat comes flying over the ground and he’s angry. The goat is angry. Why is the goat angry? It’s because of what the Persians did to Greece. 

So let’s look at the greek goat.

The Goat of Daniel 8 (Daniel 8 Commentary)

Daniel 8:5 While I was observing, behold, a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground; and the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. 6 He came up to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal, and rushed at him in his mighty wrath. 7 I saw him come beside the ram, and he was enraged at him; and he struck the ram and shattered his two horns, and the ram had no strength to withstand him. So he hurled him to the ground and trampled on him, and there was none to rescue the ram from his power. 8 Then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly. But as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken; and in its place there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.  

The book of Daniel 8:5 says “while I was watching behold a male goat coming from the west”. So he’s coming from Greece and is going to the east now. And he struck the ram and shattered his two horns and the ram had no strength to withstand him.

So he hurled him to the ground trampled on him and there was none to rescue from his power. Then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly.    So we have stage one of this vision where the ram “magnified himself” (Daniel 8:4) now we have the goat “magnified himself exceedingly”.

So there’s a progression here.   But as soon as he was mighty his large horn was broken and in his place come up the four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. Well, the goat comes flying over the ground without touching the ground. He’s flying signifying the speed of conquest, speed of flight.  

And so to compare it with the previous conquest take note that it took Alexander the Great only three years to conquer the whole of the Near East.  That same period of time, three years is the time that the Babylonians took just to conquer the city of Jerusalem. Or that’s how long it took the Assyrians to conquer the city of Samaria. But Alexander within the same period, three years, conquers the whole of the Near East from Egypt to the Indus River in northwestern India.   

The speed of conquest is very clear in the case of Alexander’s conquest of his empire. And the goat is angry because the Persians had previously done to the Greeks So here is payback time now. And so the Persian invasion has been responsible for the motive for the Greek invasion.   

Now there’s an interesting story connected with the Book of Daniel. When Alexander invaded the Near East he was going down the coast of Palestine on his way to Egypt and he stopped by and went up to Jerusalem. And the story goes according to Josephus that the priests came out with the scroll of Daniel.    Now, this is the year 331 B.C. and they open the scroll to what we’re looking at this very morning. Daniel chapter 8.

And said There you are the horn on the head of this goat. That’s the story in Josephus. And Alexander was so pleased as the story goes that he said what can I do for you.   

Now you see critics of the Book of Daniel don’t believe this chapter was written yet so they don’t believe that story. But there’s an element in the story which points to the fact that it probably is true. Their request.   

In their request, they said “look this year is our year for our sabbatical year when we don’t harvest the fields and therefore it’s difficult for us to pay tax. So what we would like to request of you o Alexander is that you release us from paying tax every seventh year when the Sabbatical year comes around”. And as the story goes he granted them that privilege.   

Now the thing that lends support to that idea is that we have tables that have been constructed. From inscriptions and text and Josephus and Roman Latin and scripture sources and so forth we can make up tables of sabbatical years.

And we happen to know that the year that he visited Jerusalem was a sabbatical year so that lends credence to the story. That it actually was a true story that the eighth chapter of the Book of Daniel had already been written before Alexander ever came to Jerusalem.   

Well, Alexander was successful in his campaign of conquest and he, unfortunately, died at a very young age. At the age of 33, he died in Babylon. He had marched east and he came back to Babylon.

There are two different stories about his death. One is that he died in a drunken stupor the other is that he died of malaria. So I don’t know you can take your pick there but at any rate, he did not live to enjoy the fruits of his conquests.    He had a son who did not come to the throne and so his generals carved up his empire.

There was fighting between them for about twenty years and finally by 301 B.C. the four major sections of Alexander’s Empire had been divided up. There was Greece, Asia Minor, Syria to which Babylon also belonged and Egypt,   And poor little Judea in between was like a ping pong ball between Syria and Egypt and bounced back and forth depending on who was stronger at the time.

And so that’s why Daniel 11 pays so much attention to the king of the north which at that time was Syria and the king of the South which at that time was the Ptolemies in Egypt. And so Judea is kind of a victim to both depending upon who was stronger. As for the other two kings in the north, the Scripture does not pay that much more attention to. 

The Little Horn of Daniel 8

Daniel 8:9 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. 10 It grew up to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down. 11 It even magnified itself to be equal with the Commander of the host; and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him, and the place of His sanctuary was thrown down. 12 And on account of transgression the host will be given over to the horn along with the regular sacrifice; and it will fling truth to the ground and perform its will and prosper. 13 Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to that particular one who was speaking, “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?” 14 He said to me, “For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the holy place will be properly restored.”

Now, these four horns then continued for a period of time, and finally, a fifth horn, a little horn, comes on the scene of action. There has been much discussion about where that little horn comes from. The four horns go up to the winds and then the fifth horn comes in on the scene of action.   

So the question is does it come from the winds or does it come from the horn? I’ve written that it probably comes from the wind so I think that’s probably true. But it really doesn’t make that much difference because you identify the little horn by all of its characteristics not by one.   

And when you add up all of the characteristics it’s Rome and so Rome is the little horn power that comes becomes bigger and bigger and more powerful. And one by one puts off these pieces of Alexander’s empire. Greece fell first between 160 BC and 140 BC then in 130 BC Asia Minor was given to Rome. There was a ruler there who had no male heir, no heir to the throne and so he willed his kingdom to Rome.

Then the Roman general Pompey conquered Syria and Judea and finally, Julius Caesar conquers Egypt.    So the four pieces of the empire of Alexander had been plucked off by Rome. 

Now the alternative interpretation which is popular in some circles is this little horn represents a Greek king by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes and he did some nasty things to the Jews. He persecuted the Jews for a period of three years and the story of that is told in the books of Maccabees.   

Now the truth of the matter is he was a relatively minor king. He reigned for only ten years. And you can already see where the real power at the time was. Because he invaded Egypt in 169 BC and he conquered the eastern half of the Delta but he made a tactical error and went home to Syria for the winter. When he came back the next year to conquer the western half of the delta where the capital of Egypt Alexandria was located, Rome had sent an ambassador.

Very interesting to see where the real power is. They didn’t send a division of troops. They didn’t send an army. They just sent an ambassador and the Roman ambassador goes out to meet him as he’s on his way to Alexandria. And this is the famous story about drawing a line in the sand. The ambassador draws a line in the sand in front of Antiochus Ephiphanes and he told him “if you step over that line all the might and power of Rome will come down upon you”.

So what does Antiochus Epiphanes do? He turns around and goes back to Syria and never came back to Egypt again. So who has the power? Who has the authority? Rome has the power not this little king from Syria.

Notice the progression here. Persia magnified itself.  Greece magnified itself exceedingly and now when we get into the little horn which magnified itself all the way up to heaven. And so you have a progression of one two and three. Strong, stronger, strongest. And you don’t go strong, stronger and weakest through little Antiochus Epiphanes.

So the little horn of Daniel is not Antiochus Ephiphanes. It’s Rome.

And we read of Rome’s conquests phase. You see there are two phases and that’s why it’s important to understand directional movement and so on. Daniel 8 verse 9, out of one of them came forth a rather small horn or a little horn which grew exceedingly great towards the south the east and the beautiful land or the glorious land.

So the South would be Egypt conquered by Julius Caesar the East would be Greece and Asia Minor and the beautiful land is Judea and Rome conquered Judea about sixty B.C. and then installed Herod as a vassal King. So Herod was installed under the power and authority of Rome. And so when we read about Herod executing the babies and in that land area he’s doing it as an attack stimulated by the dragon or the devil to eradicate the Son of God who had come into the world. But he did it with the authority of Rome.

So this is the phase of conquest by earthly power, Imperial Rome of the Caesars. That’s verse nine. But now in verse ten I want you to notice the new direction of attack. It grew great up to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth. So you see when there’s territorial conquest on this earth the action is horizontal on that geographical globe.

But now there’s a new phase a religious phase and the religious phase is directed to heaven. This is a veritable attack upon heaven by an earthly power. That’s a religious attack. So here we have come to phase two overall. we have come to its religious phase the medieval phase.

So what is this casting down of the stars in Daniel 8 all about?. Well in some places in the Bible the stars is a symbol for angels. But here in the Book of Daniel there’s an interpretation right at the end of this chapter. It’s in verse twenty four where it says that this power, the little horn power, will be mighty but not by his own power. He will destroy to an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will. He will destroy the mighty men and the holy people.

So this is persecution and we have right in Daniel 12 the story about the saints after the resurrection. Those who turn many into wisdom will shine like the stars forever. So the stars in this case are persecuted saints and the symbol is stars.

Remember we’re dealing with symbolic action. The ram and the goat aren’t literal rams and goats they are they are symbols. And so this action of taking the stars and casting them down and trampling them is symbolic action and it is symbolic of persecution. So this little horn power in its religious phase was a persecuting power.

You probably know many stories about that and we don’t need to spend much time reciting them. I’ll just mention one or two. I have taught a number of times in the country of Peru. Our school at Nanya is about an hour’s drive south of Lima maybe a little farther than that. While there in Lima they once took me to a building. Very interesting place. It’s known as the Museum of the Inquisition It is the actual building in which the Inquisition was carried on.

And it has three main rooms. The first room you walk into has the names of all the people who were burned at the stake. Written around the ceiling and there are some interesting ones. There is the name of  Jose Levy who came out of  Paraguay and went down  to El Salvador. Jose Luis was burnt for keeping the Sabbath.

You see you can tell by his name, Levy, that he was Jewish but he was forced to convert. And when he converted he still kept some of his Jewish practices and neighbors who spied on him informed on him.

Another room is the grand inquisitors room and it’s a long hall and there’s a high desk and here you see art in the service of persecution. The ceiling of that building has ten thousand pieces of hardwood. One of the most beautiful wooden carved ceilings in all of South America in the service of the Inquisition.

You see in American court you get to confront your accuser and your accuser sees you face to face. Not so with the Inquisition. The accusers would hide up to the side the accused would never know who was accusing them.

And then the third room is the torture room and I cannot describe to you all the grotesque instruments of hooks and cranks and what have you for torture. And one of them that impressed me the most was they had a little hole and it went down about twelve feet and they would put a person down in there for as much as a year. And they said people only came out of that one of two ways either came out insane or dead.

So here is a persecuting power and that’s what what’s described here. But there’s more. It’s not just persecution of the saints in this world but now there’s a theological attack there is a difference going on here. So he has some success with the casting down the stars and with the success he thinks well if I can just get the commander of the host if I can just get the prince, I’ll have a whole ball of wax.

And so Daniel 8 verse 11 he magnified himself even to be equal with the commander of the host and removed from him the daily or the continual or the regular sacrifice and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

Again notice the direction of movement. Now remember, once again let me remind you, we’re dealing with symbolic action. The heavenly sanctuary is not on an elevator going up and down. To cast the sanctuary down is not to physically take the building out of heaven and cast it down to the earth.

But in the eyes of mankind as they look at where the plan of salvation is being ministered to them they see the earthly appearance of cathedrals and earthly ministrations or an earthly priest. They are not looking directly into the heavenly sanctuary as the book of Hebrews urges us to do. So there is a difference and part of the difference is about this unusual word the “daily”.

And so there’s a long history of the discussion of the word ‘daily’ in Seventh-day Adventist circles. There’s the old view of the daily and there’s the new view of the daily and there’s the newer view of the daily.

The story goes like this William Miller and his fellow workers believe that the daily was paganism which was taken out of the way to make room for the rise of the papacy. And that view was held in the Adventist Church till about 1900. About 1900 the new view of the ‘daily’ came in and the new view of the daily was sponsored by Willie White, W.W. Prescott, A.G. Daniels and one or two others. And the new view of the daily it was that in context this daily belongs to the heavenly sanctuary not the earthly. And it was the ministry of Christ which was being substituted or attempted to be controlled by this earthly power.

ORL Crozier was a man who wrote a lot on the earthly sanctuary reflecting the heaven sanctuary. The type and antitype. He and Hiram Edson and then another man in upstate New York were really the first ones to make a breakthrough about our understanding of the heavenly sanctuary through the eyes of the earthly sanctuary. And he wrote all of that up the whole thing and it was published in something called the Daystar Extra.

The sanctuary in the Book of Exodus and in the book of Leviticus  is the type and the heavenly is the antitype. And we’ve gone from one to the other from the Old Testament and now the New Testament ministration. So we need to take this word daily in context and to my understanding since we are dealing with this conflict over the sanctuary the word “daily” should go with the sanctuary. Now we have some further suggestion that it is not so much the heavenly sanctuary of ministry but the the earthly sanctuary of the apostate powers. So that would be the reverse of the idea. But at any rate this word is a sanctuary word.

Wherever it’s used it’s an adverb and in all other cases in the Old Testament is used with verbs. And it says something is going on daily or continually on and on and on and on around the ceremonies. For example of the eighty times it used in the Old Testament thirty times are used in the sanctuary.

The lamps were attended morning and evening every day of the entire year of the Jewish calendar and that was daily or continually. The incense was burnt every time he attended the lamps. He burnt the incense on the altar of incense and that was daily or continual because this went on throughout the ceremonies every day constantly. Even the bread on the table of showbread was described as daily because it was changed every Sabbath. 52 Sabbaths in a year they continually kept changing the bread on the  table of showbread

And the morning and evening sacrifice in the courtyard was continual before the Lord because they were  conducted every day, every morning, every evening. On and on and on and on. So this word is used for those types of activities.

Please notice that it is never ever, not one time, used in the most holy place. Doesn’t say that it doesn’t say the Cherubim mark time either continually before the Lord. It doesn’t say the tables of the Lord or the Ark of the cabin or the mercy seat are continually before the law. It doesn’t say that because the high priest only went in there once a year. He didn’t do it every day  constantly. He only went in there once a year so we referred to these two parts of the services in the sanctuary as the Daily and the yearly.

And this word ‘continual’, ‘tamid; ‘daily’ is used only with the Holy Place ministry not with the most holy place ministry. So there’s a distinction there.

What is the antitype of the daily ministry? Well we see it already in the Book of Revelation Jesus is walking among the lamp stands of the churches. He’s attending the churches. In  his constant ministration for the churches he sends the angels, he sends the Holy Spirit, he intercedes for us, he prays for us. Revelation Chapter eight The incense are his merits that go up with the prayers to the Father.

So this is the daily constant ministration of redemption for all the saints of all the ages since the cross and since the resurrection. So that’s the Holy Place ministry. The type of ministry that Jesus has  exercised from the time of his ascension to the present. It is still continuing and this earthly power, this apostate religious power wants to imitate that and wants to substitute for it.

If you ask a Roman Catholic theologian, “do you believe in righteousness by faith?” He would respond, “Oh yes of course we believe in righteousness by faith”. Well how do we get that righteousness by faith, “it is ministered through the priesthood”. 

So the avenues of grace through the merits of Christ and what have you come through the priesthood to you and the priesthood is there for your earthly mediator. Now this is contrary to Scripture as you know so well 1 Timothy 2:5 “there is one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus”. No earthly priest is necessary. We don’t need saints. We don’t need Mary. We have direct access to God. And this has been the hallmark of the Protestant Reformation. Since the time of Martin Luther.

Martin Luther proclaimed the priesthood of all believers. You have direct access to God without anybody in between you. You are your own priest in the New Testament era. You don’t have to go to the earthly sanctuary. You don’t have to have that priest offer sacrifice for you. You don’t have to have the priest carry the blood. That has  already taken place. The antitype, Jesus, has carried his own sacrifice and presented it before the Father.

So we have a contrast here. We have two religious systems. We have an earthly power which directs attention to itself as a source of salvation and it has its own sacrifice known as the mass. You can get confession and forgiveness right there. And if you don’t follow the rules you can get excommunicated or worse than that. And if you don’t agree with this theology at least in the times of the Reformation you could end up being burned at the stake.

And so we’ve mentioned some cases already I mentioned just one other curious little case. You know there were protestant reformers and some of them died for challenging the church’s teachings. For instance, Tyndale, the translator the English Bible was strangled before he was burned.

As for John Wycliffe, they didn’t get to him fast enough and he died and was buried. Fifty years later they exhumed his bones and burned them and took the ashes and put them in a stream that ran into a bigger river and then out to sea. So this incident has been taken as a symbol of the spread of the gospel of the light of the gospel. And he’s called The Morning Star of the Reformation.

But I’ll just tell the one that I think I found and saw myself which I thought was rather curious. I taught for a week at our Bible Institute in Florence, Italy. In the city of Florence there was a man who tried to reform the Roman Church from inside out. His name was Savanarola and the church didn’t want to be reformed and so Savanorola was burned at the stake with about three or four of his fellow reforming priests.

And you can go to the spot where he was burned but you need a guide who knows exactly where it is. Because in the plaza of Florence there is a little tiny disk about this big and that’s all there is. On that disk, it says on this spot Savanarola and three or four of his fellow priests were burned and then it give the date.

I had to have an Adventist guide to find it. He took me there and he said this is it. They don’t want it to be known.   So you see the little horn was a persecuting power and they don’t deny that there’s just a quantitative difference. There’s not a qualitative difference.

Protestant historians say millions were killed in the persecutions and Catholic historians say well it’s much less than that. So there’s an argument over numbers.   But there’s not an argument over whether the church persecuted in the Middle Ages.

My own personal view is that we do not realize how bad the Crusades were. Here’s an army launched by the pope to supposedly reconquer the holy places of the Middle East. When they came to Jerusalem and made the final assault on Jerusalem in the year 1099 they slaughtered every man woman and child in the city.

Only the mukhtar or the mayor of Jerusalem escaped. The streets were said to run red with the blood of the people who were slaughtered in that conquest.   And this was a shock in the Moslem world. They couldn’t believe that the Christians had been so barbaric. Here is a Christian army launched by the pope slaughtering an innocent population.

And so in the Middle East today we never talk about an evangelistic crusade. Don’t use that word. Because that word is anathema still today. Memories are still fresh and words such as crusades revive them.   All right so we have a persecuting power. We have a power that wants to take the heavenly sanctuary in the eyes of men and bring its work down to earth. And we have a religious power that wants to exercise its own control over the elements of salvation. So this is what the problem is.

What’s the big deal in Daniel 8?  The big deal in Daniel 8 is we have a struggle over the sanctuary and with the struggle over the sanctuary. Why is that so important? Because the sanctuary is the locus of the plan of salvation. The heavenly sanctuary is the headquarters of the plan of salvation.

So you have these two poles. You have the true heavenly sanctuary, the true heavenly high priest and the true heavenly ministry going on at one pole. And you have an earthly substitute for the  heavenly sanctuary in the form of earthly cathedrals. And you have an earthly priesthood headed by an earthly High Priest and you have an earthly ministry being carried on in those cathedrals and what have you.

These are two poles of the plan of salvation. That’s why it’s so important because this is a struggle over the plan of salvation.   Now please keep in mind that we are not talking about the conscience of an individual Catholic.

My grandfather was, you know the proverb, the Irish are more Catholic than the Pope. My grandfather was a Catholic to his dying day. As far as I know, he died a long time ago I never met him or knew him. But as far as I know, he was sincere and God will judge according to the light anybody has received.

We are dealing with a theological system which we believe to be unbiblical and so that’s the contrast. So how do you settle that? How do you decide? The word decide brings in the idea of a decision and a decision is reached by a court by the Heavenly court. And so after centuries that this contrast and conflict is going on it says that the sanctuary is going to be cleansed, reconstituted, emerge victorious.

 And so then we run into a word that’s difficult to translate. You see the King James used ‘cleansed’ and the early Adventist pioneers used ‘cleansed’ the word is bigger and broader than that. And so I want to give you a little lesson on entomology. Here’s the semantic range of this word and the word that you have heard elsewhere in the Bible is “tsadeq”.

For instance there’s a king of Jerusalem named Adonai Tsadeq. That means my lord is righteous. Or the last king of Judah was a king named Zedekiah and that means Yahweh is righteous. So the words “tsadeq” means to be righteous or to be righ. This is the basic root meaning. And then you can be in the right place. You can be on the right trail.You can be in the right relationship or you can be in the right state or character or nature.

This is the word used in Daniel 8:14. It says the sanctuary shall be “tsadeq”. So what does that mean. It’s a very rich as you can see here this is where we get the word righteousness from and that’s a theme which runs through the Bible. It’s a  very rich tapestry. Well if something’s wrong you can right it (tsadeq). So for instance if it’s unclean you can purify it or make it make it clean you can cleanse it (tsadeq). If you go to court and people are suing against you and you win the case you are vindicated (tsadeq). And in this case this word to be right in court means to be vindicated.

But you can have something in the wrong place. Somebody took something away from you and took it off to another town and you get it back. It’s restored to you (tsadeq). So it is dislocated. And so it’s put in the right place or restored (tsadeq).

So you: see this is a root word which can have a number of meanings. And so when we come to Daniel 8:14 the question is which one does it mean? Well let me give you a simple answer it means all of them.

Why would the sanctuary need to be cleansed? Notice what the little horn does. The little horn introduces idols. The little horn has an unfit priesthood and the little horn represents a foreign military invasion. All of these in the Old Testament are sources for contamination of the sanctuary.

You can find this of course in the second commandment and in Jeremiah, unfit priests in Leviticus twenty one and twenty two or in military invasions in Ezekiel Jeremiah and Psalms. So this is what the Little Horn has done to the sanctuary. But there’s more. Earthly courts have given decisions against the saints but the heavenly court says no those decisions are wrong.

And then Daniel 7:22 that will look at tomorrow. It says the judgment was given for the Saints. Notice the correct translation of that proposition. Judgment was given for and on behalf of the saints. Earthly tribunals may have judged against the saints but the heavenly court judges in favor of them. The saints are vindicated.  

Now in the symbolism of Daniel 8 where the sanctuary is cast down. Well, that’s not a physical language, the sanctuary doesn’t physically come down on an elevator and then go back up on an elevator. But in symbolic language, the sanctuary has been displaced in the eyes of human beings in the functional eyes of human beings. It’s been deemphasized here in human eyesight so it needs to be restored. It’s given back to the rightful place, the rightful person, and the rightful state.

Daniel 8 Commentary : Cleansing of Sanctuary

You know there’s a hebrew word for unclean which is  tame and there’s a word for cleanse which is  taher. Why doesn’t Daniel use this word taher in Daniel 8:14? It is because he wants to show a bigger picture of what’s happening. And the bigger picture comes with this root word tsadeq that has a very broad meaning and can be all inclusive of what’s involved in the great controversy.

And the cleansing of the sanctuary and the judgment that takes place in the sanctuary and what it will show to the human race. So this is what it means   When does the event in Daniel 8:14 take place? At the end of the two thousand three hundred evening mornings

What is an evening morning?  As you know so well from Genesis one it was evening and it was morning day one, day two, day three and so on. Evening morning stands fors a day but it’s a creation day. And you may recall that the basis of the judgment are the tables of stone in the great heavenly original of the Ark of the covenant and whether the blood of Jesus has been applied to your account and your breaking of those commandments.

And at this time a particular one of those commandments that has been especially obscured is the Sabbath. It’s at this time that there is an intent to a restoration of God’s law and that includes the Fourth Commandment which has been especially perverted. And so just about two weeks ago we had the Ten Commandment weekend for Christian churches in general. It was a ten commandment Sunday for the churches who still want to put the Ten Commandments forward.

So at a time when the Sabbath commandment has been especially obscured, It’s time now to shine the light on it. So as you bring the work of the heavenly sanctuary forward you bring the work of the Ark of the Covenant forward because you’ve now reached the antitypical day of Atonement. And you also bring forward the truth about the plan of salvation and where it really operated from. And this happens at the end of the 2300 days.

And as you know so well as we already discussed day for a year principle in bible prophecy. Two thousand three hundred days there actually mean 2,300 years. Actually there is a date right in Daniel eight. If you notice the question in Daniel 8:13, a literal translation of the question says one angel talking to the other angel, how long is the vision? And then it gives you some subsidiary facts about what’s in that vision. The taking away of the daily. The abomination of desolation. The casting down of the sanctuary and the trampling upon the saints. So it’s the vision that contains these elements. What vision is that? It’s the whole vision of Daniel 8.

Where does that vision start? It starts with the Persian ram. So right the implicit answer to the question in Daniel 8:13 how long is the vision. Where does the vision start? Daniel 8:1. You don’t have two visions here now you have a chazôn vision and a mareh, an appearance of the angels at the end to explain the vision. But the word chazôn for vision occurs three times in Daniel 8 verse 1 and 2 the whole vision and so the twenty three hundred days covers it all.

The 2300 day prophecy should start with the Persian ram. Now that doesn’t pin it down to a year. It simply says that during the Persian Period represented by the Persian ram is when the twenty three hundred days are going to start. And that’s between 539 BC when Babylon fell to the Persians and 331 BC when Darius the third was defeated by Alexander the Great. Sometime within that period the two thousand three hundred years is going to start.

 And you go to the next chapter which says the seventy weeks has been cut off. Cut of what’s gone before and we get into the connection through Daniel 8:26; Daniel 9:23; 26 8:14. So the two time periods are connected here and that gives you the starting period and if you start with 457 BC.

Once we have fixed the date to start the prophecies of the 70 weeks and the 2300 days, their chronology is a simple matter. We can summarize it as follows:

457 B.C. Decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem
408 B.C. 7 weeks to rebuild the city (49 years)
A.D. 27 After 69 weeks the Prince was anointed (baptism of Jesus, Luke 3:1, 21) (483 years)
A.D. 30/31 The Messiah died during the last week (crucifixion of Christ)
A.D. 34 Stoning of Stephen (Acts 6:12-7:60) and the gospel reaches the Gentile world (Acts 9, 10). At somepoint during the rest of the 1810 years (2300-490 =1810) the little horn interfered with the priestly work of the Prince in the holy place (see Dan. 7:25; and 12:11).
A.D. 1844 The whole vision of Daniel 8 is fulfilled.
The daily work of the Prince gives place to the eschatological day of atonement.
The usurpation of the daily by the little horn comesto an end.

You see he was using the Persian Babylonian year of spring to spring. Well the spring of 1844 came and went and Christ didn’t come. So that was what they called the tarrying time. Remember the parable of the of the ten virgins some had oil and some didn’t. They were waiting. The bridegroom didn’t seem to be on time they were waiting and waiting and waiting and then when he finally did come only half of them had enough oil. And that was called the tarrying time.

And in the summer of 1844 the saints believed they were in the tarrying time and in a camp meeting in Exeter New Hampshire several thousand people millerites in attendance. And the speaker was kind of droning on about prophecies that they already knew very well and a man named Samuel Snow comes riding in and they said here our brother has some new light. So Samuel Snow got up and preached that they should use the Jewish calendar fall to fall. the fall of 1843 the fall of 1844 which takes you to the day of atonement.

And so from that the so-called seventh month movement went forward. And so that’s how they began to preach October 22, 1844 and when that great day came an event did take place but it wasn’t visible here on earth. And so some of our critics say well you Adventists you know the prophecy failed. So you moved it from some place where we could see it to some place where you can’t see it.

Well that would be true if the prophecy itself did not predict a heavenly event as we will look at. Tomorrow in Daniel seven you actually see Daniel looks into the heavenly court and he sees the movement, the transit of the Son of Man to the Ancient of Days.

At the conclusion of the judgment he is given power and dominion and glory that all nations and languages and tongues should serve him. That’s the conclusion of the judgment in the heavenly court not here on Earth. We don’t look for that to have occurred here. We look for where the prophecy says it’s going to happen. And so we have the date for this judgment. We’ve looked at here and we have the event described in Daniel seven that we will study tomorrow.

Now at this point Seventh Day Adventists say we can learn a lot about judgment and judgment in the sanctuary from the Book of Leviticus and our critics say well that’s a big jump. You’re going from a prophetic book to a book about law. Is that fair? Well let me point out a few things about the connections.

Can we say that Daniel eight has a connection to Leviticus? I want you to notice first of all the symbolism that is used. The first symbol is a ram and that’s a clean animal that was used for sacrifice in the sanctuary system. In contrast to the animals of Daniel seven animals of Daniel seven are the wild beasts of the field who are  unclean. So first of all the symbol of the ram. And we can say the same thing for a goat. A goat was a sacrificial animal or clean animal, a sacrificial animal, that was used in the sanctuary services.

Then I want you to notice the head of the goat has four horns. And if you play the word association game with an ancient Israelite and you said four horns what do you think he would say back to you? Of course altar.

Then the word sanctuary itself is used three times. Then there’s an interesting title for the angels you see in Daniel 8:13 It says one angel came and started talking to his fellow angel. But it doesn’t use the word for angel. There’s a common word malach used all over the old testament for angels. That is not the word used here. The word used here is a holy one and the holy one or the holy angel serves in the holy place. So the title for Angel is selected according to sanctuary use.

And there’s two of them angels. Holy ones serve in the holy place. Now think for a moment about where you might have two angels in the sanctuary. There are the cherubim over the Ark of the Covenant.

And then finally there’s the time element and evening morning. Well we have said that this time unit is a creation day and that is correct. But it is also a sanctuary day and I want you to look at the numbers Chapter nine Numbers chapter 9. The Book of Numbers gives the instructions about how the camp of ancient Israel was set up for movement. And they have all the organization of the tribes, a census of the tribes and the priests who are to take care and move the equipment from the sanctuary or within the sanctuary itself.

And so then they get ready to move when God gives the instructions as you know about when to move. And how did he do it? Verse fifteen chapter nine of the Book of Numbers, “Now on the day that the tabernacle was erected the cloud covered the tabernacle the tent of the testimony”. Notice the word for Ten Commandments there. And in the evening it was like the appearance of fire over the tabernacle until morning. So it was continuously or tamid daily the cloud would cover it.

So it describes the cloud over the sanctuary in terms of the evening morning because the fire is more brilliant than the clouds. Evening morning sanctuary day evening morning Creation day and of course it tells about how when the cloud is lifted up the people have to move. And so verse twenty one if sometimes the cloud remain from evening to morning there it is again when the cloud was lifted in the morning they would move out and so forth. So yes an evening morning is a creation day but an evening morning is also a sanctuary day.

So here we have six different features about the sanctuary. In fact the essence of the whole chapter is a conflict over the sanctuary. That’s the climax of the chapter. So if you want to find out something more about the sanctuary where do you go? You go where there’s more sanctuary literature in the Bible. Where is that?  Exodus and Leviticus. Exodus for the sanctuary dates; Leviticus for the functions of the sanctuary. So there is a very direct connection between Daniel eight and Leviticus. So it’s quite fair that we use that. 

In summary the figure that we see is called the Prince of the host. You see the host is persecuted and the little horn attempts to reach the prince but they can’t get to the prince. What is the function of the prince in this chapter? And the answer is he functions as a priest. How do we know that? Because it says the place of his sanctuary was cast down. “His” possessive personal pronoun referring to the prince. The sanctuary belongs to him. It’s where he resides. It’s where he ministers.

And the tamid if we understand it is taken away from him and that little horn power through its host or priesthood attempts to control it. It’s his tamid. And so if that be true and it does represent Christ’s high priestly ministry for us in the heavenly sanctuary he’s functioning there as a priest just as the Old Testament priest functioned in the courtyard and in the holy place at those three different locations. And this was the the daily ministry.

And so if you take all of the uses that word the word that would summarize it best in my view is a ministry or ministration to include all of that not just one of them you see. You may have a translation that supplies the word sacrifice as Alan Whittle already pointed out that word sacrifice is provided. It is not in any Hebrew manuscript. So it leaves it uses as an adverb elsewhere in the Old Testament. What now becomes a noun. And so the question is what is the extent that that noun takes in? Much to my understanding it takes in all of the holy place ministry of the Lord Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary as our great high priest today.

So here the Messiah Prince in Daniel chapter nine functions there as a sacrifice through his death and what his death accomplishes. The prince in Daniel chapter eight is the prince to whom the sanctuary belongs and to whom the ministry in the sanctuary belongs and that means he is a priestly figure. To summarize we’re looking at pictures of Jesus at the climax of these lines of prophecy in the Book of Daniel. Daniel 9, Christ a sacrifice. Then Daniel 8, Christ as priest. Daniel 7, Christ as king.

Alright, let’s stand for the benediction. Loving heavenly Father we thank you that today as we look up to heaven directly to our one mediator and intercessor, the Lord Jesus.

We thank you for what he did for us on the cross and we thank you for what he’s doing for us today in heaven. We thank you for the riches of the views of the heavenly sanctuary that you have given us in Your Word. Help us to understand them better. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Related:

Daniel 2 Commentary and Bible study – William H Shea

What Happens After Death : State of the Dead Bible Study – William H Shea

Sabbath: The Day God Made Holy Bible Study Transcript – William H Shea

Prophet Daniel: Studies Into Book of Daniel Chapter 1 by William H Shea

Daniel 9 Explained – Clifford Goldstein Bible Study

Prophet Daniel: Studies into Book of Daniel 8 by Dr William H Shea

I hope you have been blessed by this bible study, Prophet Daniel: Book of Daniel 8 Commentary by Dr. William H Shea