Daniel 11:33 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

They that understand, &c., shall instruct many They that know their duty, and are zealous in doing it, that are holy in heart and life, shall instruct many in the righteous ways of God, and keep them from apostacy when others fall off. Such were Mattathias and his family, Malachi 2:1; Malachi 2:1, &c., the good old scribe Eleazar, and the mother and her seven children mentioned above. Yet they shall fall by the sword, &c. This is descriptive of the sufferings which those who adhered to the divine law should undergo, through the persecution of Antiochus, who ordered them, as Josephus relates, to be put to death with most horrid torments; for some of them, when they had had their bodies torn to pieces by cruel scourgings, were nailed to crosses, to expire there in the most intolerable agonies. Other cruelties of different kinds, but not less severe, were executed upon others; many days This cruel persecution continued three years and a half, as the time is computed by Josephus, reckoning from the first beginning of it till the sanctuary was cleansed.