GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
DANIEL 8:8
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8 The goat made himself very great, but at the height of his power his large horn was broken, and four large horns grew up in its place toward the four winds of heaven.
After Alexander swept out of Europe into Asia, into Africa, and as far away as India, he was overcome with a fever after a celebration in Babylon, and died. He was still in his early thirties. After him, four of his generals took over portions of the huge kingdom. They and the soldiers who served them became known as the Diodochoi, the “Successors.” They were Ptolemy, Seleucus, Antigonus, and Lysimachus.
Ptolemy took control of Egypt. The capital city, Alexandria, was of course named for the great Greek king, and the dynasty of his family, the Ptolemies, lasted three hundred years until the death of Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra VII (the same Cleopatra who took her own life by letting a poisonous serpent bite her arm, “As sweet as balm, as soft as air.” And with that, Egypt fell to Rome.
Seleucus (which is spoken with a hard “c” as if saying “George Lucas”) took over the whole eastern part of Alexander’s empire, including what was Persia, Syria, and Palestine. The Seleucid kings were known as “Kings of Asia” (2 Maccabees 3:3).
The third general was Antigonus, who took charge of Asia Minor or Turkey as we call it today, but was defeated at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. After that he ruled only Macedon and what we would call Greece today.
Last was Lysimachus, who ruled Thrace and parts of Asia Minor. He was eventually defeated and killed by Seleucus in 281 BC when he was nearly eighty years old.
Therefore we plainly see that Lysimachus ruled toward the far west, Seleucus to the far east, Antigonus to the north, and Ptolemy to the south; “toward the four winds of heaven.”
Late in the 13th century, Marco Polo met the greatest emperor of the east, the great Kublai Khan. This was fifteen centuries after the time described in our text, but even so, the mighty Kublai Khan, Emperor of the Mongols, had heard of Alexander the Great. The fall of such a man, one of the greatest military geniuses and leaders in all of history, shows that God is not only powerful, but supremely powerful over all. There is no one in the world who is not subject to God’s judgment, to God’s punishment, or to God’s final condemnation. Nebuchadnezzar learned this directly through a dream. And Alexander, as much as any mortal man, was subject to the almighty power and judgment of God.
Therefore this little verse, which has no symbolic meaning at all, but simply foresees what would take place two hundred years from that day of Daniel’s vision. It means nothing else than this: the great king of the Greeks, Alexander, would die at the height of his power, and leave his kingdom to four other men, one in the north, one in the south, another to the west, and one in the east. That is the simple meaning of the words as Daniel presents them. It teaches us that God knows all things, even things in the future, and he rules over all things for our good.
As for we ourselves, God teaches us to acknowledge death as an enemy of all. Therefore if it is possible, a Christian is permitted to flee from death. Luther points out that in Jeremiah 26, a prophet named Uriah fled when his life was in danger. And Joseph fled with Mary and the infant Jesus when Herod the king threatened their lives (Matthew 2:14). And even Jesus slipped away through the crowd when danger approached, because he knew that it was not yet his time (John 5:13). So, we can even apply this to difficult cases of danger, for example, in a marriage when one spouse threatens the life of the other. “If I have a wife,” the Reformed said, giving an example, “who wants to kill me with poison, I ought to flee.” And then he explained his position as a pastor saying such a thing: “I have the duty to advise, as in all other cases, so that I rescue you from hunger and poverty” as well as from murder (from a sermon on Divorce, LW 56:34). For the power of death is in the hands of God, but when someone sinfully tries to wrench that power away from God, or from his lawful representative, which is the government, then we have the ability, the freedom, and even the duty, to flee. For it is not the place of a madman or a murderer, or a drunken fool to take the life of anyone. Nor is it the right of a king to take any life on a mere whim or in a fit of rage, for that would still be murder– Alexander the Great killed one of his best friends in a drunken rage and regretted it for the rest of his life.
Therefore our place is to protect even our own lives under the Fifth Commandment, so that we are able to fulfill whatever tasks that the Lord may have prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). For we are instruments for God’s noble purposes, made holy by Christ, and useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Timothy 2:21).
When death approaches on account of age, or an illness that cannot be cured, or an accident, or in a war, or on account of a just punishment, then God grant us the strength to face such an end with courage, without bitterness in our hearts, but remembering to bless our loved ones and to forgive anyone who might be in our debt. You and I might not be in line for kingdoms in the directions of the four winds, but we each have our place in God’s holy plan for gathering his kingdom, and this begins with Jesus our Lord saving us from our sins (Psalm 106:47). Live your life in safety as a redeemed child of God.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Daniel 8:8 To flee from death