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Daniel; The kings of the north and south

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posted on Apr, 22 2013 @ 05:04 PM
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The reign of Alexander is one of the key departure points in the book of Daniel.
In at least three different places, the visions are depicting how he overcame the Persian empire with astonishing speed, and how his realm was divided after his death into approximately four kingdoms.
In ch7, Alexander is a winged leopard with four heads.
In ch8, he’s a goat, moving so fast that his feet don’t touch the ground, and with a single horn later replaced by four.
In ch11 v3, he is the “mighty king” of the Greeks who responds to the provocation of the Persians, and whose dominion is “divided towards the four winds of heaven”, not passing to his own family.

Most of the rest of ch11 is describing the sequel to that history, making this thread the sequel to my thread on “Daniel’s Greece and Persia”.
As in the earlier case, the question is whether these are also clues to events which might take place in later times.
As in the earlier case, I’m a little agnostic on the point, but would argue that anyone wanting to use the visions in that way would need to pay close attention to the guidance offered by the parallels in ancient history.

“The king of the north” and “the king of the south” are both defined as relative to Judah.
Therefore “the south” is Egypt, while “the north” is the power based in Syria.

v5; The first “king of the south” is Ptolemy, the general who was left by Alexander in charge of Egypt. The other figure in this verse is Seleucus, one of the “princes”, or subordinates, of Alexander. The realm which fell to his control through the wars of succession was much greater than Egypt, stretching between the Mediterranean and the Himalayas. It did not, though, include Palestine, which remained in Ptolemy’s power. The story that follows is really about what happens to the control of Palestine.

v6; The “alliance” described in this verse took place a generation later. The “daughter of the king of the south” is Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II, son of the first of that name. In 253 B.C. , as part of a grand diplomatic scheme, he persuaded Antiochus II, grandson of Seleucus, to put aside his wife Laodice and marry Berenice instead.

However, “he and his offspring shall not endure”. Both kings died, a few years later. Laodice was a “masterful woman” (Cambridge Ancient History), and she managed to launch a civil war to support her son’s claim to the throne. The war went against Berenice- “she shall not retain the strength of her arm”. Modern history knows that “somehow Berenice and her son were murdered”. The writer of Daniel seems to know a more circumstantial story; she, and her attendants, and her child were all “given up”, which implies some kind of betrayal

v7; Meanwhile, her brother Ptolemy III, the “branch from her roots”, was invading from the south, originally coming to her support. He entered the “fortress” of Antioch, and his armies got as far as the Tigris before receding. Presumably this is when he “carried back to Egypt” the various images and precious vessels that he found. The “king of the north” whose raid is mentioned in v9 would have to be Seleucus II, the son of Laodice, who was successful in gaining the throne.

v10; The next great war came in the reign of Antiochus III, known as “the Great”, the son of Seleucus II. In 218 B.C., he got his armies far enough south to occupy Samaria. In the following year, he brought a great army down to the frontier town of Raphia, just south of Gaza- “His sons shall assemble a multitude of great forces …and carry the war as far as his ( the king of Egypt’s) fortress.”

v11; In response to this, the current “king of the south”, Ptolemy IV, ”moved with anger”, brought out his own army. The battle of Raphia was a very decisive victory for the Egyptians. Knowing that history helps us to disentangle the confusing ambiguity of “he” and “his” that we find in Daniel.
“He (Antiochus) will raise a great multitude, but it will be given into his (Ptolemy’s) hand. And when the multitude (of Antiochus) is taken , then his (Ptolemy’s) heart will be exalted and he shall cast down tens of thousands.”

v13; However, “he shall not prevail”, because Antiochus III came back to the south “after many years”. The opportunity came in 203 B.C., when Ptolemy IV died, leaving a child on the throne as Ptolemy V. There were revolts and anarchy within Egypt (“many shall rise against the king of the south”), apparently including the “men of violence” amongst the Jews, hoping to “fulfil the vision” of an independent kingdom.

Therefore war was resumed. Antiochus III raised “a great army and abundant supplies”. At the battle of Panion, he overcame the armies of Egypt, where there was “no strength to stand”. He besieged and captured the “well-fortified city” of Sidon. The most important result, from Daniel’s viewpoint, is that he took control of “the glorious land”; Judah, that is, the dwelling-place of God’s glory.

v17; In making peace with Egypt, he persuaded Ptolemy V to marry his daughter Cleopatra, the first of many Egyptian ladies of that name. The intention of this marriage is described as “the destruction of the kingdom”. Antiochus must have hoped it would give him the control of Egypt, and, but that particular expectation was frustrated.

v18; Then he turned his attentions to the “coastlands” of Asia Minor and Greece, The “commander” who put an end to his insolence was the Roman Consul Scipio, the victor at the battle of Magnesia.

vv!9-20; “He shall stumble and not be found”. Antiochus was killed, and succeeded by Seleucus IV, the “exactor of tribute”, who was trying to re-fill the royal treasury. Seleucus himself died “within a few days” (that is, twelve years later), “neither in anger nor in battle”, but assassinated by his own chief minister.

v21. The outcome was that a younger brother of Seleucus returned to the kingdom and took control, thanks to an army supplied by the king of Pergamum. This is the man described by Daniel as “a contemptible person to whom royal authority has not been given; he shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom by flatteries”.

That is to say, the man known to history as king Antiochus Epiphanes, the main subject of the rest of the chapter.

What’s the intention of this history?

Anyone who wants to take these events as a more detailed prophecy, and match them against later events, should be aware of a couple of important principles.

One is that the kings of the north and south are defined relative to Judah, which stands as a frontier province between them, and their struggle is about the control of Judah. That’s the whole point of the story. This is not easy to match with current politics, where Israel is an independent state.

The other principle is that both states are fragments of the realm of Alexander, which suddenly replaced a previous empire. Therefore it would be important to identify some equivalent of the “Alexander event”. If that event is still in the future, then the history of the “fragments” would still be in the future as well, and it would be pointless to try to follow it in the present.

However, the first purpose of this history is evidently that it points towards the king at the end of the chapter and confirms his identity as the infamous Antiochus Epiphanes.

If the end of the chapter points beyond that king to a king of later times, then this history will have the further purpose of identifying the later king as one like Antiochus Epiphanes, cut from the same cloth.
Maybe that’s enough.



posted on Apr, 22 2013 @ 05:55 PM
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reply to post by DISRAELI
 

This is effectively a sequel to my thread on
Daniel's Greece and Persia



posted on Apr, 22 2013 @ 07:09 PM
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I made a number of parenthetical comments which the character limit forced me to remove from the OP. So they are being added as separate posts, like footnotes.

My source for the secular history is the Cambridge Ancient History; mainly Vol. VII ch. XXII and Vol. VIII ch. VI.



posted on Apr, 22 2013 @ 07:36 PM
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cool....now I go to read Cambridge ancient history.....thanks for the new reading site!!



posted on Apr, 22 2013 @ 07:39 PM
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reply to post by GBP/JPY
 

I've got the CAH in physical book form, but if you want on-line there are some volumes at the site Archive.org, which has many old books uploaded.

PS I've just checked on that site, and find that several volumes are there, but all mislabelled as "Volume XI".
Volume VIII, which is one of the ones I cited, is there as a "Volume XI" which has had 1916 downloads.


edit on 22-4-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 03:37 AM
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“Alexander’s realm divided into approximately four kingdoms”.
The last time I said this, somebody picked up on the word “approximately”.
I had to put it like that, because they kept fighting each other, and so the number kept changing.
At one point there were five of Alexander’s generals in the ring; Ptolemy, Seleucus, Antigonus, Lysimachus, and Cassander. Wars eliminated two of those kingdoms, but there were also kingdoms like Cappadocia formed from old Persian provinces which had never been properly conquered by Alexander in the first place.



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 04:46 AM
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reply to post by DISRAELI
 


Hello Disraeli, thank you for a very good review of the book of Daniel and of the ancient history at that point in time.

S & F

However, we are all aware of the book of Daniel and of ancient history. Give us (ATS) readers, Your Opinions, Your Thoughts and Your Conclusions on all of your studies. The Low Down, The Skinny, The Nitty Grity.

What are your thoughts and conclusions on this subject for us in our day and age ???
A brief synopsis of your conclusions.

Thank You,

chris








edit on 4/23/2013 by chrisb9 because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 04:53 AM
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reply to post by chrisb9
 

How long do you want this reply to be?
My own thoughts on this half-chapter are in the last couple of paragraphs; it is there to identify Antiochus Eplphanes as the king at the end of the chapter, probably also to identify the end-time ruler as one like Antiochus Epiphanes. And if anyone tries to use the events as a guide to end-time history, they should look at the whole thing rather than isolated details.

For my thoughts on Daniel as a whole, I refer you to a whole series of threads which can be found in my profile.
The six most recent threads go systematically through the first six chapters.
You'll appreciate that I can't fit them all into one post, so I suggest reading them in situ.

Then you can go to my "Revelation; Project complete" thread for my views on the whole of Revelation.



edit on 23-4-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 05:11 AM
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posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 05:13 AM
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reply to post by DISRAELI
 


What are your thoughts and conclusions on this subject for us in our day and age ???
A brief synopsis of your conclusions of your studies on the book of Daniel and how it will play out for us alive on the earth today.

2 or 3 paragraphs should be enough space, but by all means write 7 or 8 or 9 paragraphs if you think that much space is needed. ie ( A brief synopsis ) of your conclusions. The wrap, the skinny, the low down, the nitty gritty.



Thank You,

chris



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 05:18 AM
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reply to post by chrisb9
 

I can't give you my conclusions on the whole of Daniel, because I haven't yet laid out an argument for the whole of Daniel.
The due order is, lay out the argument first, THEN present conclusions (so that people can see where the conclusions are coming from).
My conclusions about each segment I've looked at can be found at the end of the relevant thread.
if you go to them and have a look, that should give you a fuller picture.





edit on 23-4-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 05:36 AM
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reply to post by chrisb9
 

But as a starting point, these are the opening paragraphs from "Let them eat bean-cake";


Originally posted by DISRAELI
There’s an old conundrum which asks the question; “What happens when an Irresistible Force meets an Immovable Object?”
The briefest way of putting the answer is to say that “One of them is exposed as a fraud” (because the two things can’t exist at the same time).
The question which forms the main issue of the book of Daniel can be framed (and dealt with) in much the same way;
“What happens when the will of God meets the will of a ruler who thinks he’s God?”

The classic model of this kind of encounter, in Jewish history, was the reign of the king who called himself THEOS EPIPHANES- “the visible god”.
So the last chapters of Daniel are clearly pointing towards the infamous Antiochus Epiphanes, and looking beyond him to another ruler cut from the same cloth.




edit on 23-4-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 04:25 PM
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reply to post by chrisb9
 

Also these threads relating to the end of Daniel;

Daniel; Many shall run to and fro
Daniel; What is an abomination of desolation?
Daniel; He makes covenant with many
Daniel's week and Revelation's hour





edit on 23-4-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 04:45 PM
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Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by chrisb9
 

Also these threads relating to the end of Daniel;

Daniel; Many shall run to and fro
Daniel; What is an abomination of desolation?
Daniel; He makes covenant with many
Daniel's week and Revelation's hour





edit on 23-4-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



Wow, I didn't know that you had done this much research on this subject and already have so many links already on ATS. Excellent !

It will take me some time to browse through and read through your work. It will no doubt give me some good updated information on this subject of the book of Daniel and his prophecies. Like many others, I have read the book of Daniel and have heard many excellent sermons preached on the book of Daniel.

Thanks for posting all of those links, that makes it much easier than trying the ATS search. Needless to say, we will all find out Exactly what and how the prophecies that where given to Daniel will unfold eventually. Like everyone else who has read the book of Daniel, I always thought that it was very strange how those prophecies where " sealed up " until the times of the end.

Chris



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 04:57 PM
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reply to post by DISRAELI
 


yes... - such is the explanation of the NIV.
.. - i propose you another one, my friend ;

[of ch 11]
vs 14 = the bar kochba revolution, 150 bc
vs 15 is the roman siege of jerusalem, 70AD
vs 18 'coastlands' is NW europe - from 100AD the romans even went to the UK
vs 21 = the first rule of the Pope [ he got that by producing the false document of Constantine, 700AD]
vs25 the crusades
vs 31 the jesuits [ which was the popes army, indeed]
vs 32 Reformation
..etc

the entire context of ch 11 is about ' the west ' ,
indifferent whát specific ruler the west rules at that moment

and, like this, it works towards vs 36 vv, the king who exalts himself

bless



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 05:16 PM
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Originally posted by Lone12

Why bring the NIV into it?
I do have a copy of the NIV, but it offers no interpretations.
I was working with the RSV and the Cambridge Ancient History volumes, as explained earlier.

Your theory;
Has a large gap between the immediate sequels to Alexander and "Bar Kochba"
Places the Bar Kochba revolution too early- I think you mean the Maccabees.
Doesn't explain the "commander who puts an end to his insolence" in v18
Doesn't explain how the wrath against the covenant follows on from the "ships of Kittim" affair.
etc
The parallel needs to be worked through more closely..
.. -


edit on 23-4-2013 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 06:12 PM
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[Footnote]
“Kings of the north” While Egypt came from the south, all the other royal invaders, from Assyria onwards, brought their armies down to Judah from the north.
That makes them “kings of the north”, when they’re mentioned in the prophets, though we can look on a modern map and see their territory stretching far to the east.



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 07:13 PM
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[footnote]
“One of his princes”. Since this chapter is very ambiguous about the use of “he” and “his”, an alternative possibility is “one of the princes of the king of the south”. That could be a reasonable description, since Seleucus was something of a junior partner in the great coalition of Ptolemy and others against Antigonus. That use of the phrase would also imply treating Ptolemy as in some sense the true heir of Alexander. That, too, is plausible; the attitude of this narrative is always pro-Ptolemy and anti-Seleucid.



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 08:07 PM
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[footnote]
Beatrice;. “He who had got possession of her” would probably be a local general who was serving her and/or using her in the political in-fighting.
She could not carry on a civil war without enlisting the help of some such general, and it would probably be a moot point whether she was his employer or whether he was using her as a figure-head for his own ambitions. Daniel’s phrase implies that the writer takes the second view.
In the text, he is one of the victims of the “giving up”, not the source of the betrayal.



posted on Apr, 23 2013 @ 08:28 PM
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reply to post by DISRAELI
 





If the end of the chapter points beyond that king to a king of later times, then this history will have the further purpose of identifying the later king as one like Antiochus Epiphanes, cut from the same cloth.



 







yes. the leader who defiled the Temple with a Pig Sacrifice is by some...regarded as the prototype of the end times AntiChrist

i understand verses 11:22 - 11:45 are yet be fufilled.... but played out again by a new set of characters....

the USA will likely become the King of the North as it goes for total sprectrum domination of the entire Arab Peninsula with the Zioinst State of Israel fast becoming an 'enemy' of the West...


the WW-COG with herbert w armstrong had a interesting take on that part of Dan also...

but that was some 20+ years or more ago... but is a good source to build and develop from///


i do think that from verse 6:


...And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement...



that END OF YEARS term is significant bevause the whole story outline plays itself out again and the story of chapter 11 is not uniquely about the time of Alexanders death... but tells us of the cyclicality of history in the times of menkind rule on Earth.

edit on 23-4-2013 by St Udio because: (no reason given)



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