The Small Horn Prophecy

In back-to-back chapters, Daniel prophesied of two figures who would savagely persecute the church in the future, the "little horn" and the "small horn." A commonly encountered misinterpretation of these two chapters, Daniel 7 and 8, is that these two figures are the same person and point to a future antichrist. The details of the these texts make it clear that they are not the same figures and that they would persecute the church at very different times historically. A decisive detail which distinguishes the "small horn" of chapter 8 from the "little horn" of chapter 7 is that the small horn emerges from the Greek kingdom (Daniel 8:9,21-22) rather than the Roman kingdom. This "small horn" prophecy has been fulfilled in the vicious persecution perpetrated upon the Jewish people by the 2nd century BC Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes. This message expounds the rise of the "small horn," surveys his character and actual persecution of the church and desecration of the Temple of the Lord, and then applies the principles of the text to the current situation of the church.