|
|
|
This chapter is generally regarded as one of the hardest chapters to understand as far as prophecy goes. First of all we will follow from verse 1 to verse 30. This will cover all of the ancient history that was fulfilled in prophecy. These prophecies were given to Daniel, 300 to 400 years before the events and in so much detail that the modernists who try to discredit Daniel say that they could have only been written and recorded after the events took place. Chapters 11 and 12 are in response to the visitation of the angel in chapter 10. They follow on directly from chapter 10. I have broken our study up into five sections as follows. Section 1Verses 2-5 A description of events as they would take place in Ancient Persia and Greece. Section 2Verses 6-9 The wars and conflicts as they would take place between the empires of Syria and Egypt (the Seleucids and the Ptolemies). Section 3Verses 10-19 The era of the emperor Antiochus the Great. Section 4Verses 20-30 The era of Antiochus Epiphanies who was a type of the anti-Christ. to come. Section 5Verses 31-45 We will see the prophecy of the Papacy and of modern, militant Islam. Daniel 11:1,2
|
 |
 |
| The Kings of the North | The Kings of the South |
We read 'to make an agreement'. This agreement was a marriage alliance - but it didn't work. The woman is Princess Berenice II, daughter of Ptolemy II, given in marriage to Antiochus II Theos (king 261-247 BC) the king of Syria. This was supposed to join the whole empire together again but when Berenice's father died her husband divorced and put her away in favour of his first wife (Laodice) and children (Seleucus II and Antiochus Hierax). Berenice II was taken with her son and murdered.
The statement 'from a branch of her roots' refers to Ptolemy III Euergetes (246-222) Berenice's brother.
He returns safely to Egypt.
Verses10-19. Antiochus III the Great
The words 'his sons' are telling us about the sons of Seleucus II. Seleucus III (226-223) who was murdered and Antiochus III the Great (223-187) who marched - 'to his fortress' - the border forts of Egypt.
The Egyptian king, Ptolemy IV Philopator (king 221-204) counter attacked but in spite of the gains he made he went home and squandered it all and left nothing to his descendants.
Antiochus III the Great comes back and this time he is going to wipe out the Egyptians.
He was helped by a strange group of people. This is probably the first time we see mention of them in the Bible. They were renegade Hellenistic Jews who thought that by supporting Antiochus the Great he would allow them to establish their own Jewish state. They were forerunners of modern day Zionists.
This describes the great military victories that Antiochus the Great achieved. He conquered and took everything. The 'fortified city' is the city that held all the arms etc. it was 'Sidon'.
Even a new improved Egyptian army could not hold back Antiochus. He conquered the "Glorious Land" - in Scripture this will always refer to the land of Palestine. It happened in 198 BC and Antiochus then used Palestine as a base to move down and try to conquer Egypt.
Antiochus conquered Egypt and once again to cement the alliance he married his daughter Cleopatra I to Ptolemy V Epiphanies (king 203-181) - the king of Egypt. Cleopatra disobeyed her father and sided with her husband.
Thwarted in Egypt, Antiochus the Great moved his attention to the islands of Greece. He conquered all the islands around Crete and Cyprus also the islands in the Aegean Sea. In doing this he was moving west and coming against a new power of Bible prophecy - the Roman Empire. The Prince who stood up against him was Lucius Skippio and he defeated him in the battle of Magnesia in 190 BC and Antiochus the Great had to turn back.
He had to turn back and withdraw all his forces, back into the Tarus Mountains. When he returned to his own fortified cities he was killed by an uprising of his own people when he attempted to plunder one of their temples.
Verses. 20-30 Antiochus IV Epiphanies (king 175-164)
Seleucus IV (king 187-175) took the place of Antiochus the Great. During his reign he devoted himself to grinding down the poor and taking as much money as he could from all so that he could maintain good relations with the Romans. Eventually he was murdered by his own minister - Heliodrus. 'He shall be destroyed, but not in anger or in battle' - he was poisoned and died in his sleep.
This is Antiochus IV Epiphanies (king 175-164) the brother of Seleucus IV and the 'vile person' of Bible prophecy. He over-rode all the rightful heirs to the throne. Seleucus IV son - Demetrius, his sister Cleopatra I of Egypt and her son - Ptolemy VI. He escaped from a prison in Rome where he was being held as a hostage. He returned to Syria and through bribes and corruption got himself into a position of power.
The 'prince of the covenant' was the High Priest who ruled in Jerusalem at that time.
Antiochus IV Epiphanies removed him and made the office one that could be bought. Which-ever Jew could pay the highest price, was made the High Priest. As a matter of fact he made one High Priest after another.
Antiochus tricked and deceived his nephew (Ptolemy VI (181-145)) the king of Egypt. He overran Egypt, something that none of his predecessors were able to do. He took them into his own possession largely because of Ptolemy's own minister's treachery - so much so that in verse 27 they held a peace conference.
On his way back from Egypt to Syria Antiochus Epiphanes wrought havoc in Jerusalem. He slew 8,000 of the holy ones, the faithful people of Judah who kept the covenants and laws. He defiled the sanctuary. He tried to burn the Scrolls of the Law. He persecuted God's people - and that was just in a passing visit! It was this type of thing that provoked the revolt of the Macabees which you can read about in the Apocrypha books.
He brought a second expedition down against them. When he came back in about 168/167 BC he actually defiled the temple - he sacrificed a pig on the altar in the holy place. He dedicated God's temple to the worship of the pagan god Zeus. In this, he was a forerunner of all the apostates who would tread down not just the literal temple but the spiritual temple which is the true Church of God.
This is the end of that period. When we go into verse 31 we come into the period of the Roman Empire, verse 35 into the Papal era, and verse 40 into Islam.
We begin our study of this section with the Romans coming into Palestine just a few years before the birth of Jesus.
'And arms shall stand on his part' or 'And forces shall be mustered by him' - an alternative reading to that says 'and apart from him shall arms stand' or apart from Antiochus Epiphanes and his Greek legions and Assyrian soldiers another force - another nation - another kingdom will enter upon the stage of world history and they shall stand up in the Holy land of Palestine and 'defile the sanctuary.' They shall take away the daily sacrifices and place there the abomination of desolation.
When Jesus was talking to and warning the disciples, on the mount of Olives, He told them to read Daniel. He said, "When you see this abomination of desolation you'll know its time to flee". Those words were not future tense. They were current to the days in which Jesus lived. After all, He told the disciples to watch for this. Forty years after Jesus said to them, "You'll see what Daniel predicted", those words from Daniel's prophecy and the words from Matthew 24 and Luke 21 were fulfilled. When the legions of Rome and the armies of the Roman prince Titus came and infested the whole city of Jerusalem, they captured it after a terrible siege and then burned the city to the ground and destroyed it.
They burned the temple to the ground. The gold melted and ran down through the crevices of the bricks so the Roman soldiers tore it down stone by stone to get the gold and the silver out. That fulfilled the words of Jesus when He said there wouldn't be a stone of the Temple left standing one on top of the other. Then to really defile it, Titus, the Roman prince went to the high altar of the Temple, planted the standards of the Roman legions by it and then proceeded to sacrifice a pig on the alter in the Holy of Holies. He fulfilled Daniel 11:31 that he should defile the sanctuary, take away the daily sacrifice and place there the abomination. Read on for in verse 32 we are introduced to two categories of people.
Two groups of people. Firstly, those who reject the Covenant - and in distinction from them, those who know their God and because of this they are capable of doing great exploits.
The people who rejected the Covenant, historically according to this prophecy were the Jews of Jesus' day. For 40 years they were given the gospel of repentance, remission of sin etc. preached to them by the disciples and apostles and they rejected it. All through the Book of Acts you'll find the persecution of the early church, even before the Romans persecuted them. Everywhere Paul went the Jews followed and stirred the people up. They stoned them. They beat them. They hounded the servants of God to their death and martyrdom. They rejected Jesus, and God's offer of mercy.
Notice that there is a category of people like the ones we find in 2nd Thessalonians and it says that God has blinded their eyes so that they won't even be able to understand the Truth. Once people reject the Truth they give themselves over to a seducing spirit. One of those seducing spirits is the spirit of flattery. Beware of people who allow themselves to be lifted up by a spirit of pride and flattery. Those who love to take distinctive titles and lord it over people.
The second group of people in the above verse are the ones who excepted the covenant, were strong in God and were able to carry out great exploits. Read through the book of Acts to learn more about these people and their exploits. Verse 32 gives us a standard - 'people who know their God.' Know Him - be strong in Him and you will do exploits.
'And those of the people who understand shall instruct many' - and they did! As fast as the Romans persecuted the early church it increased. God multiplied the church. They did instruct the church and they did increase, but they suffered terrible persecution. It tells us here that in the midst of what they were doing for God, 'yet for many days they shall fall by the sword and flame, by captivity and plundering.'
In 313 A.D. a so-called 'Christian' emperor, Constantine took over the Roman Empire. I don't believe he was a Christian at all. He did however cause the church to be helped a little because he passed the Edict of Molane in 313 that gave the church freedom, civil rights and no more persecution. Was that a good thing? Did it keep God's church pure? No it didn't - read the last part of verse 34. As a result of that many joined themselves to the church by intrigue or flattery. It may say in your Bible.' - that same spirit of deception. All the pagans came in. It was popular to be a Christian now. There were jobs for Christians in the emperor's service. It was the 'in-thing' to be a Christian. So the pagan priests changed their vestments. The pagan temples were turned into churches - they just happened to keep their little statues and give them Christian names. The same was with their ceremonies. Did you ever wonder why the church building is such an important part of Christianity today. In the days of the Acts of the Apostles the 'church' was the people, not a building. The pagans flooded in and became Christian in name only. The true church of God was absorbed and swallowed up by what was called "Christendom." They seduced God's church by flattery and deception where they couldn't put it down by persecution. Isn't that the same today. When there was opposition there was a stand for Truth, but now the church welcomes people with all sorts of strange gods and ideas of worship. Hudson Taylor, a great English missionary to the Chinese, once said, "Fellowship at the expense of Truth is treason".
The deception and the flattery come with words like "Let's all come together", "Let's all join forces", "fellowship with the other churches." Gradually your stance is watered down, adulterated and diluted. That is a greater menace than open persecution. God's message is not to unify. It is to "come out from them and walk in total of separation." Unity is spoken of only in the midst of true believers.
This verse spans the whole Christian era of prophecy. It speaks of great tribulation through which the saints will pass. So in Revelation the revelator can say, "Who are these in white robes?" and the answer will come back, "Those are the ones who came out of great tribulation, washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb."
In verse 36 we are introduced to the anti-Christ system again. The masterpiece of Satan to counterfeit Christendom headed up with its vice-Christ, its Pontiff.
The king, as mentioned in verse 36 is the king of this adulterated church system - the Pope himself. "Exalted and magnified above every God", is definitely the position in which he sees himself. Let's read from Thessalonians.
"He shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods". We shall now have a look at just a few of the great blasphemies this unholy dynasty of Popes have said.
1. Ferraris says:
"The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that HE IS NOT A MERE MAN, BUT, AS IT WERE, GOD ... so that if it were possible the angels might err ... contrary to the faith, they could be judged and excommunicated by the Pope."
2. The Decretals of Pope Gregory IX state:-
"He, the Pope, is said to have heavenly power and hence changes even the nature of things ... can make something out of nothing ... turn injustice into justice ... he has the fullness of power."
3. Pope Pius IX declared of himself:-
"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."
4. Pope Leo XIII in July 1894 said:
"The Pope is of so great authority that he can modify, explain or interpret Divine Laws".
5. This same Pope, in July 1895 went on to proclaim:
"We hold upon this earth the place of Almighty God".
6. The Bishop of Bayloon called this Pope:
"The visible personification of the Spirit of God".
7. Ireland's Roman Catholic Hierarchy in 1949 styled Pope Pius XII as: "A mediator between God and men. ANOTHER CHRIST."
'But in their place he shall honour a God of fortresses' - in a marginal Bible and some of the other translations this verse reads, "he shall honour the protecting gods". (V. 38). Who are the protecting gods of this system? The Patron Saints - everybody has a little saint for every occasion and every day of the week.
(Refer to Appendix 'Patron Saints' at the end of this book)
'He will not regard the desire of woman' (V.37)
In the days of the Apostle Paul and through the first few centuries A.D., Rome was a 'holy city' in name only. Reports estimate that there were about 6,000 prostitutes in this city with a population not exceeding 100,000. Historians tell us that 'all the ecclesiastics had mistresses, and all the convents of the Capital were houses of ill fame.'
Cardinal Peter D'Ailly said he dared not describe the immorality of the nunneries, and that 'taking the veil' was simply another mode of becoming a public prostitute. Violations were so bad in the ninth century that St. Theodore Studita forbade even female animals on monastery property! In the year 1477, night dances and orgies were held in the Catholic cloister at Kercheim that are described in history as being worse than those to be seen in the public houses of prostitution.
Priests came to be known as "the husbands of all the women." Albert the Magnificent, Archbishop of Hamburg, exhorted his priests: "Sinon caste, tamen caute" (If you can't be chaste, at least be careful). Another German bishop began to charge the priests in his district a tax for each female they kept and each child that was born. He discovered there were eleven thousand women kept by the clergymen of his diocese!
'He shall honour a god which his fathers did not know with gold and silver.'- The crowning blasphemy of this system is the worship of the Eucharist, to set up the wafer and the wine and consecrate them saying they have been turned into the Body and Blood of Jesus.
The Council of Trent proclaimed that the belief in transubstantiation is essential to salvation and pronounced curses on any who would deny it. The Council ordered priests to explain that not only did the elements of the Mass contain flesh, bones, and nerves as a part of Christ, "but also a WHOLE CHRIST." The Catholic Encyclopedia says, "The dogma of the totality of the Real Presence means that in each individual species the WHOLE CHRIST, flesh and blood, body and soul, Divinity and humanity, is really present."
After the bread has been changed into 'Christ' by the priest, it is placed on a monstrance in the centre of a sunburst design. Before the monstrance Catholics bow and worship the little wafer as God! This practice, in our opinion, is similar to the practices of heathen tribes that worship fetishes.
Is it Scriptural? Notice what The Catholic Encyclopedia says: "In the absence of Scriptural proof, the Church finds a warrant for, and a propriety in rendering Divine worship to the Blessed Sacrament in the most ancient and constant tradition ..." This reasoning brings to mind the words of Jesus, " ... making the word of God of none effect through your tradition" (Mark 7:13).
The Monstrance was and is set in gold and silver and precious stones.
There are some bible students who tell us that the king of the North and the king of the South is in reference to the Russians and the Africans. They put the whole chapter into the future and say that this is the Russians coming down to attack the anti-Christ. We have already learned that historically the king of the South and the king of the North before Christ's birth were the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria. Who were they in the Christian era? They were the Arabs or Saracens in the South and the Turks were the king of the North and both, though in a larger sense, have occupied the stations of the former and original Kings. With the exception of them, there is none in all past history, to whom the appellation of 'the Kings of the South and North' ... can with any propriety be adapted ..., the Caliphs of the Saracens and the Emperors of the Turks have a clear as well as an exclusive right to the name, and have sustained the characters. They occupy the place of the Kings of the North and the South during the period of the 'time of the end', even as during that appointed time, the Pope bore all the marks of the King who did according to his will, and magnified himself above all.
The King of the South or the Arabs did indeed push at or wage war on apostate Christendom. The Arabs from 634 - 644 A.D., coming from their headquarters at Mecca, south of Palestine, conquered some 36,000 cities or strongholds, destroyed some 4,000 Christian churches, and erected some 1,400 Moslem mosques. They established an Empire which reached from Persia, through North Africa into Spain and the South of France. They sacked Rome, the seat of the Papacy, and even fought the Papal forces at sea. They besieged Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium, on two occasions in 674 - 678 A.D., and 717 - 718 A.D.
The Turks or King of the North were to continue to wage war, even more successfully on nominal Christianity. From the 11th to the 17th Century, they became the scourge of Christendom. Just as Daniel the prophet had predicted, they 'entered into the countries', the Christian territories of Asia Minor, and 'overflowed and passed over' the Mediterranean Sea into Europe, conquering the Balkans and finally capturing Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, before going on to reach the very gates of Vienna.
These events outlined in verses 41, were fulfilled exactly by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the King of the North. The Turks did indeed conquer Palestine or the glorious land, bring to an end the Christian Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Many countries were indeed overthrown with the conquest by the Turks of Christian Territories such as the Principalities of Tripoli and Edessa, and not only countries, but many important figures in Christendom were to be overthrown in their unsuccessful Crusades to liberate the Holy Places of Palestine from the Turks. The only territories to escape enforced incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, were Ammon, Edom and Moab. These ancient Biblical territories were the home of the wandering Arab tribesmen, who, whilst embracing Islam, never submitted to Turkish rule or authority.
In verses 42 and 43, we read that Egypt and its treasures are to fall to the King of the North, together with the Ethiopians and the Libyans. This in fact came to pass in 1516/1517 A.D. when the Ottoman Emperor, Selim I, having conquered Palestine, marched on into Egypt, stripping the land of its wealth. The book 'Turkish History' by Sir Paul Rycaut tells us that -
"About 500 families of the noblest and richest of the Egyptians, were commanded to remove from Cairo to Constantinople in ships hired for the purpose. Into this fleet besides the King's treasures and riches, he conveyed all the public and private ornaments of that most rich and famous city"
The book 'History of the Ottoman Turks' tells us that 'A thousand camels laden with gold and silver' carried the spoils of war from Egypt to Constantinople. In 1550, the Turks brought Libya under their Imperial sway, and the Ethiopians on the Southern boundary of the Ottoman Empire were compelled to pay tribute to the Turks. Thus was the prophecy of Daniel fulfilled.
A number of Bible students frequently misapply this verse 44 of prophecy, to suggest an end time attack by China on Soviet Russia. How foolish are these fables, for once again this verse finds exact historical fulfilment in the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Since there was no one word for North East in the original language of Scripture, the expression 'North and East' is used to describe pressure and attack coming upon the Turks from a territory North East of their Empire. This was Imperial Russia. From the mid 18th Century onwards, Russian attacks upon the North Eastern borders of Turkey became increasingly frequent.
The Turks sent their armies and navies against Russia 'with great fury' as Daniel predicted, but never with success. In 1768 - Turkish armies were badly defeated, and in 1770, the Turkish fleet was wiped out by the Russians. In 1774 and 1777, more defeats were experienced. In 1806, the Russians seized Moldavia and Wallachia, and destroyed another Turkish fleet. In 1826, Turkey was compelled to surrender all Asian fortresses to the Russians, and to grant Greek independence in 1829. Only the intervention of Great Britain saved the Ottoman Empire from ruin at the hands of Russia in the Crimean War of 1853, and as a result of the conflict of 1877/78, the nations of Turkey's Balkan Empire, gained their freedom.
This gradual destruction of the Ottoman Empire, seen as trouble from the North and East in Daniel's prophecy, parallels with events known as the "drying up of the River Euphrates" in the Revelation vision.
We are told of the final collapse of the King of the North, the Ottoman Empire that - (V.45)
The glorious holy mountain situated between the seas, the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, is Mount Zion. The tabernacles of his palace can also be translated as "the tents of his army" and history once again explains prophecy, for during the Great War of 1914 - 1918 the Ottoman Turks, established their military headquarters in Jerusalem at Mount Zion. Driven from that city in December 1917 by British and Commonwealth forces led by General Allenby, the Turks subsequently lost the cities of Baghdad, Damascus and Aleppo during the following year, those cities having been the three capitals of the pre-Roman king of the North. Deserted by the German allies, the Turks surrendered to the Allies, or "came to an end with none to help" just as Daniel had foretold. Within six years the Ottoman Emperor had been deposed, the Caliphate abolished and Turkey declared a Republic under Mustapha Kemal, thereby ending the King of the North phase of Islam in prophecy.
|
•
|
