Daniel chapter eleven records the prophetic message he received concerning the rise of the Grecian
empire, it's breakup into four smaller kingdoms after the death of its leader and the wars that would follow between the two most powerful of the four resulting kingdoms. While this was yet future for
Daniel, for us it is now history thus we know that the leader who established the Grecian empire was Alexander the Great, while the two kingdoms focused on in the Daniel 11 prophecies were the
Seleucid kingdom centered in Syria and the kingdom of the Ptolemaic kings in Egypt. Daniel's
prophecies concerning the conflicts between these two kingdoms were fulfilled immaculately
between about 320BC – 168BC. In the visions he received the Syrian kings are described as ‘the kings of the North' and the Egyptian kings as ‘the kings of the South'. It is clear from these descriptions that the reference point is Daniel’s home land, Israel, which sits between the two. Indeed Israel is sometimes said to sit “between the Anvil and the Hammer”; in other words between the
Blacksmiths anvil of Egypt and the Hammer of Syria. The picture this gives is of a nation pounded
between two great forces, and certainly during the period prophesied by much of Daniel 11 Israel
was in the unfortunate position of being on the warpath between them. So it was that Judea
(southern Israel) came under the control first of Syria, then Egypt, then towards the end of that
period back under Syria again.
For us however the greatest significance of this is how the theme is picked up on by prophecy in
relation to events that are still in our future. In particular there are parallels between the person and acts of the Seleucid (Syrian) king who comes into focus passage from v21 and the person and acts of Antichrist; in particular in terms of their dealings with Israel and the temple.
Below is an excerpt from Schofield's bible commentary regarding this Syrian king, Antiochus IV:
In 198BC Judea was conquered by Antiochus the Great, and annexed to Syria…About 180BC the land
became the dowry of Cleopatra, a Syrian princess who married Ptolemy Philometor, king of Egypt, but on the death of Cleopatra was reclaimed by Antiochus Epiphanes after a bloody battle. In 170BC
Antiochus, after repeated interferences with the temple and the priesthood, plundered Jerusalem, profaned the temple and enslaved a great number of the inhabitants. On December the 25th, 168BC, P a g e 28
Antiochus offered a sow on the great altar in the temple and erected an altar to Jupiter…The temple worship was forbidden and the people were required to eat swine's flesh (pork).
Consider the similarities between this history and II Thessalonians 2:4 which predicts that the
coming Antichrist will “sit in the temple of God showing himself that he is God” and Matthew 24:15
which describes him as “the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet who stands
in the holy place” (the temple). From these New Testament verses it seems quite certain that the
coming Antichrist will in some way repeat Antiochus the Great's act of hijacking of the temple.
Therefore there may be dual applications to the verses from about Daniel 11:31-39 concerning the
king who defiles the sanctuary, worships a god of forces and exalts himself above even the God of
gods. It’s also worth noting the obvious here, that since this section of Daniels prophecy still appears to have a literal future fulfillment then Jerusalem must once again have a temple. The reestablishing of the nation of Israel was probably an early sign of approaching end times and in a similar way the commencement of this project will be of great significance, being the last thing that needs to be in place for a literal fulfillment of these prophecies.