Daniel 11:37 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers The god or gods worshipped in his own native country, namely, Syria. He made laws to abolish the religion of his country, and to bring in the idols of the Greeks. And though his predecessors had honoured the God of Israel, and given great gifts to the temple at Jerusalem, (Malachi 3:2; Malachi 3:2-3,) he did the greatest indignities to God and his temple. Nor the desire of women This, as some think, means, nor the god that is loved and adored by women; and, taking the clause in connection with the context, this seems the most natural sense of it; for the whole verse speaks of the impiety, or irreligion, of Antiothus, that he had no regard to any god whatever. What god this was that was the desire of women, cannot be certainly said; it is probable it was the moon, (the queen of heaven, as they used to call her,) or some other of the heavenly luminaries; for the Syrian women are described in Scripture as particularly attached to these. Or the expression may refer to his barbarous cruelty, and be intended to signify that he should spare no age nor sex, and should have no regard to women, however lovely or amiable. In fact, the author of the Maccabees informs us, that by his command mothers were killed with their children; and that there was killing of young and old, men, women, and children, slaying of virgins and infants, 2Ma 5:13. Nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all He shall not regard the gods of any country whatsoever, but think himself above them, and treat them as if he were so. He was so proud, that he thought himself above the condition of a mortal man; that he could command the waves of the sea, and reach the stars of heaven, as his insolence and haughtiness are expressed 2Ma 9:8; 2Ma 9:10.