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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Daniel 11:8 - 11:8
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To bring the subjugated kingdom wholly under his power, he shall carry away its gods along with all the precious treasures into Egypt. The carrying away of the images of the gods was a usual custom with conquerors; cf. Isa 46:1., Jer 48:7; Jer 49:3. In the images the gods themselves were carried away; therefore they are called “their gods.” נְסִכֵיהֶם signifies here not drink-offerings, but molten images; the form is analogous to the plur. פְּסִילִים, formed from פֶּסֶל; on the contrary, נְסִיכָם libationes, Deu 32:38, stands for נִסְכֵּיהֶם, Isa 41:29. The suffix is not to be referred to אֱלֹהִים, but, like the suffix in חֱמְדָּתָם, to the inhabitants of the conquered country. וְזָהָב כֶּסֶף are in apposition to חֶמְדָּתָם כְּלֵי, not the genitive of the subject (Kran.), because an attributive genitive cannot follow a noun determined by a suffix. Häv., v. Leng., Maurer, Hitzig, Ewald, and Klief. translate 'וגו יַעֲמֹד שָׁנִים וְהוּא: he shall during (some) years stand off from the king of the north. Literally this translation may perhaps be justified, for עָמַד, c. מִן, Gen 29:35, has the meaning of “to leave off,” and the expression “to stand off from war” may be used concisely for “to desist from making war” upon one. But this interpretation does not accord with the connection. First, it is opposed by the expressive וְהוּא, which cannot be understood, if nothing further should be said than that the king of the south, after he had overthrown the fortresses of the enemies' country, and had carried away their gods and their treasures, abstained from war for some years. The וְהוּא much rather leads us to this, that the passage introduced by it states some new important matter which does not of itself appear from the subjugation of the enemy and his kingdom. To this is to be added, that the contents of Dan 11:9, where the subject to בָּא can only be the king of the north, do not accord with the abstaining of the king of the south from warring against the king of the north. By Ewald's remark, “With such miserable marchings to and fro they mutually weaken themselves,” the matter is not made intelligible. For the penetrating of the king of the south into the fortresses of his enemy, and the carrying away of his gods and his treasures, was not a miserable, useless expedition; but then we do not understand how the completely humbled king of the north, after his conqueror abstained from war, was in the condition to penetrate into his kingdom and then to return to his own land. Would his conqueror have suffered him to do this? We must, therefore, with Kranichfeld, Gesenius, de Wette, and Winer, after the example of the Syriac and Vulgate, take מִן יַעֲמֹד in the sense of: to stand out before, מִן in the sense of מִפְּנֵי, contra, as in Psa 43:1 it is construed with רִיב, which is supported by the circumstance that עָמַד in Dan 11:6, Dan 11:15, Dan 11:17, and Dan 11:25, has this meaning. By this not only is וְהוּא rightly translated: and he, the same who penetrated into the fortresses of his adversary and carried away his gods, shall also take his stand against him, assert his supremacy for years; but also Dan 11:9 contains a suitable addition, for it shows how he kept his ground. The king of the north shall after some time invade the kingdom of the king of the south, but shall return to his own land, namely, because he can effect nothing. Kran. takes the king of the south as the subject to וּבָא, Dan 11:9; but this is impossible, for then the word must be בְּמַלְכוּתוֹ, particularly in parallelism with אַדְמָתוֹ. As the words stand, הַנֶגֶב מֶלֶךְ, can only be the genitive to בְּמַלְכוּת; thus the supposition that “the king of the south is the subject” is excluded, because the expression, “the king of the south comes into the kingdom of the south and returns to his own land,” has no meaning when, according to the context, the south denotes Egypt. With the וּבָא there also begins a change of the subject, which, though it appears contrary to the idiom of the German [and English] language, is frequently found in Hebrew; e.g., in Dan 11:11 and Dan 11:9. By the mention of an expedition of the king of the north into the kingdom of the king of the south, from which he again returned without having effected anything, the way is opened for passing to the following description of the supremacy of the king of the north over the king of the south.