Page 329 - Daniel

“he who fathered her” is, of course, to Ptolemy II whose death
precipitated the murders that followed.

PTOLEMY EUERGETES AND SELEUCUS CALLINICUS (11:7–9)

11:7–9 “And from a branch from her roots one shall arise in his place.
He shall come against the army and enter the fortress of the king of
the north, and he shall deal with them and shall prevail. He shall also
carry off to Egypt their gods with their metal images and their
precious vessels of silver and gold, and for some years he shall refrain
from attacking the king of the north. Then the latter shall come into

the realm of the king of the south but shall return to his own land.”

Subsequent to the events of verse 6, a new king of Egypt known as
Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–221 B.C.) prevailed militarily over the king of
the north, Seleucus Callinicus (246–226 B.C.) and, as the prophecy

indicates, he entered “the fortress of the king of the north,” and carried
into Egypt princes as hostages, some of their idols, and their precious
vessels of silver and gold. The expression “from a branch from her
roots,” literally, “the sprouting of her roots,” signifies lineage, the
immediate ancestry of Berenice. The person referred to is her own
brother, Ptolemy III Euergetes, the successor of Ptolemy Philadelphus.

The Hebrew word translated “gods” (11:8) can be rendered “molten
images,” and the transportation of the idols indicates the total

subjugation of the northern kingdom (cf. Isa. 46:1–2; Jer. 48:7; 49:3;
Hos. 10:5). In commemoration of his deed, Ptolemy Euergetes erected
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the monument Marmor Adulitanum, which boasts that he subjugated
Mesopotamia, Persia, Susiana, Media, and all the countries as far as
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Bactria. The actor in verse 9 was the king of the north, just mentioned
in the previous verse, rather than the king of the south. Jerome provides
this description of the conquest by Ptolemy Euergetes:

He came up with a great army and advanced into the province of the

king of the North, that is Seleucus Callinicus, who together with his
mother Laodice was ruling in Syria, and abused them, and not only
did he seize Syria, but also took Cilicia and the remoter regions