Daniel 8:3

3. Even Dr. Terry says of the ram that “it represented the Medo-Persian empire.” This indeed can hardly be denied in the face of the direct statement of Daniel 8:20. But since this two-horned ram corresponds exactly to the bear of Daniel 7:5, this alone would seem to settle the contention that the second empire was not Median but Medo-Persian. Dr. Terry supposes that the two horns represent the dynasties of Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes. Yet, according to his own theory, neither of these was a Median king, but both were kings of a later Persian empire; the second, or Median empire, having existed merely in the imagination of the writer of this book, being represented only by “Darius the Mede” (vi, 31). It does not appear consistent to acknowledge a Medo-Persian empire here and to deny it a place in the list of successive empires described in chaps. ii and 7. Bryan is more consistent with his own position when he declares that the ram here represents the two distinct empires of the Medes and Persians, the higher horn representing the Persian and the lower one the Median empire. But certainly it is contrary to all the laws of symbolism to represent two distinct empires as merely the two horns of one animal. In that case, what would the animal itself symbolize? It is the animal, not the horn, which symbolizes the empire. The empire is a unit as the animal is one. But this one empire is distinctly declared in Daniel 8:20 to be that of the Medes and Persians. The two horns of power growing out of this one beast almost certainly, therefore, represent these dual potencies; the higher and younger of the two representing the Persian, and the other the Median branches of the one empire. This explanation agrees with Daniel’s own statement, and has the additional advantage over the opposing view of being consistent with the facts of history. (See notes Daniel 2:39-41.) As a ram naturally has two horns this feature would not have had symbolic importance if the fact had not been brought into prominence by the writer himself.