Daniel - Chapter 11
The last three chapters (10-11-12) of Daniel are considered to be a unity. Chapter 10 provided the context within Daniel's life for the last revelation given to him, with details given in chapter 11. Daniel was helped to understand the moral and spiritual character of all of reality. This help was given so that he may be prepared for the revelation of chapter 11. In many ways, this chapter is the most remarkable of all of the chapters of Daniel. It will provide Daniel (and therefore us) a pre-written view of actual history.
It has been seen to be so accurate in foretelling specific matters that occur long after Daniel's time is over that some scholars have tried to bring doubt upon it. Here God reveals to His people secrets and mysteries that cannot be understood by others to have been pure and true. Daniel himself gives us a clue to why these things were shown to him back in 2:30:
“As for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but for our sakes”.
We see in these last moments of Daniel the ultimate arrangement of things to come as revealed by God's holy angel. In these events foretold, the angel does not provide visions of animals or representations. Here we have direct and clear facts given to Daniel to record BEFORE they become facts.
We must remember that these matters of history, told before they happen, are from the same Lord who saves His faithful from fire in the furnace, shuts the mouth of lions, and grants wisdom beyond all other men's wisdom to His chosen prophet. This last portion of Daniel, as we will see how truthful it will be over the centuries, should put a stamp of positive confirmation on our faith. We serve a living Lord who is in absolute control of all human matters. The future flows only at His will. Hebrews 1:3 will later teach this lesson far more clearly:
“...upholding all things by the word of his power...”.
(11:2-4) Persia and Greece
(11:5-35) Wars of Southern & Northern Aggression
Daniel's visitor, the holy angel Gabriel, reveals to Daniel that the truth is about to be revealed by him.
Three more kings will arise in Persia with the fourth to be far richer than all before him, and he will stir up all against Greece. A mighty king shall arise in Greece who will rule and then his kingdom will be divided into four kingdoms, with none being ruled by his own children (not among his posterity). Daniel tells us this moment was in the third year of the rule of Cyrus (533 B.C.) and after him came:
Ahasuerus (529-522)
Artaxerses (522-521)
Darius (521-485)
The fourth king was Xerses (485-465) whose riches allowed him to buy war making armies and material to invade Greece on 480 B.C., but his invasion was not successful.
After these came Alexander the Great of Greece who conquered all the known world by age 33, and at his death, his kingdom was divided into four parts, none of which went to any of his children:
Cassander ruled Macedonia in the west.
Lysimachus ruled Thrace in the north.
Seleucus ruled Syria in the east.
Ptolemy ruled Egypt in the south.
Verses 5 & 6 foretell the rise of Egypt and the agreement made between it and Syria. Ptolemy's son married a daughter of Seleucus and this marriage, meant to join the nations later led to war between them. After years of war Ptolemy offered his daughter Bernice as an offering to the Syrian king (at the end of the years), to secure peace. But when Ptolemy died, Bernice was cast aside and was “unable to retain the power of her arm”.
But a brother of Bernice (a branch of of her roots), Ptolemy Eugertus, took vengeance upon Syria and captured it, carrying massive amounts of silver and gold back to Egypt, exactly as verses 7 & 8 foretold.
After a peace of 13 years, the new king of the north, made war against Egypt, and this new king along the way made war also against the Jews in Palestine who were wicked, and always trying to play both sides, thereby known as “robbers of thy people” as foretold in verse 14.
In all these wars, Israel was caught between the millstones of war around them, and was ground up consistently as these kingdoms continued to strive for victory against each other. Verse 20 is quite clear on this matter as to what happened.
A next generation ruler in Syria was unable to pay the war tribute imposed upon his father, and he invaded Israel and robbed the treasury and the many vessels of the Temple to pay the tribute due. He had taken from “the glory of the kingdom” and only a few days later was mysteriously poisoned and died. So he died “neither in anger nor in battle”, exactly as was foretold.
Verses 21-31 bring us the story of Antiochus Epiphanes, the next king of the north, called by the angel a “vile person” who shall “come in peaceably and obtain the kingdom by flatteries”.
He was a younger son of Antiochus the Great and was known to be a cruel and savage ruler. The angel said he would not be given the honor of the kingdom and it was so. His nephew was the rightful heir, but with the help of enemies, any opposition was removed. Also, working through cunning he was able to remove the High Priest of Israel, Onais III. He was the “Prince of the Covenant” noted in these verses. He attacked Egypt successfully, and on his return, when a rumor of his death went before him, the Jewish priests tried to recapture the office of High Priest, and this so angered Antiochus Epiphanes that he diverted his forces to Jerusalem and killed 40,000 and sold many thousand more as slaves, also plundering the Holy Temple once more.
After preparing to attack Egypt again, and moving his forces there, he was confronted with Roman forces under Popilus and was ordered to leave Egypt as it was now in covenant with Rome and under its protection. He left humiliated without a war and took out his wrath on Jerusalem again as he went homeward. In Jerusalem, he commanded all Jews to worship his gods and in order to drive home this command, he profaned the Temple altar with swine flesh and constructed a new idol altar over the altar of Jehovah. While this was an abomination, it was not the “Abomination of Desolation” mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 24:15, also noted separately in Daniel 12:11.
These events caused the revolt in Israel of the Maccabees.
This strongly prophetic (history pre-written) account given by the angel to Daniel, as recorded in verses 21-31 details the wars between the Greek divisions of Syria and Egypt from 536 B.C. to 164 B.C. This matter revealed is the second most perfect foresight in the Bible, next to the prophecy of the Messiah to come in the Old Testament.
Verses 32-35 teaches of the period between Antiochus Epiphanes and the Messiah, which are the years 164 B.C. to 32 A.D.
The behavior of the Jews during these years was one of two paths. Many of the Jews did “wickedly” and forsook the Covenant with the religion and faith of their fathers and worshiped idols, led into these failures by the “flatteries” of these pagan outsiders that were consistently moving through the Holy City.
But there were some who “knew God” could deliver them and in their faith, the Lord strengthed them and led them toward their “exploits”. This refers to Mattathias, a very old priest, and his sons, known as the Maccabees, who from 166 to 47 B.C. fought all pagan forces to restore the Holy City to the Lord. One of the sons, Judas the Hammer, led the forces to repel the Syrians and actually retook the city in 165 B.C. and purified the Temple, restoring daily sacrifice. Judas died in battle in 160 B.C. and was followed as leader by his brother Jonathan, who was killed in 143 B.C. He was followed by his brother Simon who was killed in 135 B.C. and was followed by his son John. John arranged a treaty with the Romans and the Spartans, leading to a long period of peace in the Holy City.
In the “fulness of time” The Messiah arrived. But he was rejected by His people and we are told that “His own knew Him not”. In the glory of His once and forever sufficient sacrifice for all sin, He was crucified (cut off the angel said) and 40 years later the Holy City was taken by the Romans under Titus, the Temple destroyed, and the time of Gentiles arose. Luke teaches us in Luke 21:24 that:
“They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled”.
This time is known as the GAP, representing the time between Daniel's 69th and 70th week, proving still more that the prophecy remains true and is still ongoing in our own day.
In our final chapter we will see the end of the Gap, the rise of the evil one on the earth, and the fulfilling of the final revelation made by God's holy angel of that one who will lead in the time of the Great Tribulation.
