August 7 – Two Strong Rulers

Daniel 11:5-20

Next the king of the south will grow strong, but one of his princes will grow stronger than he and rule an even larger territory. After a few years, the two of them will make a pact, and the daughter of the king of the south will marry the king of the north to cement the peace agreement. But her influence will weaken and her child will not survive. She and her servants, her child, and her husband will be betrayed. Sometime later a member of the royal family will show up and take over. He will take command of his army and invade the defenses of the king of the north and win a resounding victory. He will load up their tin gods and all the gold and silver trinkets that go with them and cart them off to Egypt. Eventually, the king of the north will recover and invade the country of the king of the south, but unsuccessfully. He will have to retreat. But then his sons will raise a huge army and rush down like a flood, a torrential attack, on the defenses of the south. Furious, the king of the south will come out and engage the king of the north and his huge army in battle and rout them. As the corpses are cleared from the field, the king, inflamed with bloodlust, will go on a bloodletting rampage, massacring tens of thousands. But his victory won't last long, for the king of the north will put together another army bigger than the last one, and after a few years he'll come back to do battle again with his immense army and endless supplies.

In those times, many others will get into the act and go off to fight against the king of the south. Hotheads from your own people, drunk on dreams, will join them. But they'll sputter out.

When the king of the north arrives, he'll build siege works and capture the outpost fortress city. The armies of the south will fall to pieces before him. Not even their famous commando shock troops will slow down the attacker. He'll march in big as you please, as if he owned the place. He'll take over that beautiful country, Palestine, and make himself at home in it. Then he'll proceed to get everything, lock, stock, and barrel, in his control. He'll cook up a peace treaty and even give his daughter in marriage to the king of the south in a plot to destroy him totally. But the plot will fizzle. It won't succeed. Later, he'll turn his attention to the coastal regions and capture a bunch of prisoners, but a general will step in and put a stop to his bullying ways. The bully will be bullied! He'll go back home and tend to his own military affairs. But by then he'll be washed up and soon will be heard of no more. He will be replaced shortly by a real loser, his rule, reputation, and authority already in shreds. And he won't last long. He'll slip out of history quietly, without even a fight.

The Message Translation is really fun to read---lock, stock and barrel, with a bully to boot! Such imagination and description. Hope you are getting into this Book of Daniel! Connecting Daniel’s vision with history that occurred after Daniel’s time shows us that Alexander the Great’s generals, Ptolemy I Soter was the king of the South, who ruled Egypt; and Selecus I Nicator was the king of the North, who ruled Syria. Since these countries were just north and south of Palestine they took their warring right through the Israeli territory, as described in Daniel’s vision. The second young woman, or princess since she was a king’s daughter, noted in this passage to marry and form an alliance with a king is Cleopatra I. She became the Queen of Egypt. (She is not the same woman known as Cleopatra VII in history who is associated with Mark Anthony.) As Daniel’s vision tells us and history confirms, this North-South alliance doesn’t work out for the power hungry king and once again the king, in this case Antipchus III the Great (223-187 BC), is defeated (by the Romans) and dies soon after that. The Beautiful Land of Israel continues to be a battleground and in turmoil with these foreign kings.

The kings of the South included Ptolemy I Soter and his descendants:

   Ptolemy II Philadelphus
   Ptolemy III Euergetes
   Ptolemy IV Philopater
   Ptolemy V Epiphanes (married to Cleopatra I)
   Ptolemy Vi Philometor (son of Ptolemy V and Cleopatra I)

The kings of the North included Selecus I Nicator and his descendants:

   Antiochus I Soter
   Antiochus II Theos
   Seleucus II Callinicus
   Seleucus III Ceraunus
   Antiochus III the Great (son of Callinicus and father of Cleopatra I)
   Seleucus IV Philopator  (son of Antiochus III the Great)
   Antiochus IV Epiphanes (son of Antiochus III the Great)
Wars and struggle for power consume so much of history. Things haven’t changed much in more than 2000 years—power struggles still continue around the world with much of the focus on the Middle East. Antiochus the Great had a proposal for peace. That word “peace” is associated with the word “upright” in Strong’s and is found in 137 verses (as #3477). Here are a couple of verses that we can claim as promises:

- O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous; for the righteous God tries the hearts and minds. My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. Psalm 7:9-10 NASB

- For the Lord will not abandon His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance. For judgment will again be righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will stand up for me against evildoers? Who will take his stand for me against those who do wickedness? If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence. Psalm 94:14-17 NASB

The evil was destroyed in Antiochus the Great as he died—but it not only lived on, but became more devastating for Israel with Antiochus IV Epiphanes, as we will see in the next verses.

Lord, help us to be “upright” in heart in all we do and say. Thank you. We claim the promise that You will not abandon us—that You will never leave us or forsake us. Praise You, Jesus.

 © 2012 by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved.

Scripture from The Message, except where noted.