Daniel 11:45

And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. The rendering of the LXX . is, "Then shall he set up his tent between the seas and the mountains of the choice of the sanctuary, and the hour of his end shall come, and he shall have no helper." Theodotion's rendering is, "He shall pitch his tent Epha-dane between the seas at the holy mountain of Sabacin; he shall come to his lot, and there will not be a deliverer to him." It is to be observed that the word אַפַדְניֹ ( appadno ), "royal tent," a late word in Hebrew, was not present in the text before the translator of the Septuagint. Further, Theodotion did not know the meaning of the word, although his recension was prepared under Jewish supervision. The Peshitta renders, "And he shall place his tout on the plain space between the sea and the mountain, and shall assail its sanctuary, and he shall come to his end; there shall not be to him a helper." The Vulgate renders, "And he shall place his tabernacle, aphadno , between the two seas upon the glorious and holy mountain; he shall come even to its (his) highest point, and no one shall help him." He shall plant the tabernacle of his palace. The word here used ( appadno ) does not occur elsewhere, and seems to denote the royal tent. The fact that it does not appear in the Septuagint or Peshitta renders its right to be in the text somewhat doubtful. Theodotion and Jerome transliterate it, as if it had not got a place in Hebrew even in their day. It does occur in the Targum and the Peshitta. At the same time, a purely technical word like this might really be of ancient usage, yet the occasion for its use might not have previously occurred; the literature of ancient Hebrew is exceedingly limited. Between the seas in the glorious holy mountain. Havernick maintains that the glorious and holy mountain here is the mountain on which the temple of Nanaia was placed, and that the seas in question were the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. It is difficult to imagine a Jew calling the mountain on which a heathen temple was placed, "glorious holy," even were we sure that the temple in question was on a mountain, for which we have no evidence. The Jews probably knew of the sea into which the Euphrates discharged its waters; but it is not prominent in their writings, and the Caspian may be looked upon as unknown. The distance between these two seas is so great that no one would locate such a small thing as a city by saying that it was between them. The natural interpretation is that the seas in question are the Mediterranean—the great sea—and the Dead Sea—the Salt Sea. But the Hebrew leads rather to the idea that the plural is one of excellence. בֵין ( bayn ), "between," is not infrequently construed with לְ ( le ), "to," as here; hence the translation would be between the seas, i.e. the great sea and the holy mountain. There can be no doubt that "the glorious and holy mountain" is Mount Zion. Yet he shall come to his end , and none shall help him. The death of Antiochus, baffled in his attempt to rifle the temple of Nanaia, humiliated not only by his own disaster, but by the news received from Jerusalem, is full of disappointment and misery, even when we get rid of the rhetoric with which the events are clothed in Polybius and 1 and 2 Maccabees. One-half of his army under Lysias had been baffled and defeated by Judas Maccabaeus; he himself had been repulsed in his attempt to replenish his coffers; the, re is therefore for him no helper, so he dies of disappointment at Tabes.

HOMILETICS