Allan MacRae, The Prophecies of Daniel: Lecture 8

I maybe better mention a question that was turned into me that I think is very important, so I wanted to read it to you. It’s called A Practical Question. “Daniel 7:10, ‘the judgment was set or the court sat’. What do you suggest we do while preaching this passage? Is it possible to bring out an interpretation such as yours without bewildering and distracting the audience? Do we simply mention the problem and our opinion, or add remarks about the difficulties of translation and so on?  It’s been my experience that people have been very touchy about any change in what their version of the Bible says. Here a difference in meaning seems to be involved.” Now this I think is a very important question because the spokesman for God has two very important duties. One is to be sure of what God says, and the second is to say it in a way that will get the truth across. Now a person can be sure that God said that "whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved."  He can be sure that there is only one God. He can be certain that there are three persons in the Godhead. There are many things of which we can be absolutely sure. And the vital task of the Christian interpreter is to get these things across which are absolutely clear in the Scripture.  God sometimes uses people with practically no education who read a few simple truths and present them, and it’s far better to present a few simple truths and have people get them than it is to give a great deal of truth in such a way that nobody gets any of it.  This is a very, very vital part of the work of every one of us. And we do not want to confuse people, which will happen, if a person says, "Well some say this and some say that."  I remember hearing a minister who had one of his congregation bring him a big sack of potatoes. And he said, "Well, I surely appreciate it, but why did you bring me these potatoes?" And she said, "I so often heard you say that the potaters (commentators) disagree with you." Well, I think that she had no idea what he was talking about, and there is no point in that, we have to have some idea of the people to whom we talk and how much they can understand.

At the same time, God gave His word not simply to deal with a few simple truths or He would have given us two or three chapters instead of the whole Bible. His word gives us a great deal that is absolutely clear, and a great deal that has tremendous relevance at one time but is difficult to understand at another. There may be parts of the Bible that we have great difficulty in understanding today that have just exactly the truth that God’s people will need ten years from now if the Lord tarries. New problems are arising all the time and the answer to the problems is in the Bible. And so we are training people who we hope will be able to give the great central truths of the Bible in a way that will get them across. But we here have a greater objective than that: we want to train those who can go to the Word and see exactly what it means and what its truth is that relate to that situations as they change.

So there are two duties of our graduates and people of the caliber we hope our graduates to be; there are two different duties. One is learning what the Bible means and the second is presenting to people the great truths of the Bible.  I believe that we should keep these two as sharply separated in our minds. So that I feel that it is vital that when you can’t be sure of what a passage means, you don’t jump to a conclusion, but you see what the possibilities are and then as you study some other passage or as situations change, you may then see exactly what it did mean and how it fits in with the insight you’ve gotten from some other passage or with some changing situation in the world. So I believe it is tremendously important that you study the Bible very carefully, that we have a certain number of people who are able to go and say, "This verse is absolutely clear," or this other verse has two possibilities and we are not at present in a position to decide between them. This verse has two possibilities, one of them I feel almost sure is correct, but I’m not going to bank on that except as I find supporting evidence from other passages. A very important part of your work is your study or understanding of the Word. And a very important part is giving the people the truth you know they need without confusing them.

There is also really a second element in this question.  "Some people have been very touchy about any change in what their version says." As someone said, "If the King James Version was good enough for Saint Paul, why isn’t it good enough for us?" Well, we all know that that was not the case, that the King James Version was developed in 1611 almost 1500 years after Saint Paul wrote.  Yet I got a printed piece of literature the other day from a very active Christian worker who actually said in it, "Are we to believe that God left us 1900 years without knowing what the true Bible is?"  Which certainly implies that the King James Version is the Bible that Saint Paul had. We know that the King James Version was a translation made by godly men, and excellent scholars, aware of the situations of their day but using a language that nobody can speak today.  There are many words in the King James Version that very few people today understand because some of them are not used and some of them have changed their meaning. Most of it we can figure out fairly well what it means. And there are places where the translators certainly erred in their translation. Though on this ground, I find many cases where I think the King James translators, as far as meaning is concerned, did a better job than any recent interpreters have done. But none of us talk that way anymore.  And consequently we can be sure that we don’t exactly "get it" in a great many places in the Bible. And in that situation it is absolutely necessary that the people of today have the Bible in their own language that they can understand today. And naturally, as in the days of the King James, there were a dozen different versions competing for attention, so there will be versions competing for attention today. So I don’t believe many intelligent Christians are going to stay long in the situation where one particular English version seems to them to be so exactly right that you cannot differ from it. I think that’s a problem that won’t stay with us very long. People will recognize that getting an exact translation is impossible. And yet we have a good approximation in a number of translations. The New International Version that’s just come out, is as far as I can see the best translation that has yet been made. It ought to be with the tremendous number of hours, thousands of hours that were spent by literally hundreds of translators in working on it.  In fact it is to be presented tomorrow to people in Philadelphia, there hoping to have two or three pastors there, have a press release and I’ve been asked to go participate in the presentation of it. I think that I wish that the time would come again when we have one English version we would mostly use. I doubt if that will happen in the coming years though.

But ordinarily I don’t think that in preaching you want to enter into problems of translation.  I do believe that there will be times that if you give the Word of God sincerely you’ll have to say, "This English, this Hebrew word, this Greek word, cannot be translated exactly into English. Here’s a good approximation; here’s another attempt at it."  You’ll have to do that. But in a matter like Daniel's vision where there is such a difference of meaning as to whether this is a judgment scene or whether it is a presentation of God’s omnipotent power as He carries out the judgments that He has already made, in a situation like that, I would say that ordinarily it would be wise to take the great truths in the passage that are very vital in which there is no doubt and stress them and only lightly touch on the differences of opinion.  I would suggest that in ordinary groups that is the wise thing to do. But there will, if you have an intelligent audience, be times when it is wise to enter into a problem like that and show the reasons on each side and see how it fits with other passages. That is so important I thought it was worth taking a bit of time on that particular question.

Now in our last lecture we spoke about how in chapter seven we have the new kingdom as we looked at and noticed the different factors there, and I believe we had finished our general discussion of  what is given about the new kingdom in that chapter, and then we were ready to look at H in our outline: "Conclusions regarding chapters two and seven."  We have four kingdoms described in both chapters. Now as a matter of methodology when we had chapter 2, I said from this chapter you can’t tell whether there are four kingdoms or five. I think that is vital; that we recognize it. We do not get from chapter 2 the assurance there are four kingdoms. Chapter two has either four kingdoms or five, and you cannot tell which. But when you come to chapter seven, this question is answered. And so 45 years later when chapter 7 was revealed, God revealed that there were four animals, not five. But there is a second phase to the fourth animal, which is represented by a fifth part of the statue in Daniel chapter 2.

The four kingdoms there described can be seen in history. We who believe that Daniel wrote this book in the time of Nebuchadnezzar have no problem in fitting them with history. The Babylonian Kingdom, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Hellenistic Empire, and the Roman Empire. Those who hold the critical view that it was not written until the time of Antiochus Epiphanies, and that it goes up to that period only, they have a history of three kingdoms, and predictions of four, but they have to imagine a separate Median kingdom which did not exist. And so as far as the history is concerned, those who accept it as a genuine book of Daniel have no problem. Now as to the relation of the second part of the fourth kingdom-- it is quite evident that that second part has not yet occurred. The nearest to it would be 400 to 600 A.D., which would come very near to fitting the second phase of the fourth kingdom, but which has a phrase in there about "mingling with the seed of men," which is pretty hard to understand; it’s hard to know what it means. Personally, I think that what it means will become clear when that period comes. If you say, "Well, that fits with the period A.D. 400 to 600.  But it could fit with almost all history before that. It's not much of a distinctive feature.

More important is that the stone hits the statue on the feet and toes. But at the end of the Roman Empire there was no establishment of a new kingdom.  The stone completely destroyed every vestige of the four kingdoms, that is to say, it destroyed the qualities that enter into the human government as shown in those four kingdoms. So it seems to me that this second part must be something that is still future. And there we have two possibilities. One is that there is an unmentioned interval.  We have the first part of the fourth kingdom, then you have a long space that is not seen and then you have the second part of this kingdom. The other possibility is that it is general; that you have the four great kingdoms as they would be seen looking forward from Daniel’s time.  The first three were each taken over by a succeeding one. The fourth one was not taken over but had many different changes as it was being overrun by new peoples and gradual changes took place.  As the prophet looked forward he would see that extending far into the future. And there would be that final stage of it yet to come. Both views can be represented by the figure of mountains.  As you see the nearer peaks their look very large and then beyond them you see other peaks and beyond those still others. But there may be a valley between the ridges or there may be a great mountain in the distance which you can’t tell whether it comes directly behind the first ridge or whether it is way distant. So in between the two phases of the fourth kingdom whether there is an unmentioned interval (valley) or a continuing ridge, we cannot be dogmatic between the two views at this point.

One thing that was brought out in chapter seven, not at all brought out in chapter two, is what is today is generally spoken of as antichrist. Now in a way that is an unfortunate term. It might be better if we call it "The Little Horn."  But as for the Antichrist, John said there are many antichrists and that the Antichrist is already here. The Reformers declared that the papacy was the Antichrist. There was much to suggest that in those days. Very much then, of course since that time the papacy has gone through all kinds of changes through the years, but at the time when the papacy was so strongly opposing salvation by faith alone in such a strong, definite and to a large extent effective way, it was easy for the Reformers to reach that conclusion. We must say, as John said, there are many antichrists. But there is one who is represented by the Little Horn. And it is customary today to call that one "The Antichrist."  I suppose we might as well stick to the term. But since the term can be applied to others, I wish we had another to use for it.

This one who is called the Little Horn--who fights against the saints and almost overcomes them and it is only the supernatural intervention of God that prevents him from overcoming them--this one is mentioned in Isaiah 11, where we read about the coming of the Son of Man and we read in chapter 11 of Isaiah at the end of verse four, “With the breath of his lips shall He slay the wicked.” And this word "The Wicked" does not convey the idea of the original to people today. This is a very good illustration how our language has changed, when I was in Germany they would refer to me as "The Large" because the German word "large" simply means "tall"; it doesn’t refer to your girth at all. And they would refer to me as simply as "The Large," or "the Tall."  Now in English if you say "the tall," you mean a lot of tall people.  We don’t use it for one; it is an adjective today. But in King James time, they did. They do today in German, they did in Hebrew, they do in Greek, in most languages that I know that have different forms for singular or plural you can put a "the" before the adjective. But this word “Wicked” is singular. "He will destroy the Wicked One with the breath of his mouth," is paralleled in chapter seven when the Son of Man comes with the clouds of Heaven and as a result the Little Horn that fought with the saints is destroyed. Paul referred back to Isaiah very clearly in II Thessalonians. In the second chapter where he said in verse 2 and the end of verse 3, "That man of sin will be revealed, the son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above all that is God."  And it refers to him again in verse 8, "Then shall that wicked one be revealed who the Lord shall consume with the sword of His mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming."  Paul predicted this one whom Isaiah also predicted.  He is certainly the one who is called the Little Horn in chapter seven.  Now, if we do call him "Antichrist," let’s just keep in mind that this term is used for others. But here is one special one who perhaps we should call antichrist with a capital A, who as far as anyone knows is yet to come.

I remember back just at the end of World War I.  I read a comment by a missionary from the Near East who said he had already seen the Antichrist. He said he was living there but not yet revealed to the world. He said, "I have seen him perform simple miracles, like simply looking at someone and they drop dead, doing things like that, but," he said, "of course he’ll do far greater miracles later on." Well many years have passed since that time so I think that missionary was wrong as to who he thought was the Antichrist. The Antichrist may be living today, but if so, I doubt if anyone could identify him. He might not come for many years.  The Lord said that we do not know when the Lord is coming, we are not to know.  So for all we can say it might be another century or more before the Antichrist comes. But it is made clear by Paul, by Isaiah, and by Daniel that there is to be one who will be a great user of wicked power, who will make war with the saints, and he would win the war if it were not for the intervention by the Son of Man.

In chapter two we had the account of the stone that hit the statue and completely destroyed it and then grew until it became the great mountain that filled the whole earth. Here in chapter seven we have the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, then we have the beast destroyed--which includes the Little Horn of course--destroyed and his body given to the fire.  Not a vestige of it remains.  The Son of Man establishes a great, new kingdom which cannot be destroyed. And as we noticed before, that of course does not mean that there will not be a change in organization after a thousand years.  God is certainly not going to establish a permanently fixed condition with no change whatsoever. There’s an old idea some Greek philosophers had who thought that God was one like a great wooden Indian perhaps that stands there absolutely immoveable, unchangeable--past, present and future are all the same to Him. That is not a Christian idea. Certainly the Bible teaches that God feels sorrow, that God feels joy, that God does things.  We cannot make God into just some sort of fixed, immoveable thing, He is unchangeable in His qualities, unchangeable in His attributes, unchangeable in His love. But He grieves and He rejoices. He is a spirit and He has the qualities that our spirits have and so what will happen beyond a thousand years after the Lord comes back we don’t know a great deal about.

I was talking to someone once I told him how I wished I could climb a certain mountain. I’ve climbed many mountains and there are many others I wish I could climb. But there’s just not time enough in life. And I said I used to feel very sad about not being able to climb all the mountains I’d like, but then I realized that during the millennium, I’ll have time to climb a lot of those. And the man said to me, "Well," the man said, "you say the millennium; why don’t you say the eternal state?" I don’t think there’s any such thing in the Bible as an eternal state. What will be beyond the millennium we just don’t know. God may have many interesting surprises for us, but all the sin and wickedness of this life is to be eradicated at the coming of the Son of Man.

So now we’re ready to take a jump forward, which may seem strange to jump clear forward from chapter seven to chapter eleven. But the reason I wish to do that is there are certain things that will come out in chapter seven which are much easier to discuss in connection with chapter 11 than with chapter eight, and it will make it much easier for us to deal with chapter eight if we look at these two chapters first. Now I think it would be a mistake to look at chapter seven first and then look at chapter two because chapter two was given and chapter seven came 45 years later. And so we can use chapter seven to throw light back on chapter two, but we should start with chapter two.

But here we have chapter seven which was given in the first year of Belshazzar, and we have chapter eight which was given in the third year of Belshazzar, and then chapter 9 the first year of Darius--whom Cyrus made king over realm of the Chaldeans, over that portion of his Empire--and then we have chapters ten to twelve, which were in the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, and so these chapters are given in a very short range of time. So there’s no great harm done in our looking at chapter 11 first.

Chapter 11 is a chapter that not many people get a great deal out of I fear. The archbishop who put in the chapter division certainly didn’t understand it, because as you know he put the chapter division one verse too early. Chapter 10 tells about God's sending a messenger to Daniel and this messenger speaks and in chapter 11 verse 1 he is telling about his previous difficulties in bringing this message to Daniel, but verse two begins the prophecy. "Now will I show you the truth:  behold, there shall stand up yet three kings of Persia and the fourth shall be richer than all of them." And the critics say that according to the book of Daniel, there were only four kings of Persia. There were only these four and the author didn’t know about any other.  He was just ignorant. I have given you a statement, which I hope you all have with you, which records important facts about the history at this time, and it lists all of the kings of Persia except one; and that one was a usurper who held power for a very brief time.  I haven’t listed them all; I have listed the ones vital to us, and then listed six more kings, and then named the last one. There were actually 10 kings of Persia in the period of the Persian Empire between its establishment by Cyrus and its conquest by Alexander the Great.

Here the angel says there will be three kings, and the fourth will be richer than they all, and in verse 3, "A mighty king shall stand up" who we find out is a king who destroys the Persian Empire.  The fact of the matter is, of course, that the chapter here is giving us certain vital points and not telling us of what is in between. And so we have here, in order to pinpoint a particular point, we have mentioned just the first four kings. Now the first of these is Cyrus, and I have the dates 559 BC there when he became king and in 546 when he gained his independence and took over control of the whole Median complex of tribes.  In 539 BC he conquered Babylon, and 529 when he died. Then he was succeeded by his son Cambyses who reigned from 529 to 522 BC. I did not list there the Pseudo Smerdis, which was a name given to a usurper who held power for just 8 months. But he certainly could be ranked as a king of Persia. So we have these three: Cyrus, and Cambyses and Smerdis.  Cyrus is the first, and then after Cyrus there is Cambyses, then Pseudo-Smerdis (but we don't really count him), and then Darius, and the fourth would be Xerxes.

I need to call to your attention a little bit about the history at this point. Cyrus, as you know, began in Persia with a small domain.  He got control of all the realm of the Medes, and then he went westward and conquered all of Asia Minor, which is modern Turkey.   He conquered all of Asia Minor, and then he turned back south and conquered the Babylonian Empire.  Then he went east again and conquered as far as you can see there on the map, clear into the area of India.   Between him and his son they conquered all of Afghanistan. Then either he or his son conquered northwest India.  His son Cambyses then went down and conquered all of Egypt, so that was the largest empire the world had ever seen up to that time. But after Cyrus’s death and after Cambyses’s death, this Pseudo-Smerdis reigned for eight months, and then a cousin of Cambyses named Darius got rid of Pseudo-Smerdis and proclaimed himself the legitimate king.

            Darius might be called a second founder of the Persian Empire. Darius organized the empire, bringing all these regions under him; Darius had rebellions all over the empire.  The first few years of his reign were occupied with putting down these rebellions and getting the whole empire under his control; but then he organized it in such a way that it continued in great strength for 200 years and was probably just about as strong at the end of that time as at the beginning. But Alexander the Great was a very great strategist, a great fighter, and he had a wonderful army, so he conquered Persia in a comparatively short space of about twelve years. But Darius thus raised the Empire to the highest point at which it had yet been.  Our text says the fourth king shall be richer than all of them.  The fourth inherited greater wealth and greater power than either of the previous kings had, except Darius at the end of his reign.  And so it says the fourth will be richer than all of them.  Then the verse goes on and says that by his strength and through his riches he will stir up all against the realm of Greece. And any of you who have studied ancient history--as it used to be at least, they didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the Oriental background, but they paid a very considerable amount of attention to the history of Greece. Anyone who reads much about ancient Greece is familiar with the Persian Wars. The Greeks had settled cities, had built cities and colonies along the shores of Asia Minor. And these were great, prosperous Greek cities, but they were all conquered by Cyrus and became part of the Persian Empire.  But they didn’t want to be part of the Persian Empire.  They tried to gain their freedom.  Cyrus could hold them in subjection fairly easily with his great army, and Darius could hold them in subjection fairly easily with his great army and his wonderful organization if it were not for the fact that the cities of Greece were constantly sending help to these cities in Asia Minor.  They were trying to help their fellow Greeks gain independence in their cities on the coast of Asia Minor. And so Darius said, "I’ll put a stop to this, I’ll conquer Greece too." And he sent a great army to attack Greece and try to conquer Greece, but due to bad weather, and partly due to mistakes in strategy by his generals, he failed. And the Greeks were very proud of having fought back Darius’s attempt to conquer them. But Darius said, "We must conquer Greece, we can’t have them constantly raising rebellions against us in Asia Minor."  And so Darius set to work to gather the greatest army the world had ever seen, and 10 years were devoted to gathering this great army and to preparing tremendous amounts of material. But before it was all ready, Darius died.

And so the fourth who was richer than all of them, Xerxes, when this great army was ready, started out to conquer Greece, and they say it took a whole week for the army to walk across the bridge that he built across the Hellespont near Constantinople from Asia into Europe. It was a tremendous army and a tremendous navy, and the Greeks facing this would ordinarily have had little hope in defeating it. As it worked out, there was a combination of circumstances and the fact that this army contained people with so many different languages, it was difficult for them to communicate and to direct it as they should. Some bad storms injured many of their ships, and the Greeks were able to maneuver others into a place where they were at a great disadvantage.  Though we haven’t time to go into the details of it, it was a very remarkable thing in history that the Greeks succeeded in defeating this tremendous attempt to destroy Greece. And the Greeks after that time were constantly remembering the great glory of their victory over the Persians and looking forward to the time when they would completely end the Persian control of the Greek cities there in Asia Minor.

So this statement, "By his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece," is a very precise prediction of something that took place a few decades after Daniel wrote, if we believe as we do that Daniel wrote it. Now, according to the critics this is someone looking back and giving a correct statement of history after the fact, not before it.

Xerxes is the fourth; yes, he is the one who by his strength through his riches stirs up all against the realm of Greece. Then verse three says, "A mighty king will stand up that shall rule with great dominion and do according to his will."  Now that doesn’t tell us much about what this man is going to do. It points to his great strength and power. But when you read chapter 11, verse four, you have very specific details about Alexander the Great. And so there is absolutely no doubt that Alexander the Great is the one referred to in verses three and four. And Alexander the Great fulfilled the great desire of the Greeks to get back at the Persians on account of the Persian attempt to destroy Greece. But there is an interval of well over a century, Xerxes became king in 486 BC, I forget the exact date; it was about 480 when his attempt to conquer Greece ended.  It was 336 BC when Alexander the Great became king, so you have 150 years passed over between verse two and verse three. This is an unmentioned interval, 150 years, at this point as you see. There’s no question that verse two refers to Xerxes and there’s no question that verse three refers to Alexander. An unmentioned interval of 150 years.

You wouldn’t know much about Alexander from verse three; it doesn’t tell about his conquering the Persian Empire, but that is perhaps implied.  We know that’s what happened historically, and that is specifically stated in chapter 8. And then in verse four, "When he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken and shall be divided toward the four winds of Heaven."  Alexander the Great, after twelve years of constant fighting in which he performed the greatest blitzkrieg perhaps the world has ever seen, at least when you think of the relation of the materials he had to the materials available this century, in view of that, it certainly was the greatest. He was from Macedonia in the north of Greece proper.  He got Greece under his control, then he moved eastward and conquered areas that never had been subject to his father Philip in Macedon. He crossed into Asia Minor.  There he met a great Persian army and defeated it, and then he marched down into Syria,  He found that he couldn’t go farther into the Persian Empire without destroying the Persian navy because he had to secure his line of supplies.  So he spent a couple of years in gaining control of the coastal cities there.  He spent nine months conquering Tyre.

Then he went south into Egypt. Egypt had been conquered by Cambyses, and had been subject to the Persians for 100 years, and then had gained its freedom. Ninety years later Egypt revolted against the Persians, and gained its freedom after a century.  Then after it had been free ninety years, the Persians again attacked Egypt and reconquered it and they had held it only ten years when Alexander came. So after Alexander came, the people welcomed him as further protection against the Persians.  Alexander claimed to be their deliverer against the Persians, and Alexander worshipped the Egyptian gods and declared himself to be a successor of the old Pharaoh. But all of this took time.

Then he marched inland, met another great Persian army and destroyed it, conquered all of Persia and marched clear east as far as India. He then returned to Babylon and suddenly was taken ill there, and after about 10 days with a bad fever he died. And here was this young man in his early 30s who had done this tremendous feat who suddenly died. And it says here in Daniel, "His kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven and not to his posterity."

When Alexander died, the question was who shall succeed him? Well, he had an idiot half-brother who everybody knew did not have the ability to reign. But you might say he would have a claim to be their ruler. I think he was older than Alexander. But the only way he could rule would be as a figurehead. And Alexander had married a Persian woman, and they were expecting she would have a child. And that child should be the true successor many thought. And so there was a division of opinion about it but in either case they had to have a king in the meantime, a king as long as the idiot half-brother lived.  If he became king,  he would reign only until the boy would come of age.  And so they appointed a regent and they divided all the vast empire into 20 parts and the different generals agreed to control these 20 parts and to rule them. And so it was divided toward "the four winds of heaven" as our text says.  But soon many of these generals decided they wanted to be emperor, and so Alexander’s child was destroyed, his half-brother was destroyed, his mother was killed, and every relative of his in the course of the next 15 years was killed. So none of his posterity succeeded as ruler who was related to Alexander.  Nor when looking at his dominion which he ruled, not one of his commanders, though they fought for nearly 40 years trying to get control of the whole empire, no one succeeded. So their dominion was much inferior to that which Alexander had held.  "For his kingdom shall be plucked up and given to others."

Now you have that picture of the kingdom which Alexander held. It is divided up, and then the next verse begins with the words, "The king of the south shall be strong."  And what would you think would be meant by "The king of the south"?  It would seem quite obvious that Egypt is much further south than any other part of the Empire. And one of Alexander’s generals named Ptolemy was more far-seeing than the rest. He saw that this empire would not be kept together; it would be impossible, and he said, "I would like to be governor of Egypt," and they all said, "Well all right, if you would like to be governor of Egypt fine, you take Egypt, and  I’ll take this section and that section," they divided up Alexander's empire.  Ptolemy figured Egypt could not be attacked except by that little very small area coming in from Asia (the Levant), or from the sea. And if he kept a strong navy, he could continue ruling his kingdom safely regardless of what happened to the rest of the empire. And with that as a secure base, he might be able to get all of the rest of the empire too. So “the king of the south shall be strong” was literally fulfilled in Ptolemy.

And then it says, “And one of his princes, he shall be strong above him and have dominion; his dominion, shall be a great dominion.” As Ptolemy fought with other generals, the man who had been governor of the area of Babylon was driven out from his area and went to Egypt and became one of Ptolemy’s leading officers. His name was Seleucius. And Seleucius became one of Ptolemy’s leading officers so he could be properly called one of his princes, but Seleucius with Ptolemy’s help went back up into Asia, and in 312 B.C. established himself in control of Babylon and eventually got control of the whole empire from there north through most of Asia Minor, and eastward clear to India.  So he had perhaps half the area of Alexander’s empire. And so it says, "He shall be strong above him," Seleucus was stronger than Ptolemy. He had been one of his officers and had dominion, "and his dominion shall be a great dominion."  So up to this point if you look forward you couldn’t have told what would happen, but if you look back at that time, you could easily see how Daniel had been able to predict the course of these important events. It was not given to satisfy curiosity about the future. It was given in order that those living would see it as it happened, that Daniel was a true prophet.  It would prove that his words were dependable, and would focus our minds to those matters to which he would give more attention later on.

            Narrated and edited by Dr. Perry Phillips
            Initial editing by Ted Hildebrandt

            Transcription:  Alicia Tirrell