Religious-Political Papacy and Islamic Power in Daniel 11
Keywords:
Eschatology, King of the north, King of the south, Rome, IslamAbstract
Close reading of Daniel 11,2-12 within its context in the Book of Daniel reveals that this discourse unit predicts a succession of human political powers that affect the lives of God’s loyal people from the time of Daniel to the commencement of God’s eternal kingdom. If Daniel 11,25-30 predicts the Crusades fought by the religious-political papacy, with its allies, as the king of the north, the king of the south here is religious-political Islamic power. Therefore, the king of the south in verses 40-43 is also Islamic power because it has never been superseded, just as the papacy has continued. By tracing the cosmic conflict predicted in Daniel 11, we can recognize the climactic period in which we are living and have assurance that God will soon deliver us and fulfill the remainder of His promises.Downloads
References
On the genre “apocalypse”, of which “historical apocalypse” is a sub-genre, and the Book of
Daniel, see, e.g., Roy Gane, “Genre Awareness and Interpretation of the Book of Daniel”. In To
Understand the Scriptures: Essays in Honor of William H. Shea, ed. by David Merling (Berrien
Springs, MI: Institute of Archaeology/Siegfried H. Horn Archaeological Museum, 1997), 137-
, and sources cited there, including Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre, ed. by John J.
Collins; Semeia 14 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979).
ESV here and in subsequent biblical quotations unless otherwise indicated.
See further Roy E. Gane, “Methodology for Interpretation of Daniel 11:2-12:3”, Journal of the
Adventist Theological Society 27, no 1-2 (2016; appeared in 2017): 294-343.
For parallels between Dan 8-9 and 11, see Appendix II.
With André Lacocque, The Book of Daniel, trans. by David Pellauer (Atlanta, GA: John Knox,
, 225; John E. Goldingay, Daniel, Word Biblical Commentary 30 (Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 1989), 298; John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993),
; Carol A. Newsom with Brennan W. Breed, Daniel: A Commentary, Old Testament Library
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 345; Tremper Longman III, Daniel, NIV Application
Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 277.
Some Seventh-day Adventist have introduced Rome before this, including by interpreting “the
daughter of women” in v. 17 as Queen Cleopatra VII, the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes
(69-30 B.C.), who had affairs with the Romans Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Uriah Smith,
The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, rev. ed. (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association,
; orig. publ. as Thoughts, Critical and Practical on the Book of Daniel and the
Revelation: Being an Exposition, Text by Text, of These Important Portions of the Holy Scriptures;
Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1882), 251; The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary,
ed. by Francis D. Nichol (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1953-1957), 4:869-70;
C. Mervyn Maxwell, God Cares, vol. 1: The Message of Daniel For You and Your Family (Boise,
ID: Pacific Press, 1981), 293; William H. Shea, Daniel: A Reader’s Guide (Nampa, ID: Pacific
Press, 2005), 247. But this later Cleopatra was a Ptolemy from the south, so she was never given
by the “king of the north” in a political marriage to the “king of the south”.
See Appendix I on correlations between Dan 11,5-19 and the rulers of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid
dynasties.
With Lacocque, The Book of Daniel, 225; Goldingay, Daniel, 298; Collins, Daniel, 381; Newsom,
Daniel: A Commentary, 346. Against Smith, The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation,
; Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, 4:870; Maxwell, God Cares, 293; Shea, Daniel,
; and Zdravko Stefanovic, Daniel: Wisdom to the Wise: Commentary on the Book of Daniel
(Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2007), 419, who are off target when they interpret “stumble and fall”
in 11,19 as the assassination of Julius Caesar in Rome in 44 B.C.
For the meaning of כןֵ as “place” in the sense of “position” or “office”, cf. Gen 40,13; 41,13.
Cf. Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon
of the Old Testament, trans. and ed. under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson; 2 vols.
(Leiden: Brill, 2001) 2:1383-4, which places the instances in Dan 9,24-27 under the meaning,
“a week of years, a period of seven years”.
Gane, “Methodology for Interpretation of Daniel 11:2-12:3”, 311-312, and cf. sources cited
there in footnotes. “Since Daniel 9:26, 27 and 11:22 obviously refer to the crucifixion of Christ
under the Romans, the Roman Empire must enter the stage of history sometime prior to Daniel
:22”. Gerhard Pfandl, Daniel: The Seer of Babylon (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald,
, 107.
On this and other anchor points in Dan 11, including vv. 31.32-34, see on “Relations Between
Daniel 11 and Daniel 7, 8, and 9” in William H. Shea, “Unity of Daniel”. In Symposium on
Daniel: Introductory and Exegetical Studies, ed. by Frank B. Holbrook; Daniel and Revelation
Committee Series 2 (Washington, D.C.: Biblical Research Institute, 1986), 245-247.
The goat representing Greece came from the west (vv. 5.21), also in harmony with geographic
reality.
Cf., e.g., Shea, Daniel, 178. Stefanovic comments on “toward the south and toward the east and
toward the Beautiful Land” in 8,9: “From Daniel’s point of reference in the vision, Palestine was
located in the west. That means that the little horn most likely came from the north, because
the direction left out in this verse is the north”. However, the directions are not from Daniel’s
location in Susa in the Babylonian province of Elam (8:2), just east of Mesopotamia, at the time
of the vision, but from the point of origin of the new power, in this case, Rome in Italy, just as
the ram charged “westward and northward and southward” from its original territory in Persia,
to the east of Elam.
On the transition from horizontal, earthly directions representing territorial conquests in the
first part of Dan 8 through v. 9 to the vertical, religious dimension introduced in vv. 10-12,
cf. Shea, “Unity of Daniel”, 193-194; ibid., Daniel, 178-179.
With Shea, “Unity of Daniel”, 189-190.
Cf. Maxwell, 293.
As seen by Maxwell, 293-295 and Shea, who also includes Dan 11,23-24 in the Crusades (Daniel,
-9), but the king of the north does not attack the king of the south until v. 25.
Rev 12,6.14 equates this period with 1,260 days.
Daniel 2, 7, 8 and 11 present parallel sweeps of history from the time of the prophet to the
establishment of God’s eternal kingdom. In these prophecies, the first of four great successive
kingdoms is Neo-Babylonia (cf. 2,37-38), which is followed by Medo-Persia (8,20; 11,2) and
then Greece (8,21), which Daniel explicitly names. Daniel does not name the fourth kingdom.
However, it is common historical knowledge that Greece was followed by mighty Rome, which
fits the profile in 7,7.19.23, from which emerged the religious-political power of papal Rome,
which matches the profile of the “little horn” in 7,8.20-21.24-25, which is paralleled by the
profile of the king of the north at least in 11,32-37.
Therefore, the time periods in Dan 12 do not cover the full duration of the history covered in
,2-12,3, but begin with the king of the north. The fact that this event is mentioned in Dan
,31 just before the king of the north begins to carry out persecution (vv. 32-35), which lasts
½ times (= 1,260 days; Rev 12,6.14), implies that the two periods of 3½ times and 1,290 days
overlap. The language of Dan 12,12—“Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days”
indicates that this period overlaps and extends beyond the other two periods.
Roy E. Gane, Who’s Afraid of the Judgment? The Good News About Christ’s Work in the Heavenly
Sanctuary (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2006), 69.
“Interclausal waw before a non-verb constituent has a disjunctive role. There are two common
types of disjunction. One type involves a continuity of scene and participants, but a change of
action, while the other is used where the scene or participants shift…the disjunction may come
at the beginning or end of a larger episode or it may ‘interrupt’ one. The ‘interruptive’ use, better
called explanatory or parenthetical, ‘break[s] into the main narrative to supply information
relevant to or necessary for the narrative’”. Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction
to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 650-651; 39.2.3, citing Ruth
,6-8 as an example and referring to Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, 164, which cites
Sam 1,9; Gen 29,16; cf. Gen 13,7. The verbs in Dan 11,31 are imperfect and perfect consecutive,
indicating future time, which makes sense because the whole prophecy is a prediction,
although v. 31 could have a beginning point that is chronologically earlier than the end of the
Crusades in v. 30.
Cf. the end-time “Babylon” alliance in Rev 16-18.
On the expression “time of the end”, see Pfandl, Daniel: The Seer of Babylon, 107.
Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan: The Conflict of the Ages in the
Christian Dispensation (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1888), 662-663.
Cf. 2 Thess 2:8, regarding the “lawless one”, whom “the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his
mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming”.
William H. Shea points out “a basic principle for interpreting Daniel’s apocalyptic prophecy.
That principle is this: it is only necessary to continue with one kingdom, or line of kings, until
the new one of importance is introduced on the scene of action”. Selected Studies on Prophetic
Interpretation, Daniel and Revelation Committee 1; ed. by F. Holbrook (Silver Spring, MD:
Biblical Research Institute, 1992), 41.
Jacques Doukhan interprets the words at the end of v. 4—“his kingdom shall be plucked up and
go to others besides these” as “given to Rome”. Daniel: The Vision of the End, revised ed. (Berrien
Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1987), 78-79; cf. ibid., Secrets of Daniel: Wisdom and
Dreams of a Jewish Prince in Exile (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2000), 168. Because
Doukhan places pagan Rome at the end of v. 4 and regards v. 5 as indicating “a new step in both
form and substance” (Daniel, 79), he interprets vv. 5-39 in a spiritual, rather than literal, sense
(skipping all of the Ptolemies and Seleucids) as paralleling 8,23-25 to cover the period of papal
Rome = the “little horn” (ibid., 79-80, 87-89; Secrets of Daniel, 169-175). For him, “allusions to
the north and south become abstract and metaphorical… On the one hand, we have the north
representing religious power striving to usurp God, while on the other, we have the south standing
for human endeavors that reject God and have faith in humanity alone”. Doukhan, Secrets of
Daniel, 172-173.
See Appendix I.
E.g., Lacocque, The Book of Daniel, 226; Goldingay, Daniel, 299; Collins, Daniel, 382; Newsom,
Daniel: A Commentary, 346-7.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes was a son of Antiochus III who succeeded to the throne in a dynastic
succession at a time of difficulty for his royal family after the murder of his brother Seleucus IV.
E.g., Lacocque, The Book of Daniel, 226-233; Goldingay, Daniel, 299-305; Collins, Daniel, 382-
; Newsom, Daniel: A Commentary, 347-359.
E.g., Lacocque, The Book of Daniel, 196, 226; Goldingay, Daniel, 263, 299; Collins, Daniel, 356,
; Newsom, Daniel: A Commentary, 306-7, 347.
Newsom admits that even in the flow of events during the reign of Antiochus IV, the reference
in Dan 11,22 to the “prince of the covenant” being swept away “is somewhat intrusive and
chronologically out of place” (347; cf. Collins, Daniel, 382).
Uriah Smith, The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, 289-299.
Including Libya and Cush (11:43). Cush is an ancient term for modern Sudan. Anson F. Rainey
and R. Steven Notley, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World, 2nd ed. ( Jerusalem:
Carta, 2014), 27).
Including Edom, Moab and Ammon in the territory of modern Jordan (v. 41).
For example: “In Daniel 11 the prophecy points to a time thousands of years later than his own
day when the king of the north does much more than carry Israel’s sacred treasures to Egypt, a
name that here stands for secular and philosophical powers that deny God (see Rev. 11:8). For
he now wields power over rulers in the secular, atheist domain at the same time that he practices
his grand spiritual pretense”. Jacques Doukhan, “Final Deception”, Adventist Review 195,
no. 8 (August, 2018), 39. “Traditionally staunch enemies, the Roman Catholic Church, king
of the north, and the secular state power, king of the south, are coming into closer and closer
alignment” (ibid., 41). It is unclear how “coming into closer and closer alignment” constitutes
definitive victory, even spiritual/religious victory, after conflict, as predicted in Dan 11,40-43,
and this interpretation appears to be influenced by current events.
For example, Doukhan, “Final Deception”, 39 (see above).
For example, Ángel M. Rodríguez, pamphlet Daniel 11 and the Islam Interpretation, Biblical
Research Institute Release 13 (Silver Spring, MD: Biblical Research Institute, 2015), 8-17.
“The Christological qualification of the name Israel has superseded all former religious-national
boundaries and ethnic limitations (Eph 2:14-16). This has inevitable repercussions on the traditional
territorial promises regarding the Middle East. Rather than being made void, however,
these territorial covenant promises are extended world-wide (Mt 5:5; Rom 4:13) so that the old
limited boundaries and restrictions are eliminated, in harmony with the Christological meaning
of the terms embracing Israel and Judah. From this point of view, since the cross of Christ and
Pentecost, there is theologically no longer a holy land, city, or mountain on earth ( Jn 4:21; Mt
:38)”. Hans K. LaRondelle, “Interpretation of Prophetic and Apocalyptic Eschatology”. In
A Symposium on Biblical Hermeneutics, ed. by Gordon M. Hyde (Washington, D.C.: Biblical
Research Committee, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1974), 231.
“All those OT prophecies that apply to the time after the cross of Christ—that is, to eschatological
time—will find their fulfillment solely in and through Christ and His covenant people as the
true Israel of God and in their avowed enemies” (ibid., 236). It is true that members of spiritual
“Israel” are the people of God in the Christian era (e.g. Rev 7,4; cf. Daniel’s people in Dan 12,1)
and LaRondelle is right that during this period there is no longer any theological role for the
literal land of Israel as having a special spiritual/religious place in God’s plan. However, the
“primary concern for ‘spiritual Israel’ as the Christian church in apocalyptic prophecy referring
to events after the cross does not mean that we should overreact against futurist dispensationalism
by holding that such events must always be symbolic and cannot in any context involve
the literal land of Israel. Context is king in exegesis of any text, biblical or otherwise, so a strong
pattern observed in many passages does not rule out the possibility of exceptions in some other
contexts”. Gane, “Methodology for Interpretation of Daniel 11:2-12:3”, 326.
Cf. the non-symbolic reference to Roman military activity after the death of Christ in Dan 9,26.
The “flood” metaphor emphasizes overwhelming military force that destroys “the city and the
sanctuary”, but other terms are literal (“destroy”, “city”, “sanctuary”, “war”).
As Doukhan does (see above); cf. his presentation on Dan 11, “Afternoon Program with
Dr. Jacques B Doukhan”, YouTube video (May 7, 2016), https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ScdL6mPQTcE.
On such “Relations Between Daniel 11 and Daniel 7, 8, and 9”, see Shea, “Unity of Daniel”,
-247; cf. ibid., Daniel, 239, 252-253; Maxwell, 295; Stefanovic, 396, 423.
Adapted from Gane, “Methodology for Interpretation of Daniel 11:2-12:3”, 306-310, followed
by explanation in 310-315.
Reading the first phrase of v. 24 as the end of the sentence in v. 23.
ESV—“the regular burnt offering”. “Burnt offering” is not in the Hebrew.
ESV—“sanctuary”.
ESV—“And a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of
transgression”.
ESV—“the regular burnt offering”.
With NJPS because the two nouns are in apposition without the conjunction supplied by
ESV—“the temple and fortress”.
ESV—“the regular burnt offering”.
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