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"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6 |
Greece in Bible Prophecy
Thus far, we have seen that the head of gold refers to the kingdom of Babylon, with Nebuchadnezzar as its head. The last Babylonian king was Belshazzar. Daniel 5:30,31 tell us "In that night was Balshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." Daniel 5:28 "Thy kindgom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.. The breast and two arms represent the combined kingdom of the Medes and Persians.
Daniel 2:39 (last part) and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
The empire which replaced the Persian Empire was that of Greece. This is clearly stated in Daniel 8:5-8. That text should be considered along with Daniel 8
20 The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.
21 And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.
A parallel text to Daniel 8:5 is Daniel 7:6 After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. The leopard is fierce and swift. The power that did succeed the Persian Empire was exactly that. In Dan 8:21 this power is identified as Greece. "Grecia" was the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great. In 336 B.C. Alexander the Great succeeded to the throne of Macedonia. With only 35,000 men, Alexander went into Persia in 334 B.C. The march he had begun was to be one of the greatest in history. With the army went geographers, botanists, and other men of science who collected information and specimens for Aristotle. A historian kept records of the march, and surveyors made maps that served as the basis for the geography of Asia for centuries.
He went down into Egypt without a defeat. Then, he went up through Mesopotamia, with the Persians taking a final stand at Arbela, where they lost to Alexander. At 25 years old, Alexander had vast riches. He went into Samarkand, in what today is called Turkistan. In 323 B.C. he made his capital in Babylon. In the same year, after a round of hard drinking, Alexander died of "swamp fever" (probably malaria). He was 33. In less than 10 years, Alexander claimed the biggest empire the world had yet known. No other king of the time could be described as swift and fierce besides Alexander. He was one of the most successful generals in the history of the world.
Without providing for an orderly succession, there was turmoil for years after Alexander's death, until four generals, Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy divided the territory up amongst themselves, thus fulfilling the prophecy concerning the four heads. Alexander's empire, even under these four generals, was still a continuation of the Greco-Macedonian-Asiatic world of diverse peoples united by Greek language, thought, and civilization. It was a single beast at this time with multiple heads.
At the Granicus River (near the Hellespont) he met and defeated a Persian force and moved on to take Miletus and Halicarnassus. For the first time Persia faced a united Greece. Having taken most of Asia Minor, he entered (333) N Syria and there in the battle of Issus met and routed the hosts of Darius III of Persia, who fled before him. Alexander, triumphant, now envisioned conquest of the whole of the Persian Empire. It took him nearly a year to reduce Tyre and Gaza, and in 332, in full command of Syria, he entered Egypt. There he met no resistance. In the winter he founded Alexandria. He marched S to Babylon, then went to Susa and on to Persepolis, where he burned the palaces of the Persians and looted the city. He was now the visible ruler of the Persian Empire, pursuing the fugitive Darius to Ecbatana, which submitted in 330. Alexander conquered all of Bactria and Sogdiana after hard fighting and then went on from what is today Afghanistan into N India. He himself led his men through the desert regions of modern Baluchistan, S Afghanistan, and S Iran. Alexander's men had now marched 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers). Soon they refused to go farther, and Alexander reluctantly turned back. The march, accomplished with great suffering, finally ended at Susa in 324. In 323, Alexander was planning a voyage by sea around Arabia when he caught a fever and died at 33. After his death his generals fell to quarreling about dividing the kingdom. Reportedly, on his death bed, his generals asked "To whom will you give the kingdom?" "To the strongest", he replied.
The sudden death of Alexander left his generals without any plan whereby the vast territories he had conquered should be administered. Some of his followers, including the rank and file of the Macedonian army, wanted to preserve the empire. But the generals wanted to break up the empire and create realms for themselves. It took more than 40 years of struggles and warfare (323-280 BC) before the separate kingdoms were carved out. Finally three major dynasties emerged: the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucids in Asia, Asia Minor, and Palestine, and the Antigonids in Macedonia and Greece. These kingdoms got their names from three generals of Alexander--Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus. The richest, most powerful, and longest lasting of these kingdoms was that of the Ptolemies. It reached its height of material and cultural splendor under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled from 285 to 246. After his death, the kingdom entered a long period of war and internal strife that ended when Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC.
The Seleucid Empire was the largest of the three kingdoms. The Seleucids were the most active of the kingdoms in establishing Greek settlements throughout their domain. During the more than 200 years of its existence, the empire continually lost territory through war or rebellion, until it was reduced to Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia in 129 BC. It continued to decline until annexed by Rome in 64 BC. The Antigonid Kingdom of Macedonia lasted only until 168 BC . Continually involved in wars with other kingdoms and struggles with the Greek city-states, it was finally overtaken by the military might of Rome.
Remembering that there are several sections to this study, let us continue by looking at the fourth kingdom of Daniel 2.
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