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 collateral branch, and finally to an intruder, under whom that world-kingdom, once so powerful, in a few years fell to pieces. Shortly before the death of Belshazzar the end of the Babylonian monarchy was thus to be seen, and the point of time, not very remote, which must end the Exile with the fall of Babylon. This point of time was altogether fitted to reveal to the prophet in a vision what would happen after the overthrow of Babylon, and after the termination of the Exile.

Verses 3-4
Dan 8:3-4The vision. - Dan 8:3. Daniel first sees one ram, איל, standing by the river. The אחד (one) does not here stand for the indefinite article, but is a numeral, in contradistinction to the two horns which the one ram has. The two horns of the ram were high, but the one was higher than the other, the higher coming up later. האחת does not mean the first, but the one, and השּׁנית the other; for the higher grew up last. This is not to be understood as if Daniel first saw the ram without horns, and then saw the horns grow up, and at length the one horn become higher than the other (v. Leng., Hitzig); but that from the first Daniel saw the ram with two horns, but afterwards saw the one horn grow higher than the other (Kliefoth). The angel (Dan 8:20) explains the ram with two horns of the king of Media and Persia. This does not mean that the two horns are to be understood (with Theodoret) of the two dynasties of Cyrus and of Darius Hystaspes; but since the ram represents the one kingdom of the Medes and Persians, so the two horns represent the people of the Medes and Persians, from the union of which the Medo-Persian kingdom grew up. Both nations were the horns, i.e., the power of the monarchy; therefore are they both high. The one horn, which afterwards grew up higher than the other, represents the Persians, who raised themselves above the Medians. A ram and goat, as emblems of kings, princes, chiefs, often occur; cf. Isa 14:9; Eze 34:17; Eze 39:18; Jer 50:8; Zec 10:3. In Bundehesch the guardian spirit of the Persian kingdom appears under the form of a ram with clean feet and sharp-pointed horns, and, according to Amm. Marcell. xix. 1, the Persian king, when he stood at the head of his army, bore, instead of the diadem, the head of a ram (cf. Häv.). The point of resemblance of this symbol is to be sought, not in the richness (the wool) and in the aggressive nature (the horns) of the ram (Theod., Venema), but the ram and the he-goat form, as Hofmann has justly remarked, a contrast to dull firmness and nimble lightness, as the bear and the panther.