1WP Dan. 8:3-14. In Daniel 8 is recorded the vision wherein the prophet was shown the future under four mighty scenes. In the first, he saw a ram with two horns. In the second, a goat with a great horn between his eyes came from the west and completely overpowered the ram. After this Daniel saw this great horn broken, and four others came up in its place on the head of this goat. In the third scene he saw a little horn which came fourth from one of these four horns, and in the end became a greater power than either the ram or the goat. In the fourth scene he was told that unto 2300 days, then the sanctuary would be cleansed.

2WP Dan. 8:16. The angel Gabriel was commanded to explain the meaning of these things.

3WP Dan. 8:20. The ram was Medo-Persia, which ruled the ancient world from 538 to 331 b.c.

4WP Dan. 8:21. The goat was Grecia, which conquered Persia in 331 b.c., and the great horn on the goat was the first king of the Grecian world empire, Alexander the Great.

5WP Dan. 8:22 The four horns which came up when the great horn was broken, were the four parts into which the Grecian Empire was divided after Alexander's death.

6WP Dan. 8:23. The little horn that became greater than either the ram or the goat was the Roman power, which became greater than Persia or Grecia had ever been.

7WP Dan. 8:26,27. Gabriel did not explain the 2300 days at this time because Daniel fainted when the angel reached that point in the vision.

8WP Dan. 9:20-22. Shortly after this, Gabriel returned to Daniel to explain the 2300 days.

9WP Dan. 9:24. Seventy weeks of the 2300 days were allotted to the Jews as their day of special opportunity. In prophecy a day represents a year. Eze. 4:6; Num. 14:34. So 70 weeks would be 490 years, and 2300 days would be 2300 years. These 70 weeks would be the first 490 years of the 2300 years of Daniel 8:14.

10WP Dan. 9:25, first part. This time period was to be reckoned from the time when the decree would go forth to restore and to build Jerusalem, which was then in ruins.

11WP Ezra 6:14; 7:6-8. This decree, providing for the restoration of the Jewish state at Jerusalem, went forth in the autumn of 457 b.c., in the seventh year of Artaxerxes.

12WP Dan. 9:25. The Messiah was to appear to men 69 weeks, or 483 years, from the time when that decree for the restoration of Jerusalem would go forth. Four hundred eighty-three years from the autumn of 457 b.c., when the decree went forth, brings us to the autumn of a.d. 27, and at that very time Jesus Christ was baptized, and appeared to the Jews as the true Messiah. Matt. 3:16,17. Thus Daniel foretold 565 years beforehand the exact time when Christ the Messiah would appear to Israel.

13WP Mark 1:14,15. Christ recognized that He appeared and began His work at the time that had been set or determined beforehand by the Lord God through Daniel.

14WP Dan. 9:26,27. In the middle of this seventieth week, which began with the baptism of Jesus, Messiah would cause the sacrifice of lambs for sin to cease, by offering Himself for man's sins. The middle of this seventieth week would be three and one-half years from the autumn of a.d. 27, when the 69 weeks ended. That would bring us to the spring of a.d. 31. And at that very time, just as Daniel predicted, the Messiah was cut off, or crucified for our sins. The remaining three and one-half years of this seventieth week, when figured from the spring of a.d. 31, when the Messiah was cut off, bring us to the autumn of a.d. 34, when the time of Israel's special opportunity expired, and the gospel began to go to the Gentiles. When you deduct the 70 weeks, or 490 years, from the 2300 years, you have 1810 years left. These remaining 1810 years, figured from the autumn of a.d. 34, when the 70 weeks expired, bring us to the autumn of a.d. 1844, to the end of the 2300 days, and to the time set for cleansing the sanctuary .

See also When God Forgets under Apples of Gold on my Home Page.