Dan. 11 The overthrow of Persia by the king of Greeks, whose empire shall be divided, Dan. 11:1–4. Leagues and conflicts between the kings of the south and of the north, Dan. 11:5–20. The exploits of one of the latter princes, Dan.

This first verse should have been the last verse of the tenth chapter, for it pertains to it; and the second verse of this chapter should have been the first; which neglect those who divided the Scripture into chapters have been found guilty of more than once.

The truth: this is that thing which Daniel saith, Dan. 10:1, was revealed unto him, and was true, i.e. plain, without any obscurity, and should suddenly and certainly come to pass.

This was Alexander the Great, the he-goat, who, moved with choler for the Persian invasion, run down the ram and stamped on it, and got a golden fleece from him by that, and after many victories; afterward he did according to his will, even what he would without controlment, by any. See Dan. 8:7–8.

When he shall stand up; when he is come to his highest, as monarch of the world, &c. After he had enjoyed that title a little while, his kingdom was broken, as the text saith. So it was, into four pieces, whereof we have spoken, Daniel 7:0; Daniel 8:0.

This king was Ptolemy the son of Lagus, the first king of Egypt after Alexander, who is brought in because he took Jerusalem by treachery, for the angel minds only those persons and things which related to the Jews, passing over many things that pertained not to them.

They shall join themselves together, i.e. the successors of those first kings of Egypt and Syria shall join and make leagues. This confederacy was two several times: the first peace was concluded between Ptolemy Lagus and Antiochus Soter.

i.e. Of Bernice shall come Ptolemy Euergetes, who shall be king, and revenge the wrong done to his sister; for he invaded Syria, and took many strong holds, with a great part of Syria. And shall prevail, i.e.

With their precious vessels of silver and of gold; which with other vessels amounted to two thousand five hundred, among which were the images which Cambyses long before had carried out of Egypt into Persia; for which good act the Egyptians called this Ptolemy, Euergetes, the Benefactor.

So he did, with a booty of forty thousand talents of silver, without fear or danger.

His sons shall be stirred up; he means the sons of the king of the north, i.e. Antiochus, and Seleucus Ceraunus, shall be incensed with the deeds of Ptolemy Euergetes, and his son Ptolemy Philopater.

Enraged by his losses, and the affronts put upon him, he fought with Antiochus, and slew ten thousand of his army, and took four thousand prisoners. So historians relate of it, Polybius and Strabo.

He might have conquered and recovered all again, but he grew proud of his victory, and returned again to his luxury. Entering Judea he entered into the temple of God at Jerusalem and the holy place against the law; yet, though he cast down many thousands, he was not strengthened by it.

Antiochus the Great shall raise great forces, even from Babylon and Media; Philopater being dead, and Ptolemy Epiphanes his son yet a child, under whom Agathocles, a dissolute, proud person, hated of all, governed Egypt as his viceroy.

i.e. Many of the Grecians, Arabians, Edomites, &c., and some add, many of the profane, apostate Jews, shall join with the rest for plunder and spoil, whereby they fulfil what was foretold of them by Moses and the prophets.

Antiochus Epiphanes shall march on irresistibly and victoriously, besieging and taking fenced cities and strong holds, as Sidon, Samaria, &c., nor shall all the power of Egypt withstand him.

He that cometh against him, i.e. Antiochus, shall do after his own will, as he listeth, without control. In the glorious land, i.e. Judea; the word may be rendered pleasant, desirable, noble, Dan. 8:9.

He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom; he shall use all the force and fraud he can to master Egypt, and engross it to himself, because Ptolemy was then young, and not able to match him. And upright ones with him, i.e.

After this shall he turn his face unto the isles, and shall take many, i.e. the isles and sea-coasts of that part of the Mediterranean and Ægean Sea, as Cyprus, Rhodes, &c.

Being beaten in battle by Scipio, with thirty thousand Romans, he himself having seventy thousand, and rejecting the counsel of Hannibal, he yielded upon dishonourable terms to deliver his ships and elephants to the Romans, and all the places he had taken from them, which turned to his disgrace.

This was Seleucus Philopater, a very covetous griper, who peeled his subjects; who being told by his friends this would alienate his friends from him, answered, Money was his best friend; and therefore spared not to rob the temple, for which cause he sent Heliodorus to rifle that treasury, 2Ma 3:7,…

Antiochus called Epiphanes, i.e. illustrious; thus he was called by his flatterers and admirers: but the people of God accounted him contrary, i.e. infamous, base, treacherous, barbarous; such were his manners, and accordingly the angel calls him here a vile person, the type of antichrist,…

They shall be overflown, i.e. the Egyptian force near Pelusium, where they fell by the power of Antiochus, with a great slaughter; and it was near the river Nilus, to which the Holy Ghost alludes here by the phrase, arms of a flood. The prince of the covenant, i.e.

For he made a league with Egypt, and came with a few in comparison, (but they were chosen men,) and he took the passes, and set garrisons, and put all in subjection to him.

He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; he shall come in upon the Egyptians under pretence of peace, and in time of peace, to a secure people in a plentiful and delicious country, and among a mass of treasures which the kings successively had heaped up, the greatest…

Antiochus Epiphanes, being imboldened by his former successes, shall wage war against Ptolemy king of Egypt, with all his might, and with open force. And the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle; being exasperated against Antiochus.

His most familiar friends and confidants shall be false and treacherous to him, for he shall he overthrown with a great slaughter, as when Nilus overflows the country, for there was the battle, between Mount Casius and Pelusium.

They shall speak lies at one table; they shall meet under pretence of peace, but ‘with treacherous intents on both sides; they both played the gipsies with each other at Memphis, where Ptolemy invited Antiochus to a feast.

Antiochus shall depart with his booty gotten in Egypt into his kingdom of Syria, and be content with the bounds of that, leaving Egypt behind him. And his heart shall be against the holy covenant; against the law and covenant of God, with the people that worshipped God according to his rule and…

Come toward the south, i.e. Egypt, to fight against Ptolemy and his wife Cleopatra, sister to Antiochus. But it shall not be as the former, or as the latter; this shall not be so prosperous as the two former expeditions, but shall fail of his victory and booty.

The ships of Chittim shall come against him, i.e. the Romans out of Italy, and parts of the Archipelago, under them, shall come with force, and they shall vex and afflict him; for the Romans had harbours for their ships and galleys in Cilicia, Macedonia, and other parts of those coasts; whereby,…

Arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, i.e. Antiochus shall come with armed power to assist the deserters, and force the faithful Jews by his garrisons.

By gifts, preferments, and promises he drew away great multitudes of this wretched people of Judea, always bent to backsliding, to his idolatrous and heathenish practices and interest: but they that adhere to the true worship of God, and are zealous for it, shall scorn Antiochus’s gifts, and abhor…

Such as Eleazar, that old scribe, 2Ma 6:18, and some others learned in the laws of God, and holy in heart and life, shall instruct many in the righteous ways of God, and retain them from apostacy when others fall off: yet many of the people shall fall, yea, of their pious and learned teachers, as…

i.e. God in their affliction, when it is great, wherein he never leaves himself without witness, shall raise up some succour, to be witnesses to this truth, to vindicate his honour and save his people from utter destruction, viz. by the Maccabees.

To try them: we see hereby that the best of men have some dross, which makes afflictions, yea, fiery trials, necessary for them, for the word signifies all kind of examination and trials, either as founders try metals to purge them, or as corn is winnowed to cleanse it from chaff, or as fullers…

The king, i.e. the Roman government, whether by the senate, or by emperors, or by the bishop of Rome, who shall shove out the imperial power not only from Rome, but from Italy and all the western empire, as far as he could, by striking in with the barbarous nations that invaded it, who are called…

Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers; he shall so far degenerate from the rule of Christ, and from primitive Christianity, that he shall be the head of that apostacy, 1 Tim. 4:1, 2 Thess. 2:3; mark those places, the first whereof is so fully opened by Mr.

He shall honour the god of forces; Mauzzim, of strengths or strong holds. The Phoenicians worshipped Mars the God of wars, which Antiochus did worship; but we are come to the Romans; and though many have conjectured several senses of this מענים translated god of forces, yet none comes nearer than…

A confirmation and ingemination of what he said before, he shall use all art and authority to propagate this idolatrous worship. We have laid by the interpretation of these things of Antiochus, though Polanus, Junius, and others apply all to him; but the angel speaks of the Romans, and it is…

At the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him; in the last times, towards the end of the world, for it cannot be true of Antiochus, who died the eleventh year of his reign, and these things are joined to the last resurrection Dan. 12:2.

When the Turk should subdue Judea, those people of Edom, Moab, and Ammon shall be left, because all along to this day these Arabians live partly by robberies, and partly by Turkish salaries to secure their caravans; these shall live, and not be overthrown by Mahometans.

Though Egypt (and the adjacent countries) long stood out under the Mamelukes, yet was forced to submit to the Ottoman, anno 1517.

i.e. The parts westward from Egypt along the Barbary coast, and Ethiopia, not the Abyssines, but Arabia.

The Christian princes of the north, and the dispersed Israelites, and the Jews carried captive into the north, Jer. 16:14–15, called also kings of the east, shall come and trouble him, and all his power shall not be able to withstand. See Rev. 16:12.

Between the seas; the Euxine and Mediterranean. at Constantinople, and even to the Red Sea; in the glorious holy mountain, in the church of Christ eastern: so the Turk. Or in the western seas, the Mediterranean and Adriatic: so the pope, reaching to the western ocean.