Don't you see that from the ruler (horn) of one of the directions (winds), the little horn took over three directions, Israel, the Glorious Land, being one of them? What does it matter if it is one of the directions, or a descendant of the ruler of that direction, it has the same outcome? Daniel is so grieved, because this vision is about HIS PEOPLE.
It was the Medo Persian Ram that attacked in three directions, not the He-goat Greek Empire. However, the "Little Horn" is said to come out of "one of them" - "them" referring to one of the four winds, not the horns. Daniel's prophecies move East to West.
But the real problem is the 2300 evenings and mornings of Daniel 8. You have been taught that these days are years.
The 70 Weeks are "amputated" from the 2,300, which means both prophecies begin at the same time: 457 B.C. What temple and what priesthood was available to be cleansed 2,300 literal days after the decree? None.
In prophecy interpretation there is a law of first usage, meaning determining whether these "days" are prophetic as 1 day/1 year; 1 day/1000 years, or a 24 hour day. The first place we see a day counted as evening and morning is in Genesis 1.
This is a purely subjective "law", seeing that Genesis is historic, not prophetic, and we've several passages in the OT and NT where the pre-incarnate and incarnate Jesus Himself employs the "day/year" principle for prophecy already.
Now you are going to have to decide if God made the earth as 1 day/billions of years as evolutionist believe; 1 day/1 year; 1 day/1000 years, or a literal 24 hour period.
Actually, since the "law of first rule" is purely subjective for reasons above, we can believe God created in six days and rested on the Sabbath, and also that the 2,300 Days is a prophetic symbol which is to be interpreted as years.
2300 24hr days is a little over 6.3 years, the exact account of the first Jewish revolt from 167 BC to 160 BC.
I simply cannot believe how advocates of 2,300 literal days completely ignore the plain words of Gabriel that the 70 Weeks are "amputated" from the 2,300. The moment he launches into his explanation of the 2,300 days which so confused Daniel, he immediately begins with "70 Weeks are amputated"...inescapable...irrefutable...totally Scriptural :) You simply cannot disconnect and transport into the future to some 2nd century B.C. Jewish rebellion and apply those Days to it, when they are intrinsically tied to the beginning of the 70 Weeks, which was centuries before that rebellion.
Antiochus Epiphanes IV was their torturer. He reigned from 173 BC to 164 BC., defiling the temple, sacrificing a pig to Zeus.
And Nebuchadnezzer sacrificed humans in Solomon's temple to the glory of his god Baal, and Titus sacrificed humans in Zerruababel's temple to the glory of Apollo in 70 A.D. Which is an "exceeding great" abomination?
Why are you so set on changing the history of the Jewish people?
I don't, I just put their history in proper prophetic perspective.
This was the first abomination of desolation (Daniel 8) and surrounded the first Jewish revolt against oppression.
It wasn't, because Jesus had almost completed His journey to the Cross when He spoke of the AoD as
still being future.
The second abomination of desolation (70 AD) was in the middle of the second Jewish revolt of oppression from 66 AD to 73 BC (7 years), Daniel 9:26-27. Notice the middle of the week the temple was destroyed.
No, that was the AoD that Daniel predicted and of which Jesus reminded the people - when the Romans surrounded the city and planted their Sun God standards on the holy, sacred ground which surrounded Jerusalem - the same Sun god that the Jewish leaders were worshiping that God called the greatest of all Ezekiel's visual abominations. :)