[CHAPTER V]
AN ENIGMATIC PROPHECY PASSING INTO DETAILS OF THE REIGN OF ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES
"Pone hæc dici de Antiocho, quid nocet religioni nostræ?"—Hieron. ed. Vallars, v. 722.
If this chapter were indeed the utterance of a prophet in the Babylonian Exile, nearly four hundred years before the events—events of which many are of small comparative importance in the world's history—which are here so enigmatically and yet so minutely depicted, the revelation would be the most unique and perplexing in the whole Scriptures. It would represent a sudden and total departure from every method of God's providence and of God's manifestation of His will to the minds of the prophets. It would stand absolutely and abnormally alone as an abandonment of the limitations of all else which has ever been foretold. And it would then be still more surprising that such a reversal of the entire economy of prophecy should not only be so widely separated in tone from the high moral and spiritual lessons which it was the special glory of prophecy to inculcate, but should come to us entirely devoid of those decisive credentials which could alone suffice to command our conviction of its genuineness and authenticity. "We find in this chapter," says Mr. Bevan, "a complete survey of the history from the beginning of the Persian period down to the time of the author. Here, even more than in the earlier vision, we are able to perceive how the account gradually becomes more definite as it approaches the latter part of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and how it then passes suddenly from the domain of historical facts to that of ideal expectations."[662] In recent days, when the force of truth has compelled so many earnest and honest thinkers to the acceptance of historic and literary criticism, the few scholars who are still able to maintain the traditional views about the Book of Daniel find themselves driven, like Zöckler and others, to admit that even if the Book of Daniel as a whole can be regarded as the production of the exiled seer five and a half centuries before Christ, yet in this chapter at any rate there must be large interpolations.[663]
There is here an unfortunate division of the chapters. The first verse of chap. xi. clearly belongs to the last verses of chap. x. It seems to furnish the reason why Gabriel could rely on the help of Michael, and therefore may delay for a few moments his return to the scene of conflict with the Prince of Persia and the coming King of Javan. Michael will for that brief period undertake the sole responsibility of maintaining the struggle, because Gabriel has put him under a direct obligation by special assistance which he rendered to him only a little while previously in the first year of the Median Darius.[664] Now, therefore, Gabriel, though in haste, will announce to Daniel the truth.
The announcement occupies five sections.
First Section (xi. 2-9).—Events from the rise of Alexander the Great (b.c. 336) to the death of Seleucus Nicator (b.c. 280). There are to be three kings of Persia after Cyrus (who is then reigning), of whom the third is to be the richest;[665] and "when he is waxed strong through his riches, he shall stir up the all[666] against the realm of Javan."
There were of course many more than four kings of Persia[667]: viz.—
| b.c. | |
| Cyrus | 536 |
| Cambyses | 529 |
| Pseudo-Smerdis | 522 |
| Darius Hystaspis | 521 |
| Xerxes I. | 485 |
| Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus) | 464 |
| Xerxes II. | 425 |
| Sogdianus | 425 |
| Darius Nothus | 424 |
| Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon) | 405 |
| Artaxerxes III. | 359 |
| Darius Codomannus | 336 |