Daniel 7:24

24. The fourth kingdom is here represented as a beast whose “ten horns” are ten kings. There has been great diversity of opinion as to the particular kings meant. As the number is a round symbolical number it does not matter if the kings preceding Antiochus Epiphanes (the “little horn”) actually numbered a few less or a few more than ten. Professor Cowles, however, has pointed out that Daniel himself in chap. 11 (which is explanatory of the visions of chaps. 7 and 8) has referred particularly to just ten prominent kings ruling between the death of Alexander and the rise of the little horn five of these being Ptolemies, namely, Lagus, Philadelphus, Euergetes, Philopator, Philometer (Daniel 11:5-27); five of them being Syrian kings: Seleucus Nicator, Antiochus Theos, Seleucus Callinicus, Antiochus the Great, and Seleucus Philopator (Daniel 11:5-20). Meinhold, on the other hand, believes Demetrius, Heliodorus, and Ptolemy Philometer to represent the three horns overthrown by Antiochus Epiphanes, the other seven horns symbolizing Seleucus I, II, III, IV, and Antiochus I, II, III. The question is unimportant, as there is practical unanimity of opinion among modern scholars that the little horn here (like that of Daniel 8:9-12) is Antiochus Epiphanes. The argument that Antiochus Epiphanes could not be the eleventh horn because he was not the eleventh, but the eighth successive king on the Syrian throne (Godet, Studies, 1882; Kohler, Lehrbuch, pp. 539, 540), is not strong when we consider the symbolism of number (see Introduction to Ezekiel, VIII), and the fact that it is not stated whether these horns were successive or in part contemporaneous.* Certainly the “antichrist” of a later era had Antiochan characteristics, just as Gog and Magog had Scythian characteristics (Ezekiel 38, 39; Revelation 20:8), but this does not exclude the reference to an earlier or later historic character. The older scholars, who thought Daniel’s fourth kingdom was Roman, interpreted these ten kings as ten kingdoms, but differed very materially in their guesses as to which kingdoms were meant. It seems to us conclusive that the fourth empire was not Roman. (See notes Daniel 2:39-40.) All agree that Antiochus was the “vile person” who is spoken of as rising up after the ten successors of Alexander mentioned Daniel 11:3-21. The analogy of prophecy is in favor of the same reference to him here.

[*Three of the kings (horns) are not said to have been destroyed before Antiochus took the throne, but to have been afterward “subdued” by him. “Now the facts are that Antiochus usurped the throne upon the assassination of his elder brother, Seleucus Philopator; he superseded the rightful heir, Demetrius who was at that time a hostage in Rome and he humbled by sore defeat his nephew, Ptolemy Philometer, who had as good a right to the throne of Asia as himself (compare 1Ma 11:13 ).… Some reckon Heliodorus among the three who fell before Antiochus, for Appian testifies that he had seized the government by force. This view is open to no valid objection, for we should no more insist on a rigid interpretation of the number three than of the number ten.” Terry.]