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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 11:5 - 11:5
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From the 5th verse the prophecy passes to the wars of the kings of the south and the north for the supremacy and for the dominion over the Holy Land, which lay between the two. Dan 11:5 describes the growing strength of these two kings, and Dan 11:6 an attempt made by them to join themselves together. חָזַק, to become strong. The king of the south is the ruler of Egypt; this appears from the context, and is confirmed by Dan 11:8. שָׂרָיו וּמִן is differently interpreted; מִן, however, is unanimously regarded as a partitive: “one of his princes,” as e.g., Neh 13:28; Gen 28:11; Exo 6:25. The suffix to שָׂרָיו (his princes) does not (with C. B. Michaelis, Bertholdt, Rosenmüller, and Kranichfeld) refer to גִּבֹּור מֶלֶךְ, Dan 11:3, because this noun is too far removed, and then also עָלָיו must be referred to it; but thereby the statement in Dan 11:5, that one of the princes of the king of Javan would gain greater power and dominion than the valiant king had, would contradict the statement in Dan 11:4, that no one of the Diadochs would attain to the dominion of Alexander.
(Note: This contradiction is not set aside, but only strengthened, by translating עָלָיו יֶחֱזֵק “he overcame him” (Kran.), according to which the king of Javan must be thought of as overcome by one of his princes, the king of the south. For the thought that the king of Javan survived the destruction of his kingdom, and that, after one of his princes had become the king of the south and had founded a great dominion, he was overcome by him, contradicts too strongly the statement of Dan 11:5, that the kingdom of the valiant king of Javan would be destroyed, and that it would not fall to his survivors, but to others with the exception of those, for one to be able to interpret the words in this sense.)
The suffix to שָׂרָיו can only be referred to the immediately preceding הַנֶגֶב מֶלֶךְ: “one of the princes of the king of the south.” But then וin וּמִן cannot be explicative, but is only the simple copula. This interpretation also is not opposed by the Atnach under שָׂרָיו, for this accent is added to the subject because it stands before separately, and is again resumed in וְיֶחֱזֵק by the copula ,ו as e.g., Eze 34:19. The thought is this: one of the princes of the king of the south shall attain to greater power than this king, and shall found a great dominion. That this prince is the king of the north, or founds a dominion in the north, is not expressly said, but is gathered from Dan 11:6, where the king of the south enters into a league with the king of the north.