Daniel 11:3

3 Then a mighty king will come, who will rule with great power and will do anything he wants.

Daniel 11:3 Meaning and Commentary

Daniel 11:3

And a mighty king shall stand up
Not in Persia, but in Greece; Alexander the great, who rose up a hundred years after the above expedition of Xerxes, and "stood" and flourished, and conquered all he attacked, none being able to resist him; and is rightly called a "mighty king", a very powerful one: this is the notable horn in the he goat, which being exasperated by the ram, the Persians, and their invasion of Greece, pushed at them, and destroyed them, ( Daniel 8:5-7 ) : that shall rule with great dominion; not in Greece only but in the whole world, at least as he thought, and really did over a very great part of it; for, as Jerome says, having conquered the Illyrians, Thracians, Greece, and Thebes, he passed into Asia; and, having put to flight the generals of Darius, he took the city of Sardis, and afterwards India. And do according to his will;
not only in his own army, sacrificing his best friends at his pleasure; but with his enemies, conquering whom he would, none being able to withstand him; all things succeeded to his wish; whatever he attempted he performed. His historian F15 says of him,

``that it must be owned he owed much to virtue, but more to fortune, which alone of all mortals he had in his power;''
since, by the benefit of it, he seemed to do with nations whatever he pleased; he was sovereign in all things, and set himself to be worshipped as a deity.
FOOTNOTES:

F15 Curtius, l. 10. c. 5.

Daniel 11:3 In-Context

1 In the first year that Darius the Mede was king, I stood up to support Michael in his fight against the prince of Persia.
2 "Now then, Daniel, I tell you the truth: Three more kings will rule in Persia, and then a fourth king will come. He will be much richer than all the kings of Persia before him and will use his riches to get power. He will stir up everyone against the kingdom of Greece.
3 Then a mighty king will come, who will rule with great power and will do anything he wants.
4 After that king has come, his kingdom will be broken up and divided out toward the four parts of the world. His kingdom will not go to his descendants, and it will not have the power that he had, because his kingdom will be pulled up and given to other people.
5 "The king of the South will become strong, but one of his commanders will become even stronger. He will begin to rule his own kingdom with great power.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.