Daniel 11:5

And the king of the south shall be strong,.... That is, the king of Egypt, which lay south to Syria, as Syria lay north to Egypt; and therefore the king of the one is called the king of the south,

And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion shall be a great dominion. And the king of the south shall be strong.

This king was Ptolemy the son of Lagus, the first king of Egypt after Alexander, who is brought in because he took Jerusalem by treachery, for the angel minds only those persons and things which related to the Jews, passing over many things that pertained not to them. His dominion shall be a great dominion; his riches by land and sea, and his territory besides Egypt, that Theocritus takes notice of it in Idyllio, what this first Ptolemy, the father of Ptolemy Philadelphus, added, viz. Cyprus, Phoenicia, with many other countries, to Egypt, and left all to his son, with an incredible treasure and an invincible army. One of his princes, i.e. either one of these Ptolemies, or Antiochus, or Nicanor, or Seleucus Nicanor, so called for his great victories, who overcame Demetrius, and added Asia to his empire; he overcame the king of Thrace, and a king of India, and built many cities; and Judea, lying in the midst of them, was much afflicted by him, and his antagonists and allies.

Daniel 11:5 And the king of the south shall be strong, and [one] of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion [shall be] a great dominion.Ver. 5. And the king of the south shall be strong.] Ptolemy, king of Egypt, together with his whole family, line, and race, the Lagidae, shall be eminently strong; and a great enemy he was to the poor Jews, as Josephus explains. And one of his princes,] i.e., Of Alexander’ s princes, meaning Seleucus Nisanor, king of Syria, together with his house and line, called the Seleucidae. And he shall be strong above him,] i.e., Stronger than Ptolemy, and that the poor Church shall feel; for Judea lay between these two potent princes, and was therefore beaten on both sides. Perinde ac isthmus inter duo maria interiacens, or as bread grain ground between two millstones. This was here foretold, and much more, three hundred years before it happened, that we may know that there is an omnipotent and omniscient majesty, who decreeth and doeth whatsoever himself pleaseth. His dominion shall be a great dominion,] viz., As long as it will hold. Besides Syria and Babylon, Seleucus had more of Asia than ever any had but only Alexander. So our Henry VI, till deposed, had been the most potent monarch for dominions that ever England had; yet afterwards he was not the master of a mole hill, nor owner of his own liberty, as hath been said before. Antiq., lib. xii. cap. 1.

(5) The king.—This king of the south (see Daniel 11:8) is suddenly introduced to our notice. The vagueness of the language prevents us from asserting that the reference is to Ptolemy Soter, who assumed the title of king about B.C. 304. Equally obscure is the phrase “one of his princes.” Both the Greek versions interpret the passage to mean “that one of the princes of the king of the south shall be stronger than his former master.” It is hard to see how Seleucus Nicator can be called a “prince” of Ptolemy Soter. Any attempt at making the pronoun “his” refer to the mighty king mentioned in the last verse is opposed to the context, and to introduce any fresh sentence such as “shall arise” is an unwarrantable assumption. The obscurity of the Hebrew text is well reproduced in the English Version. It should be stated that Ptolemy took Jerusalem B.C. 320, and that these times must have been very critical to the Jews.

Verse 5. The king of the south] This was Ptolemy Lagus, one of his generals, who had the government of Egypt, Libra, &c., which are on the south of Judea. He was strong, for he had added Cyprus, Phoenicia, Caria, &c., to his kingdom of Egypt. And one of his princes - shall be strong above him] This was Seleucus Nicator, who possessed Syria, Babylon, Media, and the neighbouring countries. This was the king of the north, for his dominions lay north of Judea.

5. Ptolemy I. (Lagi), 305–285, and Seleucus I. (Nicator), 312–280. the king of the south] The ‘south’ (Heb. Negeb), when applied to a particular region, means commonly in the O.T., the southern part of Judah (Genesis 12:9, R.V. marg.); but in this chapter (as in Daniel 8:9) it denotes regularly Egypt, as opposed to Antioch (or Syria), which is signified by the ‘north.’ Ptolemy, son of Lagus, a Macedonian, one of Alexander’s most trusted and capable generals, who distinguished himself especially in his Indian campaigns, succeeded, in the partition of Alexander’s empire which was arranged immediately after his death, in securing for himself Egypt, which he ruled as satrap from b.c. 322 to 305, when he assumed the title of king. He died b.c. 285. and one of his princes] or captains (2 Kings 9:5, &c.). Seleucus, an officer of Alexander’s ‘companions’ (ἑ ?ôáῖ ?ñïé), or distinguished corps of heavy cavalry, received at the convention of Triparadisus, in 321, the wealthy satrapy of Babylonia. Being in 316 taken to account for his administration by Antigonus (who had received in 323 Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphylia, but increasing in power had presumed to control the provinces as he thought fit), he took refuge with Ptolemy in Egypt. Ptolemy appointed him his general; and he helped him to gain the battle of Gaza in 312. After this he induced Ptolemy to send him with a small force to recover Babylon. He was successful, and regained his satrapy; and the era of the Seleucidae (b.c. 312), by which in later times the Jews reckoned (1Ma 1:10), was fixed by the event. and he (the latter, Seleucus) shall be strong above him[358] (the former, Ptolemy), and have dominion: his dominion shall be a great dominion] After the final defeat of Antigonus at Ipsus in 301 (which indeed was principally due to the large forces contributed by Seleucus), the empire ruled by Seleucus, reaching from Phrygia, Cappadocia, and Syria, on the W., almost to the Indus on the E., was much more extensive than that of Ptolemy, and commanded much larger resources. Seleucus is called by Arrian (Exped. Alex. vii. 22) the “greatest,” as well as the most “princely-minded,” of Alexander’s successors; and he deserves, more than any of his brother generals, to be regarded as the heir of Alexander. Antioch was founded by him as his capital, b.c. 300. [358] The reading ‘but one of his captains shall be strong above him’ (LXX., Theod., Meinh., Kamph., Prince) would improve this verse, without altering the sense.In the distribution of provinces, an ambiguous position was taken by Cœle-Syria, with Phœnicia, and Palestine; and this intermediate region remained a bone of contention between the kings of Syria and Egypt, and in the century and a half which followed the death of Alexander, repeatedly changed hands. At Triparadisus, in 321, Syria was assigned to Laomedon; but Ptolemy got possession of it in 320, only to lose it again in 315 to Antigonus, to recover at least the S.

And the king of the south - The angel here leaves the general history of the empire, and confines himself, in his predictions, to two parts of it - the kingdom of the south, and the kingdom of the

5. We here come to the climax for which chap. x and these introductory verses of chap. 11 have furnished the preface.