Daniel 11:5-35

5 "Then the king of the south shall be strong, but one of his princes shall be stronger than he ¹and shall rule, and his authority shall be a great authority.

6 After some years ²they shall make an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement. But she shall not retain the strength of her arm, and he and his arm shall not endure, but she shall be given up, and her attendants, he who fathered her, and he who supported^[a] her in those times.

7 "And from a branch from her roots one shall arise in his place. He shall come against the army and enter the ³fortress of the king of the north, and he shall deal with them and shall prevail.

8 He shall also carry off to Egypt their gods with their metal images and their precious ⁴vessels of silver and gold, and for some years he shall refrain from attacking the king of the north.

9 Then the latter shall come into the realm of the king of the south but shall return to his own land.

10 "His sons shall wage war and assemble a multitude of great forces, which shall keep coming ⁵and overflow and pass through, and again shall carry the war as far as his ⁶fortress.

11 Then the king of the south, ⁷moved with rage, shall come out and fight against the king of the north. ⁸And he shall raise a great multitude, but it shall be given into his hand.

12 And when the multitude is taken away, his heart shall be exalted, and he shall cast down tens of thousands, but he shall not prevail.

13 For the king of the north shall again ⁹raise a multitude, greater than the first. And ¹⁰after some years^[b] he shall come on with a great army and abundant supplies.

14 "In those times many shall rise against the king of the south, and the violent among your own people shall lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but ¹¹they shall fail.

15 Then the king of the north shall come and ¹²throw up siegeworks and take a well-fortified city. And the forces of the south shall not stand, or even his best troops, for there shall be no strength to stand.

16 But he who comes against him shall ¹³do as he wills, and ¹⁴none shall stand before him. And he shall stand in ¹⁵the glorious land, with destruction in his hand.

17 He shall ¹⁶set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, and he shall bring terms of an agreement and perform them. He shall give him the daughter of women to destroy the kingdom,^[c] but it shall not stand or be to his advantage.

18 Afterward he shall turn his face to the coastlands and shall capture many of them, but a commander shall put an end to his insolence. Indeed,^[d] he ¹⁷shall turn his insolence back upon him.

19 Then he shall turn his face back toward the ¹⁸fortresses of his own land, but he shall ¹⁹stumble and fall, ²⁰and shall not be found.

20 "Then shall arise in his place one who shall send an ²¹exactor of tribute for the glory of the kingdom. But within a few days he shall be broken, neither in anger nor in battle.

21 In his place shall arise a contemptible person to whom royal majesty has not been given. ²²He shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom ²³by flatteries.

22 Armies shall be ²⁴utterly swept away before him and broken, even the prince of the covenant.

23 And from the time that an alliance is made with him he shall act deceitfully, and he shall become strong with a small people.

24 ²⁵Without warning he shall come into ²⁶the richest parts^[e] of the province, and he shall do what neither his fathers nor his fathers' fathers have done, scattering among them plunder, spoil, and goods. He shall devise plans against strongholds, but only for a time.

25 And he shall stir up his power and his heart against ²⁷the king of the south with a great army. And the king of the south shall wage war with an exceedingly great and mighty army, but he shall not stand, for plots shall be devised against him.

26 Even those who eat his food shall break him. His army shall be ²⁸swept away, and many shall fall down slain.

27 And as for the two kings, their hearts shall be bent on doing evil. They shall speak lies at the same table, but to no avail, for ²⁹the end is yet to be at the time appointed.

28 And he shall return to his land with great wealth, but his heart shall be set against the holy covenant. And he shall work his will and return to his own land.

29 "At the time appointed he shall return and come into the south, but it shall not be this time as it was before.

30 For ships of ³⁰Kittim shall come against him, and he shall be afraid and withdraw, and shall turn back and ³¹be enraged and ³²take action against the holy covenant. He shall turn back and pay attention to those who forsake the holy covenant.

31 Forces from him shall appear and ³³profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And ³⁴they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.

32 He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.

33 ³⁵And the wise among the people shall make many understand, though for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder.

34 When they stumble, they shall receive a little help. And many shall join themselves to them with flattery,

35 and some of the wise shall stumble, so that they may be refined, ³⁶purified, and ³⁷made white, until ³⁸the time of the end, ³⁹for it still awaits the appointed time.

Daniel 11:5-35 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DANIEL 11

In this chapter the angel makes good his promise to Daniel, that he would show him what was written in the Scripture of truth, concerning the monarchies of the earth, and what would befall his people the Jews in the latter days; and after he had observed that he had strengthened and confirmed Darius the Mede, who was the first king of the then present flourishing monarchy, Da 11:1, he foretells the number of the kings of Persia, and particularly describes the fourth, Da 11:2 predicts the rise of the Grecian monarchy under Alexander the great, and the disposition of it after his death, Da 11:3,4 and then proceeds to give an account of the two principal kingdoms of that monarchy, into which it was divided, the Seleucidae and Lagidae; and of their kings, the king of Egypt, and the king of Syria, under the names of the king of the south, and the king of the north, and of their power and agreement, Da 11:5,6 and then of their various wars between themselves and others, and the success of them, Da 11:7-20, and particularly of Antiochus, his character and manner of coming to the kingdom, and of his wars with the king of Egypt, and the issue of them, Da 11:21-29 and of his persecution of the Jews, and the distress he should bring on them, and the use it should be of to the godly among them, Da 11:30-35, and then his antitype, antichrist, is described; the western antichrist, his character and actions, Da 11:36-39 then the eastern, his power, wealth and riches, hail and rain, Da 11:40-45.

Cross References

• 1. [Daniel 7:6]
• 2. [ver. 23]
• 3. [ver. 10, 19, 38, 39]
• 4. [ver. 43]
• 5. ver. 26, 40; Isaiah 8:8
• 6. [See ver. 7 above]
• 7. Daniel 8:7
• 8. ver. 13
• 9. ver. 11
• 10. [Daniel 4:16]
• 11. ver. 19, 33, 34
• 12. See Ezekiel 4:2
• 13. ver. 3, 36
• 14. [Joshua 10:8]
• 15. ver. 41; See Daniel 8:9
• 16. See Jeremiah 42:15
• 17. [Hosea 12:14]
• 18. [ver. 7, 10, 38, 39]
• 19. Jeremiah 46:6
• 20. Job 20:8; Psalms 37:36; Ezekiel 26:21
• 21. [Isaiah 60:17; Zechariah 9:8]
• 22. ver. 24
• 23. [ver. 34]
• 24. [ver. 10; Jeremiah 46:7]
• 25. ver. 21
• 26. [Genesis 27:28, 39]
• 27. [Daniel 8:9]
• 28. ver. 10, 40
• 29. [ver. 35]
• 30. Genesis 10:4; Numbers 24:24
• 31. See ver. 28
• 32. See ver. 28
• 33. [Daniel 12:11]
• 34. Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14; [Daniel 8:13; Daniel 12:11]
• 35. Daniel 12:3, 10
• 36. [Malachi 3:3, 4]
• 37. [Revelation 7:14]
• 38. [ver. 27, 40]
• 39. [ver. 27, 40]

Footnotes

• [a]. Or obtained
• [b]. Hebrew at the end of the times
• [c]. Hebrew her, or it
• [d]. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
• [e]. Or among the richest men