HISTORICAL EVENTS.
Daniel 11.
Daniel is at pains to demonstrate the starting point for this history: it is the first year of Darius the Mede when he, even Daniel himself prophesied (Daniel 11:1).
There would be three more kings of Persia, and the fourth, (Xerxes I) would attack but fail to conquer Greece (Daniel 11:2).
The remaining Persian kings are omitted, bringing us to the mighty king of Greece 150 years later, Alexander the Great (Daniel 11:3).
At the death of Alexander his kingdom was broken up and divided between his four generals (Daniel 11:4).
1. Seleucus was based in Syria (the North).
2. Cassander took over Macedonia (Greece).
3. Lysimachus took Thracia (between Greece and Turkey).
4. Ptolemy ruled over Egypt (the South).
Ptolemy became powerful in the South, Egypt. However, the power of Seleucus was greater in the North, where his Empire stretched from Syria to India (Daniel 11:5).
Later, Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II of Egypt, was given in a political marriage to Antiochus II of Syria (Daniel 11:6). When her father died, her husband put her away. Her husband was murdered and she fled with her children to Daphne, where she was murdered.
Berenice's brother, Ptolemy III the new king of Egypt came with an army against the North, and prevailed (Daniel 11:7-8).
Justin tells us that the new king of the North, Seleucus II fitted out a great fleet to take vengeance on his enemy, but it was destroyed by a violent storm. Then he raised an army to recover his territories but was defeated and fled in great terror (Daniel 11:9).
Likewise his sons, the next two kings of the North stirred up strife (Daniel 11:10).
Ptolemy IV of Egypt defeated the much larger army of Antiochus III at the battle of Raphia in 217 BC (Daniel 11:11).
However, the Egyptians failed to press home their advantage (Daniel 11:12).
Fourteen years later an army of some 300,000 approached Egypt from the North (Daniel 11:13).
Egypt was being ruled by the regents of a 5 year old boy. All the surrounding nations were against him, as was Philip of Macedon. Many people in his own land were in a state of rebellion (Daniel 11:14).
The Maccabees identified themselves with the “violent men” of Daniel's people who stood against the king of the South (Daniel 11:14). They paid themselves no compliment: the word means literally “sons of breakage” which probably signifies brigands or robbers. Whoever Daniel meant, they would exalt themselves in order to pre-empt the fulfilment of the vision, and, significantly, fail in their purpose. The Egyptian general Scopas seized control of Judea.
Then the king of the North, Antiochus III, came into the Holy Land and set up mounds against the walled cities. Scopas surrendered at Sidon with 10,000 men (Daniel 11:15).
The Egyptians were unable to withstand their enemy, and scattered in disarray (Daniel 11:16). The Seleucid king Antiochus III took control of the Holy Land.
The word translated “upright ones” in Daniel 11:17 might indicate that the king of the North had Jews with him, but may also carry the meaning that he sought to bring equitable terms. The intention was to gain control of the whole of Egypt, but he would use the subterfuge of a marriage alliance first, giving his daughter Cleopatra I to Ptolemy III. She chose instead to defy her father, and stand with her Egyptian husband.
After this the king of the North built a Navy to defy the might of Rome, and took control of many of the islands of the Mediterranean and Aegean seas (Daniel 11:18). However, he was humbled by the Roman general Lucius.
In 190 BC Antiochus III returned home to Syria. There he was assassinated whilst trying to plunder a pagan temple (Daniel 11:19).
The next king of the North, Seleucus IV, sought to raise taxes in the Holy Land in order to pay back repartitions to the Romans for his father's wars (Daniel 11:20). He ordered that the Temple treasury in Jerusalem should be raided. He was assassinated soon after.
The next Seleucid king, Antiochus IV had been a hostage in Rome whilst the taxes were collected. He took the kingdom by intrigue, pretending that he did so on behalf of his nephew Demetrius (Daniel 11:21).
Antiochus IV used foreign assistance to seize power, and broke all opposition. He broke his flattering covenant with the rightful prince, Demetrius (Daniel 11:22).
Antiochus IV made a league with another nephew, the king of Egypt, Ptolemy VI, the son of his sister Cleopatra I. Meantime he deceitfully moved a small but powerful force through Syria and Judea with a view to seizing Egypt (Daniel 11:23).
One of his tricks was to bribe his potential enemies with military spoil, until the time was right for a military strike (Daniel 11:24).
Ptolemy VI was defeated, not by the military might of his foe, but by treason from within his own ranks (Daniel 11:25-26).
The captive young Ptolemy VI attended a banquet with Antiochus IV in Memphis. Ptolemy spoke insincere words of gratitude to his uncle for saving his life, whilst plotting against him (Daniel 11:27). But the end appointed was not yet.
On the way home to Syria, Antiochus IV stopped off in Jerusalem, murdered 80,000 men, women and children, plundered the city and desecrated the Temple (Daniel 11:28).
Two years later, “at the appointed time,” Antiochus IV moved against Egypt (Daniel 11:29).
The Roman Navy commanded him to return, and he determined to vent his anger on the Jews. Some apostate Jews were in league with him (Daniel 11:30).
He sent 22,000 soldiers to desolate Jerusalem until it was quite empty, forbade Jewish sacrifices, and set his own idol, the original “abomination of desolation” in the Temple (Daniel 11:31).
The apostates amongst the Jews were subject to Antiochus IV's flattery (Daniel 11:32). Those who stood against him, the Maccabees, became folk heroes.
These priest-kings sought to teach the people God's way, but under threat of cruel measures against them (Daniel 11:33).
Their war against the invaders was difficult because their numbers were small, and some imposters also got into their ranks (Daniel 11:34).
As the Maccabees struggled on with ever declining numbers, there were casualties amongst their ranks (Daniel 11:35). But the end, another “appointed time,” was not yet.
The dynasty of the Maccabees lasted for 130 years, concluding with Herod the Great's murder of his own brother-in-law the high priest Aristobulus. Herod exalted himself above all “gods” or rulers. “The king” in Daniel 11:36 is designated as neither “North” nor “South” – this is a king in Jerusalem!
Herod was an Edomite, a descendant of Esau, so the God of his fathers is the God of Abraham and Isaac (Daniel 11:37). Herod was no celibate, but he had no desire towards the One whom women desired to give birth to, murdering the babies in Bethlehem in an attempt to snuff Him out. Anybody who seemed to pose a threat to Herod, including his own wife and children, was similarly murdered.
Herod honoured only “the god of forces,” manipulating the Roman power for his own aggrandisement (Daniel 11:38-39).
Cleopatra VII of Egypt, with the help of Mark Anthony, pushed at Herod from the South, and he lost some territory (Daniel 11:40). Octavian, the nephew of Julius Caesar (the North now designating Rome) defeated Anthony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium, a battle with ships and cavalry. They fled to Alexandria where they both committed suicide. Octavian made swift military progress throughout the whole region.
Octavian entered the Holy Land, and was received by Herod the Great (Daniel 11:41). Many territories were overthrown. Herod's troops were with those of Octavian who failed to make conquest of Edom, Moab and Ammon.
Octavian conquered the lands of the South, including Egypt itself (Daniel 11:42).
Octavian seized all the wealth of Cleopatra and Anthony, the riches of the Ptolemies, the precious things of Egypt (Daniel 11:43). Libya and Ethiopia “followed at his heels” in the sense that he did not conquer these countries himself, but they were soon conquered by his general. Octavian returned in triumph to Rome, where he became Emperor under the title Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1).
In Daniel 11:44 the pronoun “he” now returns to “the king” of Daniel 11:36. In Daniel 11:40 it had passed from “him” to “the king of the North.” This is dictated by context rather than proximity.
In Jerusalem Herod the Great had heard some disturbing news from some wise men who had come from the East (Daniel 11:44). You can read about this, and Herod's cruel massacre of the innocent babies in Bethlehem, in Matthew 2.
There was also news from the North. Herod's eldest son Antipater, who was in Rome, was plotting against him, and was planning to assassinate him with poison. Herod's retaliation was both swift and brutal: he had his son murdered, and burned Matthias and forty others alive for removing the Roman Eagle from the Temple! All the leaders of Israel were gathered together into one place with the instruction that they were to be executed upon Herod's death.
Herod planted his palace between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, in Mount Zion, the holy city of God (Daniel 11:45). It was a fortress in Jerusalem, attached to the Temple itself.
Herod came to his horrible end in torment, fear and anger, just one year after the massacre of the babies of Bethlehem. There was no help for him.
But there is help for us, if we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ...
