Notes on Important Eras of Prophecy by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 21, 1912

Notes on Important Eras of Prophecy

By William Ambrose Spicer

The Hand of God in History — No. 4

Notes on Important Eras of Prophecy

The Witness to Alexander the Great

One incident illustrative of the way in which divine prophecy bore witness to kings and conquerors of old, is so strikingly related by Josephus that even in this brief review it should not be passed over.

A new era was dawning in the history of the world. The dominion so long held by Asia was to pass into European hands. The “sure word of prophecy” had declared it generations before. In the last year of the Babylonian monarchy, Daniel the prophet was shown in vision the ram with two horns, pushing westward, and the goat that “came from the west,” with a “notable horn between his eyes.” The prophet saw this fleet goat from the west run upon the ram, and trample it underfoot. The angel gave a plain interpretation of these symbols:—

“The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the kingof Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.” Dan. 8:20, 21.

This vision was given about the year 538 B. C., and was written down on the parchment scroll. Two hundred years later Alexander of Macedonia, “first king” of united Grecia, was coming swiftly from the west to smite the power of Persia to the earth. Already he had won the decisive victories of the Granicus and the Issus; and Persia lay prostrate. As the great conqueror approached Jerusalem, he was determined to punish the city. It had been slow to transfer its allegiance from Persia to Grecia. But Josephus says that as Alexander drew near the city, the gates were flung open, and a procession of priests and citizens moved out to meet the great conqueror. The priests bore in their hands the book of the prophet Daniel. The historian gives a graphic description of the meeting:—

The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations. It reached to a place called Sapha; which name, translated into Greek, signifies a prospect, for you have thence a prospect both of Jerusalem and of the temple; and when the Phoenicians and the Chaldeans that followed him [Alexander] thought they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high priest to death, which the king’s displeasure fairly promised them, the very reverse of it happened.

For Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, in white garments, while the priests stood clothed with fine linen, and the high priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his miter on his head, having the golden plate whereon the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself, and adored that name, and first saluted the high priest. The Jews also did all together, with one voice, salute Alexander, and encompass him about; whereupon the kings of Syria and the rest were surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind.

However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, “I did not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high-priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios, in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and would give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is, that having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind.”

And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city; and when he went up to the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest’s direction, and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests. And when the book of Daniel was shown him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended; and as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present, but the next day he called them to him, and bade them ask what favors they pleased of him; whereupon the high priest desired that they might enjoy the laws of their forefathers, and might pay no tribute on the seventh year.—“Antiquities,” book II, chap. 8.

Alexander was familiar with the oracles of Greece, and their enigmatical sayings, capable of double interpretation. But here was no blind, oracular utterance. The Hebrew prophet’s words, which he could see on the page before him, written two centuries before, declared in plain language the course of history. And what God had declared was fulfilling before the eyes of men in that generation. The conqueror of the world knew that the God of heaven had borne witness to him in the high tide of his career; and for the moment he bowed before the living God.

W. A. S.