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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 11:18 - 11:18
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His fate further drives him to make an assault on the islands and maritime coasts of the west (אִיִּים), many of which he takes. וְיָשֵׁב is not, after the Keri, to be changed into וְיָשֵׂם; for turning himself from Egypt to the islands, he turns back his face toward his own land in the north. The two following clauses are explained by most interpreters thus: “but a captain shall stop his scorn (bring it to silence), and moreover shall give back (recompense) scorn to him in return.” This is then, according to the example of Jerome, referred to the expedition of Antiochus Epiphanes against the Grecian islands which were under the protection of Rome, for which he was assailed and overcome by the consul Lucius Scipio (Asiaticus) in a battle fought at Magnesia ad Sipylum in Lydia. But the translation in question affords a tolerable sense only when we take בִּלְתִּי in the meaning moreover, in addition to; a meaning which it has not, and cannot have according to its etymology. In all places where it is so rendered a negative sentence goes before it, cf. Gen 43:3; Gen 47:18; Jdg 7:14, or a sentence asking a question with a negative sense, as Amo 3:3-4; according to which, לֹא must here stand before הִשְׁבִּית if we would translate it by besides that or only. בִּלְתִּי has the idea of exception, and can only be rendered after an affirmative statement by however, for the passage introduced by its limits the statement going before. Thus Theodot. rightly: καταπαύσει ἄρχοντας ὀνειδισμοῦ αὐτῶν, πλὴν ὁ ὀνειδισμὸς αὐτοῦ ἐπιστρέψει αὐτῷ; and in close connection with this, Jerome has: et cessare faciet principem opprobrii sui et opprobrium ejus convertetur in eum. In like manner the Peshito. This rendering we must, with Kranichfeld, accede to, and accordingly understand וגו וְהִשְׁבִּית of the king of the north, and interpret the indefinite קָצִין (leader, chief) in undefined generality or collectively, and חֶרְפָּתוֹ (his reproach) as the second object subordinated to קָצִין, and refer לֹו as the dative to קָצִין. Thus the second חֶרְפָּתוֹ gains expressiveness corresponding to its place before the verb as the contrast to לֹו (<) חֶרְפָּתוֹ: “however his reproach,” i.e., the dishonour he did to the chiefs, “shall they recompense to him.” The subject to יָשִׁיב is the collective קָצִין. The statement of the last clause introduces us to the announcement, mentioned in Dan 11:19, of the overthrow of the king of the north, who wished to spread his power also over the west. Since the chiefs (princes) of the islands rendered back to him his reproach, i.e., required to him his attack against them, he was under the necessity of returning to the fortresses of his own land. With that begins his fall, which ends with his complete destruction.