‘And in those times many will rise up against the king of the south. Also the sons of those who make a breach among your people will lift themselves up to establish the vision. But they will fall.'
Antiochus was now in league with Philip of Macedon, and may well have been in touch with Egyptian dissidents and foreign mercenaries in Egypt. The ‘many' probably also includes some of his subject peoples. So it was a powerful force that went forward. ‘The sons of those who make a breach among your people' were possibly Hellenizers or dissenters among Israel who were keen to support Antiochus, hoping for his support in return. Their aim was probably to make their vision of a Hellenised Israel a reality. But they never achieved their vision. ‘They fell.' Antiochus in fact was welcomed by the people of Jerusalem and renewed all the old rights.