Daniel 11:44 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Daniel 11:44
But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.
abundant (in quantity · adjective, masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Revelation 16:12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the…
Revelation 19:19-21 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and agai…
Ezekiel 38:9-12 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.
Daniel 11:11 And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north: and he shall…
Daniel 11:30 For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant:…
Revelation 17:13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Daniel 11:21–end
All this is a prophecy of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn spoken of before (Dan 8:9) a sworn enemy to the Jewish religion, and a bitter persecutor of those that adhered to it. What troubles the Jews met with in the reigns of the Persian kings were not so particularly foretold to Daniel as these, because then they had living prophets with them, Haggai and Zechariah, to encourage them; but these troubles in the days of Antiochus were foretold, because, before that time, prophecy would cease, and they would find it necessary to have recourse to the written word. Some things in this prediction concerning Antiochus are alluded to in the New Testament predictions of the antichris…
tidings out of the east and out of the north--Artaxias, king of Armenia, his vassal, had revolted in the north, and Arsaces, leader of the Parthians, in the east (1 Maccabees 3:10, &c., 1 Maccabees 3:37; TACITUS, Histories, 5.8). In 147 B.C. Antiochus went on the expedition against them, on the return from which he died.
great fury--at the Jews, on account of their successes under Judas Maccabeus, whence he desired to replenish his treasury with means to prosecute the war with them; also at Artaxias and Arsaces, and their respective followers. DE BURGH makes the "tidings" which rouse his fury, to be concerning the Jews' restoration; such may be the antitypical reference.
Adam Clarke on Daniel 11:44
But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him - This part of the prophecy is allowed to be yet unfulfilled; and what is portented, the course of prophetic events will show. Were we to understand it as applying to Antiochus, then the news might be of the preparations which he heard, that the provinces of the east, and Artaxerxes, king of Armenia, on the north were intending to rise up against him. But if the Turkish power be understood, as in the preceding verses, it may mean that the Persians on the east, and the Russians on the north, will at some time greatly embarrass the Ottoman government. And how completely has this been fulfilled; first, by the total destruction o…
This does not apply to Antiochus either. I mean that the disturbances did not drive him out of Egypt, but rather the decree of the Romans, which came from the west, not from the east. But as far as the antichrist is concerned, the prophecy says that once he takes Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia and subjugates them to himself, he will return, because he will be troubled by a certain rumor, and he will come in great anger "to curse and to obliterate many." This is a hendiadys: "to obliterate" is to be stripped naked of godliness, and "to curse" is to declare that godliness is foreign to oneself.
After these things Antiochus came out a second time raising war against him and he overcame Ptolemy. And then, after these things happened, Antiochus again stirred up the sons of Israel and he dispatched a certain Nicanor with a great army in order to make war against the Jews, while Judas, after the death of his father Matthias, ruled the people. And so Nicanor, coming to Jerusalem, was defeated by the Maccabee and he reported these things to king Antiochus. But he, having heard this, summoned all his armies and gave to them allowances for one year and he commanded them to be ready for what was necessary. At this point, having failed to fulfill the salaries, he wished to enter into Persia in order to take tributes. Accordingly, as he was about to depart, he addressed his friend, Lysias by name, and he set before him his own son Antiochus, and he commanded him to do all the things he willed, and he commanded him to send an army into Judea and to destroy the nation. Accordingly, Lysias, having arisen with the boy Antiochus, went with a great army, to wage war against Jerusalem. And he came and was defeated by the Maccabee and these things were reported in Persia to Antiochus, that all the armies which were sent into Judea were cut down and that Lysias went with an army against them and was overthrown from their faces, and also that the Jews were strong in arms and were strong in every neighborhood and from every camp which he was cut down and that they fortified Mount Zion and that they had built a great and high wall around the city. But Antiochus, having heard this, fell into sickness from grief because just as he did not will, it also happened, and just as he did not want, thus it also occurred. And then being about to die, he called Philip his friend and he gave to him the diadem in order that he might restore it to his child Antiochus. When Philip arrived he entered Antioch and he kept himself safe in the palace. For the greatest armies were with him. And so these things were reported to Lysias and the child Antiochus, for it happened that Lysias had raised a barricade against Jerusalem to besiege it because Philip had arrived carrying the diadem and because he ruled Antioch. But having heard this, he was troubled and said, "Let us give pledges to these men and let us have peace with them. For the place is strong and it is closed to us and to the armies…
Dictionary and topics
Syria · Prophecies respecting: Its history in connection with the Macedonia empire — Prophecies respecting: Its history in connection with the Macedonia empire
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Daniel 11:44
But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him,.... This and the following verse respect times and things yet to come, and the interpretation of them is not so certain: perhaps this clause may have a regard to the news brought to the Turk, of the Jews, upon their conversion, being about to return to their own land, from the eastern and northern parts of the world, where they chiefly are at this day; which will greatly alarm him, since their land is part of his dominions: or it may be, out of the east may come tidings of some commotions and disturbances in the eastern part of the world, as Tartary, &c. which he may fear would be of bad consequence to the Ottoman empire; an…
Daniel 11:44
44. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.
44. Rumores vero, [193] terrebunt eum ab oriente, et ab aquilone: egredieturque cum ira magna, ut perdat et internecione deleat multos.
The angel's narrative seems here to differ somewhat from the preceding one, as the Romans should not succeed so completely as to avoid being arrested in the midst of their victorious course. He says, they shall be frightened by rumors, and the events suit this case, for although the Romans subdued the whole east with scarcely any trouble, and in a few years, yet they were afterwards che…
The End of the Hostile King
As has been already seen, the expressions in Dan 11:40-43 regarding this king do not agree with Antiochus Epiphanes, so also the statements regarding his end are in contradiction to the historical facts regarding the end of the Syrian king. When the hostile king took possession of Egypt and its treasures, and made the Lybians and Cushites subject to him, tidings from the east and the north overwhelm him with terror. The masc. יבהלהוּ stands ad sensum related to the persons who occasion the reports. The reports excited his anger, so that he goes forth to destroy many. We have to think thus on the reports of revolt and insurrections in the east and the north of his…
the glorious land of Israel: Israel (cp. 8:9; 11:16) is again the center of attack by an evil king. • Moab, Edom, and Ammon were nations surrounding ancient Israel and Judah.
Rashi on Daniel 11:40
And at the time of the end when our redemption draws near.
and the king of the north will storm over him over the king of the south.
Verses 44, 45. "And tidings from the East and from the North shall trouble him. And he shall come thither with a great host to destroy and slay very many. And he shall pitch his tent in Apedno between the two seas, upon the famous and holy mountain; and he shall come even unto its summit, and none shall help him." Even for this passage Porphyry has some nebulous application to Antiochus, asserting that in his conflict with the Egyptians, Libyans, and Ethiopians, passing through them he was to hear of wars which had been stirred up against him in the North and the East. Thence he was to turn back and overcome the resistance of the Aradians, and lay waste the entire province along the coastline of Phoenicia. And then he was to proceed without delay against Artaxias, the king of Armenia, who was moving down from the regions of the East, and having slain a large number of his troops, he would pitch his tent in the place called Apedno which is located between the two broadest rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. But it is impossible to state upon what famous and holy mountain he took his seat, after he had proceeded to that point. After all, it cannot be shown that he took up his seat between two seas, and it would be foolish to interpret the two seas as being the two rivers of Mesopotamia. But Porphyry gets around this famous mountain by following the rendering of Theodotion, who said: "...upon the sacred Mount Saba between the two seas." And even though he supposes that Saba was the name of a mountain in Armenia or Mesopotamia, he cannot explain why it was holy. To be sure, if we assume the right of making things up, we can add the detail which Porphyry fails to mention, that the mountain, forsooth, was called holy, because it was consecrated to idols in conformity with the superstition of the Armenians. The account then says: "And he shall come even unto the summit of that same mountain," - supposedly in the province of Elam, which is the easternmost Persian area. And there when he purposed to plunder the temple of Diana, which contained countless sums of money, he was routed by the barbarians, for they honored that shrine with a remarkable veneration. And Antiochus, being overcome with grief, died in Tabes, a town in Persia. By use of a most artificial line of argument Porphyry has concocted these details as an affront to us; but even though he were able to…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
