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cities and princes also, on this side of Mount Taurus; protected his own kingdom from invasion; and gave all the highest opinion of his courage."

21. "Many shall stand up against the king of the south."

"As soon as Ptolemy was dead, and had left an infant son, Philip and Antiochus, whose duty it was, according to the laws of nature, to maintain the child in the possession of his kingdom, combined together to share his dominions, and to destroy the helpless orphan" (Polyb., xv. frag.). "On the death of Philopator, the Alexandrians sent ambassadors to the Romans, entreating that they would undertake the guardianship of the king, to defend the kingdom of Egypt, which Philip and Antiochus had covenanted to divide between them" (Justin, xxx. 2).

22. "The robbers of thy people will exalt themselves to establish the vision; but they shall fall."

So Polybius, as quoted by Josephus: "Now Scopas, the general of Ptolemy, went in haste to the upper part of the country; and, in the winter time, overthrew the nations of the Jews."

23. "The king of the north shall cast a mount, and take the city of munitions; and the arms of the south shall not withstand."

So again Josephus informs us: "Not long after, Antiochus defeated Scopas in a battle at the fountains of the Jordan, and destroyed a great part of his army." Jerome gives us further information: "He shut him up, with ten thousand of his troops, in Sidon. To set him free, Ptolemy sent famous generals-Eropus, Menocles, and Damoxenus; but they could not raise the siege; and at length Scopas, overcome by famine, surrendered."

24. "He shall stand in the glorious land, which by his hand shall be consumed."

The words may be rendered more exactly—" He shall stand in the land of the beauteous ornament, and it will be perfected by his hand." The Septuagint, Theodoret, and Grotius prefer this version of the latter clause, and make it refer to the land of Israel; but, by comparing the passage with verse 41, and with Ezek. vii. 20, I am convinced that NATZEBI must here denote the temple itself. "As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty." And the same verb which occurs here is used to express the completion both of the tabernacle and of the first temple (Exod. xxxix. 32; 1 Kings vi. 38). The letter of Antiochus on this subject is given in Josephus, and is in almost verbal agreement with the prophecy.

"In the first place, we have determined to bestow on them, as a pension, for their sacrifices of animals that are fit for sacrifice, for wine, oil, and frankincense, twenty thousand pieces of silver and six artabræ of fine flour, with one thousand four hundred and sixty medimni of wheat, and three hundred and seventy-five medimni of salt......I would also have the work about the temple finished, and the cloisters, and if there be anything else that ought to be rebuilt. And for the materials of wood, let it be brought them out of Judea itself, and the other countries, and out of Libanus, tax free; and the same I would have observed as to those other materials which will be necessary, in order to render the temple more glorious." And again he adds, in a second decree, “It shall be lawful for no foreigner to come within the limits of the temple round about; which is forbidden also to the Jews, except to those who have purified themselves. And he that transgresseth any of these orders, let him pay the priest three thousand drachmæ of silver.”

In

this remarkable manner was the temple, the beauteous ornament, perfected by this monarch's hand.

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25. "He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his kingdom, and equal conditions with him; and he shall give him the daughter of women.'

So we read in Livy, xxxv. 13: “ Antiochus the king that winter, at Raphia, gave his daughter in marriage to Ptolemy, king of Egypt." And in Josephus (Ant. xii. 4): "After this, Antiochus made a friendship and league with Ptolemy, and gave him his daughter Cleopatra to wife; and yielded up to him Coelo-Syria, and Samaria, and Judea, and Phenicia, by way of dowry."

26. "But she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him."

"Ambassadors came from Ptolemy and Cleopatra, kings of Egypt, to express their joy that Acilius, the consul, had expelled Antiochus from Greece, and exhorting them to lead over their army into Asia" (Liv. xxxvii. 3).

27. "After this he shall turn his face toward the isles, and take many."

"Antiochus, having in the former summer reduced all the cities of Ptolemy in Coelo-Syria under his own power, had wintered at Antioch, but did not afterwards keep quiet. For, using all the strength of his kingdom, after he had prepared great forces, by land and sea, in the early part of spring, having sent his two sons with the army, and commanded them to meet him at Sardis, he set out himself with a fleet of one hundred decked ships, and two hundred lighter vessels” (Liv. xxx. 19).

Returning to his fleet, he set out with forty covered and sixty open ships, and two hundred transports followed with all kinds of warlike provision. He first took the island Imbrus; then he passed over to Sciathus. Since the king possessed the key of Euboea, the other cities of the island did not refuse his authority; and he

thought that he had made an excellent beginning of the war, when so large an island and so many cities had come under his power" (xxxv. 51).

28. "But a prince on his own behalf shall cause the reproach offered by him to cease; without his own reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him."

Antiochus was routed at Thermopyla by the consul Acilius. "The king, collecting first at Elatia the few who had escaped from the battle and the rout, betook himself to Calchis with a very small band of half-armed soldiers; nor did any one of the whole army escape, except five hundred who were around the king" (Liv. xxxvi. 19). He was soon after defeated a second time at Magnesia (B.c. 190). "Fifty thousand infantry are said to have been slain, and four thousand horse; fourteen hundred were captured, and fifteen elephants with their rulers. Antiochus, fleeing with a small number, as more gathered to him in his flight, reached Sardis near midnight with a small body of soldiers" (xxxvii. 44). The conditions of peace were severe"To abstain from Europe, to abandon all Asia on this side of Taurus, and to pay fifteen thousand Eubœan talents for the expenses of the war.” Thus was the reproach which he had offered made conspicuously to turn upon him.

29. “He shall stumble and fall, and not be found.” The event, as told by Justin, corresponds: "Meanwhile, in Syria, King Antiochus, since he was loaded with heavy tribute after his defeat by the Romans, either compelled by want of money or urged by avarice, and thinking he might commit sacrilege with more.impunity under pretext of the tribute, assailed by night, with an army, the temple of Elymæan Jove. But the matter being discovered, he is slain, with all his army, by an assault of the inhabitants" (xxxii. 2).

30. “Then shall stand up in his estate a raiser of taxes, in the glory of the kingdom."

Seleucus Philopator succeeded, who reigned, as Appian says, "both idly and weakly, in consequence of his father's calamity." To raise the tribute imposed by the Romans on Antiochus was almost the only employment of his reign. After plundering the temple at Jerusalem, "he died through the treachery of Heliodorus, one of his chief ministers," the same who had been employed in the sacrilege, after a short reign of twelve years. Thus in a few days he was "destroyed, neither in anger nor in battle," but by the deliberate treachery of an ambitious.

servant.

31. “ And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they will not give the honour of the kingdom."

So we read in Livy: "About this time Antiochus, son of Antiochus the Great, who had long been a hostage at Rome, on the death of Seleucus, his brother, seized on the kingdom of Syria......Obtaining the throne by the help of Eumenes and Attalus, he was received with such favour of the people that they surnamed him Epiphanes...... Nor was he wanting in warlike skill and vigour of mind; but he was so depraved and reckless in the whole course of his life and manners, that soon after, changing the surname, instead of Epiphanes (the Illustrious), they called him Epimanes (the Madman)” (Liv. xli. 19).

It is needless at present to trace the correspondence between the ten following verses and the history of Antiochus. The facts which have been presented in a compressed form, and almost entirely in the words of the original authorities, make a comment superfluous to prove the accurate fulfilment of the prophecy, even in its minutest details. There is not one prediction, it may be safely asserted, in the inspired writings them

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