And the king of the south shall be enraged, and shall come forth and fight with him, with the king of the north, who shall set forth a great multitude, but the multitude shall be given into his hand.
Commentary for this Verse
Daniel 11 tracks a long war between two kingdoms: one north of Israel, one south of it. Here the southern king strikes back in fury, which raises three questions — who are these kings, whose army is handed over, and why does God record such pagan quarrels?
The titles, not the men, run through the chapter
One point comes first. The same two labels cover a whole line of rulers.
William KellyIn this chapter it is not the same king of the north, nor the same king of the south, that we have all the way through, but a great many that succeed each other. The same official title runs throughout. As people say in law, the king, or the queen never dies. That is just the way we are to look at it here.
replaces unsupported claim with material actually in the source; adds identity and future angle; removes passive
The rage that history records
The prophecy names no one, but the events matched real men. One summary of the chapter sets this verse between the northern advance of verse 10 and the rout of verse 12.
William KellyIn verse 10 we have the attempts of Seleucus Ceraunus and Antiochus the Great against the south. Only the second of them, Antiochus, recovered Seleucia. So even Ptolemy Philopator, sluggish as he was, grew enraged (verse 11). Then Antiochus, after some successes, suffered a total rout at Raphia (verse 12).
The detail is striking: the Egyptian king was a lazy, passive man, and even he was stirred to fury. That the plural "sons" of verse 10 belongs to the north is confirmed by this very verse:
A. J. Pollock"But his sons shall be stirred up" clearly refers to the sons of the King of the North, as the reference in verse 11 to the King of the South fighting the King of the North proves.
Whose multitude is handed over
The closing clause is easy to misread. The great army raised is the northern king's, and it is the southern king who receives it.
Edward Dennettthe next two kings of the north did attack Egypt with large forces, but they failed. The second of them suffered a disastrous defeat, just as verse 11 predicted: "the multitude [the army of the king of the north] shall be given into his hand" — that is, into the hand of the king of the south, Egypt.
Dennett quoted an older translation. It reads "the multitude shall be given into his hand." The ESV has "it shall be given into his hand."
A win that settled nothing
The verse ends in victory — but the chapter refuses to let victory look like security.
Hamilton SmithMoved with rage, the king of the south would come out to meet this attack and try to crush his opponents. Still, his overwhelming victory would not make him safe, and it would not end these conflicts.
What followed proved it. The winner wasted what he had gained:
A. J. PollockThe Egyptian King fulfilled verse 11 of our chapter by finally defeating Antiochus decisively, but he was not strengthened by it, as verse 12 states, for he gave himself up to excesses and debauchery, and eventually made peace with Antiochus.
Why God bothered to record these battles
Why would heaven track the campaigns of two pagan courts? The answer lies in the strip of land between them.
Edward DennettScripture gives these wars in such detail because of what they meant for the Jews and for the glorious land… The land lay between the two kingdoms, so it became the road of approach from either country… God could not be indifferent to this, for it touched the welfare of His poor people who had returned from Babylon. That is why the Spirit of God has had the account of all these wars recorded. It shows us how strong God's love for His people is, whatever their state. It also teaches us that He watches the movements of nations as they affect His people's interests.
A chapter that answers unbelief
Details this fine, written centuries in advance, carry their own weight of evidence.
A. J. PollockDaniel 11 gives us the most extraordinary and detailed prophecy in the whole Word of God. It foretells the reigns of kings, royal marriages, wars, victories, defeats, plots, treaties, and assassinations. Remember that, and it is very striking, unanswerable evidence that God knows the future.
Summary
- Titles — "King of the north" and "king of the south" are offices, not one man. A whole line of rulers wears each name in turn, down to the Assyrian still to come.
- Rage — The southern king was a sluggish man. Even he flew into a rage when pushed far enough.
- Handed over — The huge army belongs to the north. The prophecy hands it to the southern king before the battle is fought.
- Hollow — The victory neither made him safe nor ended the wars.
- Love — These wars crossed His people's land. So God had them recorded, weighing the movements of nations by how they touch those He loves.