In Daniel Revisited, chapter 10, I proposed two paths to the Second Signpost. They both involve the fulfillment of the second horn on the ram, the horn that grew up longer and later in Daniel 8:3. I wrote in Daniel Revisited about a possible transfer of power in the government,

“…But this transfer of power may be hidden and may have already happened. The IRGC may either operate with this power behind the scenes with its leadership overruling the supreme leader, or it may establish an official government office. We probably will not know until the first overt and significant event happens—whether a new office in Iran takes greater power, or the great invasion itself begins. How I wish it were the former, since in that case we might have the luxury of extra time to warn and prepare, but I fear it is the latter.”                   DR, p. 183

The purpose of this article is to let all my readers know that recently I have taken more of a shift to the latter in the quote above. I gave some more thought and prayer to the kings of Media and Persia as it says in Daniel 8:20, and to the question, “Who are they?”

(As a side note there will be many pictures in this article of the various generals of the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] – they are all there for the purpose of illustrating the message here – take a good look at them.)

The search for clarification went like this. The large horn on the goat and the little horn growing out of one of the four, are said in Daniel 8 to be individual kings – one man for each single horn. The four growing up in place of the first horn on the goat, are said to be entire kingdoms. The horns definitely and consistently represent power only. The text of Daniel 8 tells us whether that power is wielded by one man, or by an entire country.

That leaves the two horns of the ram. These two horns are still two power bases, I believe, just as I wrote about in Daniel Revisited. Daniel 8:20 tells us who the horns are – the kings of Media and Persia. The DR quote above is indicative of my position – the first horn’s power is wielded by the office of the supreme leader, and the second horn’s power is wielded by the IRGC and its commanders. With the second horn being the IRGC, I was thinking it had to be either a single commander breaking out to form a new office possibly, or the horn was the entire IRGC and there would be a single commander in the background calling the shots.

And then a new thought hit me.

In the supreme leader’s case the situation is obvious, it is the office itself set up by the Iranian constitution that wields the power of the first horn. But in the IRGC’s case, how would that exactly work for the second horn?

I had known about the commanders – the generals – of the IRGC. They all joined the IRGC early in their lives as soldiers, either in 1979 at the start of the revolution, or in 1980 when the war with Iraq started. They all fought together and became friends. They all decided to make the IRGC their career and their religion (yes, religion, the IRGC has a cult of the supreme leader that they follow – DR, p. 188). Together, they now control the IRGC.

And, unlike a typical army, a few of the top generals report to the supreme leader, rather than only one general.  One might think that if there was one top general he might be the “king” of the second horn.  But the situation does not seem to work that way.  Here are the generals reporting to the supreme leader.

 Major General (MG) Ali Jafari, head of all the IRGC, reports to the supreme leader.

MG Ali Jafari, commander of the entire IRGC.

MG Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force which is one of the five branches of the IRGC, reports directly to the supreme leader.  Being the head of an IRGC branch, he does not report to Jafari as one might think, but to the supreme leader.

MG Qasem Soleimani is top commander of the Quds Force which fights in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

So does MG Mohammad Bagheri the recently promoted chief of staff of the entire Iranian military including the IRGC.  He reports to the supreme leader.

MG Mohammad Bagheri the chief of staff of all the Iranian military.  He was promoted to the position by the supreme leader just this past June.

And so does MG Gholam Rashid, the top commander of the huge complex serving as headquarters of the IRGC, which will soon be under S-300 protection.

MG Gholam Rashid, who commands IRGC Headquarters.

What would a ‘king’ need to do in wielding the power of the IRGC?  Well, the IRGC must be operated, trained, logistically supplied, financed (which includes running half of Iran’s economy), and ultimately commanded to carry out a major invasion of an area the size of the USA. There are the 300,000 men of the IRGC itself and the million-plus men of the Basij that must all be coordinated. Realizing this, and seeing how so many generals don’t report to each other but to the supreme leader, and that all these men do not appear to be jostling one another but are brothers within their cult of the supreme leader working together (in everything I’ve read), it dawned on me – there doesn’t have to be TWO kings.

There are two power bases. Who says there has to be two kings? The text of the Bible says “kings” as in the plural of king. Two is plural. But so is eight or seventeen!  (By the way, don’t you find Bible prophecy is frequently like that?  You can get stuck on one meaning and miss an entirely different meaning.)  Daniel 8 is not telling us there has to be two kings, just two powers.  To wield the power of the IRGC and conduct the Second Signpost effectively requires many kings – a “king’s club,” if you will.  There are the four kings/major-generals I named above. In addition there are the brigadier generals (BG) – all heads of other branches – that report to the major generals.

There is BG Mohammad Reza Naghdi who commands the Basij, the volunteer force for the IRGC.

BG Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Basij.

There is BG Amir-Ali Hajizadeh of the Aerospace Force, a branch of the IRGC, which runs the missile and nuclear weapons programs.

BG Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force. One could say he is the Iranian rocketman.

There is BG Ali Fadavi of the IRGC Navy, another branch.

BG Ali Fadavi, commander of the IRGC Navy.  He’s a general but acts as an admiral.

There is BG Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the Ground Forces branch of the IRGC.

BG Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the IRGC army.

There is BG Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the entire IRGC.

BG Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the IRGC.

And there is BG Ali Fazli, the deputy commander of the entire Basij.

BG Ali Fazli, deputy commander of the Basij.

Five brigadier generals report to the MG’s named earlier, and Fazli immediately above reports to Naghdi.

After realizing the kings were not two but many, one other thing hit me.  It has been staring me in the face for years, and once I realized what I was seeing, it seemed to confirm my conclusions. For me it was a “duh” moment.  I guess I didn’t see it because I was looking for two kings only.

Look at all those photos again – both of the MGs and the BGs. You see all these men in their 50’s, all joining around 1980 heeding some spiritual call, all brothers in their careers of the IRGC and carrying out their oaths to both do the supreme leader’s bidding and to carry out the Iranian revolution across the Muslim realm. They form the club of the kings. There is something in common in all the pictures.  Do you see it? It’s in every picture above.  Take the time to check out the photos above for a common feature.

For comparison, below is the top commander of the Artesh (the regular army, navy and air force) tasked with only defending the Iranian homeland – MG Ataollah Salehi. What do you see missing in this photo compared to the earlier photos? The uniform is a different color, yes. But that’s not the main feature I’m calling out here.  Indeed, what is missing here?

MG Ataollah Salehi, commander of the Artesh, the regular military.

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Are you looking?  Proceeding beyond this line gives you the answer.  The answer is in the next line; you might find this more fascinating if you can see it for yourself.  Again, the answer is in all the preceding photos above except the last one of MG Salehi.

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A hint is in the title of this post.

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If you guessed the RED BADGE’s you are correct. They are on the collars of every general whether a BG or an MG of the entire IRGC and Basij, but not the Artesh. The Artesh will not take part in the Second Signpost directly – only the IRGC and Basij.  Generically, in the West, the badges are called gorget patches when worn on the collar. In Iran, they are for the rank of Sardar (which is Persian) for “General,” but the patches are only for the generals of the IRGC.  And they really do stand out.

Let’s look more carefully at those red badges, for they are truly remarkable and even prophetic. We’ll use the photo of MS Qasem Soleimani again to examine them.

MG Qasem Soleimani and his RED BADGEs of the SECOND SIGNPOST.

Note in the photo the features of the IRGC General’s Sardar badge. The first is that the dominant color is red – the color of the second horse in Revelation 6 which I believe heralds the start of the Second Signpost (DR, chapter 7). Note the second feature – the large sword, also carried by the horseman on the red horse. Third, note the sprigs – likely wheat, I don’t know – but at a distance they are reminiscent of ram’s horns, the way they twist and curl around the swords. Finally, there are two badges, on either side of the head, and even mirrored like a right and a left, furthering the similarity to having two ram’s horns, per Daniel 8:3.

So these badges could be said to be only worn by the kings of the second horn of the ram, and are rather prophetic being red (not white, black or green), with a sword (not a bow or a balance), with two of them on either side of the head looking a bit like ram’s horns. Now, I typically don’t let symbolism drive a truth, but I find frequently a truth is reflected by symbolism.

The generals participating directly in the ram’s charge in Daniel 8:4 are wearing a “picture” of a ram’s left horn and a ram’s right horn, adorned with the color and symbolism of the second horseman.  It’s as if the kings are wearing icons.  It’s their “mark”  for the Second Signpost.

Go back and look at all the photos of the kings of the ram who wield the power of the second horn. It’s almost as if God has given us an easy stand-out way to spot one or more of the kings of Media and Persia of Daniel 8:20. Spotting the supreme leader is easy – there’s only one of them and the mainstream news makes it obvious who it is. Now the red badges make it easy to spot the other kings too.  Below are two photos of the kind you might see in the news.

Some of the kings of Media and Persia – the supreme leader on the left, and some of the red-badged kings of the second horn on the right.

Three of the kings of Media and Persia (Bagheri-L, Rashid-C, Jafari-R), all with their red badges of the Second Signpost.

Conclusion

Since these may very well be the kings of Daniel 8:20, with their position and power already in place, the next event in prophecy is not likely to be a new office appearing in the Iranian government per the quote at the beginning of this article, but the Second Signpost itself.

It has always been my hope for this blog and for Daniel Revisited, that readers come up to speed on prophecy topics and what is really going on and that they will be able to discern what is to happen as all the Signposts roll by.  And if this interpretation of Daniel 8 is true, then hopefully in the future when you view the news coming out of Iran and the Middle East, awareness of this iconic feature can help you more easily spot the tell-tale RED BADGE of the kings of Media and Persia.

God bless you all.

Categories: Announcements, Signpost #2: Iran, Signpost Theology

Tags: Ali Jafari, daniel 8:20, Daniel 8:3, Gholam Rashid, IRGC, kings of Media and Persia, Mohammad Bagheri, Qassem Soleimani, red badge, sardar