
Text -- Daniel 11:39 (NET)




Names, People and Places, Dictionary Themes and Topics



collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)
Wesley -> Dan 11:39
Using all art and authority to propagate his worship.
JFB: Dan 11:39 - -- NEWTON translates, "to be defenders of Mahuzzim (the monks and priests who uphold saint worship), together with the strange god whom he shall acknowle...
NEWTON translates, "to be defenders of Mahuzzim (the monks and priests who uphold saint worship), together with the strange god whom he shall acknowledge, he shall multiply honor." English Version is better: He shall do (exploits) in the most strongholds (that is, shall succeed against them) with a strange god (under the auspices of a god which he worshipped not before, namely, Jupiter Capitolinus, whose Worship he imported into his empire from Rome). Antiochus succeeded against Jerusalem, Sidon, Pelusium, Memphis.

JFB: Dan 11:39 - -- Antiochus "caused" his followers and the apostates "to rule over many" Jews, having "divided their land" (Judea), "for gain" (that is, as a reward for...
Antiochus "caused" his followers and the apostates "to rule over many" Jews, having "divided their land" (Judea), "for gain" (that is, as a reward for their compliance).
Clarke -> Dan 11:39
Clarke: Dan 11:39 - -- In the most strong holds with a strange god - Bishop Newton proposed the following translation, after justly finding fault with our common Version: ...
In the most strong holds with a strange god - Bishop Newton proposed the following translation, after justly finding fault with our common Version: "Thus shall he do to the defenders of Mauzzim, together with the strange god whom he shall acknowledge: he shall multiply honor, and he shall cause him to rule over many; and the earth he shall divide for a reward."The defenders of Mauzzim, these saint and angel gods protectors, were the monks, priests, and bishops; of whom it may be truly said, "They were increased with honor, ruled over many, and divided the land for gain."They have been honored and reverenced almost to adoration; their jurisdiction was extended over the purses and consciences of men; they have been enriched with the noblest buildings and largest endowments, and the choicest lands have been appropriated for Church lands. These are points of such public notoriety, that they require no proof. - Newton.
Calvin -> Dan 11:39
Calvin: Dan 11:39 - -- He afterwards says, He shall multiply the glory This may be referred to God, but I rather approve of a different interpretation. The Romans should ...
He afterwards says, He shall multiply the glory This may be referred to God, but I rather approve of a different interpretation. The Romans should acquire great wealth for themselves, and should increase wonderfully in opulence, in the magnitude of their empire, and in all other sources of strength. Therefore they shall multiply the glory, meaning, they shall acquire new territories, and increase their power, and accumulate a multitude of treasures. This explanation fits in very well with the close of the verse, where he adds, he shall make them rule far and wide This is a portion of that glory which this king shall heap upon himself, for he should be superior to the kings over many lands, and should distribute the booty which he had acquired, and that, too, for a price He says, therefore, he shall make them rule over many; for the relative is without a subject, which is a frequent practice of the Hebrews. Whom, then, should the Roman king, or the Roman empire, thus cause to have dominion? Whoever rendered them any assistance should receive his reward from a stranger, as we know Eumenes to have been enriched by the booty and spoil of Antiochus. The provinces also were distributed according to their will. The island was given up to the Rhodians, while a kingdom was wrested from another, and the A Etolians enlarged their dominions. As each party labored hard for their benefit, and incurred large expenses, so the Romans conferred riches upon them. After conquering Antiochus, they became the more liberal towards Attalus and Eumenes, and thus they became masters of the greater part of Asia. Again, when they had deprived Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, of the greater part of his territories, those who had taken care to gratify the Romans, were favored with the spoils they had seized from him. We have another instance in the favor’s conferred upon Massinissa after the conquest of Carthage; for after being expelled from his own kingdom, his dominion extended far and wide throughout the continent of Africa: after being deprived of his paternal sovereignty, he had not a spot in the world on which to plant his foot until they bestowed upon him what they had seized from the Carthaginians. And how did they manage this? They shall divide the soil for a price, says the angel; thus obliquely reproving the cunning of the senate and Roman people, because they did not give away these ample dominions gratuitously; they would willingly have devoured whatever they had acquired, but they found it better policy to sell them than to retain them. They did not sell at any fixed price — for the word “price” here need not be restricted to a definite sum of money — but displayed their avarice, and sold and distributed for the sake of gain, just as much as if all these territories had been immediately reduced into provinces of their empire. They had need of great resources; it was objectionable to continue their garrison in perpetuity in the cities of Greece, and hence they proclaim perfect freedom through them all. But what sort of liberty was this? Each state might choose its senate according to the pleasure of the Romans, and thus as each acquired rank and honor in his own nation, he would become attached and enslaved to the Roman people. And then, in this condition of affairs, if any war should spring up, they sought aid from these friends and allies. For had they been only confederate, the Romans would never have dared to exact so much from each tributary state. Let us take the case of the Carthaginians. After being reduced by many exaction’s to the lowest pitch of poverty, yet when the Romans made war against Philip and Macedon, and against Antiochus, they demanded ships from these allies. They demanded besides, as a subsidy, an immense quantity of gold, silver, provisions, garments, and armor, till at length these wretched Carthaginians, whose very life-blood the Romans had drained, still sent for the war whatever gold they had remaining, and all they could scrape together. Thus Philip king of Macedon is compelled to destroy himself, by plunging his own sword into his body; for every state of Greece was forced to contribute its own portion of the expenses of the war.
We perceive, then, how the lands were divided for a price, each with regard to its own utility, not by fixing a certain defined money value, but according to the standard of political expediency. And what kind of bargaining did they afterwards mutually execute? We have an instance of it in the prevalence of proscription among the Romans, by which they turned their rapacity against their own vitals. They had previously confiscated the goods of their enemies. Philip, for instance, was forced to pay a large sum of money to repurchase the name of king and the portion of territory which remained his own. Antiochus and the Carthaginians were subject to the same hardship. The Romans, in short, never conquered any one without exhausting both the monarch and his dominions to satisfy their insatiable avarice and cupidity. We now perceive how they divided the lands for a price, holding all kings in subjection to themselves, and bestowing largesses upon one from the property of another.
We now perceive the angel’s meaning throughout this verse, The King should be so powerful as to bestow dominion on whomsoever he pleased in many and ample territories, but not gratuitously. We have had examples of some despoiled of their royal dignity and power, and of others restored to the authority of which they had been deprived. Lucullus, for instance, chose to eject one king from his dominions, while another general restored him to his possessions. A single Roman citizen could thus create a great monarch; and thus it often happened. Claudius proposed to the people to proscribe the king of Cyprus, although he was of the royal race; his father had been the friend and ally of the Roman people, he had committed no crime against the Roman empire, and there was no reason for declaring war against him. Meanwhile he remained in security at home, while none of those ceremonies by which war is usually declared took place. He was proscribed in the market-place by a few vagabonds, and Cato is immediately sent to ravage the whole island. He took possession of it for the Romans, and this wretched man is compelled to cast himself into the sea in a fit of despair. We observe, then, how his prediction of the angel was by no means in vain; the Roman proconsuls distributed kingdoms and provinces, but yet for a price, for they seized everything in the world, and drew all riches, all treasures, and every particle of value into the whirlpool of their unsatisfied covetousness. We shall put off the remainder.
TSK -> Dan 11:39
TSK: Dan 11:39 - -- most strong holds : Heb. fortresses of munitions
gain : Heb. a price. Rev 18:9-13
most strong holds : Heb. fortresses of munitions
gain : Heb. a price. Rev 18:9-13

collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)
Barnes -> Dan 11:39
Barnes: Dan 11:39 - -- Thus shall he do in, the most strong holds - Margin, "fortresses of munitions."The reference is to strongly fortified places; to those places w...
Thus shall he do in, the most strong holds - Margin, "fortresses of munitions."The reference is to strongly fortified places; to those places which bad been made strong for purposes of defense. The idea is, that he would carry on his purposes against these places, as it were, under the auspices of this strange god. It was a fact, that in his wars Antiochus came into possession of the strong places, or the fortified towns of the nations which he attacked - Jerusalem, Sidon, Peluslum, Memphis - then among the strongest places in the world.
With a strange god - A foreign god whom his fathers did not acknowledge; that is, according to the supposition above, and according to the fact, with the god whom he had adored at Rome, and whose worship he was ambitious to transfer to his own empire - the Jupiter of the Capitol. He seemed to be acting under the auspices of this foreign god.
Whom he shall acknowledge - By building temples and altars to him. "And increase with glory."That is, with honor. He would seem to increase or extend his dominion in the world, by introducing his worship in his own county and in the lands which he would conquer. Before, his dominion appeared to be only at Rome; Antiochus sought that it might be extended farther, over his own kingdom, and over the countries that he would conquer.
And he shall cause them to rule over many - That is, the foreign gods. Mention had been made before of only one god; but the introduction of the worship of Jupiter would be naturally connected with that of the other gods of Rome, and they are, therefore, referred to in this manner. The conquests of Antiochus would seem to be a setting up of the dominion of these gods over the lands which he subdued.
And shall divide the land for gain - Margin, "a price."The reference here is, probably, to the holy land, and the idea is that it would be partitioned out among his followers for a price, or with a view to gain; that is, perhaps, that it would be "farmed out"for the purpose of raising revenue, and that with this view, as often occurred, it would be set up for sale to the highest bidder. This was a common way of raising revenue, by "farming out"a conquered province; that is, by disposing of the privilege of raising a revenue in it to the one who would offer most for it, and the consequence was, that it gave rise to vast rapacity in extorting funds from the people. Compare 1 Macc. 3:35, 36, where, speaking of Lysias, whom Antiochus had "set to oversee the affairs of the king from the river Euphrates unto the borders of Egypt,"it is said of Antiochus that he "gave him (Lysias) charge of all things that he would have done, as also concerning them that dwelt in Judea and Jerusalem: to wit, that he should send an army against them, to destroy and root out the strength of Israel, and the remnant of Jerusalem, and to take away their memorial from that place; and that he should place strangers in all their quarters, ‘ and divide their land by lot. ‘ "
Poole -> Dan 11:39
Poole: Dan 11:39 - -- A confirmation and ingemination of what he said before, he shall use all art and authority to propagate this idolatrous worship. We have laid by the...
A confirmation and ingemination of what he said before, he shall use all art and authority to propagate this idolatrous worship. We have laid by the interpretation of these things of Antiochus, though Polanus, Junius, and others apply all to him; but the angel speaks of the Romans, and it is plainly verified of antichrist, who did not only take upon him to dispose of kingdoms and provinces by usurped power, for his profit, drawing incredible masses of money from them, but upon a pretended religious account appointing tutelar saints over them.
Haydock -> Dan 11:39
Haydock: Dan 11:39 - -- To. Hebrew: "in the most strong holds, with," &c. (Haydock) ---
He built a fortress near the temple, styled Maoz, (Ezechiel xxiv. 25.) on account...
To. Hebrew: "in the most strong holds, with," &c. (Haydock) ---
He built a fortress near the temple, styled Maoz, (Ezechiel xxiv. 25.) on account of its strength. (Calmet) ---
Glory. He shall bestow honours, riches, and lands, upon them that shall worship his god. (Challoner) ---
He will entrust the strong places to them.
Gill -> Dan 11:39
Gill: Dan 11:39 - -- Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,.... Or, "in the strong holds of Mahuzzim" w that is, in the temples, churches, and chape...
Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,.... Or, "in the strong holds of Mahuzzim" w that is, in the temples, churches, and chapels, dedicated to angels and departed saints; deck and adorn their images with gold, silver, precious stones, and with desirable things, which is notorious; as well as commit the grossest idolatries with this strange breaden god; which they hold up in such places, cringe and bow to, and pay all religious worship and adoration to it:
whom he shall acknowledge, and increase with glory; as really God; the wafer being transubstantiated into the very body and blood of Christ, as is said; and own it as such, as very God, and heap religious honour and glory upon it, which is due to Christ:
he shall cause them to rule over many; that is, the Mahuzzim, the departed saints; one shall rule over England, and be the patron and defender of it, as St. George; another over Scotland, as St. Andrew; another over Ireland, as St. Patrick; another over France, as St. Dennis; another over Spain, as St. James:
and shall divide the land for gain; or "price" x; the whole Romish jurisdiction, all antichristian states, which are divided among those tutelar saints; each of them have their proper country assigned them they are to defend; but this is not done without gain arising to the pope of Rome from those countries, as by firstfruits, annates, Peter's pence, &c.

expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

expand allCommentary -- Verse Range Notes
TSK Synopsis -> Dan 11:1-45
TSK Synopsis: Dan 11:1-45 - --1 The overthrow of Persia by the king of Grecia.5 Leagues and conflicts between the kings of the south and of the north.30 The invasion and tyranny of...
MHCC -> Dan 11:31-45
MHCC: Dan 11:31-45 - --The remainder of this prophecy is very difficult, and commentators differ much respecting it. From Antiochus the account seems to pass to antichrist. ...
Matthew Henry -> Dan 11:21-45
Matthew Henry: Dan 11:21-45 - -- 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...
Keil-Delitzsch -> Dan 11:39
Keil-Delitzsch: Dan 11:39 - --
With the help of this god, who was unknown to his fathers, he will so proceed against the strong fortresses that he rewards with honour, might, and ...
Constable: Dan 8:1--12:13 - --III. Israel in relation to the Gentiles: God's program for Israel chs. 8--12
Two things signal the beginning of ...

Constable: Dan 10:1--12:13 - --C. Daniel's most detailed vision of the future chs. 10-12
We have observed that God's method of revealin...

Constable: Dan 11:36--12:5 - --3. The distant future 11:36-12:4
In the revelation given to Daniel about the 70 sevens (years, 9...
