Daniel's Greece Prophecies

The Hebrew word for Greece is Yawan (Javan), which is the name of one of the sons of Japheth. Javan is mentioned in the genealogy immediately after Madai, the progenitor of the Medes (see Gen. 10:2). About the time the Israelites were settling in Canaan, those Indo—European tribes later called Greeks were migrating in successive waves into the Aegean region (mainland Greece, the islands, and the western coasts of Asia Minor), conquering or driving out the earlier Mediterranean inhabitants. These displacements were connected with the movement of the Peoples of the Sea (including the Philistines) into the eastern Mediterranean coastlands.

When we think of ancient Greece, we think chiefly of the golden age of Greek civilization in the 5th century B.C. This flowering of Greek culture followed the period of the greatest united effort of the divided city—states—the successful defense of Greece against Persia about the time of Queen Esther. Then in 336 B.C., Alexander the Great succeeded to the throne of Macedonia, a semi—Greek state on the northern border of Greece. Among the factors that spurred the young king on in his plans were personal ambition, the need for economic expansion, the desire to spread Greek culture, and a natural animosity toward the Persians because of their past relations with his countrymen.

The last reigning king of the Persian Empire, Darius III (Codomannus), was defeated by Alexander at the battles of Granicus (334 B.C.), Issus (333 B.C.), and Arbela (331 B.C.). Afterward, his Macedonian and Greek soldiers stormed through Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine to the ancient land of the Nile, which easily fell to him. He then took Mesopotamia and the Persian homeland, pressing on until he reached the Indus Valley. He then set about to consolidate his empire and establish a union between the Orient and the Occident, choosing the ancient city of Babylon as his capital and residence, but his early death ended his plans.

In Daniel 2, Greece is symbolized by the leopard, a fierce, carnivorous animal noted for its agility, with four wings and four heads. Although the leopard is itself a swift creature, the vision represented the animal with four wings added to it, denoting superlative speed. The symbol most fittingly describes the lightning speed with which Alexander and his Macedonians in less than a decade came into possession of the greatest empire the world had yet known. There is no other example in ancient times of such rapid movements of troops on so large and successful a scale.

The four heads represented the four kingdoms (later reduced to three) that occupied the territory of Alexander's conquests. For some years after his death, Alexander's generals attempted to preserve the unity of his vast empire. Alexander died without arranging for the succession to his throne, and scarcely more than 20 years after his death, the last strong claimant to the central power was defeated by a coalition of four generals—Ptolemy, Cassander, Lysimachus, and Seleucus—who split the empire into four kingdoms. While one fell in short order, the other three continued on in some fashion until they were taken over, piece by piece, by the rising power of Rome.

In Daniel 8, Greece is referred to as a he—goat with four horns. The "Grecia" of Daniel 8:21 does not refer to the divided city—states of classical Greece, but rather to the later Macedonian kingdom that conquered Persia under Alexander. The Macedonians conquered the Greek cities and incorporated them for the first time into a strong, united state. Alexander the Great, inheriting his father's newly expanded kingdom, set out to extend Macedonian dominion and Greek culture eastward, and conquered the Persians. The prophecy represents the kingdom of Greece as following Persia, because Greece never became united into a kingdom until the formation of the Macedonian Empire, which replaced Persia as the leading world power of that time (for parallel prophecies, see on chs. 7:6 8:5—8, 21, 22 11:2—4). Not until Alexander's day could reference be made to the "first king" (ch. 8:21) of a Greek empire who was "a mighty king" with "great dominion."