Hello everyone. 🙂 Today’s blog post is about the 2300 day prophecy contained in Daniel 8 and Daniel 9. You will notice that this prophecy overlaps significantly with the prophecy I wrote about in this blog post. The 2300 day prophecy is very relevant to us today. God has given us this information because He loves us, wants us to know where we are in earth’s history, and wants us to be prepared for what is going to happen. He loves us very much.
The prophecy starts in Daniel 8:3-4:
“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.
I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.” Daniel 8:3-4 (KJV)
If we move on to Daniel 8:20 and 21, we are told who these beasts represent.
“The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.
And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.” Daniel 8:20-21 (KJV)
Now let’s move backward toward Daniel 8:8-12:
“Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.
And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.
Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.
And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.” Daniel 8:8-12 (KJV)
Does this horn sound familiar to any of you? The reason I ask is that I blogged about this same horn, which is also described in Daniel 7. This being said, let me explain why we can know that the horn being talked about here in Daniel 8 is the same one that was being talked about in Daniel 7.
- In Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, the kingdom that follows the kingdom of Greece is the kingdom of Rome.
- The attitudes and endeavors of the horn that rose up from among the ten horns in Daniel 7 and the “little horn” introduced in Daniel 8 are both similar. The attitude is one of boldness and defiance and the endeavors are to persecute God’s saints and to change His law (Daniel 7:21; 25), to interfere with God’s sanctuary and to reject and attempt to tear down His truth (Daniel 8:11-12). Both horns are ultimately met with judgement by God. (Daniel 7:26 and Daniel 8:25).
Having established that the horn in Daniel 7 and the “little horn” in Daniel 8 are the same entity, let us move on with our study.
If we look at Daniel 8:10-12, we see that the little horn bothers “some of the host and of the stars”, (verse 10) that he exalts himself “even unto the prince of the host” (verse 11), that he interferes with God’s sanctuary (verse 12) and with his truth (verse 12).
We have already identified who the horn in Daniel 7 is (see this blog post), and we have established in this blog post that the horn in Daniel 7 and the little horn in Daniel 8 are the same entity. Before I move into this next part of this prophecy, I just want to reiterate that I owe a debt of gratitude to the Catholic church for what they did for my paternal great-grandmother and her siblings. What I am about to share is not intended to be an attack on Roman Catholic laypeople or clergy, but rather an honest assessment of the system of Catholicism and an exposing of some of its errors for what they are. I know that there are many, many, sincere God-fearing, loving Catholic people who are absolutely and truly God’s children.
Having said this, I will now continue to expound on this prophecy. One question that we must still answer at this point is the following: who are the “host” and the “stars” mentioned in Daniel 8:10?
Let us take a look at Daniel 8:24.
“And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.” Daniel 8:24 (KJV)
Now, let us compare this verse with Daniel 8:10.
“And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.” Daniel 8:10 (KJV)
When we compare these two verses, we see that they describe a similar attitude and behavior. I would sum up this attitude and behavior as the following:
Attitude= boldness and contentiousness
Behavior: persecution
The question we want to answer, once again, is the following: who are “the host” and “the stars”? We can deduce from verse 24 that the “host” and the “stars” in some way represent the people of God who are being persecuted by this power. If you look up the word “host” on this Bible search engine, you will find, from reading the contexts in which this word is used, that the word “host” is used to represent a large group of people. We can deduce from the context of Daniel 8:10 and 24 that the large group of people who are being persecuted are the people of God because they are being persecuted by a power that is warring against the ways of God.
As it comes to the definition for the word “stars” as used in Daniel 8:24, when we look at Daniel 12:3, we can see that the word “stars” appears to refer to those who have become leaders among God’s people.
“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” Daniel 12:3 (KJV)
So, in summary, the “host” refers to the people of God, and the word “stars” likely refers to the leaders among the people of God. Having established this, let us move on.
Besides the persecution of the people of God, mentioned in Daniel 8:10 and 24, we see in Daniel 8:11 that the little horn “magnified himself even unto the prince of the host” and that “by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.” If the host represents God’s people, we can deduce that the “prince of the host” is Jesus. In a Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 9:6, Jesus is refered to as “the Prince of Peace”. Furthermore, in Acts 3:15, Jesus is referred to as ” the Prince of life”. I don’t think it is a stretch to come to the conclusion that the “prince of the host” is Jesus, since the “host” represents God’s people in this chapter.
Having seen this, we can see that the little horn is trying to compete with Jesus’ status. As I mentioned in my previous blog post of Bible prophecy, the popes hold the title “vicar of Christ”. Jesus Christ never instituted such an office on earth, and so for a spiritual leader on earth to hold such an office is an act of competition with and disrepect of Jesus (whether all popes realize this or not is another matter. We cannot judge hearts. 1 Samuel 16:7)
Furthermore, the doctrine of transubstantiation, where the bread and wine used in the eucharist are said to become the actual body and blood of Jesus rather than representations of both is not Biblical and disrespects the sacrifice that Jesus made for humanity: once and only once. Hebrews 10:8-11
Additionally, the practices of confessing to priests (which disrepects the reality that we have free access to Jesus, who forgives us of our sins, without a human intermediary: Hebrews 10:10-22), as well as of praying to saints (Prayer is an act of worship. Even a holy angel refused to be worshipped by the apostle John: Revelation 22:8-9) are also ways in which the little horn is out of line with God’s sanctuary.
Furthmore, anything that doesn’t line up with the truth revealed in God’s word is a lie. Unfortunately, the little horn teaches and practices an abundance of things that do not line up with the truth in God’s word. By so doing, it casts “down truth to the ground”. Daniel 8:12 (KJV)
God is love and true love always does what is best. God, in His love, cannot allow disrespect of His ways to continue indefinitely. It would not be in anyone’s best interests for Him to do so. His people have cried out to Him regarding the distortions of His ways that have been occuring. God’s response to these cries was the following: “
…Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Daniel 8:14 (KJV)
We will explore what this means and more in our next Bible prophecy blog post.
I hope that you all have been blessed by this blog post. Next week, I will post a blog post not related to Bible prophecy, and the following week, I will post my next blog post in this series on Bible Prophecy: continuing to expound on the 2300 day prophecy.
Blessings. 🙂
Learn and Grow 4ever 