197 - Rise of Antiochus Epiphanes [B]

The Rise of Antiochus Epiphanes. Daniel 8

There are three characteristics that come out in relation to Antiochus Epiphanes and these are then a type or picture of what will be seen in the Antichrist. The first is that he comes on the scene and is extremely popular, he trades on his own popularity, his own personal charisma, and he is able to sway the masses. Secondly, we see with Antiochus Epiphanes something that is truly reflective of the character of the Antichrist is that he was the mater of what we would term today the culture war. He recognized that as he was trying to consolidate his kingdom, the Seleucid empire, that he needed to bring everyone together and Hellenise—make them all thinking like the Greeks thought—the entire kingdom. He needed a homogenous kingdom; he wasn't a fan of multi-cultural diversity; he wanted everybody thinking the same way according to the same pagan system. Antiochus was the product of a Roman education. On his way to take power in Syria he stopped for a while in Greece and so had absorbed many of the Greek ideas and was trying to implement those. There was one group of people under his authority who just didn't want to go along with all of this paganism and multiplicity of gods and goddesses, and everything that went with Hellenisation, and that was the Jews. Immediately they set themselves up as a thorn in the flesh for Antiochus, who is trying to do everything he can to control the politics and the people, to appoint his people in place who will then appoint others to move the Jews away from a rigid biblical orthodoxy. Third, in his arrogance he becomes so anti-God that he thinks of himself as a god. He sees himself as being able to do only those things that God can do, only those things that deity can do—he can solve everybody's problems, sets himself up as one to be worshipped. He takes the name Epiphanes which means "the manifest God" or "the manifest deity." Those who didn't like him called him Epimanes, which meant "the crazy one."

Daniel 8:23 ^NASB "In the latter period of their rule [Greek rule], When the transgressors have run {their course,} [an allusion to the Greeks] A king will arise, Insolent and skilled in intrigue." This refers to Antiochus Epiphanes, so we see that there is a historical fulfillment of this and that it isn't looking to a future fulfillment. It was fulfilled historically during the period of the Seleucids.

When Antiochus III came to power Rome was beginning to expand and reach out and were having battles with the Carthaginians. There were two series of wars between Rome and Carthage called the Punic Wars. The second Punic War ended the brief Carthaginian ascendancy and Rome began to expand, but what had happened during that second war was that Philip VI in Macedonia had become fearful of Rome. He was afraid that Rome was going to come in and defeat him and so he had a allied himself with Hannibal and the Carthaginians. When Carthage was defeated the Romans came in to defeat Philip. Philip who is Greek is allied to Antiochus III who was also Greek, so Antiochus is called by Philip to come to his aid and he marches his army to Macedonia where he is defeated both on land and sea by the Romans. The Romans impose upon him a treaty called The Treaty of Apimia; important because it was the ancient world's version of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended World War I. The one word that characterizes both of these treaties would be the word "revenge," and they imposed egregious and harsh penalties upon the vanquished that it virtually made another war necessary. The vanquished could not continue to exist under the terrible penalties that were assessed by the victors.

The penalties that were assessed: first of all, Antiochus III had to surrender all of his territory in Asia Minor, some of his wealthiest territory. Second, there was a restriction on armaments and a reduction of forces. He had to surrender all of his elephants. Third, he had to give up all of the ships of his fleets. This effectively cut his ability to wage war, to conquer any territory, and to defend himself in the future against the Romans. The Romans cut all of his communications lines and supply lines and also his ability to protect trade on the Mediterranean. Fourth, he could no longer recruit troops for his army or navy from Asia Minor, Greece or the Aegean area. Fifth, he had to pay fifty-two thousand talents of gold a year to the Romans in twelve installments. In order to make sure he did this he had to give up a hostage and his son Antiochus IV was taken to Rome. He is educated in Rome and he comes to think like a Roman. So he is to some degree multicultural in his thinking. He thinks like a Roman, he understands their system of thought; later he will go to Greece and he is the product of Greek culture so he will understand Greek thinking, and then he will take over the empire.

But Antiochus III has to start raising this money. How? He starts conquering territory in the direction he can go. Which way is that? He can go north so he begins to attack and expand his kingdom northward. He goes to the east and expands his territory over the ancient kingdom of Babylon and Persia, and he begins to expand south. He needs money, and where was money kept? In the treasury. Where was the treasury? In the temple. Antiochus II is assassinated and Selucus IV, the older brother of Antiochus IV, becomes the king. But he doesn't last but twelve years and he dies. Now the kingdom is going to shift to Antiochus who is still in Rome, so Seleucus's son Demitrius is going to be sent to Rome to take his place and Antiochus is brought back to Syria in order to take over the kingdom. He comes back in 175 BC and he has approximately an eleven-year reign (175-164). In about 171 he begins to really oppress the Jews and then in 167 there will be a revolt against him known as the Maccabaean revolt, and this leads to the Hasmonaean kingdom.

As Antiochus comes to the throne he is faced with the same problem that his father had. That is, he has to pay off this tribute to the Romans. He has to continue to expand the kingdom in order to raise more and more money. He wants to expand his territory through Israel in order to raise the taxes in that area in order to pay off the tribute. As he expands the empire he decides the best way to do it is through the process of Hellenisation. As he conquers these territories he is going to impose upon everyone this culture that comes out of Greece and this is going to be a major conflict when he comes to Israel.

Daniel 8:9 ^NASB "Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the Beautiful {Land.}" This is only a small horn and he doesn't stack up against any of the great rulers or great kings but he is the one who most represents the character qualities and the attributes of the Antichrist. One of those is going to be what he does historically when he desecrates the temple, committing the Abomination of Desolation. [10] "It grew up to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down." This is a rather obscure verse and difficult to understand. In order to properly interpret it what is needed is to go through a word study in the Old Testament primarily and deal with the phrases "host of heaven" and "stars" in order to find out how they are used. They are used together. It is not just the host, it is the host of heaven. We have to deal with the phrase and not just the words that are found there.

There are three uses of the word "stars" that are used in the Old Testament. There is the use that refers to physical bodies out there in space somewhere. The second use of "stars" as a symbol is the stars that are used in Genesis 37 and Revelation 12 referring to the twelve tribes of Israel. The third way is to refer to angels. Which is it in this passage, and why would it be angels? "Host of heaven" is parallel to the stars and when we have this phrase in the Hebrew it is used 18 times (one time in the New Testament) and it either refers to the literal stars in heaven, as in Deuteronomy 4:19 and Isaiah 34:4—it often refers to them as stars in the heavens being worshipped by pagan religions—Deuteronomy 17:3, or it is used to refer to the entire angelic host, as in 1 Kings 22:19; 2 Chronicles 18:18; Isaiah 24:21. In Daniel 4:35 a similar phrase is used in the Aramaic. "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host [army] of heaven And {among} the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, 'What have You done?'" The word "host" is an archaic English word meaning army. Here in Daniel in we see this reference to "the host of heaven," so there is a reference where it is used of angels. When we look at the whole doctrine of the angelic conflict we recognize that the fallen angels are referred to as demons who actually lie behind, are the influence behind, the idols and false gods of the Old Testament. In fact, several places in Deuteronomy indicate that the worship of the idol is parallel to worshipping the demons. We see the same kind of thing in 1 Corinthians where Paul is dealing with doubtful things. We have to recognize that in many of these passages there is something going on that is not so obvious to us, and there is a recognition that the use of this phrase "host of heave" and "the stars" must indicate some kind of angelic involvement.

There are two ways this has been interpreted by evangelicals. One is that somehow this indicates the influence of demons empowering Antiochus Epiphanes, giving him victory, and that would be true; they would be. But we don't think that is what this is saying because of other things in the context. It seems to indicate that he is setting himself up. He is trampling down these stars or angels, and what this would indicate is that he is elevating himself over the gods, over the pantheon, of these other nations and their religion. This actually began with his father as he was raiding and conquering these other regions and raiding their temples. What is he doing? He is conquering their gods, their idols, and setting himself up as the one who is most powerful.

"According to history Antiochus Epiphanes set himself up as God, thus disregarding the starry host [demonic powers of heaven]. He set himself up as the prince of the host (v. 11) in the sense of making himself great. Antiochus took away and stopped the daily sacrifices offered by the Jews in the temple, and desecrated their sanctuary, turning it into a pagan temple. He fulfilled the requirements of throwing truth to the ground (v. 12). History has recorded that Antiochus by taking the name Epiphanes—which means glorious one or manifest one—assumed that he was God, much as the little horn of Daniel 7 will do in the future Tribulation. His rile is similar to the future role of the coming world dictator."  John Walvoord, The Prophecy Bible Handbook 

Daniel 8:11 ^NASB "It even magnified {itself} to be equal with the Commander of the host; and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him, and the place of His sanctuary was thrown down." What happened in Antiochus's life is that as he was raiding down into the south into Egypt he was finally met by his opponent, Ptolemy VI, who up to that point really hadn't shown much military ability and hadn't defended his empire very much, but now that Antiochus had amassed this great army and has conquered the area of Israel and is moving down into Egypt proper he decides that he is going to get his army together and stop Antiochus. He called upon Rome to come in and stop Antiochus. Rome sends one of their top individuals who had been a childhood friend of Antiochus. Antiochus in his arrogance thinks that as he had conquered the Egyptian army in the past he is going to put them on the run and easily sway Rome to his side because this negotiator that Rome has sent is one that is going to be on his side. But what this negotiator did was draw a sword and mark a circle around Antiochus's feet, and he said, "Until you sign a peace treaty you can't step out of that circle or I'll kill you."

Antiochus has now had his reputation sullied, his arrogance has been embarrassed, and so he has to take it out on somebody. He turns around, marches his army into Israel and takes it out on the Jews. He starts killing Jews left and right. This is when He desecrates the temple by taking a pig and sacrifices it on the altar—an unclean animal—and scatters the pig's blood all over the temple. He then begins to issue a number of laws in order to stop the worship of the Jewish God. The first thing he does is suspend all temple ritual. Then he decrees that all copies of the Scriptures must be burned and anyone caught reading the Scriptures or with copies of the Scriptures in their possession meant an immediate death sentence—execution on the spot. A third thing he instigated was that no special days would be observed, including the Sabbath. Anyone caught observing the Sabbath would be executed immediately. All dietary laws were abolished. Any woman caught circumcising their male child would be executed—mother and child on the spot. He went into the temple, dedicated it to Zeus and sacrificed a pig to Zeus. He ordered the Jews to begin worshipping Baal Shamaim and this began to generate a tremendous reaction to Antiochus Epiphanes. (Described partially in 1 Maccabees chapter one) 

Daniel 8:12 ^NASB "And on account of transgression the host will be given over {to the horn} along with the regular sacrifice; and it will fling truth to the ground and perform {its will} and prosper." What is the transgression? The transgression is the Jews who were succumbing to the Hellenisation. They were being assimilated into the pagan way of thinking. This had happened before in Israel. Antiochus is a discipline on Israel in order to force them to retrench and to isolate themselves from the Gentiles around them in order to protect their identity. In 164 BC a priest by the name of Mattathias will lead a revolt against the Seleucids. He is a priest in the village of Modin and when Antiochus's men came to set up an altar and demand that everybody sacrifice to Zeus he resisted. When one Jew came out to sacrifice Mattathias killed him and then killed the Syrian leader who had come into the town to set up the alter. That instigated a revolution against the Seleucids. Mattathias had two sons, Simon and Judas (called the Hammer).

Al of this prophecy was literally fulfilled and it is a picture of the end. Daniel 8:17 ^NASB "So he [Gabriel] came near to where I was standing, and when he came I was frightened and fell on my face; but he said to me, 'Son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end'." This whole vision is fulfilled prophetically in the past, so we are not talking about double fulfillment, but it pertains to the end in that it is a type or a shadow of what will happen in the end. It is not a prophecy related to the Antichrist, it is a picture of what the Antichrist will be like; he is typified in Antiochus Epiphanes.   

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