-
Part 4—Medo-Persia—The Fourth Great World Power in Bible HistoryThe Watchtower—1988 | March 15
-
-
Before the Medes and the Persians attacked Babylon, the prophet Daniel had been given a vision of a two-horned ram that represented this two-part nation. Daniel wrote: “And the two horns were tall, but the one was taller than the other, and the taller was the one that came up afterward.” There was no question about the ram’s identity, for the angel told Daniel: “The ram that you saw possessing the two horns stands for the kings of Media and Persia.”—Daniel 8:3, 20.
-
-
Part 4—Medo-Persia—The Fourth Great World Power in Bible HistoryThe Watchtower—1988 | March 15
-
-
In the vision mentioned earlier, Daniel had foreseen the Medo-Persian two-horned “ram making thrusts to the west and to the north and to the south, and no wild beasts [other nations] kept standing before it, and there was no one doing any delivering out of its hand. And it did according to its will, and it put on great airs.” (Daniel 8:4) At least by Darius’ time, this vision had been fulfilled. In testimony to his feats, Darius the Great had himself represented on a colossal relief that can still be seen high on a cliff face at Bisitun, on the old road between Babylon and Ecbatana. In addition to conquering Babylon, the Medo-Persian “ram” had seized territory in three principal directions: north into Assyria, west through Asia Minor, and south into Egypt.
-
-
Part 4—Medo-Persia—The Fourth Great World Power in Bible HistoryThe Watchtower—1988 | March 15
-
-
In vision, Daniel had seen Medo-Persia represented as a two-horned ram. Next, two centuries before it happened, he saw “a male of the goats coming from the sunset [the west]” and moving so fast that “it was not touching the earth.” The fast-moving he-goat proceeded to “strike down the ram and to break its two horns, and there proved to be no power in the ram to stand before it.” (Daniel 8:5-7) Does history show that this really happened to Medo-Persia?
Yes, in the year 334 B.C.E., Alexander the Great came out of Greece to the west. With lightning speed like that of a male goat, he swept through Asia, gaining victory after victory over the Persians. Finally, in 331 B.C.E., at Gaugamela, he scattered a Persian army of a million men. Its leader, Darius III, fled, later to be murdered by onetime friends. The fourth world power had been struck down, its horns being broken, and Alexander’s empire became the fifth of the great world powers of Bible history.
-