Dan 11:37
The exalting of himself above all on the part of the king is further described. “He shall not regard the gods of his fathers,” i.e., shall cast aside the worship of the gods transmitted to him from his fathers. This again does not accord with Antiochus Epiphanes, regarding whom it is true that history records that he wished to suppress the worship practised by the Jews, but it knows nothing. of attempts made by him to destroy the gods and the worship of other nations. The words which follow, נשׁים על־חמדּת, the old interpreters understood of the love of women, or of conjugal love; the modern, after the example of J. D. Michaelis and Gesenius, on the contrary, understand them of the goddess Anaïtis or Mylitta, the Assyrian Venus, and refer them specially to the spoiling of the temple of this goddess in Elymaïs (1 Macc. 6:1, cf. 2 Macc. 1:13). Ewald finally would understand by the expression “the desire of women,” the Syrian deity Tammuz-Adonis. The connection requires us to think on a deity, because these words are placed between two expressions which refer to the gods. But the connection is not altogether decisive; rather the כּל על in the clause at the end of the verse denotes that the subject spoken of is not merely the king’s raising himself above the gods, but also above other objects of pious veneration. A verbal proof that נשׁים חמדּת denotes the Anaïtis or Adonis as the favourite deity of women has not been adduced. For these words, desiderium mulierum, denote not that which women desire, but that which women possess which is desirable; cf. under 1Sa 9:20. But it is impossible that this can be Anaïtis or Adonis, but it is a possession or precious treasure of women. This desirable possession of women is without doubt love; so that, as C. B. Michaelis has remarked, the expression is not materially different from נשׁים אהבת, the love of women, 2Sa 1:26. The thought: “he shall not regard the desire of women, or the love of women,” agrees perfectly with the connection. After it has been said in the first clause: he shall set himself free from all religious reverence transmitted from his fathers, from all piety toward the gods in which he had been trained, it is then added in the second clause: not merely so, but generally from all piety toward men and God, from all the tender affections of the love of men and of God. The “love of women” is named as an example selected from the sphere of human piety, as that affection of human love and attachment for which even the most selfish and most savage of men feel some sensibility. Along with this he shall set himself free from כּל־אלוהּ, from all piety or reverence toward God or toward that which is divine (Klief.). This thought is then established by the last clause: “for he shall magnify himself above all.” To כּל על we may not supply אלוהּ; for this clause not only presents the reason for the foregoing clause, וגו כּל־אלוהּ על, but for both of the foregoing clauses. Hitzig and Kliefoth are right in their interpretation: “above everything, or all, gods and men,” he shall magnify himself, raise himself up in arrogance.