Daniel 11:17 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

He shall also set his face, &c.— Rather, He shall also set his face to enter by force the whole kingdom: for Antiochus, not contented with having rent the principal provinces from Egypt, was forming schemes for that purpose. If the next words be rightly translated, the upright ones are the Jews, who marched under the banners of Antiochus, and are so denominated to distinguish them from the idolatrous soldiers. The LXX and Vulgate, however, give a more probable rendering; he shall set things right, or make agreement with him, as the phrase is used, Daniel 11:6. Antiochus would have seized upon Egypt by force; but, as he was meditating a war with the Romans, he judged it better to proceed with Ptolemy by stratagem. For this purpose, we read, he shall give him the daughter of women, his daughter, so called, as being one of the most eminent and beautiful women: and accordingly he proposed a treaty of marriage to Ptolemy, betrothed his daughter Cleopatra to him in the seventh year of his reign, married her to him in the thirteenth, conducted her himself to Raphia, where the solemnity was performed; and gave Ptolemy the provinces of Coelo-Syria and Palestine, on condition that the revenues should be equally divided between the two kings: and all this he transacted with a fraudulent intention to corrupt her, and to induce her to betray her husband's interests. But his designs did not take effect; she shall not stand on his part, &c. Ptolemy and his generals, aware of his artifices, stood upon their guard, and Cleopatra herself affected more the cause of Ptolemy than of her father; insomuch that she joined with him in an embassy to the Romans, to congratulate them upon their victories over her father, and to exhort them, after they had expelled him out of Greece, to prosecute the war in Asia, assuring them of her husband's and her concurrence and compliance with the commands of the senate. See Newton.