This is not gonna be very interesting...but here's all I have to say for today...Easter is coming...Easter is coming...
Daniel describes this vision as taking place in a very specific place, and neither the name of the city nor the name of the river mean anything to me. My study Bible suggests the city of Susa wasn't actually big until after Belshazzar's reign, but its use could be symbolic here. Rivers are also symbolic in apocalyptic visions, apparently.
The vision starts out with a ram with 2 horns--so far, so good. It's a little weird that as he watches the ram, its horns grow and one is bigger than the other, but I can deal with that. I would think that a ram whose horns do that would be pretty powerful and just do what it wants. And then a really angry he-goat with one horn comes along and tramples the powerful ram.
...and then it gets weird...when more horns grow on the he-goat and the horns start causing all kinds of trouble. Have I mentioned that these are not my favorite parts of scripture to read??
Now, when verse 11 says the he-goat in the vision was "taking the daily sacrifice away from him and overturning his holy place," I do know enough about history to know that sounds like Antiochus IV Ephipanes, who desecrated the temple with unclean offerings to pagan gods. That's the only part of this vision that makes much sense to me, without the help of my study Bible.
Daniel 8:13-14--How long?
OK, I get that the two holy ones in the vision want to know why God lets this all happen. The one's response to the other, of 2,300 evenings and mornings seem pretty randomly specific.
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