Charles Ellicott Commentary Daniel 11

In the first year of Darius.— These words must be closely connected with the last verse of Daniel 10:0. The allusion is, most probably, to the fall of Babylon and the return from the Exile, at which time, as at the Exodus, the angel of the Lord went before His people. There is also a reference to Daniel 6:22.

The truth.— Compare to Daniel 10:21. This is the commencement of the revelation promised in Daniel 10:14; and from this point until the end of the book, the difficulties to be encountered in attempting an exposition are almost insuperable. It has been customary from the time of St. Jerome, if not from an earlier epoch, to explain most of what follows as referring to the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ. The difficulties which oppose this interpretation will be pointed out in the notes. It is a question whether, after all, the early interpretation is correct, and, if not, whether this revelation does not still await its complete fulfilment.

The mere similarity that exists between certain things predicted here and what actually occurred in the times of the Ptolemies is not sufficient to limit the fulfilment of the prophecy to those times, still less to justify the assumption that the section before us is a history of what occurred from the disruption of the Greek Empire to the death of Antiochus. “History repeats itself”; and just as Antiochus (Daniel 8:23–25) is a type of Antichrist (Daniel 7:21), so the events and political combinations that preceded Antiochus may be regarded as typical of what will occur before the coming of the Messiah and the general resurrection, with a prediction of which (Daniel 12:2–3) this revelation concludes.

Three kings. —It is hard to say who these were. Cyrus being on the throne already, it is most probable that his three successors are intended—Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes. Those four kings appear to have been selected whose influence was most prominent in its relation to Israel. Xerxes is called the fourth king because the reckoning dates from Cyrus, and the short reign of the Pseudo Smerdis is not taken into account. Not only do the riches of Xerxes point him out as the last king, but also his conduct towards Greece may be correctly described as stirring up against himself the realm of Grecia.

Against ...—The passage gives better sense if translated, he shall stir up all, the kingdom of Greece, that is, amongst those stirred up, the kingdom of Greece is most prominent. It should be noted that at the time of the invasion of Europe by Xerxes, Greece was in no sense a kingdom. Such language is incompatible with an authorship during the Maccabee period.

A mighty king.— No clue is given to show over what nation this king reigns. According to the context he might be either a Greek or a Persian, or he might belong to a kingdom not yet mentioned. Those who explain what follows to refer to the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ identify him with Alexander the Great, and compare with this verse Daniel 7:6; Daniel 8:5–8; Daniel 8:21–22. Certainly the self-will spoken of in this verse was characteristic of Alexander , but there was nothing in the context which makes it necessary to limit the passage to him. Some autocrat may arise in the latter times to whom it will apply with greater force than it did to Alexander.

Broken. The shortness of the king’s reign is implied; the moment that he has arisen he will come to nothing. As in Daniel 8:8, the great horn was broken, so here the kingdom is broken and dismembered. This has been explained to mean the sudden collapse of the Greek empire after the death of Alexander.

Not to his posterity. The kingdom disappears without the members of the king’s family reaping any benefit from it. It is plucked up for others besides these—i.e., to the exclusion of his lawful heirs—and strangers shall possess the fragments of his empire. This is explained as the partition of Alexander’s empire among his generals, and of the murder of his two sons, Hercules and Alexander, but the language is too indefinite to make any such identification certain. The revelation directs our attention to a self-willed king, whose large empire is to come to a sudden and unexpected end; the ruins of it are not to benefit his posterity, but apparently two strangers, who are designated king of the north and king of the south respectively.

The king.— This king of the south is suddenly introduced to our notice. The vagueness of the language prevents us from asserting that the reference is to Ptolemy Soter, who assumed the title of king about B.C. 304. Equally obscure is the phrase “one of his princes.” Both the Greek versions interpret the passage to mean “that one of the princes of the king of the south shall be stronger than his former master.” It is hard to see how Seleucus Nicator can be called a “prince” of Ptolemy Soter.

Any attempt at making the pronoun “his” refer to the mighty king mentioned in the last verse is opposed to the context, and to introduce any fresh sentence such as “shall arise” is an unwarrantable assumption. The obscurity of the Hebrew text is well reproduced in the English Version. It should be stated that Ptolemy took Jerusalem B.C. 320, and that these times must have been very critical to the Jews.