Part I, Chapter 12, 2

Seleucus Philopator succeeded his father Antiochus, Anno Nabonass. 561, and reigned twelve years, but did nothing memorable, being sluggish and intent on raising money for the Romans, to whom he was tributary. He was killed by Heliodorus, whom he had sent to rob the Temple of Jerusalem. Daniel thus describes his reign.⁶ In his place a tax-raiser shall stand up in the glory of the kingdom, but within a few days he shall be destroyed, neither in anger nor in battle.

A little before the death of Philopator, his son Demetrius was sent hostage to Rome in place of Antiochus Epiphanes, the brother of Philopator; and Antiochus was at Athens on his way home from Rome when Philopator died, at which point Heliodorus, the treasurer of the kingdom, seized the throne. But Antiochus so managed his affairs that the Romans kept Demetrius at Rome; and their ally the King of Pergamus expelled Heliodorus and placed Antiochus on the throne, while Demetrius, the rightful heir, remained a hostage at Rome. Having thus been made King by the friendship of the King of Pergamus, Antiochus reigned powerfully over Syria and the neighboring nations, but carried himself far below his dignity: stealing privately out of his palace, rambling up and down the city in disguise with one or two of his companions, conversing and drinking with people of the lowest rank, foreigners and strangers, frequenting the gatherings of dissolute people to feast and revel, clothing himself like the Roman candidates and officers, acting their parts like a mimic, and at public festivals jesting and dancing with servants and low company, exposing himself to every kind of ridiculous gesture. This conduct made some take him for a madman and call him Antiochus [Greek: Epimenês]. In the first year of his reign he deposed Onias the high priest, and sold the high priesthood to Jason, the younger brother of Onias: for Jason had promised to give him 440 talents of silver for that office, and 15 more for a license to erect a place of exercise for training up youth in the fashions of the heathen; which license was granted by the King and put in practice by Jason. Then the King, sending one Apollonius into Egypt to the coronation of Ptolemy Philometor, the young son of Philometor and Cleopatra, and knowing Philometor not to be well disposed toward his affairs in Phoenicia, provided for his own safety in those parts; and to that end came to Joppa and Jerusalem, where he was honorably received; from there he went in like manner with his little army to the cities of Phoenicia, to establish himself against Egypt by courting the people and distributing extraordinary favors among them. All which is thus represented by Daniel.⁷ And in his [Philometor's] place shall stand up a vile person, to whom they [the Syrians who set up Heliodorus] shall not give the honor of the kingdom. Yet he shall come in peaceably and obtain the kingdom by flatteries [made principally to the King of Pergamus;] and the arms [which in favor of Heliodorus oppose him] shall be overflowed with a flood from before him, and be broken; yes also [Onias the high priest] the Prince of the covenant. And after the league made with him, [the King of Egypt, by sending Apollonius to his coronation] he shall work deceitfully [against the King of Egypt,] for he shall come up and shall become strong [in Phoenicia] with a small people. And he shall enter into the quiet and plentiful cities of the Province [of Phoenicia;] and [to ingratiate himself with the Jews of Phoenicia and Egypt, and with their friends] he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers: he shall scatter among them the prey and the spoil, and the riches [exacted from other places;] and shall lay his plans against the strongholds [of Egypt] even for a time.

These things were done in the first year of his reign, An. Nabonass. 573. From then on he laid his plans against the strongholds of Egypt until the sixth year. Three years later, that is, in the fourth year of his reign, Menelaus bought the high priesthood from Jason, but not paying the price was sent for by the King; and the King, before he could hear the case, went into Cilicia to appease a sedition there, and left Andronicus his deputy at Antioch; in the meantime the brother of Menelaus, to make up the money, carried several vessels out of the Temple, selling some of them at Tyre and sending others to Andronicus. When Menelaus was reproached for this by Onias, he caused Onias to be killed by Andronicus; for which deed the King, on his return from Cilicia, caused Andronicus to be put to death. Then Antiochus prepared his second expedition against Egypt, which he carried out in the sixth year of his reign, An. Nabonass. 578: for upon the death of Cleopatra, the governors of her son, the young King of Egypt, claimed Phoenicia and Coelosyria from him as her dowry; and to recover those countries raised a great army. Antiochus, considering that his father had not given up possession of those countries⁸, denied they were her dowry; and with another great army met and fought the Egyptians on the borders of Egypt, between Pelusium and the mountain Casius. He there beat them, and might have destroyed their whole army, except that he rode up and down, ordering his soldiers not to kill them but to take them alive: by which act of mercy he gained Pelusium, and soon after all Egypt, entering it with a vast multitude of foot soldiers and chariots, elephants and horsemen, and a great navy. Then seizing the cities of Egypt as a friend, he marched to Memphis, laid the whole blame of the war upon Eulæus the King's governor, entered into outward friendship with the young King, and took upon himself to order the affairs of the kingdom. While Antiochus was thus employed, a report spread in Phoenicia that he was dead; and Jason, to recover the high priesthood, assaulted Jerusalem with more than a thousand men and took the city. Upon this the King, thinking Judea had revolted, came out of Egypt in a fury, retook the city, killed forty thousand of the people, made as many prisoners and sold them to raise money; went into the Temple, stripped it of its treasures, ornaments, utensils, and vessels of gold and silver amounting to 1800 talents; and carried all away to Antioch. This was done in the year of Nabonassar 578, and is thus described by Daniel.⁹ And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the King of the South with a great army; and the King of the South shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they, even Antiochus and his friends, shall devise plans against him, as is represented above; yes, those who eat from the portion of his meat shall betray and destroy him, and his army shall be overthrown, and many shall fall down killed. And both these kings' hearts shall be set on doing mischief; and they, being now made friends, shall speak lies at one table, against the Jews and against the holy covenant; but it shall not prosper: for the end, in which the setting up of the abomination of desolation is to prosper, is at the time appointed. Then shall he return into his land with great riches, and his heart shall be against the holy covenant; and he shall act against it by despoiling the Temple, and return into his own land.

The Egyptians of Alexandria, seeing Philometor first trained in luxury by the eunuch Eulæus and now in the hands of Antiochus, gave the kingdom to Euergetes, the younger brother of Philometor. At this Antiochus, pretending to restore Philometor, made war upon Euergetes; beat him at sea, and besieged him and his sister Cleopatra in Alexandria; while the besieged princes sent to Rome to implore the assistance of the Senate. Antiochus, finding himself unable to take the city that year, returned into Syria, leaving Philometor at Memphis to govern Egypt in his absence. But Philometor made peace with his brother that winter; and Antiochus, returning the next spring An. Nabonass. 580 to besiege both the brothers in Alexandria, was met on the way by the Roman ambassadors, Popilius Læna, C. Decimius, and C. Hostilius: he offered them his hand to kiss, but Popilius, delivering to him the tablets on which the message of the Senate was written, told him to read those first. When he had read them, he replied that he would consider with his friends what was fit to be done; but Popilius, drawing a circle about him, told him to answer before he stepped out of it. Antiochus, astonished at this blunt and unusual imperiousness, answered that he would do what the Romans demanded; and then Popilius gave the King his hand to kiss, and he withdrew out of Egypt. The same year, An. Nabonass. 580, his captains by his order plundered and slaughtered the Jews, profaned the Temple, set up the worship of the heathen gods in all Judea, and began to persecute and make war upon those who would not worship them: which actions are thus described by Daniel.¹⁰ At the time appointed he shall come again toward the South, but the latter shall not be as the former. For the ships of Chittim shall come, with an embassy from Rome, against him. Therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant. So shall he do; he shall even return, and have dealings with those who forsake the holy covenant.

In the same year that Antiochus, by command of the Romans, retired out of Egypt and set up the worship of the Greeks in Judea, the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, the fundamental kingdom of the Empire of the Greeks, and reduced it to a Roman province; and by that began to put an end to the reign of Daniel's third Beast. This is thus expressed by Daniel. And after him Arms, that is the Romans, shall stand up. As [Hebrew: MMLK] signifies after the King, Dan. xi. 8; so [Hebrew: MMNW] may signify after him. Arms are everywhere in this Prophecy of Daniel put for the military power of a kingdom; and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. Until now Daniel described the actions of the Kings of the North and South; but upon the conquest of Macedon by the Romans he left off describing the actions of the Greeks and began to describe those of the Romans in Greece. They conquered Macedon, Illyricum and Epirus in the year of Nabonassar 580. 35 years after, by the last will and testament of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all Asia westward of mount Taurus; 69 years after they conquered the kingdom of Syria and reduced it to a province, and 34 years after they did the same to Egypt. By all these steps the Roman Arms stood up over the Greeks: and after 95 years more, by making war upon the Jews, they polluted the sanctuary of strength, took away the daily sacrifice, and then placed the abomination of desolation. For this abomination was placed after the days of Christ, Math. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor Adrian, A.C. 132, they placed this abomination by building a Temple to Jupiter Capitolinus where the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stood. Thereupon the Jews, under the conduct of Barchochab, rose up in arms against the Romans, and in the war had 50 cities demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men killed by the sword; and at the end of the war, A.C. 136, were banished from Judea on pain of death, and from then on the land remained desolate of its old inhabitants.

In the beginning of the Jewish war in Nero's reign, the Apostles fled out of Judea with their flocks; some beyond Jordan to Pella and other places, some into Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia minor, and elsewhere. Peter and John came into Asia, and Peter went from there by Corinth to Rome; but John, staying in Asia, was banished by the Romans to Patmos as the head of a party of the Jews, whose nation was at war with the Romans. By this dispersion of the Christian Jews, the Christian religion, which was already propagated westward as far as Rome, spread fast into the whole Roman Empire, and suffered many persecutions under it until the days of Constantine the great and his sons: all which is thus described by Daniel.¹¹ And those who do wickedly against the covenant shall he who sets up the abomination cause to dissemble and worship the heathen gods; but the people among them who know their God shall be strong and act. And those who understand among the people shall instruct many; yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by spoil many days. Now when they shall fall, they shall be helped with a little help, that is, in the reign of Constantine the great; and at that time, by reason of their prosperity, many shall come over to them from among the heathen and cling to them in pretense. But there shall still be some of understanding who fall, to try God's people by them and to purge them of the dissemblers, and to make them white even to the time of the end: because it is still for a time appointed.

Until now the Roman Empire continued entire; and under this dominion the little horn of the He-Goat continued mighty, but not by his own power. But now, with the building of Constantinople and the endowing of it with a Senate and other privileges like those of Rome; and with the division of the Roman Empire into the two Empires of the Greeks and Latins, headed by those two cities; a new scene of things begins, in which¹² a King, the Empire of the Greeks, does according to his will, and, by setting his own laws above the laws of God, exalts and magnifies himself above every God, and speaks marvelous things against the God of Gods, and shall prosper until the indignation is accomplished.—Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the lawful desire of women in matrimony, nor any God, but shall magnify himself above all. And in his seat he shall honor Mahuzzims, that is, strong guardians, the souls of the dead; even with a God whom his fathers knew not shall he honor them in their Temples, with gold and silver, and with precious stones and valuable things. All which relates to the overspreading of the Greek Empire with Monks and Nuns, who placed holiness in abstinence from marriage; and to the invocation of saints and the veneration of their relics, and such like superstitions, which these men introduced in the fourth and fifth centuries.¹³ And at the time of the end the King of the South, or the Empire of the Saracens, shall push at him; and the King of the North, or the Empire of the Turks, shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries of the Greeks, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown; but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon: that is, those to whom his Caravans pay tribute. He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape; but he shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; and the Libyans and Ethiopians shall be at his steps. All these nations compose the Empire of the Turks, and therefore this Empire is here to be understood by the King of the North. They compose also the body of the He-Goat; and therefore the Goat still reigns in his last horn, but not by his own power.

Notes to Chap. XII.

1 Chap. xi. 2, 3, 4.

2 Chap. xi. 5.

3 Chap. xi. 6, 7, 8.

4 Chap. xi. 10, &c.

5 Chap. xi. 13-19.

6 Chap. xi. 20.

7 Chap. xi. 21, &c.

8 2 Maccab. iii. 5, 8. & iv. 4.

9 Chap. xi. 25, &c.

10 Chap. xi. 29, 30.

11 Chap. xi. 32, &c.

12 Chap. xi. 36, &c.

13 Chap. xi. 40, &c.

Seleucus Philopator succeeded his father Antiochus in the year of Nabonassar 561 and reigned twelve years. He did nothing memorable: he was lazy, and set on raising money for the Romans, to whom he paid tribute. He was killed by Heliodorus, whom he had sent to rob the Temple of Jerusalem. Daniel describes his reign like this.⁶ In his place a man who raises taxes shall stand up in the glorious kingdom, but within a few days he shall be destroyed, not in anger and not in battle.

A little before Philopator died, his son Demetrius was sent to Rome as a hostage in place of Antiochus Epiphanes, the brother of Philopator; and Antiochus was at Athens on his way home from Rome when Philopator died. Then Heliodorus, the treasurer of the kingdom, took the throne. But Antiochus managed things so that the Romans kept Demetrius at Rome, and their ally the King of Pergamus drove Heliodorus out and set Antiochus on the throne, while Demetrius, the rightful heir, remained a hostage at Rome. Antiochus, made King this way by the friendship of the King of Pergamus, ruled powerfully over Syria and the neighboring nations. But he carried himself far below his dignity: he slipped secretly out of his palace, wandered around the city in disguise with one or two companions, ate and drank with people of the lowest rank, foreigners and strangers, joined the gatherings of dissolute people to feast and revel, dressed himself like Roman candidates and officers, played their parts like an actor, and at public festivals joked and danced with servants and low company, making himself ridiculous with every kind of gesture. This behavior made some people take him for a madman and call him Antiochus [Greek: Epimenês]. In the first year of his reign he removed Onias the high priest and sold the high priesthood to Jason, the younger brother of Onias: for Jason had promised to give him 440 talents of silver for that office, and 15 more for a license to build a place of exercise for training young men in the fashions of the heathen; the King granted the license, and Jason put it into effect. Then the King sent a man named Apollonius to Egypt for the coronation of Ptolemy Philometor, the young son of Philometor and Cleopatra; and knowing that Philometor was not well disposed toward his interests in Phoenicia, he looked after his own safety in those parts, and to that end came to Joppa and Jerusalem, where he was honorably received. From there he went in the same way with his little army to the cities of Phoenicia, to secure himself against Egypt by courting the people and handing out extraordinary favors among them. All of this is represented by Daniel.⁷ In his [Philometor's] place a vile person shall stand up, and they [the Syrians who set up Heliodorus] shall not give him the honor of the kingdom. Yet he shall come in peaceably and win the kingdom by flattery [made mainly to the King of Pergamus;] and the arms [which in favor of Heliodorus oppose him] shall be swept away by a flood from before him and be broken; yes, and also [Onias the high priest] the Prince of the covenant. And after the league made with him, [the King of Egypt, by sending Apollonius to his coronation] he shall work deceitfully [against the King of Egypt,] for he shall come up and become strong [in Phoenicia] with few people. And he shall enter the quiet and plentiful cities of the Province [of Phoenicia;] and [to win over the Jews of Phoenicia and Egypt, and their friends] he shall do what his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers: he shall scatter among them the prey and the spoil, and the riches [taken from other places;] and he shall plan his schemes against the strongholds [of Egypt] even for a time.

These things were done in the first year of his reign, in the year of Nabonassar 573. From then on he planned his schemes against the strongholds of Egypt until the sixth year. Three years later, that is, in the fourth year of his reign, Menelaus bought the high priesthood from Jason; but he did not pay the price, and the King sent for him. The King, before he could hear the case, went into Cilicia to put down a rebellion there, and left Andronicus as his deputy at Antioch. In the meantime the brother of Menelaus, to make up the money, carried several vessels out of the Temple, selling some of them at Tyre and sending others to Andronicus. When Menelaus was called to account for this by Onias, he had Onias killed by Andronicus; for this deed the King, on his return from Cilicia, had Andronicus put to death. Then Antiochus prepared his second expedition against Egypt, which he carried out in the sixth year of his reign, in the year of Nabonassar 578: for when Cleopatra died, the guardians of her son, the young King of Egypt, claimed Phoenicia and Coelosyria from him as her dowry, and raised a great army to recover those countries. Antiochus, considering that his father had never given up possession of those countries⁸, denied that they were her dowry; and with another great army he met and fought the Egyptians on the borders of Egypt, between Pelusium and Mount Casius. He defeated them there, and could have destroyed their whole army, except that he rode up and down, commanding his soldiers not to kill them but to take them alive. By this mercy he gained Pelusium, and soon after all Egypt, entering it with a huge force of foot soldiers and chariots, elephants and horsemen, and a great fleet. Then he seized the cities of Egypt as a friend, marched to Memphis, laid the whole blame of the war on Eulæus, the King's governor, entered into outward friendship with the young King, and took it upon himself to manage the affairs of the kingdom. While Antiochus was thus occupied, a report spread through Phoenicia that he was dead. Jason, to get the high priesthood back, attacked Jerusalem with more than a thousand men and took the city. When the King heard of it, thinking that Judea had revolted, he came out of Egypt in a fury, recaptured the city, killed forty thousand of the people, took as many prisoners, and sold them to raise money. He went into the Temple and stripped it of its treasures, ornaments, utensils, and gold and silver vessels, amounting to 1800 talents, and carried it all away to Antioch. This was done in the year of Nabonassar 578, and Daniel describes it like this.⁹ And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the King of the South with a great army; and the King of the South shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they, even Antiochus and his friends, shall plan against him, as shown above; yes, those who share his food shall betray and destroy him, and his army shall be thrown down, and many shall fall killed. And both these kings' hearts shall be set on doing harm; and they, now made friends, shall speak lies at one table against the Jews and against the holy covenant; but it shall not succeed: for the end, at which the abomination of desolation is to succeed, shall come at the appointed time. Then he shall return to his land with great riches, and his heart will be against the holy covenant; and he shall act against it by stripping the Temple, and shall return to his own land.

The Egyptians of Alexandria, seeing that Philometor had first been raised in luxury by the eunuch Eulæus and was now in the hands of Antiochus, gave the kingdom to Euergetes, the younger brother of Philometor. Antiochus then pretended to restore Philometor and made war on Euergetes: he beat him at sea and besieged him and his sister Cleopatra in Alexandria, while the besieged princes sent to Rome to beg the Senate for help. Antiochus, finding that he could not take the city that year, returned to Syria, leaving Philometor at Memphis to govern Egypt in his absence. But Philometor made peace with his brother that winter; and Antiochus, returning the next spring in the year of Nabonassar 580 to besiege both brothers in Alexandria, was met on the way by the Roman ambassadors, Popilius Læna, C. Decimius, and C. Hostilius. He offered them his hand to kiss, but Popilius handed him the tablets on which the Senate's message was written and told him to read those first. When he had read them, Antiochus replied that he would talk over with his friends what was fit to do; but Popilius drew a circle around him and told him to answer before he stepped out of it. Amazed at this blunt and unusual show of authority, Antiochus answered that he would do what the Romans demanded; and then Popilius gave the King his hand to kiss, and he withdrew from Egypt. That same year, in the year of Nabonassar 580, his captains, on his order, plundered and slaughtered the Jews, profaned the Temple, set up the worship of the heathen gods in all Judea, and began to persecute and make war on those who would not worship them. Daniel describes these actions like this.¹⁰ At the time appointed he shall come again toward the South, but the latter shall not be as the former. For the ships of Chittim shall come, with an embassy from Rome, against him. Therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and be angry at the holy covenant. So he shall do; he shall indeed return, and deal with those who forsake the holy covenant.

In the same year that Antiochus withdrew from Egypt by the Romans' command and set up the worship of the Greeks in Judea, the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, the foundation kingdom of the Empire of the Greeks, and reduced it to a Roman province; and by that they began to bring the reign of Daniel's third Beast to an end. Daniel expresses it like this: And after him Arms, that is the Romans, shall stand up. As [Hebrew: MMLK] means after the King, Dan. xi. 8; so [Hebrew: MMNW] may mean after him. Arms stand everywhere in this Prophecy of Daniel for the military power of a kingdom; and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. Until now Daniel described the actions of the Kings of the North and South; but when the Romans conquered Macedon, he stopped describing the actions of the Greeks and began to describe the actions of the Romans in Greece. They conquered Macedon, Illyricum and Epirus in the year of Nabonassar 580. 35 years later, by the last will and testament of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all Asia west of Mount Taurus; 69 years later they conquered the kingdom of Syria and reduced it to a province, and 34 years later they did the same to Egypt. By all these steps the Roman Arms stood up over the Greeks; and 95 years after that, by making war on the Jews, they polluted the sanctuary of strength, took away the daily sacrifice, and then set up the abomination of desolation. For this abomination was set up after the days of Christ, Math. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor Adrian, A.C. 132, they set up this abomination by building a Temple to Jupiter Capitolinus where the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stood. Thereupon the Jews, under the leadership of Barchochab, rose in arms against the Romans; and in the war 50 cities were demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men killed by the sword; and at the end of the war, A.C. 136, they were banished from Judea on pain of death, and from then on the land lay desolate of its old inhabitants.

At the beginning of the Jewish war in Nero's reign, the Apostles fled out of Judea with their flocks; some beyond Jordan to Pella and other places, some into Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and elsewhere. Peter and John came into Asia, and Peter went from there by way of Corinth to Rome; but John, staying in Asia, was banished by the Romans to Patmos as the leader of a party of the Jews, whose nation was at war with the Romans. Through this scattering of the Christian Jews, the Christian religion, which had already spread westward as far as Rome, spread fast through the whole Roman Empire, and suffered many persecutions under it until the days of Constantine the great and his sons. Daniel describes all of it like this.¹¹ And those who do wickedly against the covenant shall he who sets up the abomination cause to pretend, and to worship the heathen gods; but the people among them who do know their God shall be strong and act. And those who understand among the people shall teach many; yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, and by captivity, and by plunder for many days. Now when they fall they shall be helped with a little help, namely in the reign of Constantine the great; and at that time, because of their prosperity, many shall come over to them from among the heathen and join them in pretense. But some of those of understanding shall still fall, to test God's people through them and to purge them of the pretenders, and to make them white until the time of the end; because it is still for an appointed time.

Until now the Roman Empire had remained whole; and under this rule the little horn of the He-Goat stayed mighty, but not by his own power. But now, with the building of Constantinople and the granting of it a Senate and other privileges like Rome's, and with the division of the Roman Empire into the two Empires of the Greeks and Latins, headed by those two cities, a new scene of things begins. In it¹² a King, the Empire of the Greeks, does as he will; and, by setting his own laws above the laws of God, he raises and magnifies himself above every God, and speaks marvelous things against the God of Gods, and shall prosper until the indignation is accomplished. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the lawful desire of women in marriage, nor any God, but shall magnify himself above all. And in his seat he shall honor Mahuzzims, that is, strong guardians, the souls of the dead; even with a God whom his fathers did not know shall he honor them, in their Temples, with gold and silver, and with precious stones and valuable things. All of this relates to the overspreading of the Greek Empire with Monks and Nuns, who placed holiness in abstinence from marriage; and to the invocation of saints and the veneration of their relics, and similar superstitions, which these men introduced in the fourth and fifth centuries.¹³ And at the time of the end the King of the South, or the Empire of the Saracens, shall push at him; and the King of the North, or the Empire of the Turks, shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter the countries of the Greeks, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall also enter the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown; but these shall escape out of his hand: even Edom and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon, that is, those to whom his Caravans pay tribute. He shall also stretch out his hand over the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape; but he shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; and the Libyans and Ethiopians shall be at his steps. All these nations make up the Empire of the Turks, and therefore this Empire is what is meant here by the King of the North. They also make up the body of the He-Goat; and so the Goat still reigns in his last horn, but not by his own power.

Notes to Chap. XII.

1 Chap. xi. 2, 3, 4.

2 Chap. xi. 5.

3 Chap. xi. 6, 7, 8.

4 Chap. xi. 10, etc.

5 Chap. xi. 13–19.

6 Chap. xi. 20.

7 Chap. xi. 21, etc.

8 2 Maccab. iii. 5, 8. & iv. 4.

9 Chap. xi. 25, etc.

10 Chap. xi. 29, 30.

11 Chap. xi. 32, etc.

12 Chap. xi. 36, etc.

13 Chap. xi. 40, etc.