Vision of the ram and goat (chapter 8): In the third year of Belshazzar Daniel had a vision of a ram and goat. The ram has two mighty horns, one longer than the other, and it charges west, north, and south, overpowering all other beasts. A goat with a single horn appears from the west and destroys the ram.
The goat becomes very powerful until the horn breaks off and is replaced by four lesser horns. A small horn that grows very large, it stops the daily temple sacrifices and desecrates the sanctuary for two thousand three hundred “evenings and mornings” (which could be either 1,150 or 2,300 days) until the temple is cleansed. The angel Gabriel informs him that the ram represents the Medes and Persians, the goat is Greece, and the “little horn” is a wicked king.
Vision of the Seventy Weeks (chapter 9): In the first year of Darius the Mede, Daniel meditates on the word of Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years; he confesses the sin of Israel and pleads for God to restore Israel and the “desolated sanctuary” of the Temple.
The angel Gabriel explains that the seventy years stand for seventy “weeks” of years (490 years), during which the Temple will first be restored, then later defiled by a “prince who is to come,” “until the decreed end is poured out.”