Daniel 11

[1] ‘Him’ probably refers to Michael; but it might be understood of ‘the lord of Greece’, or even of Darius.

[2] This king is ordinarily identified with Xerxes (b.c. 485-465). But it is doubtful whether the Hebrew text should not be rendered ‘shall set all in motion, the (whole) realm of Greece’; and this might describe the provocation offered to Philip of Macedon by Artaxerxes III; he might be called the fourth successor of Artaxerxes I, in whose reign Jerusalem was rebuilt. If the interval (of more than a century) between Xerxes and Alexander has been passed over in silence, it may be a prophetic foreshortening of history, or conceivably there has been an omission in the text.

[3] In verses 3-19, the period from Alexander the Great to Antiochus the Great is sketched in with considerable detail; verse 6 gives the history of Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II, and verse 17 that of Antiochus’ daughter Cleopatra.

[4] ‘Egyptian’ and ‘Syrian’ are ‘southern’ and ‘northern’ in the original, all through this chapter (though Egypt is mentioned by name in verses 8, 42 and 43).

[5] The ‘noble land’, here and in verse 41, is usually understood as meaning Palestine, though Egypt is a possible alternative in either case.

[6] This verse is very obscure, and in the Hebrew text untranslatable. We should have expected some reference to the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans at Magnesia (b.c. 190).

[7] The Hebrew text describes this king as ‘causing an exactor to pass through’, presumably in allusion to II Mac. 3.7. But the Septuagint Greek, like the Latin version, contains no such allusion.

[8] Throughout verses 21-45, the allusions are much less readily traceable than in verses 3-19. Some parts of it at least are generally understood as referring to Antiochus Epiphanes (b.c. 176-164), but for the most part it would be equally applicable to any persecuting tyrant.

[9] ‘Covenanted chief’ perhaps means the high priest Onias III, deposed by Antiochus in b.c. 175.

[10] So the Septuagint Greek, but the Hebrew text has simply ‘ships of Chittim’, i.e. from the West. It looks as if the versions had interpreted their original; it is well known that Antiochus was warned off Egyptian soil by the Roman ambassador Popilius Laenas.

[11] ‘Maozim’; or perhaps, ‘fortresses’. But it is difficult to understand who are meant by ‘them’ in verse 39 if Maozim is not a proper name. We do not meet the name elsewhere; on the other hand, attempts to identify the ‘god of fortresses’ are not altogether convincing.

[12] The Latin version here transliterates, ‘his pavilion Apadno’.

[13] The Hebrew text is generally understood as meaning ‘he reaches his end, and there is none to bring him aid’.

Knox Translation Copyright © 2013 Westminster Diocese
Nihil Obstat. Father Anton Cowan, Censor.
Imprimatur. +Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. 8th January 2012.
Re-typeset and published in 2012 by Baronius Press Ltd