INTRODUCTION - Typology
In Daniel 2 we saw what appeared to be a fifth empire following immediately after the fourth. Daniel 7 then revealed that the fifth kingdom was to come out of the fourth. The fourth kingdom that was prophesied to come had its historical fulfilment as an empire from 31 BC to 476 AD while the fifth kingdom will have its fulfilment in the end-time. These kingdoms were telescoped together because of a close Biblical connection. The "legs of iron" is the original, or former empire and the "feet of iron-clay" the latter kingdom that comes out of it. The iron connects the two together.
According to J. Barton Payne a telescopic prophecy concerns "The leaping of a prophecy from a near to a far horizon without notice of intervening matter" (Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, page xviii). The prophecy may therefore have a near-future fulfilment and a far-future fulfilment. The near-future application which begins the prophecy is telescoped or blended with the far-future application which completes the prophecy. The prophecy seems to concern only one person, event or subject. Yet the prophecy begins addressing one subject and then jumps to the other without the reader being fully aware of the change:
"Bible prophecy regularly exhibits this characteristic of telescoping the future, so that the more distant event appears to merge with the nearer so as to become indistinguishable from it. The best known passage in which this telescoping features is the discourse of Jesus in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, where He speaks both of the fall of Jerusalem and of the end of the age" (Joyce Baldwin, comment on Daniel 11:40-45, Tyndale Commentaries, page 202).
"The fact that the destruction of the temple and the 'close of the 'age' can be dealt with together...indicates that there is a close theological connection between them" (R. T. France, Matthew, Tyndale Commentaries, page 334).
"Only after the former event had taken place did it become possible to distinguish which passages applied to the events of AD 70, and which were predictions of the more distant future. The common factors in judgment, whenever it takes place, and the similarity between the methods of one tyrant and another, account for the apparent homogeneity of the chapter. 'It seems...that neither an exclusively historical nor an exclusively eschatological [doctrine of the last things...] interpretation is satisfactory, and that we may allow for a double reference, for a mingling of historical and eschatological.' The historical is still future at the time of writing, but relates to a recognizable situation identified when the event takes pace. Other parts of the discourse look to the second coming and the end of the age" (Baldwin, ibid.).
The similarity between the historical person, event or subject and the later person, event or subject it looks forward to is often referred to as 'type' and 'antitype':
"The relationship between type and antitype is real and historical, based upon an analogous correspondence that exists between them.
"The "type" is usually the original person or event and the "antitype" (Gk. antitypos; cf. 1 Pet.3:21) the latter "copy" that fulfils the former" (G. R. Osborne, "Typology", The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Volume 4, pages 930-31).
There may be intermediate types in between the original type and the latter antitype. The patterns of history tend to repeat.
The 'type/antitype' concept is in keeping with the principle of projecting what the future may hold from what has happened in the past. This is seen when God, through Isaiah, taunts the false prophets to tell Him what the future will be:
"Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were; That we may consider them, And know the latter end of them" (Isaiah 41:22).
This principle of using history as a help in understanding what the future may hold is a guiding principle of this booklet.
INTERPRETATION
In Daniel 8 we have two people telescoped together as if they were one and the same in a near-future and far-future fulfilment because of a close similarity in their careers.
Daniel in the vision of chapter 8, saw a male goat which had a notable horn between his eyes (verse 5). This "male goat grew very great; but when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it four notable ones came up...and out of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great towards the south, towards the east and towards the Glorious Land..."
The angel Gabriel explained to Daniel that the "male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between his eyes is the first king. As for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power and in the latter time of their kingdom...a king shall arise..." (Daniel 8:21-23).
This male goat therefore corresponds to the kingdom of brass of the dream-image of Daniel 2 and the leopard, with the four heads, of Daniel 7.
After the death of Alexander the Great, the first king, his empire was eventually divided, as we saw earlier, into four kingdoms under four of his generals. That division marked the end of the attempts to preserve the unity of the Empire.
The king that was to arise out of these horn/kingdoms and grow exceedingly great was Antiochus IV Epiphanes - the eighth king of the Seleucid kingdom.
Antiochus' career, we believe, is very important in understanding Biblical prophecy:
"The undertaking of this king to root out the worship of the living God and destroy the Jewish religion, shows in type the great war which the world-power in the last phases of its development shall undertake against the kingdom of God, by exalting itself above every god, to hasten on its own destruction and the consummation of the kingdom of God" (C.F. Keil, Daniel, Keil and Delitzsch, Volume 9, page 778).
We now provide a brief history of Antiochus with the help of the prophecy of Daniel 11. This is in keeping with the principle: "Let them show the former things, what they were; That we may consider them, And know the latter end of them" (Isaiah 41:22). (What follows is the most accepted hypothesis of Antiochus and the Jews as "there is no reliable account of the actual series of events leading up to the persecution proper" (Emil Schurer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ - 175 BC - AD 135, page 153).
The rest of the interpretation of Daniel 8 is in the next chapter on Antiochus and the "Little Horn".