Daniel 11:37

Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,.... Of the apostles of Christ, from whom he pretends to descend, and whose successor he would be thought to be: now their God was the Lord Jesus

Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women - (cf.

Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers; he shall so far degenerate from the rule of Christ, and from primitive Christianity, that he shall be the head of that apostacy, : mark those places, the first whereof is so fully opened by Mr. Joseph Mede in his Doctrine of Demons. The other by Bishop Jewel in his comment on that place. Nor the desire of women, i.e. the desire of wiving, i.e. forbidding to marry, forbidding priests marriage.

Daniel 11:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.Ver. 37. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers.] He shall disannul his own ancient religion, caring neither for the old mumpsimus, nor the new sumpsimus, as they say, but showing himself to be a rank atheist. See 1Ma 1:43. Nor the desire of women,] scil., In an honest lawful way of matrimony; but be addicted to vagrant lust, yea, and to the sin against nature with women, as some sense it, a Deo prohibito et perdito, in which case the Turkish women, when so abused by their husbands (those filthy beasts), may sue a divorce; which they do by taking off their shoes before the judge, and holding them the soles upward, but speaking nothing, for the unnameableness of the fact. Nor regard any god.] See my Commonplace of Atheism. One who obstinately adheres to old ways, in spite of the clearest evidence that they are wrong; an ignorant and bigoted opponent of reform. ŒD A correct expression taking the place of an incorrect but popular one (mumpsimus). ŒD Sir Henry Blount’ s Voyage into the Levant.

(37) Neither shall they.—A further description is now given of the godlessness of this king, but the people of Israel are no longer mentioned in their relation to him. The northern king appears twice again in Palestine (Daniel 11:41; Daniel 11:45), and apparently dies there. He discards his hereditary religion, he has no regard to that natural affection which women look upon as most desirable, but exalts himself over all. Desire of women.—The language used by Isaiah (Isaiah 44:9), “delectable things,” has led some commentators to think that an idol is here intended. It has been stated that the allusion is to the Asiatic goddess of nature, Mylitta, who, again, has been identified with the “queen of heaven” (Jeremiah 7:18, where see Notes). The context, however, leads us rather to think of human affection, or some other thing highly prized by women, for the words “neither shall he regard any god” would be unmeaning if a god were designated by “the desire of women.” It should be remembered that according to Polybius xxvi. 10, sec. 11, Antiochus exceeded all kings in the sacrifices which he offered at the gates, and in the honours which he paid to the gods. In his estate—i.e., in the place of the God whom he has rejected, he will worship the “god of forces.” There is no reason for taking this to be a proper name, as is done by the Syriac translator and Theodotion. It can only mean “fortresses” (see margin), so that the whole religion of this king is the taking of fortresses. To him war is everything, and to war everything else must give way. To war, as if it were a god, he does honour with all his wealth.

Verse 37. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers] That God who sent the evangelists and apostles to preach the pure doctrine. These true fathers of the Christian Church, and their God, this Church has not regarded, but put councils, and traditions, and apocryphal writings in their place. Nor the desire of women] Both the Greek and Latin Church, in their antichristian enactments, have discouraged, and in several cases proscribed, marriage, under the pretense of greater chastity, to the discredit of God's ordinance, and Christianity itself. Nor regard any god] For the mandates and decrees of that Church have been often in defiance of God and his word, for it has magnified itself above all power and authority in heaven and on earth. It professes to hold the keys, and to open and shut heaven at pleasure, both to states and individuals.

37. And the gods of his fathers he will not regard] The honours paid by him to foreign deities implied a depreciation of the gods of his own country. He was particularly devoted to the cult of Jupiter Capitolinus, or Zeus Olympios. Even before he became king, while halting at Athens on his way home from Rome, he contributed largely to the restoration of the Olympieion in that city; afterwards, he built in Daphne, the suburb of Antioch, a temple to Zeus Olympios, with a colossal statue of the god, modelled on the famous one of Pheidias at Olympia, and began, though he did not live to complete it, a yet more magnificent temple to him in Antioch itself (Livy xli. 20). His coins also exhibit constantly (on the obverse) the head of either Zeus Olympios or Apollo; and, as was just remarked, in those belonging to the latter part of his reign the king himself bears the title Νικηφόρος,—an epithet belonging properly to Zeus. and neither the desire of women, nor any god, will he regard] The ‘desire of women’ must, from the context, be the designation of some divinity—most probably (Ewald, Bevan) Tammuz, a celebrated Syrian and Ph�nician deity, known to the Greeks as Adonis, whose rites were popular among women. Adonis in the legend was a beautiful youth, the dearly loved spouse of Aphroditθ, snatched from her by a cruel fate, and bitterly bewailed by her. The festival of Adonis consisted largely in an imitation of the mourning of Aphroditθ, and hence was specially observed by women; cf. Ezekiel 8:14 (where the prophet sees in vision, in the precincts of the Temple, ‘the women weeping for Tammuz’); Jerome on Ez. l. c. ‘plangitur a mulieribus quasi mortuus, et postea reviviscens canitur atque laudatur[388]’; Aristoph. Lysistr. 389 ff.; and Theocritus’ Idyll (xv.) entitled Ἀδωνιάζουσαι, or ‘Women keeping festival to Adonis.’ According to Hippolytus, Refut. Hζr. Daniel 11:9, the ‘Assyrians’ (? Syrians) called him the ‘thrice-desired (τριπόθητος) Adonis’: cf. Bion, in his ἘπιτάφιοςἈδώνιδος, ll. 24, 58. [388] Cf. Milton, P. L. 1. 456 ff.:— Tammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer’s day; While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea—supposed with blood Of Tammuz yearly wounded. The love-tale Infected Zion’s daughters with like heat.nor any god] While there were some gods whom Antiochus honoured by erecting to them costly temples, he was ready enough, if in need of funds, to rob other temples of their treasures. Polybius (xxxi. 4. 10) expressly says that he plundered very many temples (ἱεροσυλήκειδὲκαὶτὰπλεῖστατῶνἱερῶν) in order to obtain money for his extravagances. He made an unsuccessful attempt to pillage a wealthy temple in Persia shortly before his death (ib. xxxi. 11; 1Ma 6:1-4 : see below).

Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers - The God that his fathers or ancestors had worshipped: That is, he would not be bound or restrained by the religion of his own land, or by any of the usual laws of religion.

37. God — Or, gods. Antiochus did not reverence the deities of Syria which had been respected by his royal forefathers, but cared only for the “god of fortresses.” (See Daniel 11:38.) The difference