Commentary: Daniel 11, Anthony's Historicist Study Aid
Anthony's Historicist Study Aid or Anthony's Study Aid of Daniel 11 is the result of a lifetime of Anthony's personal historical studies. Understanding that the chapter does not provide an interpretation and the beginning was so literal, this Author determined that the only logical conclusion was that the entire chapter was literal.
Anthony Study Aid of Daniel 11 is therefore a 'Historical Paraphrase', a 'Historical Idiom', it is a study aid. Unfortunately, we do not have the liberty here to have complete historical explanations. In the words of the AI, it is the purest example historicim in existance: in the vain of Martin Luther and Sir Isaac Newton.
Each section will have the KJV and our historical paralelle.
Daniel 11:2
2 And now will I shew thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.
2 After Cyrus the Great [530bc] shall come 1. his son Cambyses II followed [522bc] by 2. that upstart magi Faulse Smyrdis. He shall be murdered [522bc] by 3. Darius I [522-486bc] whose son 4. Xerxes will launch the ‘Second Persian Invasion of Greece’ [480-479bc] with a force so big it easily passed the million.
Daniel 11:3
3 And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.
3 Consequentially Alexander the Great shall arise to whom there has been no equal: His kingdom will be bigger than all those before and none shall defeat him, despite the odds. [336–323bc]
Daniel 11:4
4 And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.
4 And once Alexander has forged his empire, he shall suddenly die [323bc] and his kingdom shall not go to his child, but after some time (and battles) to his remaining four generals who declared themselves kings [304bc]: 1. Ptolomy in Egypt and Lybia; 2. Seleucus from the east of Turkey through Syria all the way into India; 3. Lysimicus controlled western Turkey through eastern Greece and 4. Cassander shall control western and southern Greece.
Daniel 11:5
5 And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion shall be a great dominion.
5 So Ptolemy I [305bc] shall be strong as the dominant power of the South: but Seleucus I Nicator who had been sheltered by Ptolemy I after losing Babylon to Antigonus [316bc] and served as one of his commanders, shall with Ptolemy I’s support recapture Babylon [312bc]. Thus after this, Seleucus I Nicator shall wrest the domains of both Lysimachus and Cassander [281bc], and so become stronger than Ptolemy I; and he shall have a great dominion.
Daniel 11:6
6 And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times.
6 And after some significant time and the ‘Second Syrian War’, Antiochus II and Ptolemy II shall conclude peace [253bc] contractually by Antiochus II disenfranchising his wife, his children and then marrying Ptolemy II’s daughter Berenice to create a new line of succession. So Ptolemy II shall escort her to Antioch for the wedding [c.252bc] and after several years die of old age [246bc]. After which Antiochus II shall be murdered by his ex-wife, as well as Berenice, their child and all Berenice’s Egyptian attendants [246bc].
Daniel 11:7
7 But out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army, and shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail:
7 Now out of Berenice’s own family roots shall her brother Ptolemy III leap from the throne of his kingdom, and shall rally an army of revenge creating the ‘Third Syrian War’ [246-241bc]. He shall fantastically sweep through the domains of the King of the North, even conquering some of the most fortified of cities, including most of Babylon and briefly the capitol Antioch itself.
Daniel 11:8
8 And shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold; and he shall continue more years than the king of the north.
8 So Ptolemy III shall return into Egypt enriched with the children of the elite (as political prisoners), general captives and plunder. He also found in Babylon certain Egyptian idols taken by Cambyses II: for which they shall title him ‘Eurgetes’ (saviour). Ptolemy III shall also live longer [221bc] than his foe Seleucus II [226bc] with whom he sought revenge.
Daniel 11:9
Note: The Catholic Douay-Rheims reads similarly to the KJV, while the inter-confessional bibles such as the NIV, ESV, NAS etc. without substantiation supply the words “king of the north” into the text here which confuses the entire sequence. This is done in order to harmonize with Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel which is based on Porphyry’s work Against the Christians. It is evident to this author that textual accuracy has been sacrificed in said bibles in favour of theological dogma.
9 So the king of the south shall come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land.
9 But Ptolemy III’s immensely successful campaign shall be cut short by an emergency trip home due to the first native uprising [246bc] that would later become ‘The Great Revolt of Egypt’; leading him to focus on home affairs the rest of his days.
Daniel 11:10
10 But his sons shall be stirred up, and shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through: then shall he return, and be stirred up, even to his fortress.
10 Consequentially thirty years later the King of the North’s sons (Seleucus III shortly assassinated then Antiochus III) shall determine a reclamation war and assembled a mighty army. He shall sweep through with great success [219-218bc]! Then in the following year (after winter) he shall return to try and invade Ptolemy IV’s Egyptian heartland [Battle of Raphia, 217bc].
Daniel 11:11
11 And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north: and he shall set forth a great multitude; but the multitude shall be given into his hand.
11 And the King of the South (Ptolemy IV) shall rise to the defence with furious indignation. Their clash at Raphia [217 bc] became the greatest Hellenistic battle before Roman supremacy at Magnesia and hall-marked as the largest elephant-on-elephant battle ever. Yet while the King of the North shall have the larger army, Antiochus III’s army shall be slaughtered at a rate of five to one ending the ‘Fourth Syrian War’.
Daniel 11:12
12 And when he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up; and he shall cast down many ten thousands: but he shall not be strengthened by it.
12 And having taken the multitude, Ptolemy IV’s heart shall exalt itself in pride. Filled with over‑confidence he shall proceed on a victory tour [217 bc] during which he shall be struck with divine paralysis after attempting to force his way into the Holy of Holies. Returning to Egypt in humiliated rage, he shall cast down many ten thousands in the civil unrest that shall follow [213bc]. In this same spirit he shall also excuse the slaughter of some forty thousand of his own Jewish citizens, seeking revenge for being rebuked of God at Jerusalem.
Daniel 11:13
13 For the king of the north shall return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former, and shall certainly come after certain years with a great army and with much riches.
13 But the King of the North shall return with a much larger army in about fourteen years after the Battle of Raphia. For the turmoil of these years shall have left many of his eastern dominions in revolt. To restore order, Antiochus III shall re‑enact Alexander the Great’s eastern campaign [the Anabasis, 212–205 bc] with near‑equal effect, and upon his victorious return (being laden with treasures and commanding a greatly enlarged and battle‑hardened army) he shall receive the epithet “the Great.”
Daniel 11:14a
Note 1: The famous Rosetta Stone was inscribed in 196 BC during the reign of Ptolemy V. It commemorated his coronation and the suppression of the Great Egyptian Revolt, and its trilingual text (hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek) later became the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian writing. Note 2: The Septuagint (LXX) was commissioned under Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 3rd century BC, making its translators contemporaries of — or only one generation removed from — the historical events proposed in this text. Because they lived within the Hellenistic world, under Ptolemaic rule, they understood the political factions, idioms, and cultural context far better than modern scholars reconstructing Biblical Hebrew. For this verse, we therefore favour their rendering, particularly its bearing on the second half of this verse, which points to pestilent, lawless zealots attempting to “establish the vision,” rather than the more traditional interpretations.
14a And in those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south:
14a And while Antiochus III shall still be campaigning in the East, Ptolemy IV shall die suddenly, leaving his five‑year‑old son Ptolemy V upon the throne [204 bc] with the world against him. His regents shall then murder the guardian Lysimachus, his uncle Magas, and his mother Arsinoe III; and when these crimes become known, the Alexandrian mob shall rise and slay Agathoclea, his former nurse and political manipulator, together with Agathocles his chief regent. These deaths shall unsettle the court and trigger the Revolt of Alexandria [203–202 bc], all against the backdrop of the Great Egyptian (native) Revolt [204–196 bc]. Even his renowned mercenary general Scopas shall be sent to Greece to hire a new loyal army to replace the old. Meanwhile Antiochus III the Great and Philip V of Macedon shall agree together [Pact of 203 bc] to divide his dominions between themselves.
Daniel 11:14b
14b also the robbers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; but they shall fall.
14b Also in those days, as your people Daniel shall witness the unrest of Egypt and suffer under the oppression of the Ptolemaic general Scopas when he garrisons Jerusalem [Jan. 200bc], certain power‑hungry troublemakers shall open the city gates to Antiochus III [198bc], declaring his arrival the fulfillment of Isaiah 19. But they shall fail in their attempt to forcefully “establish the vision,” for they could not make “the land of Judah” a “terror unto Egypt”; therefore they shall fail.