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Antiochus Epiphanes |
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Antiochus Epiphanes was a king of Syria. He was the seventh king in the lineage of Seleucus, one of the four generals who rose up after the death of Alexander the Great. What makes him so interesting to students of biblical prophecy is that he fulfills many of the prophecies given to Daniel. In Daniel chapters 8 and 11 the “antichrist” is prophesied, but there is also another king, Antiochus Epiphanes.
In Daniel chapter 8 the little horn from one of the four horns fits Antiochus, this Grecian king. In chapter 11 there are a number of direct prophecies, which were fulfilled by this same king. Almost all commentators make a connection, to some degree, with these prophecies to Antiochus Epiphanes. What has occurred is that while the main thrust of the prophecies are concerning the “antichrist” there exists a minor fulfillment in Antiochus IV. We might think of Antiochus as a forerunner of the Man of Sin of the last days. He is regarded by many as a “type” of the antichrist. It is without question that there was a minor fulfillment of the prophecies with the genuine fulfillment as yet to come. Antiochus did many things, however less intense, which the Man of Sin will do in his reign of power. The name Epiphanes is Illustrious.
It is with this in mind that we look to history and observe this man and his actions. We keep in mind the purpose of this study, and that is, to glean all that we can about the “antichrist” and his government. This report is not a commentary of the scriptures given concerning him but rather an account of his history. The material you are about to read has come from several sources and I have tried to keep them intact and I have not assembled them into a precise chronological order.
It is believed that Antiochus conquered Judea sometime before 175 B. C. He went on to Egypt to conquer that nation between 173 and 170 B. C. On his return, approximately 168 B. C., he entered Judea and caused his wrath to fall upon the people. The exact reason is not precise, but most likely it was because of the revolt of the Jews and that because of a false rumor of his death in Egypt there were consequential celebrations. Upon his return he vented his fury against the Jews and their religion.[1]
Antiochus turned aside on his return from Egypt and invaded Judea, ultimately robbed the Temple, destroyed Jerusalem, and spread desolation through the land. The Jews revolted against his reign and killed some of his leading men left in charge of Judea. In his actions Antiochus exalted himself particularly by attempting to change God's laws and to cause God's worship to cease. He assumed this authority upon himself and from him came the command to take away The daily sacrifice. The sacrifice offered daily in the temple, morning and evening, was suspended. A full account of this may be found in 1 Mace. 1. 20—24, 29—32, 44—50. In the execution of the purposes of Antiochus, “he entered the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, the candlestick, and all the vessels of the Temple; the table of shew-bread, the pouring vessels, &c., and stripped the Temple of all the ornaments of its gold.” After two years he again visited the city, and “smote it very sore, and destroyed much people of Israel, and when he had taken the spoils of the city he set it on fire, and pulled down the walls thereof on every side.” Everything in Jerusalem was made desolate. “Her sanctuary was laid waste like a wilderness, her feasts were turned into mourning, her Sabbaths into reproach, her honor into contempt.” Subsequently, by a solemn edict, and by more decisive acts, he put an end to the worship of God in the Temple, and polluted and defiled every part of it. “For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, that they should follow the strange laws of the land, and forbid burnt-offerings, and sacrifices and drink-offerings in the temple; and that they should profane the Sabbaths and festival days, and pollute the sanctuary and holy people; set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts; that they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation; to the end they might forget the laws, and change all the ordinances,”[2] It was undoubtedly to these acts of Antiochus that the prophecies refer, and the event accords with the words of the prediction as clearly as if what is a prediction had been written afterwards, and had been designed to represent what actually occurred as a matter of historical record.
Things had begun peacefully between Antiochus and the Jews. In 175 B.C. he granted permission to build a gymnasium. In 172 B.C. he appointed the high priesthood on Menelaus. In 171 B.C. began the series of events, which led to the persecution. In his, Antiochus’ absence there arose a rebellion, and this was the commencement of the hostilities, which resulted in the ruin of the city and the closing of the worship of God. Some of the high priests and some of the general priesthood actually supported these abominations, and hence, some expositors equate this with the bringing down of the stars.
The following has been taken from Multiple Jewish sources.[3]
The pig....
So notorious was this revulsion of the Jew against the flesh of the pig that, when the Seleucidan king, Antiochus (Epiphanes) IV, after he had overrun Judea, ordered the Jews to sacrifice pigs on their altars, including the one in the Temple in Jerusalem, the decree stirred up such horror and outrage among the conquered Jews that it sparked the popular revolt led by the Maccabees in 168 B. C. E. (One account I read gave this incident: Antiochus had caused a pig to be sacrificed upon the altar of the Temple, then boiled and made into a broth. This broth was then used to wash down the walls, floor, and ceiling of the interior of the Temple, including the Holy of Holies.)
Antiochus plotted to end the religious and cultural separatism of the Jews and to bring Judea into line so he could carry through his plan for a monolithic Hellenic empire. In a consistent program, he initiated a series of actions for the rapid and complete Hellenization of the Jews and for their conversion to the polytheistic (Myth logistic) religion of the Greeks.
The Roman historian Tacitus gave this version of Antiochus’ intentions: “In dealing with the Jews, his object was to remove their superstitions, to give them Greek customs.” The Jewish chroniclers of his time attributed to Antiochus a more malevolent motivation. They defined his intention to be “that all (nations) should be one people (i.e., Greek), and that each should forsake his own laws,” noting that he had ordered the Jews to suspend their traditional worship in the Temple and to cease offering sacrifices to their God. To bring the matter to a decisive head, Antiochus directed that the Jews make a public demonstration of their divorce from their religion by violating its laws and practices: that they “profane the Sabbath and the feasts and . . . pollute the sanctuary (i.e., the Holy of Holies) ... that they should build altars and temples and shrines for idols; and should sacrifice swine's flesh . . . and that they should leave their sons uncircumcised.” And as for the Jew who did not obey the word of the king, he would die! Antiochus had issued a decree of the death penalty for all those who were caught reading “aloud” the Sefer, Torah (bible). In his daring madness, the Syrian king, Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) had forbidden their religion, sought to destroy their sacred books, with unsparing ferocity forced on them conformity to heathen rite, desecrated the Temple by dedicating it to Zeus Olympias, and even reared a heathen altar upon that of burnt offering.
The events involving the Jews in Judea moved in a steady acceleration of horror. On the fifteenth day of the month of Kislev, in the year 168 B.C. E., the Temple sanctuary was desecrated by the enemy. A gigantic statue of Zeus Olympus was raised on a pedestal behind the Altar of Sacrifice. The Temple courts, where formerly the Levites had raised their voices in reverent Hebrew psalmody, now became the scene of lewd bacchanalian revels. In those acts of outrage and in the national humiliation of the Jews, their own High Priest, Jason, and the Sadducean upper-class sycophants and opportunists played their collaborationist parts only too well. A cry of anguish convulsed the people. Many refused to obey the decrees of the conqueror. Thousands were slain, and thousands more fled into the wilderness or hid in caves. They wandered about, dressed in the skins of sheep and goats, famished and hunted, daring to show their faces in the villages only in the dark of night.
It was at this juncture of national tribulation that love for their religion and their people flamed among the Jews into a passion such as they had never before experienced. It led them into a course of action, which marked the historic beginning not only of self-conscious nationalism but also of the tradition of martyrdom, in which, to die al kiddtish haShem (to sanctify the Name) was valued as the highest virtue, the most glorious of all destinies.
The Maccabean uprising in 168 B. C. E. was an inevitable consequence of these events. Many were the heroic deeds, the acts of self-immolating sacrifice, that the guerrilla bands, unused to warfare and fighting at first with the most primitive of weapons, performed against the well armed and superbly trained Seleucidan troops. The latter were decisively beaten at Emmaus in 165 B. C. E., an outcome that was the cause for universal amazement.
After three years of guerrilla fighting they routed the armies of the megalomaniac Seleucidan despot, Antiochus IV (called Epiphanes, “the Risen God”). When the victorious insurgents swept into Jerusalem, the most heartbreaking desolation met their eyes. They found the Temple profaned and half-ruined. Its great gates had been burned and the priests' chambers demolished. After smashing the idol of Zeus and clearing the Temple courts of all the debris, the Jews purified the sanctuary. (Without this historical background, it would be impossible to understand the character and significance of Channukah. Channukah is the Hebrew word for our English Hanukkah, the festival of lights.)
What this man was and the things, which he did, fore-pictures the “antichrist” and how he may perform his desecrations and persecutions of the people of God. One expositor is convinced that the “antichrist” will come from the same exact location that Antiochus Epiphanes arose, Syria. The reasoning is the connection between the “little horn” of chapter 8 and the “little horn” of chapter 7. I agree in the connection of the two but not the literal application of Antiochus matching in all aspects the “antichrist.” For further information of the Man of Sin we need Daniel's chapter 9. However, it cannot be denied that the Man of Sin and Antiochus may come from the same geographical location known as Syria, the same area both modem and ancient.
[1] Barnes notes
[2] 1 Mace. i. 44—49.
[3] Two main references are The Book of Jewish Knowledge, by Nathan Ausubel, The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson.
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Next: Daniel Chapter 9
Verses 1 - 24 |
This page last updated September 14, 2004 at 10:21am
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