Within the library of apocalyptic literature, Daniel’s visions certainly occupy a shelf of their own.  And yet his visions could conceivably be further subdivided into three different genres: the Dynastic, the Mosaic, and the Cardinal. Such a distinction between the three types of Daniel’s visions makes chapter 11 stand out in stark relief compared to the others, both in style and in content. When the unique aspects of the chapter are so recognized, chapter 11 is shown to be a continuous, uninterrupted narrative that was entirely fulfilled during the period of Greek rule that is signified by the Bronze, Leopard and He-goat periods of Daniel’s other visions.

The Dynastic Visions—chapters 2, 7, and 8—speak primarily of the succession of world dynasties.  The Gold phase of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue in Daniel 2 signifies the Babylonian dynasty, the Silver phase the Medo-Persian dynasty, the Bronze the Greek, the Iron the Roman dynasty in ascent, and the Iron & Clay the Roman dynasty in descent. We can say as much of Daniel 7. The Lion signifies the Babylonian dynasty, the Bear the Medo-Persian dynasty, the Leopard the Greek, and fourth beast the Roman. Daniel 8 narrows the focus to just two dynasties, but in that chapter the Ram signifies the Medo-Persian dynasty and the He-goat  signifies the Greek. All three chapters depict the rise and succession of dynasties, and we categorize them in the Dynastic genre.

The vision of Daniel 9, on the other hand, is clearly Mosaic in nature, making no reference at all to dynastic succession, even though the prophecy in its fulfillment spans several dynasties. Daniel had been reading about the seventy year chastisement according to Jeremiah (Daniel 9:2) who himself had reported the words of the Lord: “therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant” (Jeremiah 11:8). When Daniel speaks of the chastisement, he explains that it was Mosaic in nature, because of “the oath that is written in the law of Moses” (Daniel 9:11).  When Gabriel speaks of the seven-fold multiplication of the chastisement (Daniel 9:24), he explains that further “desolations are determined” (Daniel 9:26), a reference to Leviticus 26, the only place in the Mosaic Law that prescribes seven-fold punishments and “desolations” for Israel’s continued disobedience. Then when Gabriel speaks of the fulfillment of the Seventy Weeks, the culmination involves the anointing of the Most Holy, which is explicitly prescribed by the Law of Moses for the setting up of the tabernacle (Exodus 40), and which was fulfilled in the restoration of “the law of the house” (Ezekiel 43:12), as we showed in All the Evenings and Mornings. Thus we categorize the 9th chapter of Daniel in the Mosaic genre of Danielic apocalyptic literature.

The vision of chapter 11 is in a completely different genre altogether. It deals with the succession of kings and kingdoms, setting it apart from the vision of chapter 9, but it deals with those kings and kingdoms in a way that is vastly different from the dynastic succession depicted in Daniel chapters 2, 7 and 8. Although on the surface the vision appears almost as a recapitulation of Daniel 8—the fall of the Medo-Persian empire and the rise of the Greek—there is a signifiant difference that cannot escape notice.

Instead of introducing animals or minerals symbolically, and then explaining their symbolic significance (as in the Dynastic visions), the narrator of this chapter simply identifies the period of transition at the outset—from that of Medo-Persian dominance to that of Greek dominance—and then proceeds into a detailed narrative of a history that is yet future to Daniel. The chapter is written “in the first year of Darius the Mede” (Daniel 11:1),  after which “there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia” (Daniel 11:2). Then there shall arise “a mighty king” (Daniel 11:3) from “the realm of Grecia” (Daniel 11:2). That “mighty king” is Alexander the Great, and as in Daniel 7:6, 8:8 and 8:22, “four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation,” and those four shall be distributed “toward the four winds of heaven” (Daniel 11:4).

From that point forward to the end of the chapter there is perpetual conflict among the kings, but there is no further discussion of Medo-Persia or Greece or any named dynasty at all. There is only a discussion of the resulting kingdoms, but no mention of their nationalities. The only identifying attribute we have is each kingdom’s geographic position relative to the others. Their interactions are simply described in terms of the cardinal directions—North (vv. 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 40, 44), South (vv. 5, 6, 9, 11, 14, 15, 25, 29, 40) and East (vv. 9, 44). Thus we categorize the 11th chapter of Daniel in the Cardinal genre of Danielic apocalyptic literature. It is neither the succession of Dynasties nor the Law of Moses that provides the backdrop, but the points of the compass.

What makes the chapter challenging is that the nations and boundaries of the warring kings are clearly important to our understanding of the fulfillment, but they are never explicitly described. Throughout chapter 11, the angel refers repeatedly and explicitly to countries, regions, territories, cities and other locations with varying levels of geographic specificity: Media (v. 1), Persia (v. 2), Greece (v. 2), Egypt (vv. 8, 42, 43), Israel (i.e., the glorious land, vv. 16, 41, 20, cf. Ezekiel 20:15), the Greek Isles (v. 18), Chittim (v. 30), Edom, Moab and Ammon (v. 41), Libya, (v. 43), Ethiopia (v. 43), and the temple mount (v. 45). Yet despite the extensive use of specific geographic designations throughout the chapter, the angelic narrator nonetheless refrains from referring to the territories of the warring kings except by the cardinal directions, north and south.

Then at verse 44, one of the kings receives unwelcome news, and again, even though the narrator had been so free in his explicit geographic references elsewhere in the vision—i.e., one king’s booty will be carried into Egypt (v. 8), a ship will intervene from Chittim (v. 30), and desirable goods come from Egypt (v. 43)—the angel still will not state the specific origins of the tidings, except that they come from the north and from the east.

All manner of nationality and geography is used freely to describe everything else in the chapter, but the narrator will not divulge that information about the scrimmaging kings or the unwelcome news of 11:44. The angel was clearly authorized to name many nations and locations with considerable geographic precision, except for the territories and nationalities of the warring kings and the origin of the tidings. From this injunction he does not waver.

Despite this, historians and eschatologists have almost universally concluded—and we agree with them on this point—that the bulk of the chapter deals largely with the century of conflict known as the Syrian Wars, the conflict that raged between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties from 274 to 168 B.C..

But the prophecy was too accurate, so to speak, and that has been problematic for some. It is so accurate in its details that liberal theologians have assumed that chapter 11 must have been written after the fact (see John J. Collins, Daniel: With an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature (Eerdmans, 1984)), and secular historians have simply used the chapter as a history book (see Edwyn Robert Bevan, The House of Seleucus, vol 1 (London, 1902)). No prophecy so specific could possibly have been written in advance. So they think.

Conservative theologians—those who understand that the chapter was written as prophecy rather than as history—are presented on the other hand with two problems of a very different nature.

The first problem presents itself immediately upon an inspection of the four cardinal directions, and the problem is that Daniel’s compass appears to be broken. In four different places in his visions—7:6, 8:8, 8:22, 11:4—Daniel depicts the four-way division of Alexander’s empire, and twice explains that they are distributed “toward the four winds of heaven.” For reference, here are the four verses that describe the division:

“After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.” (Daniel 7:6)

“Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.” (Daniel 8:8)

“Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.” (Daniel 8:22)

“And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven;” (Daniel 11:4a)

We are certainly not left guessing as to the significance of the “four winds of heaven.” The Scriptures are replete with references to them, and it is clear that they refer to the four cardinal directions:

The North Wind: Proverbs 25:23, Ecclesiastes 1:6, Songs 4:16;

The South Wind: Ecclesiastes 1:6, Job 37:17, Psalms 78:26, Luke 12:55, Acts 27:13, 28:13;

The East Wind: Genesis 41:6, 23, 27, Exodus 10:13, 14:21, Job 15:2, 27:21, 38:24, Psalms 48:7, 78:26, Isaiah 27:8, Jeremiah 18:17, Ezekiel 17:10, 19:12, 27:26, Hosea 12:1, 13:15, Jonah 4:8, Habbukuk 1:9;

The West Wind: Exodus 10:19

Thus, the phrase “toward the four winds of heaven” clearly means toward the North, South, East and West, and as we described in Reduction of the Diadochi, if a compass rose is superimposed upon Alexander’s dominions, the remnants of his empire are plainly distributed in this way. Lysimachus took the North, occupying Thrace and Asia Minor within the Taurus Mountains; Ptolemy and his descendants became the new Pharoahs of Egypt to the South, Seleucus and his descendants took the East from the Taurus mountains to Babylon and beyond, and Demetrius and his descendants took Macedonia to the West.

But the bulk of Daniel 11 (vv. 5-45) describes a series of conflicts between “the king of the north” and “the king of the south,” and this is where the first puzzle lies. The historical evidence suggests, and the commentaries largely agree, that the prophecies in the chapter were fulfilled by a series of wars between the kingdoms of Syria to the east and Egypt to the south. In other words, the prophecy of a sustained conflict between the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom appears to have been fulfilled by a series of wars between the Eastern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. Ought Daniel to have prophesied instead of a conflict between the King of the East and the King of the South? What to do?

The apparent inconsistency traditionally has been resolved by assuming that the frame of reference changed from one centered on Alexander’s empire at 11:4 to one centered on Judæa at 11:5. In the Alexandrian Frame of Reference, Asia Minor is to the north and Egypt is to the south, but from a Judæan Frame of Reference—Syria is north and Egypt is south. Thus those writers who address the Syrian-Egyptian wars in the context of Daniel’s vision typically consider Syria to be the northern kingdom in the Judæan Frame—even though Asia Minor is freely acknowledged to be the northern kingdom in the Alexandrian Frame in the previous verse. Thus, the frame of reference is changed at 11:5, and by this means, most of the text of Daniel 11 has been made to align with the historical record.

This solution, however, has led to some rather creative cartography. Although every writer of note who addresses the puzzle approaches it in largely the same way, we believe Calvin’s attempt provides the most poignant illustration of just how much we must strain at the compass in order to make the prophecy fit the history. Calvin invokes an Alexandrian Frame of Reference at Daniel 8:8, which describes four notable horns distributed “toward the four winds of heaven.” Of this passage, Calvin writes,

“He says, by the four winds of heaven, that is, of the atmosphere. Now the kingdom of Macedon was very far distant from Syria; Asia was in the midst, and Egypt lay to the south. Thus, the he-goat, as we saw before, reigned throughout the four quarters of the globe; since Egypt, as we have said, was situated towards the south; but the kingdom of Persia, which was possessed by Seleucus, was towards the east and united with Syria; the kingdom of Asia was to the north, and that of Macedon to the west, as we formerly saw the he-goat setting out from the west.” (Calvin, Commentary on Daniel, 8:8; see Figure 1 ,below)

But when commenting on Daniel 11:4, Calvin changes to a Judæan Frame of Reference. At this point, Calvin simply rearranges the four points of the compass to fit the outcome of the prophecy. He writes,

“His empire shall be broken, and shall be divided, says he, towards the four winds of heaven. … Seleucus obtained Syria, to whom his son Antiochus succeeded; Antigonus became prefect of Asia Minor; Cassander, the father of Antipater, seized the kingdom of Macedon for himself; Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, who had been a common soldier, possessed Egypt. These are the four kingdoms of which the angel now treats. For Egypt was situated to the south of Judea, and Syria to the north, as we shall afterwards have occasion to observe. Macedonia came afterwards, and then Asia Minor, both east and west.” (Calvin, Commentary on Daniel, 11:4; see Figure 2, below)

Although his interpretation is strained, to say the least, we must add in Calvin’s defense that the shifting frame has been almost universally reflected in the commentaries since the church first began to expound upon the prophecies. Hippolytus (170 – 235 A.D.), was the first to attempt to identify all four of the Diadochi (Hippolytus, Exegetical Fragments, Third Fragment, Scholia on Daniel, 7:6), the first to suggest “the four winds” as a reference to the points of the compass (i.e., “created existence in its fourfold division” (Hippolytus, Exegetical Fragments, Third Fragment, Scholia on Daniel, 7:2), and the first to suggest a shift from an Alexandrian to a Judæan Frame of Reference at 11:5,

“For thus saith the Scripture: ‘And the king of the South shall stand up against the king of the North, and her seed shall stand up against him.’ And what seed but Ptolemy, who made war with Antiochus?” (Hippolytus, Exegetical Fragments, Second Fragment, Of the Visions, 34)

Jerome (347 – 420 A.D.), too, following Hippolytus, views Daniel 11:4 in an Alexandrian Frame of reference—”Asia Minor and Pontus and of the other provinces in that whole area, that is, in the north”— and then switches immediately to a Judæan Frame at 11:5, “because Judaea lay in a midway position” between Syria and Egypt (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:4-5). The reformers, to a man, followed suit, rearranging Daniel’s compass to fit the history that clearly fulfilled the prophecy. But Daniel’s oddly configured compass was not the only puzzle in chapter 11.

The second problem encountered in chapter 11 is that beyond the events described in 11:39, the historical record contains no engagement between Syria and Egypt that matches the description of the hostilities between the kings of the north and south in the following verses. Verses 31-39 deal with events subsequent to Antiochus IV’s pollution of the sanctuary in June of 167 B.C., all of which occurred after his second invasion of Egypt was interrupted by Gaius Popillius Laenas in 168 B.C. (Livius, History of Rome, Book 45, 12; Polybius, The Histories, Fragments of Book XXIX, I.2). Wounded in pride, short on funds and unable to fund his own army, Antiochus’ last known whereabouts were in Persia where he was attempting to rob a temple treasure in Elymais, and then in Babylon where he collapsed in despair at the news of his latest defeats at the hands of the Maccabees (1 Maccabees 3:29-31, 6:1-9). A man in his condition does not mount a third invasion of Egypt “like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships” (Daniel 11:40). His second invasion of Egypt was his last.

His successors were even less capable of such a feat. After Antiochus IV’s death, Rome despatched an envoy to Syria to “cripple the royal power” by burning Antiochus V’s navy and hamstringing his elephants, all of which Antiochus IV had maintained in contravention of the 188 B.C. Treaty of Apamea:

“Octavius and his colleagues thereupon left, with orders in the first place to burn the decked warships, next to hamstring the elephants, and by every means to cripple the royal power.” (Polybius, Histories, Fragments of Book 31.2.11)

With Syria thus disarmed and reduced to a Roman client state, Daniel’s narrative nevertheless presses on uninterrupted and undeterred, describing a dramatic military engagement that ought to have happened next between the kings of the north and south. In the aftermath, there is ominous news originating from the north and the east, resulting in yet another military engagement as he “go[es] forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many” (Daniel 11:44). These are things that neither Antiochus IV, nor his successors, could even dream of doing, and there is no record of such a conflict, or such troubling tidings, in the history of the Syrian Wars. What to do?

Various writers have attempted to solve the puzzle in different ways. Porphyry (234 -305 A.D.), writing from a secular perspective, assumed that the author of Daniel had lived at the time of Antiochus IV in the 2nd century B.C.. Porphyry therefore concluded that Antiochus IV must have made a third invasion of Egypt (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, Prologue, 11:40-45)—an invasion for which there is no evidence in the historical record and which Antiochus IV was hardly equipped to execute. Other historians have simply concluded that Daniel, or the author claiming to be Daniel, was wrong, and that he had merely been guessing at a potential future outcome, one that he could not possibly see in advance.

Conservative theologians, on the other hand—those who understand that the chapter was written as prophecy rather than as history or as fraud—resolve the puzzle in the same way that they resolved the puzzle of 11:5. They simply introduce another frame of reference. This frame is centered neither on Alexander’s empire, nor on Judæa, but rather on the person of a future antagonist. We call it the Eschatological Frame of Reference.

Hippolytus saw the Eschatological Frame introduced as early as 11:31, and identifies the antagonist as a Latin Antichrist, whom he has in possession of Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia (Hippolytus, Exegetical Fragments, Second Fragment, Of the Visions, 40; Third Fragment, Scholia on Daniel, 12:11). The unwelcome tidings come from the northeast of his geographic location in North Africa, and therefore his response to the tidings is to go out with fury toward Tyre and Beirut (Hippolytus, Treatise On Christ and Antichrist, 52).

Lactantius (250 – 325 A.D.) understood a transition to an Eschatological frame no later than 11:35, and saw the antagonist coming from the northern territories into Syria, which he has toward the east (Lactantius, Book VII, chapter 17). He does not address the origin of the tidings of 11:44.

Victorinus (c. 310) touches only tangentially on the Diadochi, and understood the Eschatological Frame to begin no later than 11:37 (Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, 17), seeing it in the context of the beast and the harlot of Revelation 13 and 17, and identifying Antichrist as Imperial Rome, or Nero (Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, 7, 12, 17). He provides no indication of Antichrist’s location prior to placing “his temple within Samaria” at 11:45 (Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, 13, 17), and does not address the origin of the tidings of 11:44.

Jerome saw the transition to the Eschatological Frame as early as 11:24:

“the rest of the text from here on to the end of the book … those of our persuasion believe all these things are spoken prophetically of the Antichrist.” (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:24)

At 11:43, he has Antichrist in possession of Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia. Then Antichrist “is going to hear that war has been stirred up against him in the regions of the North and East,” which therefore has him pitching his tent “in the province of Judaea.”Jerome does not provide any specific point of origin in the north and east. He simply notes that the rumors cause Antichrist to leave his holdings in North Africa and settle in Judæa, which suggests that he saw Israel as the origin of the rumors, north and east of Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:40-45).

The reformers, too, were all over the map. Broughton and Willet maintained a Judæan frame of reference to the end, thinking that 11:40-45 must refer to Antiochus IV. Œcolampadius, Bullinger, Polanus and Mayer saw a transition to the Eschatological Frame at 11:21, Melanchthon at 11:32, Calvin and Wigand at 11:36, Calvin seeing the events fulfilled near-term by imperial Rome (references below). Luther saw the transition to the Eschatological Frame taking place at 11:40, and cut short his commentary at Daniel 11:39, “for only in experience can this chapter be understood and Antiochus spiritually discerned” (Luther, Preface to the Prophet Daniel). Among these reformers, several allowed for a double fulfillment, the first by Antiochus IV, and the second by the Turks or Papal Rome.

Calvin, although he disagrees with the rest on the fulfillment, nevertheless typifies their confusion as he plods through the events of Daniel 11. As late as 11:27, Calvin had been marveling at the precision and accuracy of the prophecies which “are so clearly pointed out … when the angel predicts the future so exactly, and so openly narrates it, as if a matter of history” (Calvin, Commentary on Daniel, 11:27). But by 11:40, he has resigned himself to the obsurity of the passage, throwing up his hands in defeat. Here he assumes that the narrator of chapter 11 had set aside continuity and clarity, and left us with a prophecy in which the main players are so confused that we can no longer tell them apart, or even know the exact fulfillment of the prophecy:

“I dare not fix the precise time intended by the angel. … The angel did not propose to mark a continued series of times … Whatever be the precise meaning … sometimes events were so confused that the Egyptians coalesced with the Syrians, and then we must read the words conjointly … Nor is it necessary here to indicate the precise period, since the Romans carried on many wars in the east.” (Calvin, Commentary on Daniel, 11:40)

There are many other such similar examples as these attempts to grapple with the puzzles of chapter 11. To solve the curious inconsistencies—that is, Daniel’s “compass problem” and the fact that at some unspecified point in the narrative he simply departs from continuous history without warning, launching into the fog of some even more distant future past—the solution has been to impose new frames of reference upon the text. Daniel 11:4 is largely and naturally taken to be written in the Alexandrian Frame, but then without notice 11:5 is assumed to be the beginning of a narrative written in the Judæan Frame. Then at some later unspecified point, the narrative switches, again without notice, to an Eschatological Frame in which the cardinal directions are relative to the geographic location of Antiochus IV or some other future antagonist.

The result of this approach, of course, has been absolute chaos. One writer centers the Eschatological Frame of Daniel 11 on Rome, and the unwelcome tidings come from Germany to the north and Constantinople to the east. Another has them coming from Bulgaria and England. The Pope, after all, resides “between the seas” (Daniel 11:45) of the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian. Or perhaps the Eschatological Frame may be centered on the Turks, with the tidings originating from north and east of Istanbul, which resides between the Aegean and the Euxine. Others have the frame of reference set from the perspective of Antichrist in North Africa, and the tidings originate from Jerusalem, north and east of him. Still others, keeping Antiochus in view, have the final reference frame set in Judea, and Antiochus hearing unwelcome news from Syria to the north and from Persia to the east. Another writer reverses even these, having the tidings originate from Persia to the north and Syria to the east. One writer keeps the reference frames consistent from 11:5 to 11:40, and another warns that we should not do so, lest we hold too strictly to the literal sense and miss the prophetic sense (Œcolampadius, 150r). When the frames of reference change from writer to writer, and even from chapter to chapter within a single writer—Melanchthon proposes as many as five centered on Alexander, Judæa, Antiochus IV, Papal Rome and the Turks—it is impossible to elicit from them a common understanding of the relative geographic positions intended by North, South and East. There is simply no consensus to be found.

And yet, in spite of this confusion, the shifting of the frame—from an Alexandrian Frame at 11:4 to a Judæan Frame at 11:5 to an Eschatological Frame at some point after that—has been so universally applied in the history of Danielic eschatology that it has become well nigh canonical. The shifting frame is tacitly assumed to be a part of the canon of revelation itself. Upon inspection, however, there is not so much as a whisper of a hint of a suggestion in the text of Daniel 11 that the frame of reference had changed at all. An Alexandrian Frame was established as early as Daniel 8:8, and is restated for us at 11:4, “toward the four winds of heaven,” and the narrator never departs from it. It is in the context of this Alexandrian Frame of Reference that the narrator proceeds into a detailed description of events with respect to the compass points—north, south and east—as those events unfold within a single frame of reference, all the way through Daniel 11:45.

What the Early Church Fathers and the reformers—and modern commentators with them—apparently did not consider is the possibility that all of Daniel 11 is to be read continuously in one, single Alexandrian Frame of Reference in which North refers to Asia Minor, from start to finish. Perhaps the chaotic jumble of interpretations at the Eschatological Frame is actually caused by the fact that we introduced a Judæan Frame at 11:5 in the first place.

And thus we ask, What if Daniel’s compass was not broken at all? What if North meant North?

We will continue on this theme in our next entry.

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Notes:

Reformers on the transition to an Eschatological Frame: Oecolampadius, Johannes, In Danielem Prophetam (Basileae: Apud Thomas Volfius (1530)) 140r-140v, 147v, 150r; Calvin, John Commentary on Daniel, 11:36; Bullinger, Heinrich, Daniel Sapientissimus Dei Propheta, (Tiguri Excudebat C. Froschoverus, 1565) 124r; Melanchthon, Philipp, In Danielem Prophetam Commentarius, (Lipsiæ (1543)), 360-362; Wigand, Johann, Danielis Prophetae Explicatio Brevis, (Jena, Berlin: Guntherus Huttichius ex. cudebat. 1571) , 425r-426v; Broughtono, Hughone, Commentarius in Danielem, (Basileæ per Sebastianum Henricpetri (1599)) 84; Polandi, Amani, In Danielem Prophetam Visionum, vol. ii (Basileæ, Typis Conradi Waldkierchii (1599)) 316-18; Willet, Andrew, Hexapla in Danielem (Cambridge: Leonard Greene (1610)), 435; Mayer, John, A Commentary Upon the Whole Old Testament, vol 4 Upon all the Prophets both great and small (London: Robert & William Laybourn 1653) , 574