Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 11:32 - 11:32

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 11:32 - 11:32


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The consequences to the people of Israel which result from this sin against the holy covenant. - The ungodly shall become heathen, i.e., shall wholly apostatize from the true God; but, on the other hand, the pious shall be strengthened in their confidence in the Lord. This is in general the import of Dan 11:32, the first half of which, however, has been very differently interpreted. בְּרִית מַרְשִׁיעֵי signifies neither “those who sinfully make a covenant” (Hävernick), nor “sinners among the covenant people” (v. Lengerke), nor “those who condemn the covenant,” i.e., those who reject the sign of the covenant, circumcision (Hitzig). The latter meaning is altogether arbitrary. Against the second is the fact that רְשָׁעִים is in use for sinners; against the first, that בְּרִית הִרְשִׁיעַ could only mean: “to declare the covenant punishable.” הִרְשִׁיעַ means to act wickedly, to sin, and בְּרִית can only be the accusative of reference, which is subordinated to the participle for the purpose of limitation (Ewald, §288); literally, “the acting wickedly with reference to the covenant.” The absence of the article in בְּרִית is no proof against he reference of the word to the holy covenant. The article is wanting in Daniel where otherwise the determination is found from the connection, e.g., Dan 8:13. Sinning against the covenant is, it is true, a stronger expression than בְּרִית עָזַב (to forsake the covenant), but it does not include the idea of the entire apostasy from God, but only insolent violation of the covenant law, so that of בְּרִית מַרְשִׁיעֵי it can very well be predicated יַחֲנִיף. הֶחֱנִיף does not mean to pollute (Kran.), but to desecrate, to make profane; and spoken of persons, to make them as heathen, as frequently in the Syriac. חֲלַקּוֹת, flatteries, here deceitful promises of earthly advantage; cf. under Dan 11:21. For the subject spoken of here, see 1 Macc. 2:18. אֱלֹהָיו יֹדְעֵי are the true confessors of the Lord. The suffix to אֱלֹהָיו is neither to be interpreted distributively nor to be referred to עַם. To יַחֲזִיקוּ we are to supply בַּבְּרִית from the context: “to hold fast to the covenant.” וְעָשׂוּ, as Dan 11:17, Dan 11:28, Dan 11:30, to carry out the design. In what way this is done is explained in Dan 11:33 and Dan 11:34.

Dan 11:33

מַשְׂכִּילֵי is not the teachers, but intelligentes, those who have insight or understanding. The pious are meant by the word, those who know their God (Dan 11:32). This is seen from the contrast רְשָׁעִים, Dan 12:10. According to the O.T. view, wisdom, insight, are correlative ideas with the fear of God, piety, Psa 14:1; Job 28:28; and לָרַבִּים with the article, the many, the great multitude of the people who bring themselves forward to view by the judicious appearance of the pious, are moved to hold fast by the law of the Lord. Yet they who understand shall for a time fall by the sword, etc. The subject to נִכְשְׁלוּ is not the רַבִּים, or those with the teachers (Hitzig), but the עָם מַשְׂכִּילֵי, but not all, but, according to Dan 11:35, a number of them; for in Dan 11:35 falling is not first specially predicated of the teachers, as Hitzig thinks, but only the effect which that would have on the whole people. The words point to a warlike rising up of the faithful members of the covenant people against the hostile king, and have had their first historical fulfilment in the insurrection of the Maccabees against Antiochus Epiphanes; cf. 1 Macc. 2ff. In 1 Macc. 1:57; 2:38; 3:41; 5:13, 2 Macc. 6:11, there are examples of this falling by the sword. The רַבִּים after יָמִים in several Codd. is a worthless gloss.

Dan 11:34

Through the fall of the pious in war little help shall come to the people of God. מְעָט (little) is not “spoken contemptuously” (Hitzig), but the help is so named in comparison with the great deliverance which shall come to the people of God in the time of the end by the complete destruction of the oppressor. We may not therefore, with Hitzig and others, limit this expression to the circumstance that with the victories of Judas Maccabaeus (1 Macc. 3:11ff., 23ff., 4:14, etc.) they were far from gaining all, for they also met with a defeat (1 Macc. 5:60f.). For with the overthrow of Antiochus and the liberation of the Jews from the Syrian yoke, full help was not yet rendered to the people of God. The “little help” consists in this, that by the rising up and the wars of those that had understanding among the people the theocracy was preserved, the destruction of the service of Jehovah and of the church of God, which was aimed at by the hostile king, was prevented, and, as the following clauses express, the purifying of the people of God is brought about. This purifying is the design and the fruit of the oppression which God brings upon His people by means of the hostile king. The attaining of this end is a “little help” in comparison with the complete victory over the arch-enemy of the time of the end. Many shall connect themselves with the מַשְׂכִּילִים (intelligentes, Dan 11:33) with flatteries (as Dan 11:21). “The successes of Judas, and the severity with which he and Mattathias treated the apostates (1 Macc. 2:44; 3:5, 8), had the result of causing many to join them only through hypocrisy (1 Macc. 7:6; 2 Macc. 14:6), who again forsook them as soon as opportunity offered; 1 Macc. 6:21ff., 9:23” (Hitzig, Kliefoth).

Dan 11:35

Such has been the experience in all periods of the church's history. Therefore does the church need to pass through the purifying process of affliction, in which not only the lukewarm fall away in the time of conflict, but also many even מִן־הַמַּשְׂכִּילִים. מִן is here partitive. יִכָּשְׁלוּ (they shall fall) is to be understood (cf. Dan 11:33, בח נִכְשְׁלוּ) not merely of death in battle, but of other calamities, such as being imprisoned, plundered, etc. בָּהֶם לִצְרוֹף to melt, i.e., to purify by them, not as to them; for בְ rof ;meht does not represent the accusative, as Kranichfeld thinks, referring in confirmation to Ewald, §282. The use of בְ there spoken of is of a different nature. The suffix in בָּהֶם refers neither to “those that understand” alone (Häv.), nor to the “many,” Dan 11:33 (v. Leng.), still less to the flatterers in Dan 11:34 (Maurer), but to all of these together, or to the whole company of the people of God in the sum of their individuals. The verbs וְלַלְבֵּן לְבָרֵר serve to strengthen the expression (לַלְבֵּן for לַלְבִּין on account of the assonance). קֵץ עַד־עֵת (to the time of the end) is connected with יִכָּשְׁלוּ, the chief idea of the passage. The stumbling and falling of “those who understand” (the pious) shall continue to the time of the end, to bring about the purification of the people for their glorification in the time of the end. For the end stretches itself out yet to the time appointed (cf. Dan 11:27); i.e., it does not come in with the “little help” which Israel received by the rising up of “those who understand” against the hostile king, thus not with the afflictions that came upon them by Antiochus, but it shall come afterwards at the time appointed by God. The assertion that “the end is connected with the death of king Antiochus Epiphanes” (Hitzig, Bleek, and others) is founded on a misunderstanding of the following section, Dan 11:36-45. On the contrary, Kranichfeld has rightly remarked, that “the statements made in Dan 11:36-39 incl. regarding the king of the north, now fall, in accordance with the context, into the period which shall expire at that time of the end are then to be prophesied.