Page 333 - Daniel

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the Seleucid king captured in 198 B.C.
This victory resulted in the Syrian occupation of all the land of Israel
as far south as Gaza. The allusion to “the forces of the south shall not
stand” is to the unsuccessful attempt by three Egyptian leaders, Eropas,
Menacles, and Damoyenus, to rescue the besieged Scopas from Sidon.

Threatened by Rome, however, Antiochus effected a diplomatic
settlement with Egypt by marrying his daughter Cleopatra to the young
king, Ptolemy V Epiphanes, in 197 B.C. In so doing, he fulfilled the
prophecy of verse 17. The expression “to destroy the kingdom” may
mean “to ruin the land,” that is, Antiochus the Great purposed by this
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betrothal of his young daughter to the seven-year-old Ptolemy to ruin his

former opponent and present ally. As Young states, “In this stratagem,
however, Antiochus fails, because Cleopatra constantly sides with her
husband over against her father.” 28

11:18–19 “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, he shall turn his insolence back upon him. Then he

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

In this series of events, Antiochus the Great began to suffer reverses.
The “commander” refers to the Roman consul Lucius Scipio Asiaticus,
who, as Young expresses it, “brought about the defeat of Antiochus.” 29
The reference to “his insolence” refers to Antiochus’s scornful treatment
of the Roman ambassadors at a meeting in Lysimachia, when he said
contemptuously, “Asia did not concern them, the Romans, and he was
not subject to their orders.” 30

Antiochus’s defeat came about in the following manner. Having
successfully sustained his conquest against Egypt by defeating Scopas,

Antiochus then turned his attention to the threat from the west and
attempted to equal the conquests of Alexander the Great by conquering
Greece. But he was notably unsuccessful, being defeated in 191 B.C. at
Thermopylae north of Athens and again in 189 B.C. at Magnesia on the

Maeander River southeast of Ephesus by soldiers of Rome and
Pergamum under the leadership of the Roman general Scipio. This