As one reads through all of the marvelous words of the book of Daniel....of the beginning of the Babylonian captivity....and the visions and the lion's den and the fiery furnace....and Greece and Persia and the prophesies of what was going to happen in the future....there is always that eleventh chapter that must be dealt with. Although some of the chronology is hazy....time passes and different Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings come and go and do this and do that.
It seems that history books alone can identify much of what is happening....but where is it all going. Is it as easy as at times it seems? It does seem so right up until the arrival on the scene of one of the Seleucids from the 'North'....one called....Antiochus IV Epiphanes....this roughly 175 to 164.
This man is called "vile" by Daniel. From the time that he gained the throne it had been all "intrigue." He goes to war against the Ptolemys of Egypt a couple of times....victorious mostly.....(which can help us if we look at Egypt as the world in general)....and then each time he has to pass through the "glorious land" on his way home ....and deal with the Jews in Jerusalem....and he seems to win some of them over to his Hellenistic ways....flattering and bribing them....and leading them away from their own Jewishness.
I think that we have all heard the story of how Rome at one point had had enough of Antiochus IV fooling around in Egypt.....and sent a representative....(remember this is the power of Rome we are speaking of).....and that representative lays down the law to Antiochus....'go home'....and Antiochus tells him that he wants to think about it....of which the representative then draws a circle in the sand around Antiochus....and tells him to make up his mind before he leaves the circle. It's an awesome display of the power of Rome....and the humiliation of Antiochus IV Epiphanes....who is now already mad as he passes by Jerusalem again....where some of the Jews rebel against him....which leads to.....as we all know of....that which God's Word calls the....Abomination of Desolation!
And that is it with Antiochus IV Epiphanes....for he has served his purpose....and thus in God's perfect design....gives all of us today....a glimpse through Antiochus IV Epiphanes of another that would come.....at the end of time....(this beginning in verse 36)....of which Antiochus IV was but a type!
It is odd in that not much is said about the Antichrist in what is left of Daniel. It's as if God in the book of Daniel....wanted us to see what this Antichrist would be like....more than what he would do....for Scripture elsewhere tells us more of that. So what do we know? Well we know that the man will be...."vile"....that he will sit down at a table with another leader....and they will both tell lies....as he is that type of man....and that he will flatter and bribe....and if you cross him he will....if he can....even if you are an ally....utterly desecrate your religion and humiliate you!
