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Daniel 11:6

dan-11-6354 words

Dan 11:5-6

From the 5th verse the prophecy passes to the wars of the kings of the south and the north for the supremacy and for the dominion over the Holy Land, which lay between the two. Dan 11:5 describes the growing strength of these two kings, and Dan 11:6 an attempt made by them to join themselves together. חזק, to become strong. The king of the south is the ruler of Egypt; this appears from the context, and is confirmed by Dan 11:8. שׂריו וּמן is differently interpreted; מן, however, is unanimously regarded as a partitive: “one of his princes,” as e.g., Neh 13:28; Gen 28:11; Exo 6:25. The suffix to שׂריו (his princes) does not (with C. B. Michaelis, Bertholdt, Rosenmüller, and Kranichfeld) refer to גּבּור מלך, Dan 11:3, because this noun is too far removed, and then also עליו must be referred to it; but thereby the statement in Dan 11:5, that one of the princes of the king of Javan would gain greater power and dominion than the valiant king had, would contradict the statement in Dan 11:4, that no one of the Diadochs would attain to the dominion of Alexander.

The suffix to שׂריו can only be referred to the immediately preceding הנגב מלך: “one of the princes of the king of the south.” But then וin וּמן cannot be explicative, but is only the simple copula. This interpretation also is not opposed by the Atnach under שׂריו, for this accent is added to the subject because it stands before separately, and is again resumed in ויחזק by the copula ,ו as e.g., Eze 34:19. The thought is this: one of the princes of the king of the south shall attain to greater power than this king, and shall found a great dominion. That this prince is the king of the north, or founds a dominion in the north, is not expressly said, but is gathered from Dan 11:6, where the king of the south enters into a league with the king of the north.