C.
Thunder from the East: the Rise of Cyrus the Great and the Silver Kingdom.
Correspondent with the decline of
Neo-Babylonian power came the rise of challengers from the East (i.e., Iran):
the Medes and the Persians. While the great king Nebuchadnezzar was long-resistant
in his personal acceptance of Daniel’s interpretation of the Dream of the
Colossus (ch. 2), the Silver Kingdom would arise nonetheless, under the
sovereign direction of Almighty God!
Cyrus the Great
o The Medes were
an Iranian people who had been allied with the Neo-Babylonians in their revolt
against Assyrian power, destroying the Assyrian capital of Nineveh (612 BC)
with a vicious and merciless ferocity. Forming a powerful kingdom, they
ultimately fell under the dominance of a kindred Iranian people, the Persians,
with the rise of Cyrus the Great.
o The Persians
were a nomadic and pastoral Iranian people that rose to prominence in the days
of their great warrior-king Cyrus (c. 600-530 BC), dominating the
neighboring Medes (550 BC) and rapidly rising to international prominence,
forming the vast Medo-Persian, or Achaemenid (i.e., "of the House of
Achaemenes") Empire.
o This first Persian
Empire is pictured by the means of various symbols employed by Daniel:
o In Daniel 2, Persia is
the Great Colossus’ breast and arms of silver (v. 32).
o In the Night Vision of Dan.
7, it appears as the great lopsided bear (v. 5).
o In Dan. 8:1-7, the
Persian Empire is pictured as a great Ram with two horns of differing
lengths that is defeated by a great he-goat (Greece).
o The lopsidedness of the
great Bear and the Ram’s horns of uneven-length are indicative of the fact that
the Median element—while honored and prominent—was nonetheless subject to the dominant
Persian element.
For further background, review pp. 20-21, Sec. II.
A. 3. c. i.
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