Daniel 8:4

Historically, the Medo-Persian Empire pushed its borders primarily in three directions. It went westward (into Lydia, Ionia, Thrace, and Macedonia), northward (toward the Caspian Mountains, the Oxus Valley, and Scythia), and southward (toward Babylonia, Palestine, and Egypt). Compare the three ribs in the mouth of the bear (Daniel 7:5). These advances happened mainly under the leadership of Cyrus and Cambyses. [Note: Driver, p. 113.] Indeed, Medo-Persia had its own way for many years, and glorified itself.

"There is nothing inherently wrong about ’doing great things" . . .; but the expression is only used in an unequivocally good sense of God (1 Samuel 12:24; Psalms 126:2-3); of human beings it tends to suggest arrogance (Jeremiah 48:26; Joel 2:20; Zephaniah 2:10; Psalms 35:26; Psalms 55:13 [12]), or at least achievement at someone else’s expense (Zephaniah 2:8; Lamentations 1:9)-here achievement that presages calamity. The expression has the foreboding ambiguity of the mouth speaking great things in Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:20." [Note: Goldingay, p. 209.]