As we noted last week, the traditional approach to Daniel 11—whether Historicist, Dispensationalist, or Preterist—is to impose multiple frames of reference on the text, and then to interpret the chapter through those additional frames. One frame of reference—the only one explicitly identified in the chapter—is the Alexandrian Frame, centered on Alexander’s divided empire (Daniel 11:4). To this there is then added a Judæan Frame, centered on Israel, and then sometime later an Eschatological Frame, centered on the geographic location of a future antagonist who could be Antiochus IV, Imperial Rome, the Turks or Papal Rome, depending on the interpretation. The text does not so much as even hint at this shifting frame of reference, and yet it has been imposed upon Daniel 11 universally for almost two millennia to make sense of the chapter. Ironically, those additional frames of reference have had the opposite of the intended effect and have actually prevented us from making sense of it.

The shifting frame of reference is first applied to resolve the problem of Daniel’s prophecy about the warring kings of the North and South. In the Alexandrian Frame, the Northern Kingdom was Asia Minor and Thrace, the Southern Kingdom was that of Egypt, and the Eastern Kingdom included Syria, Babylon and beyond. By any standard of geographic consistency, Daniel’s prophecy should have been been fulfilled by a series of wars between the successors of Alexander in Asia Minor and Egypt. That prophecy, however, was apparently fulfilled by a series of conflicts between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties, which are presumed to be East and South, respectively, in the Alexandrian Frame of Reference. In other words, it appears on the surface that Daniel’s compass was broken.

The inconsistency has historically been resolved by imposing a Judæan Frame of Reference upon the text, a frame of reference in which Syria is to the North and Egypt is to the South of Jerusalem. Of course, Daniel says nothing of the change in frame, but at least the prophecy is made to align with the historical record.

Then at some point later in the chapter, the prophecies can no longer be attached to the conflict between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties under a Judæan Frame. To solve the discrepancy, the Eschatological Frame of Reference is introduced, and Daniel is suddenly presumed to be writing of a yet more distant future conflict in which the battle between North and South is prosecuted in a Frame of Reference centered on the geographic location of a future antagonist—in Israel, North Africa, Syria, Rome or Istanbul, depending on the interpretation. Of course, Daniel again says nothing of a change in the frame of reference, but at least it aids us in wrestling with the apparently as of yet unfulfilled aspects of the prophecy.

As we noted last week, the result of the introduction of an Eschatological Frame has been absolute chaos, and the resulting chaos may legitimately be traced to the fact that we presumed to introduce a Judæan Frame earlier on. As we shall demonstrate, the introduction of a Judæan Frame at 11:5 is the reason the narrative appears to diverge from known history later in the chapter. That apparent divergence necessitates the introduction of the Eschatological Frame somewhere between 11:24 and 11:40, depending on the interpretation, and that frame, too, is foreign to the text. By a plain reading of the chapter, Daniel simply establishes an Alexandrian Frame at the outset, and does not once waver from it. The entire chapter is narrated in a frame in which North, South and East are used consistently from start to finish.

When we left off last week, we posed the question as to how the chapter would be interpreted if Daniel’s compass was not presumed to be broken at 11:5. In other words, What if the entire chapter is read in a single Alexandrian Frame of Reference in which North refers to Thrace and Asia Minor, from beginning to end? What if Daniel meant exactly what he appears to have written, and the prophecy really is fulfilled by a series of wars between the nations established by the successors of Alexander in Thrace and Asia Minor to the North and the Egyptian territories to the South?

The answer to these questions—an answer that is profound for its simplicity—is found in one of the most plainly evident, exhaustively corroborated, widely known but chronically overlooked facts of post-Alexandrian Hellenism: the Seleucids were the Kings of Asia Minor and Thrace.

Esteemed historian of the Seleucid dynasty, Edwyn Robert Bevan, arrives at precisely this conclusion in his two-volume work, The House of Seleucus. Once Seleucus conquered Lysimachus at Corupedium in 281 B.C., the descendants of the Seleucid line made their home quite comfortably in Asia Minor and Thrace, and in fact preferred it over their other dominions. It was the seat of the Seleucid empire until their catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Romans in the Battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.). It is only then that the Seleucids go back to being “Syrian” kings. Of this astonishing conclusion, Bevan writes,

“… Asia Minor rather than Syria or the East seems, till after Magnesia, the chief sphere of Seleucid activity. One may well believe that it was the part of their dominions to which the Seleucid kings attached the greatest value. It is never so inappropriate to speak of the dynasty as ‘Syrian’ as in these earlier reigns.” (Bevan, Edwyn Robert, The House of Seleucus, vol 1, London: Edward Arnold (1902) 150-51)

“Asia Minor was in fact considered the real home of the earlier Seleucids.” (Bevan, The House of Seleucus, vol 1, London: Edward Arnold (1902) 151n)

We do not deny that the Seleucids possessed and administered the Syrian territories, and are even styled “Kings of Syria” in the historical record, and neither does Bevan. What Bevan has highlighted for us is just how inappropriate that title is for a kingdom seated in Asia Minor, its royal courts nestled comfortably within the Taurus, separated from Syria by the most imposing mountain range in the region. Thus while in title the Seleucids were Syrian Kings, in practice, preference and importantly, in reality, they were also Kings of Asia Minor and Thrace. To our specific eschatological point, they were quite literally Kings of the North in the Alexandrian Frame of Reference.

And so the Seleucids are styled from Daniel 11:5 to 11:18, the section of Daniel 11 that deals with the so-called “Syrian Wars” that occurred between the watershed battles of Corupedium  in 281 B.C. and Magnesia in 190 B.C.. During that time frame, the Seleucids in prophecy are called Kings of the North, ruling as they do from Asia Minor and Thrace.

But then something remarkable happens. According to the terms of surrender, as codified at the Treaty of Apamea in 188 B.C., the Roman Senate insists that the Seleucids “must retire from Europe and from all Asia on this side [of the] Taurus” (Polybius, The Histories, Book 21.17.3). In other words, they must evacuate Asia Minor and Thrace, the Northern kingdom in the Alexandrian Frame. From that point forward in Daniel’s narrative in chapter 11, the ruler of the Seleucid house is never called “King of the North” again. From Daniel 11:19-39, the term simply disappears and is never applied to the Syrian Kings, for the Seleucids never recovered their most prized northern territory. When the term does return in 11:40, we can be assured that it means precisely what it has meant thus far throughout the chapter: King of Asia Minor and Thrace. In the unique genre in which Daniel 11 is composed, the title does not attach to a particular dynasty, but to a particular geography.

To underscore the significance of this, we note that the four way division of Alexander’s kingdom is reported in the histories in terms of crowns and kingdoms, for “all put on crowns after his death, and so did their sons after them for many years” (1 Maccabees 1:9). These kingdoms remained four kingdoms even under conquest, and with each kingdom came a crown that was identified with that territory. Thus, when Ptolemy IV later invades Syria, he has not expanded his borders, per se, but has instead added a second crown to his head:

“Ptolemy [IV] entered Antioch and put on the crown of Asia [Major]. Thus he put two crowns upon his head, the crown of Egypt and that of Asia [Major].” (1 Maccabees 11:13).

And when Antiochus IV invaded Egypt, his desire was not to expand his borders, per se, but rather to reign over two kingdoms:

“When Antiochus saw that his kingdom [in Syria] was established, he determined to become king of the land of Egypt, that he might reign over both kingdoms.” (1 Maccabees 1:16)

Thus, when Memnon writes of Seleucus’ conquest of Lysimachus’ domains to the north, the two kingdoms are “merged” in some sense—“After Lysimachus’ death, his kingdom was merged as part of Seleucus’ kingdom” (Memnon, History of Heraclea, 6.6)—and yet are administered separately as two. Even when the Seleucids were ruling over both Asia Major to the East, and Asia Minor to the North, they were truly ruling over two kingdoms, not one. A Seleucid king crosses the Taurus to arrange matters in Asia Minor, and sets his son over “Syria to guard the remotest parts of his kingdom” (Livius, the History of Rome, Book 35.13.4-5). At one point the Seleucid king was maintaining two separate courts and two separate families with two separate wives—one in Ephesus as queen in Asia Minor and Thrace, and one in Antioch as queen in Syria. The murder of the latter by the former resulted in the so-called Third Syrian War, but it was not really a Syrian war as much as it was a “campaign against the two lands of Asia” (Canopus Decree, 6), for Ptolemy had to retaliate against the Seleucids on two fronts—first in Asia Major and then in Asia Minor. After Ptolemy’s successful campaign against “the two lands of Asia,” the Seleucids threatened to retaliate with two armies—the one currently in Syria, and the other on its way from beyond the Taurus—and Ptolemy III sued for peace rather than having to face a war of improbable odds against “two enemies at once”:

“Ptolemy Euergetes, in the meantime, learning that Antiochus [in Asia Minor] was coming to the aid of Seleucus [in Syria], and not wishing to have to contend with two enemies at once, made peace with Seleucus for ten years.” (Justinus’ Epitome of the Philippic History, Book XXVII.2)

Thus, in the parlance of that era, there were four successor kingdoms that were established from one nation (Daniel 8:22), separated by seas, mountains and deserts on each side. Even when one conquered another, the kingdoms remained kingdoms as such. Therefore when Seleucus invaded Asia Minor and defeated Lysimachus at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 B.C., he took the northern kingdom for himself, from the Taurus Mountains to Thrace (Polybius, Histories, Book 18.51.4-5), and added it to his eastern kingdom from the Taurus Mountains to Babylon. In other words, he took a second crown, and now wore two: one belonging to the East and one belonging to the North.

What we shall demonstrate today is that a cursory review of the history of the Seleucids shows definitively that from Corupedium to Apamea, the Seleucids preferred Asia Minor over Syria, and it was their primary base of operations, even though they continued to administer affairs in Syria. In fact, specific prophecies that have been historically assumed to be fulfilled in Syria to the East are actually fulfilled in Asia Minor to the North. In other words, from Daniel 11:5 onward, the chapter continues to be fulfilled in an Alexandrian Frame of Reference, not a Judæan one.

Antiochus I

Shortly after Corupedium, Seleucus was murdered in Thrace (Pausianas, Description of Greece, Book 1.16.2) and his son, Antiochus I Soter stepped in and ruled over the territory. Antiochus I’s activities within the Taurus in Asia Minor were extensive, the appellation “Soter” being applied to him “for driving out the Gauls who had made an incursion into Asia [Minor] from Europe” (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65). The Miletians erected a bronze statue of “Antiochos on horseback” out of gratitude for his benevolence toward them and their temple (Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae (OGIS) 213); the people of the Islands of Lemnos “erected temples to Seleucus, but also to his son Antiochus” (Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists, Book 6.66); the people of Aeolis granted divine honors to him (Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG): 59.1406A); the people of Ilium celebrated his restoration of order “this side of the Taurus” after his father’s death:

“…and now, coming to the area on this side of the Taurus he has with all zealous concern at once established peace for the cities and brought his affairs and his kingdom to a greater and more brilliant condition.” (OGIS 219)

Antiochus I’s wife, Stratonice, issued a decree in Caria “In the reign of Antiochos” (SEG 30.1278), and forbade that a painting of her be removed from the harbor at Ephesus (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 35, chapter 40). We also have numismatic evidence that Antiochus I’s rule was recognized as far as Thrace, for coins have been found in Europe bearing his name and image (Ernest Babelon, Catalogue des monnaies grecques: Les rois de Syrie, d’Arménie, et de Commagène (Bibliothèque nationale (1890) XLVIII).

Antiochus II

When Antiochus I died, his son Antiochus II rose up in his place, earning the appellation Theos for rescuing the Bithynians from the tyrant Timarchus (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65; OGIS 26). At times, Antiochus II is found pressing his affairs well into Europe, as when he “besieged Cypsela, a city in Thrace,” for “he had in his army many Thracians of good rank and family” (Polyaenus, Strategems, Book 4, Chapter 16.1). The intricacies of Antiochus II’s government are related to us by “Pythermus the Ephesian … in the eighth book of his History” (Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 7.35), and for good reason, for Ephesus was near Sardis, the seat of the empire. When Antiochus II is approached by Ptolemy II, who offers his daughter Berenice in marriage, it is an opportunity that Antiochus II, though married, cannot refuse. And thus, he “had two wives, Laodice [in Ephesus] and Berenice [in Antioch], the former a love-match, the latter a daughter pledged to him by Ptolemy [II]” (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65), and both holding court in their respective kingdoms, North and East.

Lest his most precious properties in Asia Minor fall into the hands of Berenice by marriage, Antiochus hastily deeds them to Laodice as part of the terms of divorce, leaving his most prized holdings there in her hands. From that point he sets up a new household in Antioch with his new wife, the daughter of Ptolemy. Before leaving Asia Minor, he insists that the deed of transfer to Laodice be recorded as a sale rather than a gift, for a gift can always be rescinded by a later king, but a sale is permanent. This deed of sale is to be published throughout the kingdom as a matter of public record, and we invite the attention of the reader to the five cities where the records are to be kept:

“Give orders to convey to Arrhidaios, the manager of Laodike’s property, the village and the manor-house and the land belonging to it and the folk with their households and all their property, and to have the sale entered in the royal records in Sardes, and inscribed on five stelæ; (give orders) to erect the first in Ilion in the sanctuary of Athena, another in the sanctuary at Samothrace, another in Ephesos in the sanctuary of Artemis, the fourth in Didyma in the sanctuary of Apollo, and the fifth in Sardes in the sanctuary of Artemis; and (give orders) to survey the land immediately and to mark it with boundary stones, and [to inscribe] the boundaries of the land also on the stelæ” (OGIS 225).

Notably, the sale is registered among the royal records of the Seleucid empire in Sardis, and for good measure the deed is reproduced in quintuplicate, and filed in five temples or sanctuaries in Ilion, Samothrace, Ephesus, Didyma and Sardis. We note for emphasis that it is the most high profile divorce settlement in the history of the entire Seleucid empire, and the records are filed in the courts, sanctuaries and temples of Asia Minor and Thrace.

His Northern kingdom thus arranged, Antiochus II moves to Antioch to be with Berenice in the East. The arrangement does not last long. Political necessity had brought him to Antioch, but love brought him back to Ephesus. The Taurus Mountains could not keep Antiochus away from his first love, and before he dies, he is back in the arms of Laodice (Eusebius, Chronicle). But Laodice does not suffer bigamists well, and is believed to have poisoned him (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65), lest his affections drift eastward again to Syria, and her children lose their crown rights to the interloper queen from Egypt. It is in Ephesus that Antiochus dies.

Laodice, of course, does not suffer mistresses well, either, and arranges for the murder of Berenice and her child by Antiochus (Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 65). The eastern court thus eliminated, the throne of the Seleucids is, for now, safely in the north with Seleucus II, Antiochus II’s heir by Laodice.

Seleucus II

At this point in his Commentary on Daniel, Jerome has “the king of the North, that is Seleucus [II]” with his mother Laodice “ruling in Syria,” (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:7-9), which of course is a grotesque geographical error. His mistake stems from his imposition of a Judæan Frame of Reference on the text, for he assumed that the King of the North must be Syrian. That assumption kept him from grasping the significance of the fact that after Berenice’s murder, Seleucus II, the King of the North, was actually ruling with Laodice in Ephesus, not Antioch.

The Northern Kingdom could not rest long in this condition, for the King of the South, Ptolemy III, does not take the double murder of his sister and nephew sitting down. Here he marches on Antioch, meets no resistance and “secured for himself the whole country from Taurus to India, without a single engagement” (Polyænus, Strategems, Book 8, Chapter 50.1). From Persia he retrieves the ancient treasures of Egypt and brings them home  (Canopus Decree, 6). The commentaries universally see this as the fulfillment of Daniel 11:7-9 in which he “shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail,” and carry their treasures “into Egypt”—as if Syria had been the sole object of his fury.  But the fact is, he encountered no resistance in the East, and the Seleucids responsible for his sister’s murder were in Asia Minor. He can hardly “enter into the fortress” and “deal against them” if there is no “them” there.

Having secured the east, he launched an invasion of Seleucid territories within the Taurus Mountains, boasting afterward that he had subdued Thrace and Asia Minor in the same campaign. It is only after subduing both the East and the North that the southern kingdom brings back their accumulated treasures to Egypt, and those treasures included the wealth of Asia Minor. The Adoulis Inscription records the exploits of Ptolemy III in this war of retribution, also known as the Laodicæan War, named for the instigator of Berenice’s demise, and that engagement enveloped “the two lands of Asia” as we noted above. One of those “Asias” was Asia Minor, and Ptolemy’s exploits there included even Thrace, and it is from the Northern Kingdom, as well, that Ptolemy brought back treasures to Egypt:

“Having become master of all the land this side of the Euphrates and of Cilicia and Pamphylia and Ionia and the Hellespont and Thrace and of all the forces and Indian elephants in these lands, and having made subject all the princes in the (various) regions, he crossed the Euphrates river and after subjecting to himself Mesopotamia and Babylonia and Sousiana and Persis and Media and all the rest of the land up to Bactria and having sought out all the temple belongings that had been carried out of Egypt by the Persians and having brought them back with the rest of the treasure from the (various) regions he sent his forces to Egypt through the canals that had been dug.” (The Adoulis Inscription, OGIS 54).

When all the dust had settled, Ephesus, the home of the royal Seleucid court, and Sardis, the place where royal Seleucid records were kept, were both in Ptolemy’s possession (Eusebius, Chronicle), and the Seleucids retreated inland to regroup. Thus did Ptolemy enter the fortress of the king of the north and return to Egypt with his booty. Had Ptolemy not been called untimely back home by an insurrection, he “would have made himself master of all Seleucus’s dominions” (Justinus’ Epitome of the Philippic History, Book XXVII.1), and the Seleucid house might have collapsed entirely.

Young Seleucus II of course could not long tolerate the loss of Syria, so to mount an offensive he must cross over the Taurus from Asia Minor to attempt to recover the eastern territories. In preparation for his absence, he requested that the Magnesians look after the Seleucid holdings in Asia Minor “on account of the fact that his father the god Antiochus and the mother of his father the goddess Stratonike are established among us” in Smyrna (Bagnall, Roger S., Derow, Peter, The Hellenistic Period: Historical Sources in Translation, Smyrnaean Inscription (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, ©2004) 56-62). Once again we have a Seleucid king making detailed arrangements for the safekeeping of his northern territories before departing for Syria, so deeply did the blood of the Seleucids course through the mountains, rivers and plains of their homeland in Asia Minor.

The war in Syria does not go well for Seleucus and because of his untenable position, he “despatched a letter to his brother Antiochus, in which he implored his aid, and offered to him that part of Asia within Mount Taurus, as a recompense for his services.” But Antiochus cannot see why he must earn the kingdom when it is his for the taking, and he usurps the throne without coming to the aid of his brother (Justinus’ Epitome of the Philippic History, Book XXVII.2). Ptolemy is not yet aware of Antiochus’ treachery, and so Seleucus plays the only card he has left: he convinces Ptolemy that Antiochus is on his way from across the Taurus, and Ptolemy “not wishing to have to contend with two enemies at once, made peace with Seleucus” (Justinus’ Epitome of the Philippic History, Book XXVII.2). 

With the external enemy pacified, Seleucus crosses back into Asia Minor to recover his kingdom from Antiochus, only to find that Antiochus has recruited the Gauls against him. Seleucus suffers a terrible defeat at the hands of his brother in the Battle of Ancyra, and is expelled from Asia Minor. The Gauls then turn against their new employer, and this chapter ends with Antiochus dying an exile in Egypt, and Seleucus dying an “exile,” note well, in Syria (Justinus’ Epitome of the Philippic History, Book XXVII.4).

Seleucus III

Now arises Seleucus III, a champion of his father’s cause, but having a constitution unequal to his ambition, he is unable to command the obedience of his troops (Appian, The History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 66).  In his first major campaign to recover “all his dominions,” he is accompanied by his kinsman Achæus, “on his expedition across the Taurus,” but no sooner crosses into Asia Minor than he is assassinated (Polybius, The Histories, Book 4.48.6-8). The army therefore summons his younger brother, Antiochus III from Babylon, and Antiochus III assumes the crown (Justinus, Epitome of Pompeius Trogus’ Philippic Histories, Book XXIX.1).

Antiochus III

Until Antiochus III can arrive, Achaeus disavows any claim to the crown, instead “holding the throne” in Asia Minor, “for the younger brother Antiochus,” and in the meantime, “advanced energetically and recovered the whole of the country on this side of Taurus” for the Seleucid house (Polybius, The Histories, Book 4.48.10). But these successes wore down his resolve, and seeing that he was “now master of all the country on this side of the Taurus,” Achaeus “styled himself king” of Asia Minor, in violation of his oath (Polybius, The Histories, Book 4.48.10).

Like Seleucus II, Antiochus III does not suffer such treachery within the Seleucid house, and must eventually capture Sardis and execute Achaeus for his crime (Polybius, The Histories, Book 7.15-18, Book 8.15-21). Over time as he manages the affairs of his expansive domains, he also recovers Ephesus (Polybius, The Histories, Book 18.40.a, Book 20.8.5). It is during this time that Antiochus is chipping away at the rest of Ptolemy’s recently acquired holdings in Asia Minor. He restores the integrity of the Seleucid empire from the Taurus Mountains all the way to Thrace:

“As there was nothing small in his views he marched among the Hellespontines, the Aeolians, and the Ionians as though they belonged to him as the ruler of Asia; and indeed, they had been formerly subjects of the Asiatic kings. Then he crossed over to Europe, brought Thrace under his sway, and reduced by force those who would not obey him.” (Appian, The History of Rome, The Syrian Wars, 1)

Rome, the growing republic to the west, begins to be alarmed at Antiochus III’s recovery of Asia Minor and his reduction of Thrace. A delegation from Rome insists that he confine his activities to Asia Minor, and demands that he stay out of Europe entirely. To this request, Antiochus III replies that he would not think to tell Romans what to do in Italy, and therefore Romans ought not think to tell him what to do in his own kingdom of Asia Minor and Thrace. In his objections to Roman demands he claims that these territories have rightfully belonged to the Seleucids since the defeat of Lysimachus at Corupedium, and he is only taking back what Ptolemy had taken from him in an earlier incursion. Beside this, he adds, Thrace will make a nice home for his son, Seleucus IV:

“He said that he had crossed to Europe with his army for the purpose of recovering the Chersonese and the cities in Thrace, for he had a better title to the sovereignty of these places than anyone else.  They originally formed part of Lysimachus’s kingdom, but when Seleucus went to war with that prince and conquered him in the war, the whole of Lysimachus’s kingdom came to Seleucus by right of conquest. … At present … he was repossessing himself of them by his right as well as by his might. As for the Lysimachians, who had been unexpectedly expelled from their homes by the Thracians, he was doing no injury to Rome in bringing them back and resettling them;  for he did this not with the intention of doing violence to the Romans, but of providing a residence for [his son] Seleucus [IV].” (Polybius, The Histories, Book 18.51).

But Antiochus III underestimates the resolve of the new western republic and advances undaunted into Greece. Rome has had enough, moves in to meet him, and as a result, “Lucius Scipio completely defeated Antiochus in the great battle of Magnesia” in 190 B.C. (Livius, History of Rome, Book 38.58). From here on, Antiochus is on the run, and finally realizes that he has provoked an unstoppable force that is rising in the west. He reluctantly comes to terms, sues for peace and grants to Rome all that the Senate has asked of him. Most notably, at the Treaty of Apamea in 188 B.C. he agrees to abandon the most prized possession in all the House of Seleucus—Asia Minor and Thrace—the home and hearth of five generations of the Seleucid line. According to the terms dictated to them by the Roman Senate, the Seleucids “must retire from Europe and from all Asia on this side [of the] Taurus” (Polybius, The Histories, Book 21.17.3).

It is the end of the Seleucid rule in the North. Henceforth they own no further legitimate claim to it. But during that period from 281 to 188 B.C. it had been their kingdom. The chain of events from Antiochus II’s marriage to Ptolemy’s daughter Berenice (252 B.C.), to Antiochus III’s capitulation to Rome at Apamea (188 B.C.) were prophesied by Daniel chapter 11:5-18 as the activities of two kings occupying the Northern and Southern Territories of Alexander’s divided empire. The two nations in conflict are identified by their cardinal directions in the Alexandrian Frame, North and South, for the Ptolemies were Kings of the South, and the Seleucids were truly Kings of Asia Minor and Thrace—the Kings of the North.

As we noted above, once the Seleucids are expelled from Asia Minor and Thrace, the war between the Seleucids and Ptolemies goes on, but something remarkable happens at this point in Daniel 11. From Apamea forward, the narrator of Chapter 11 simply stops referring to the Seleucid house as “King of the North.” So long as they had occupied Asia Minor and Thrace, they were styled “Kings of the North” in the prophecy. As soon as their precious territory is removed from them, the appellation “King of the North” is removed as well. Henceforth, they are merely opponents of Ptolemy, an irritant to Rome, and troublers of the Jewish people, but never again styled Kings of the northern territory.

We might say that from Corupedium to Apamea (Daniel 11:5-18), the Seleucids were Lydians, ruling Asia Minor from Ephesus and Sardis—Ptolemy permitting, and Bevan agrees. “It would therefore be as appropriate to call the Seleucid kings Lydians as Syrians” (Bevan, The House of Seleucus, vol 1, 151n), for until Magnesia, the Seleucid kings wore both crowns. But after they are expelled from Asia Minor, in the period of the Seleucid empire prophesied by Daniel 11:19-39, they are but Syrians. Now that they are wearing only one crown and ruling from a seat more suited to the title, they have truly become Kings of Syria:

“But now Asia Minor was barred against the house of Seleucus for ever; the empire, which had almost been the empire of Alexander, was become the kingdom of Syria.” (Bevan, House of Seleucus, vol 2, 115)

What therefore can we say of the well-intentioned but obtrusive tradition of introducing of a Judæan Frame of Reference at Daniel 11:5? Simply and emphatically, there had never been a need for it. Daniel 11 is dictated in an Alexandrian Frame of Reference from 11:4, and the angelic narrator never wavers from it. All the way through Daniel 11:39, the appellation King of the North is applied consistently to the rulers of the Northern territory of Asia Minor and Thrace. When the chapter refers to those who do not hold the North, the title is not applied to them. The traditional introduction of a Judæan Frame and rejection of the Alexandrian Frame at 11:5, shields this from our view and prevents us from understanding the rest of the chapter. In the confusion resulting from the introduction of a Judæan Frame, the Eschatological Frame is later introduced, again shielding us from the fact that “King of the North” always refers to the ruler of the same geographic region.

But set aside the unbiblical Judæan Frame at 11:5, and the Eschatological Frame becomes unnecessary as well. The chapter simply continues on at 11:40 with its description of a post-Seleucid confrontation between the King of the North, and the King of the South, and there is no reason to assume that the Northern appellation, when it resurfaces, refers to anyone else but the ruler of Asia Minor and Thrace—just as it has for the whole chapter since 11:4. As we noted above, we see from this that the title “King of the North” does not attach to a particular dynasty, but to a particular geography. On that note, we can be just as sure that the unwelcome tidings “out of the east and out of the north” in Daniel 11:44, originate in an Alexandrian Frame as well.

In closing, we note that both the Alexandrian Frame and Cardinal directions assigned to the four kingdoms that came up from him remain in view until the end of the chapter. Not only does the frame of reference remain fixed, but the timeframe does, too. The chapter refers to events that take place during the period of Greek rule, with regard to the nations that came up after Alexander’s death. As we proceed through to the end of the chapter, we will find that Daniel’s prophecy from 11:40-45 is completely fulfilled in the Alexandrian Frame during the Greek Period of Daniel’s visions—the Bronze (Daniel 2), the Leopard (Daniel 7) and the He-Goat (Daniel 8)—prior to the rise of Rome as the Iron Kingdom of Daniel 2, and with a precision befitting the origin of his vision. Only when the prophecy is complete does the Iron Period of the Caesars begin.