Daniel Eleven ... A Background Study  

Daniel 11 begins by discussing a vision that Daniel would have of both the near future and the distant future. Daniel said that four more kings would rule over Persia, the fourth one being the wealthiest. He predicted that the fourth ruler would amass a large army and then would go to war. *The fourth king mentioned here is Xerxes, who went to war with Greece. The Persian army under Xerxes was estimated at a million men but was overwhelmingly defeated at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. After the Battle of Salamis, Xerxes left behind an army of one hundred thousand men. This remaining army was completely crushed by the Greek army the following year.

The Expositor's Bible Commentary states that the mighty king mentioned in verse 3 is Alexander the Great. By the time he was in his early thirties, Alexander had conquered from Greece to Egypt and as far east as the Indus River, which is along the border between modern India and Pakistan. *He accomplished all this in as little as seven or eight years. However, only four years after completing his military campaign, Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC. Verse 4 states that his empire would be broken up and parceled out to the four points on the compass, though not to his descendants. After Alexander's death, his empire was divided among four of his generals. Conflict between the four generals was a continual problem, so they did not maintain the former integrity of the Greek empire.

Verse 5 says that the king of the South would grow strong and have great dominion. *The king of the South referred to here is Ptolemy I of Egypt, though his ambitions of conquest extended to Palestine, Cyprus and much of Asia. This Egyptian kingdom lasted about 280 years from Ptolemy I until the famous queen Cleopatra, who died about 30 BC.

These remnants of the Greek empire saw much rivalry among kings between the fourth and second centuries BC. For example, verse 6 mentions that a daughter of the king of the South would appear but would not retain her position of power. *This came about when a queen named Berenice and her infant son were assassinated, just as the king was shortly afterward in 247 BC. However, Berenice’s brother and the Egyptian army went to war with Syria in retaliation for the assassination of the queen. Relations between these countries stayed much the same until the second century BC.

Verse 21 states that a despicable person would arise. The verse says that the honor of kingship had not been conferred upon him and that he would seize the kingdom by intrigue, that is, by force. *This was the king Antiochus Epiphanes, who would forbid worship in the temple. He also forbade observing the Sabbath, observing Jewish dietary law, and sacrifices offered in the temple in Jerusalem. He went so far as to have idols and pigs in the temple. Pigs were considered an unclean animal under Jewish dietary law. *It appears that Antiochus Epiphanes used the temple to worship either the Roman god Jupiter or Zeus Olympius, as 2 Maccabees 6:2 tells us that the temple was renamed the Temple of Zeus Olympius. To do such things was to completely mock God, his authority and his commandments. These desecrations led to the revolt by the Maccabees in the second century BC. It was also this incident that led to the miracle of one day's worth of oil burning for eight days in the temple, an event described in some books written after the Old Testament was completed but before the New Testament was written. This set of books is called the Apocrypha. These books appear in Bibles used by Catholics and in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is called the Septuagint, but are not found in the Hebrew text from which the Old Testament was translated. The reason for the inclusion of the Apocrypha in some texts and the omission of it from others goes far beyond the scope of this commentary.
 
*"Epiphanes" means "illustrious" or "manifest" in Greek. We know from coins that have been recovered that he also added the title "Theos", which is Greek for "God." Putting the two words together meant "Illustrious God" or "God Manifest." He was using this term to refer to himself, not the God of Israel. *It is apparent that Antiochus Epiphanes was a type of the "little horn" described in Daniel 7, though the actual "little horn" of the fourth kingdom has not appeared yet.

As verse 23 states, deception was a tool used by Antiochus Epiphanes. Verse 24 indicates that he would lead successful military campaigns, but only for a limited time. Antiochus Epiphanes would go to war against Egypt, who did have a large army, but verse 25 says that the large Egyptian army would not stand. Verse 27 says that both kings were intent on evil and that they each practiced deception against the other.

Verse 28 says that Antiochus Epiphanes would return to Palestine with much plunder, but his heart was still firmly set against God. *In 167 BC, Jason the high priest attempted take political power because of a false report that Antiochus had been killed. Antiochus tried to crush the Jews once and for all by having 80,000 Jews killed. He then robbed the temple of golden vessels and other objects valued at 1800 talents. To illustrate how much that really was, consider the fact that the whole nation of Israel usually paid about 800 talents in taxes per year to Rome. This is clearly an enormous amount of money.

*The date of the desecration of the temple was December 16, 168 BC. It was exactly three years later that Judas Maccabaeus rededicated the temple to the God of Israel, having cleansed it from all pagan defilements.

Verses 29 and 30 say that Antiochus again would attack Egypt, but the outcome would be different this time. The Believer's Bible Commentary says that, instead of a battle simply between Antiochus and Egypt, this time Antiochus was met by Roman warships. This defeat led to Antiochus taking out his anger on the Jews in Palestine, with the help of some apostate Jews who collaborated with him.

The Believer's Bible Commentary states that this is what led to Antiochus setting up the idol of either Jupiter or Zeus Olympius in the temple, which was cleansed during the Maccabean revolt, showing that it was both a time of terrible slaughter and a time of spiritual brilliance and revival for believing Jews.

*= Denotes taken from the Expositor's Bible Commentary