And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain. Then he turned to check Artaxias, king of Armenia. He died in the Persian town Tabes, 164 BC, as both Polybius and Porphyry agree. Doubtless antitypically, the final Antichrist, and his predecessor Mohammed, are intended, to whom the language may be more fully applicable than to Antiochus the type.
He shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas - between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean.
Tabernacles of ... palace - his palace-like military tents, such as Oriental princes travel with. See note, Daniel 11:40, as to the time of Antiochus' attack on Judea, and his subsequent "end" at Tabes, which was caused by the visitation of God during his chagrin both at hearing that his forces under Lysias were overcome by the Jews, and at the failure of his expedition against the temple of Elymais (2Ma 9:5 , 'The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, smote him with an incurable and invisible plague; for as soon as he had spoken thee words (that he would make Jerusalem a common burying place of the Jews), a pain of the bowels, that was remediless, came upon him, and sore torments in the inner parts: and that most justly, because he had tormented other men's bowels with many and strange torments'). In the glorious holy mountain - Jerusalem and mount Sion. The desolation of the sanctuary by Antiochus, and also the desecration of the consecrated ground round Jerusalem by the idolatrous Roman ensigns, as also by the Mohammedan mosque, and, finally, by the last Antichrist, is referred to. So the last Antichrist is to sit upon "the mount of the congregation" (Isaiah 14:13), but "shall be brought down to hell" (cf. note, Daniel 7:26; 2 Thessalonians 2:8).
Remarks:
(1) This chapter foretells, in most minute detail, the successive histories of Xerxes of Persia; Alexander the Great, king of Macedon and conqueror of Persia; the four-fold division of Alexander's kingdom at his death, and the consequent conflicts between the kings of the north and the kings of the south, the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies; and, lastly, the proud violence of Antiochus Epiphanes against the covenant-people of God, and his final doom. The details are given with such minuteness beforehand, in order to strengthen and support the faithful ones among God's ancient people, in the fiery ordeal through which they were about to pass, during the long period when they were to be without any living prophets. If the world-powers were about to permitted to trample under foot the people of the covenant, the latter would take comfort in knowing that their God had told them of it "in the Scripture of truth" (Daniel 10:21) long before: and had also engaged that, though the trial under Antiochus, the Old Testament Antichrist, was be most severe, yet it was to be of short duration, and he was to come to his end, and none should help him (Daniel 11:45).
(2) Never was the transitoriness of earthly greatness more strikingly shown than in the case of Xerxes king of Persia, who was "far richer than all" his royal predecessors, and who "by his strength through his riches stirred up all against the realm of Grecia" (Daniel 11:2). After having gathered land and sea forces to the number of 2,600,041 men out of his vast empire, he invaded Greece. But how differently he returned, humbled and defeated, only eight months after he had left Asia full of pride and confident of victory! Worldly pomp, power, and riches soon pass away, and do not even give solid satisfaction to their possessor while he has them. Lot us seek the true riches, which are imperishable and all-satisfying, and we shall never be disappointed.
(3) Alexander the Great, by conquest, obtained the vast dominion once held by the Persian king, and for his brief span of life "did according to his will" (Daniel 11:3). Unlikely as it would have seemed to mere human foresight that such a completely-established dominion should fall to pieces, God so ordered it, and the Scriptures of truth foretold it: therefore so it was, at his death his empire no longer continued one united whole, but, as Daniel foretold ages before, it was "divided toward the four winds of heaven, and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled" (Daniel 11:4). Thus God in His providence puts down one and sets up another, according to His sovereign pleasure. The kingdom is the Lord's; and while we give honour to them to whom honour is due, let us never forget there is One above who is infinitely higher than they, and to whom our highest allegiance is due.
(4) The tangled web of earthly politics is full of intrigues, ambition, selfishness, violence, and treachery (Daniel 11:15-29). How little are the objects to be coveted which are attained only by such means! History tells of many instances of kings whose hearts were set on doing mischief to one another, under the mask of cordiality, speaking lies at one table. But lies are sure in the end not to prosper (Daniel 11:2). Yet God all the while overrules the schemes and workings of those men who "exalt themselves, to establish" His own purpose, in spite of themselves (Daniel 11:14). The conflicts and plots between the kings of Syria in the north and the kings of Egypt in the south are singled out for special description, because holy Scripture handles secular history only in so far as it bears upon the interests of Israel, the covenant-people, and His Church. Judea, as lying between Syria and Egypt, necessarily was affected seriously by the struggle between the kings of those two countries. Let us similarly view the politics of nations, chiefly as they affect the interests of the kingdom of God and the people of God; because these latter alone are abiding: all things else are of secondary importance, inasmuch as they are rapidly passing away. (5) The career of Antiochus Epiphanes, in his persecution of the people of God and blasphemous enmity against Yahweh and His sanctuary, is described in language which evidently is not exhausted by the incidents of his history, but is designed in the fullest sense to describe the last Antichrist, of whom Antiochus was the Old Testament forerunner. The adoption of the so-called refinements and usages of the ungodly world, and a growing indifference to the exclusive and paramount claims of the only true God, on the part of those Jews who "forsook the holy covenant" (Daniel 11:30), were the first insidious steps toward preparing the way for the open blasphemies of Antiochus. So it shall be in the last days. A false liberalism, which reduces all religion to a mere matter of individual opinion, as though no one creed were revealed by God as the absolute truth to be believed and obeyed exclusively, combined with a growing laxity of practice and an exaggerated exaltation of art and human science and invention, as if man were now almost independent of God and constituted the judge of revelation, are symptoms, already being manifested, that we are verging toward those coming last days of anti-Christian apostasy.
(6) No world-ruler before Antiochus had ever of set purpose and continuously interfered with the religion of the people of God. This was a new peril that then first threatened the very existence of the worship of God on earth. Hence, arose the need of such a detailed prophecy of it before the event. So accurate and full is the correspondence between the prophecy and the events, that Porphyry, the opponent of revelation, feeling it impossible to deny the correspondence, was driven to the expedient of maintaining, from the accuracy, that the prophecy must have been written subsequently to the event. But the Jews, as being the enemies of Christianity, are unanswerable witnesses for the reality of the book as a prophecy before the event: for, if they could, they would gladly deny the genuineness and authenticity of Daniel, who, in the ninth chapter, plainly supports the Christian view as to Messiah's death: but they do not deny, but maintain the book to be what it professes to be, a genuine prophecy of events which Daniel foretold by the Spirit of God.
Therefore Porphyry's view in which man modern rationalists share, is utterly untenable. What a comfort to the faithful few among the Jews in the days of Antiochus it must have been to know that, though many of the Jews forsook and did wickedly against the covenant (Daniel 11:30; Daniel 11:32), Messiah would ere long come to "confirm the covenant" (Daniel 9:27): and though Antiochus polluted the sanctuary and took away the daily sacrifice (Daniel 11:31), Messiah would "cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease," and the sanctuary subsequently to be destroyed (Daniel 9:27); and yet that He would "make an evil of sins, and bring in everlasting righteousness" (Daniel 11:24); so that they would perceive that after all a material temple and legal sacrifices were not so absolutely necessary to salvation as they had thought them heretofore! God can provide his people with spiritual comforts in the worst of times; therefore let us never cast away our hope and confidence in Him.
(7) "The abomination of desolation, or idol to be set up by the desolater in the sanctuary of God, was, in accordance with the prophecy, first set up by Antiochus in the temple of Yahweh; next by the Romans under Titus; next by the apostate Church of Rome in the spiritual temple; then by the Mohammedans, who have had their Mosque of Omar on the site of the temple for ages: and the last crowning fulfillment shall be when the personal Antichrist shall set up his image (Revelation 13:1-18) for worship in the restored temple at Jerusalem.
Thus from age to age Scripture is ever receiving successive fulfillments of its pregnant and wide-reaching predictions, and of its everlasting principles of truth. Persecution is permitted for the probation of men's character. Those of spiritual understanding, when they are afflicted, shall have their dross purged away thereby (Daniel 11:33; Daniel 11:35), and shall be the instruments in God's hands of instructing and confirming many in all ages. Though even they should fall for a time, they shall not be utterly cast down: and when raised by the grace of God again, they are taught the lesson of humility and distrust of themselves, meekness toward others who fall, and love to Him who has so lovingly restored them. God will not allow His people to be tried beyond a fixed limit; and the duty of the godly is to wait patiently for "the time of the end" which God has "appointed" (Daniel 11:35). The Antichrist who is coming will not regard Messiah, "the desire of all nations" (Haggai 2:7), and the desire of Jewish mothers (Daniel 11:37) in all ages.
As the Jews would not receive the true Messiah; who came in His Father's name, they shall be given over to a judicial delusion, so as to receive the false Messiah who shall come in his own name (John 5:43); so shall the indignation of God against the Jews, for their wicked blindness, be accomplished (Daniel 11:36). But after Antichrist has reached the summit of his blasphemous ambition, and "planted the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain" (Daniel 11:45), and when the covenant-people shall be at their lowest point of depression, then shall the Lord Himself manifestly interpose in their behalf (Zechariah 12:1-14; Zechariah 14:1-21), and Antichrist "shall come to his end, and none shall help him." Let us be warned by the case of the Jews not to be high-minded, but to fear. Our only safety in the coming times of apostasy, as indeed in the present times, when its Antichristian elements are already working, is prayerfully and watchfully to keep fast hold of "the Scripture of truth" (Daniel 10:21), and ever to look to the Spirit of Truth to guide us into all truth, both of doctrine and of practice.