Second Little Horn?
The figure called the “little horn” figures prominently in Daniel’s visions. It is explicitly named in the visions of the “fourth beast” and the “ram and goat.” It is reasonable to assume both visions portray the same figure. The historical references in the first vision are enigmatic, in the second, they are explicit.
The interpreter must begin with the earlier
dream of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2. It provides the fourfold structure underlying
the later visions.
The Babylonian ruler saw a “great image”
comprised of four sections, each composed of different materials. The first part
was the head of “fine gold,” the second, the arms and breast of “silver,”
and so on.
In the interpretation, the four sections of
the image represent four kingdoms or empires. Daniel identifies the first, the “head
of gold,” as Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of Babylon. But the information about
the second and third sections is brief, and the description of the fourth kingdom
is enigmatic - (Daniel 2:40-45).
FOURTH BEAST
If the same fourfold structure is reflected
in the vision of the “four beasts from the sea,” then the “fourth
beast” is identical to the fourth kingdom in the Babylonian king’s dream, and
there are verbal links between the fourth entities in each vision - (Daniel
7:7-8).
The interpretation of the “fourth beast”
in chapter 7 provides more details than the earlier dream of Nebuchadnezzar.
For example, in the earlier interpretation,
the kingdom was given to “another people,” but in chapter 7, it is given
to the “people of the saints of the Most-High.” In both visions, the
fourth kingdom is characterized by “iron” and its ability to “break
in pieces” and “trample” its victims.
Likewise, the vision of the “goat with
the prominent horn” in chapter 8 and its interpretation have verbal links
to both the original dream of Nebuchadnezzar and the vision of the “fourth
beast from the sea” in chapter 7 - (Daniel 8:9-10, 8:21-25).
In the king’s dream, the fourth kingdom is
compared to iron and
noted for its ability to “break in pieces and subdue all things, and as iron
that crushes all these shall it break in pieces and crush.”
While we assume this refers to its
ability to subdue other nations, the passage does not say who or what it “crushes.”
However, the object of this kingdom’s wrath is indicated at the end of the
interpretation when God judges the “kingdom” in an ironic fashion:
- “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left to another people, but it will break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms…and the stone that was cut out of the mountain without hands broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold.”
Thus, in chapter 2, the fourth
kingdom that “broke in pieces” and “trampled” targeted the group
identified as “another people,” the same group that inherited the “kingdom
that will not be destroyed.”
ONE LITTLE HORN
Likewise, in chapters 7 and 8, the “little
horn” uses its “iron teeth” to “break in pieces” and “trample
the remnant” which is identified in both chapters as the “saints of the
Most-High” (“The little horn made war with the saints and prevailed over
them”).
Just as the last kingdom in
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was crushed by the stone cut from the mountain “without
hands,” so in chapter 8, the “little horn,” the “king of fierce
countenance,” is “broken without hands.”
There are too many verbal parallels to be coincidental. The same four kingdoms portrayed in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar are represented by the “four beasts from the sea.” Likewise, the links between the “little horn” of chapter 7 and the “little horn” of chapter 8 are too close not to conclude that the same figure is pictured in both visions.
The angel Gabriel’s interpretation of the “goat
with one prominent horn” is quite explicit. The “goat” represents
Greece, and its great “horn” is its first great king who overthrew the “kingdom
of the Medes and Persians.” This can only mean Alexander the Great, and the
“little horn,” the “king of fierce countenance,” came out of one
of the four Greek kingdoms that succeeded his empire.
Thus, in the book of Daniel, there
is only one “little horn” and all references to it refer to the same
individual or entity that persecutes the “saints of the Most-High.”