[The divine angel says,] As soon as Cyrus came to the throne and the end of captivity had been reached, I took my place until I had secured release and liberation for the people.

Daniel implies, From the first year of the reign of Darius, who overthrew the Chaldeans and delivered me from the hand of my enemies to the extent of his ability . . . I for my part stood before God, and I be-sought God’s mercy on him, in view of the man’s love for me, in order that either he or his kingdom might be strengthened and confirmed. And since I persevered in my prayer, I was answered by God and given to understand the following information.

Now I shall proclaim the truth to you. This means, because you desired to know what will happen to the kings of Persia, listen to the order of events and hear the answer to your request.

[Gabriel] states that four kings shall arise in Persia after Cyrus, namely, Cambyses, the son of Cyrus; and the Magus named Smerdis, who married Pantaptes, the daughter of Cambyses. Then, when he was slain by seven magi and Darius had succeeded to his throne, the same Pantaptes married Darius and by him gave birth to Xerxes,^[1] who became a most powerful and wealthy king, and led an innumerable host against Greece and performed those deeds that are related by the Greek historians. For in the archonship of Callias he destroyed Athens by fire, and about that same time he waged the war at Thermopylae and the naval battle at Salamis. It was in his time that Sophocles and Euripides^[2] became famous and Themistocles fled in exile to Persia, where he died as a result of drinking the blood of a bull. And so that writer^[3] is in error who records Darius as the fourth king, who was defeated by Alexander, for he was not the fourth king but the fourteenth king of the Persians after Cyrus. It was in the seventh year of his rule that Alexander defeated and killed him. Moreover it should be observed that after he has specified four kings of Persia after Cyrus, Daniel omits the nine others and passes right on to Alexander. For the spirit of prophecy was not concerned about preserving historical detail but in summarizing only the most important matters. ^[4] THE PERSIAN KINGS. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: After Cyrus, who reigned first, there were numerous kings in Persia until those three. But the angel indicates by three kings those who were called with the name Darius, because there were only three kings who had the same name Darius. And by revealing through whom the kingdom of the Persians would have ceased, he says, The fourth shall be far richer than all of them, that is, Darius, who became more powerful than all his predecessors; and when he has become strong, this Darius, he means, in his homeland,^[1] in power and riches, he shall stir up, that is, he will cause Alexander, of the house of the Greeks, to march against him. ^[2] THE RISE OF ALEXANDER. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: And [Alexander] shall arise, he says, and will kill [Darius] and will take action as he pleases,^[1] and nobody will rise against him. This Darius, son of Arshak, was the tenth king after Cyrus, and in his sixth year Alexander marches against him and kills him. Alexander, when he came to Jerusalem, enters the temple, worships God and honors the temple with many gifts. ^[2]

When, as we have already mentioned, Alexander joined together the whole known world, so to speak, into his kingdom and then suffered the fate common to all humankind, the kingdom was divided into four parts.

Understand this as referring to Alexander, who was certain that his last day was not close and therefore did not have children, who could be the heirs of his reign, and left it to his friends after dividing it into four parts.

Besides the four kingdoms of Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, the kingdom of the Macedonians was torn asunder among other rulers of less prominence and among petty kings. The reference here is to Perdiccas and Craterus and Lysimachus, for Cappadocia, Armenia, Bithynia, Heracleia, Bosphorus and various other provinces withdrew themselves from the Macedonian power and set up various kings for themselves.

He does not spend much time on the ruler of Asia Minor or Macedonia, especially since no grief befell the Jews through them. He mentions only the two through whom the Jews would be tested with grievous misfortunes. These are the king of Egypt and the one entrusted with the rule of the nations that lay to the east. The latter held palaces in both Antioch and Babylon.

The reference is to Ptolemy, son of Lagos, who was the first to become king in Egypt and was a very clever, mighty and wealthy man. . . . [During his reign] he acquired Caria and many islands, cities and districts unnecessary to detail at this time. But no further notice is taken of the other kingdoms, Macedonia and Asia Minor, because Judea lay in a midway position and was held now by one group of kings and now by another. And it is not the purpose of holy Scripture to cover external history apart from the Jews but only that which is linked up with the nation of Israel.

One of the great princes shall prevail. . . . The person mentioned is Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second king of Egypt. . . . It was in his reign that the seventy translators are said to have translated the holy Scripture into Greek.^[1] . . . Philadelphus is reported to have possessed such great power as to surpass his father, Ptolemy. For history relates that he possessed 200,000 infantrymen, 20,000 cavalry and even 2,000 chariots and 400 elephants, which he was the first to import from Ethiopia. He also had 1,500 war galleys of the type now known as Liburnian, and 1,000 others for the transporting of military provisions.

He is talking about Ptolemy Philopator,^[1] who was not satisfied with the kingdom of Egypt but who added also Phoenicia, Samaria and Judea. When he says, one of his princes will grow strong, he is talking about Scopas, whom also Josephus the Hebrew historian mentions. Scopas was an outstanding general and placed under Ptolemy’s power many of the nations that were outside of the kingdom of Ptolemy. He speaks of this one enigmatically: And he will rule with much power beyond his authority, that is, he will rule over many nations beyond the realm that had been allotted to him.

And so after many years of war, Ptolemy Philadelphus^[1] wished to be done with this bitter struggle, and so he gave his daughter, named Berenice, in marriage to Antiochus Theos,^[2] who had already had a wife named Laodice. . . . As for Antiochus, even though he had said he would regard Berenice as his royal consort and keep Laodice in the status of a concubine, he was finally prevailed on by his love for Laodice to restore her to the status of queen, along with her children. But she was fearful that her husband might in his fickleness restore Berenice to favor once more, and so she had him put to death by her servants with the use of poison. And she handed over Berenice and the son . . . and then set up her elder son, Seleucus Callinicus, as king in his father’s place. And so this is the matter referred to in this passage, namely, that after many years Ptolemy Philadelphus and Antiochus Theos would conclude a friendship, and the daughter of the king of the south, that is, Ptolemy, would go to the king of the north, that is, Antiochus, in order to cement friendly relations between her father and her husband. And the text says that she will not be able to gain her end, nor shall her posterity remain on the throne of Syria, but instead both Berenice and the men who had escorted her there shall be put to death. And also the king, Antiochus, who had strengthened her, that is, through whom she could have obtained the mastery, was killed by his wife’s poison.

After Ptolemy Philpator died, his son Ptolemy (surnamed Epiphanes) reigned. That is what he means, After his years, they will make an alliance. And he explains how they will make an alliance. By the king of the north he means Antiochus—not Antiochus Epiphanes but Antiochus the Great, who was the father of Antiochus Epiphanes. It was Antiochus the Great who was the contemporary with those Ptolemies.

But the marriage will not suffice to bring about an alliance. She will be returned to the one who had given her through those who brought her, along with the things that had been presented by her (for he says, the one supporting her during those times). Wealth was what had accomplished the strong and desired marriage.

After the murder of Berenice and the death of her father, her brother, named Ptolemy Euergetes, succeeded to the throne as the third of his dynasty, being in fact an offshoot of the same plant and a bud of the same root as she was, inasmuch as he was her brother. He came up with a great army and advanced into the province of the king of the north, that is, Seleucus Callinicus, who together with his mother, Laodice, was ruling in Syria. He abused them, and he seized Syria, Cilicia, the remoter regions beyond the Euphrates and nearly all of Asia as well. And then, when he heard that a rebellion was afoot in Egypt, he ravaged the kingdom of Seleucus and carried off as booty forty thousand talents of silver and precious vessels and images of the gods to the amount of two and a half thousand. . . . Euergetes retained possession of Syria, but he handed over Cilicia to his friend, Antiochus, that he might govern it, and the provinces beyond the Euphrates he handed over to Xanthippus, another general.

After the flight and death of Seleucus Callinicus, his two sons, Seleucus surnamed Ceraunus, and Antiochus, who was called the Great, were provoked by a hope of victory and of avenging their father, and so they assembled an army against Ptolemy Philopator. . . . When the elder brother, Seleucus, was slain in Phrygia . . . through the treachery of Nicator and Apaturius, the army that was in Syria summoned his brother, Antiochus the Great, from Babylon to assume the throne. And so this is the reason why the present passage states that the two sons were provoked and assembled a multitude of very sizable armies. But it implies that Antiochus the Great came by himself from Babylon to Syria, which at the time was held by Ptolemy Philopator. . . . And after he had . . . obtained possession of Syria (which had already been held by a succession of Egyptian kings), he became so emboldened by his contempt for Philopator’s luxurious manner of life and for the magical arts that he was said to employ that he took the initiative in attempting an invasion of Egypt itself.

The Ptolemy Philopator, having lost Syria, gathered together a very great multitude and launched an invasion against Antiochus the Great, the king of the north, at the region where Egypt borders on the province of Judea. For owing to the nature of the region, this locality lies partly to the south and partly to the north. If we speak of Judea, it lies to the north of Egypt and to the south of Syria. And so when he had joined battle near the town of Raphia at the gateway of Egypt, Antiochus lost his entire army and was almost captured as he fled through the desert. And after he had conceded the loss of Syria, the conflict was finally brought to an end on the basis of a treaty and certain conditions of peace.

And this is what the Scripture means here by the statement that Ptolemy Philopator shall cast down many thousands and yet shall not prevail. For he was unable to capture his adversary.

This indicates that Antiochus the Great, who despised Ptolemy Philopator, assembled a huge army from the upper regions of Babylon. And since Ptolemy Philopator was now dead, Antiochus broke his treaty and set his army in motion against Philopator’s four-year-old son—Epiphanes. . . .

Moreover Philip, king of Macedon, and Antiochus the Great made peace with each other and engaged in a common struggle against Ptolemy Epiphanes, on the understanding that each of them should annex to his own dominion those cities of Ptolemy that lay nearest to them. And so this is what is referred to in this passage, which says that many shall rise up against the king of the south, that is, Ptolemy , who was then a mere child.

He will lead again an army greater than the earlier one and will set out against Egypt, and he will do this near the end of his own reign. That is what is meant by the sentence at the end of the seasons he will make his entrance with great power and with much wealth. This doubling is a Hebraism; he wished to say that he would make a great entrance. This is the idiom of both the Hebrews and the Arameans, for they are accustomed to say, entering he entered and departing he departed and eating he eats, and so forth. The translators were rather accurate and followed Hebrew usage.

During the conflict between Antiochus the Great and the generals of Ptolemy, Judea, which lay between them, was rent into contrary factions, the one group favoring Antiochus and the other favoring Ptolemy. Finally the high priest, Onias, fled to Egypt, taking a large number of Jews along with him. . . . He received the region known as Heliopolis, and by a grant of the king, he erected a temple in Egypt like the temple of the Jews, and it remained standing up until the reign of Vespasian, over a period of 250 years. . . . So countless multitudes of Jews fled to Egypt on the occasion of Onias’s pontificate. . . .

This is the matter referred to in this passage: The sons of the transgressors of your people, who forsook the law of the Lord and wished to offer blood sacrifices to God in another place than what he had commanded. They would be lifted up in pride and would boast that they were fulfilling the vision, that is, the thing that the Lord had enjoined. But they shall fall to ruin, for both temple and city shall be afterwards destroyed. And while Antiochus held Judea, a leader of the Ptolemaic party called Scopas Aetholus was sent against Antiochus, and after a bold campaign he took Judea.

Purposing to retake Judea and the many cities of Syria, Antiochus joined battle with Scopas, Ptolemy’s general, near the sources of the Jordan near where the city now called Paneas was founded, and he put him to flight and besieged him in Sidon together with ten thousand of his soldiers. In order to free him, Ptolemy dispatched the famous generals Eropus, Menocles and Damoxenus. Yet he was unable to lift the siege, and finally Scopas, overcome by famine, had to surrender and was sent away with his associates, despoiled of all he had. And as for the statement he shall cast up a mound, this indicates that Antiochus is going to besiege the garrison of Scopas in the citadel of Jerusalem for a long time, while the Jews add their exertions as well. And he is going to capture other cities that had formerly been held by the Ptolemaic faction in Syria, Cilicia and Lycia.^[1]

And a king shall stand up and shall enter into the fortress of the king of Egypt.^[1] For Antiochus became king of Syria. He held the sovereignty in the 107th year of the kingdom of the Greeks. And in those same times indeed he made war against Ptolemy king of Egypt, and conquered him and won the power. On returning from Egypt he went up to Jerusalem, in the 103rd year, and carrying off with him all the treasures of the Lord’s house, he marched to Antioch.

The term glorious land, or, as the Septuagint interprets it, the land of desire (that is, in which God takes pleasure) signifies Judea, and particularly Jerusalem, to which Antiochus pursued those men of Scopas’s party who had been honorably received there. Instead of the phrase glorious land, as Aquila rendered it, Theodotion simply puts the Hebrew word itself, Sabin; instead of that Symmachus translated it land of bravery.

That she may overthrow him.^[1] That is to say, the intention is to overthrow him, that is, Ptolemy, either to overthrow him, that is, Ptolemy, or else to overthrow it, that is, his kingdom. Antiochus not only wished to take possession of Syria, Cilicia and Lycia and the other provinces that had belonged to Ptolemy’s party but also to extend his empire to Egypt. He therefore used the good offices of Eucles of Rhodes to betroth his daughter, Cleopatra, to young Ptolemy in the seventh year of this reign; and in his thirteenth year she was given to him in marriage, professedly endowed with all of Coele-Syria^[2] and Judea as her marriage portion. By pleonasm she is called a daughter of women, just as the poet says, Thus she spoke with her mouth. . . . And with these ears did I drink in her voice.^[3]

He was unable to take possession of Egypt, because Ptolemy Epiphanes and his generals detected the stratagem and followed a cautious policy. And besides, Cleopatra inclined more to her husband’s side than to her father’s. And so he turned his attention to Asia Minor, and by carrying on naval warfare against a large number of islands, he seized Rhodes, Samos, Colophon,^[1] Phocea and many other islands. But he was opposed by Lucius Scipio Nasica and his brother, Publius Scipio Africanus, who had vanquished Hannibal. . . . Antiochus was vanquished and commanded to confine his rule to the other side of the Taurus range. And so he took refuge in Apamia and Susa and advanced to the easternmost cities of his realm. And during a war against the Elymaeans he was destroyed together with his entire army.

And so this is what the Scripture refers to in this passage, when it states that he would capture many islands, and yet because of the Roman conqueror he would lose the kingdom of Asia; and that the disgrace he had inflicted would come back on his own head; and that in the end he would flee from Asia Minor and return to the empire of his own land and would then stumble and fall, so that his place would not be found.