Daniel 11:45

45. R.V., “And he shall plant the tents of his palace between the seas and [margin, at ] the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end and none shall help him.” He shall pitch his headquarters near to Jerusalem between the Mediterranean and Mount Zion, and work an awful destruction upon the holy people (see notes Daniel 11:31-36); but his own “end” is near and no heavenly help will come to him such as is offered to the persecuted Israelites (Daniel 10:21; Daniel 12:1). The tragic circumstances connected with the death of Antiochus are perhaps exaggerated in the Jewish writings, but at the best it was a death of dishonor following several years of disappointment, poverty, and failure. There are many opinions as to the meaning of the sea (or, seas) near to which Antiochus pitched his palace tents. Meinhold, for example, thinks these were the Euphrates and Tigris, between which Antiochus camped after his victory over the Armenians; but the above explanation seems best to us. The “holy mount,” as used in Scripture, seems always to refer to the temple mountain. We do not agree with Terry that this verse clearly implies that Antiochus came to “his end” in his Palestine camp. (Compare note Daniel 11:44.) The very form of apocalyptic composition forbids any such insistency upon the customary prosaic unities of time and place.

His end This is simply the repetition of a refrain which has been repeated again and again (Daniel 11:27; Daniel 11:35-40).

The “end of the indignation” is closely connected with the end of the little horn, and wherever the one has been promised the other has been threatened. Beyond this “end” of persecution as beyond the “end” which Jeremiah saw at the close of the seventy years captivity-there lies another period of struggle dimly seen and then everlasting victory!