Biblion Bible Commentary
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He Will Stand in the Glorious Land
Daniel 11:14-19
14 “In those times many will stand up against the king of the south. Also the children of the violent among your people will lift themselves up to establish the vision, but they will fall. · WEB
The northern power takes the fortified cities and then stands in the glorious land — the first time the vision's real interest surfaces.
In those times many will stand up against the king of the south. Also the children of the violent among your people will lift themselves up to establish the vision, but they will fall Daniel 11:14.
A half-verse about Daniel's own people, and it is a warning. Some among them lift themselves up to establish the vision — men who took prophecy as a mandate for their own action, who tried to bring about by force what God had said would happen — and the verdict is four words: but they will fall. Scripture is consistently severe about this. A promise is not a permission, and the attempt to help God keep his word by violence is a recurring disaster in the biblical record Genesis 16:2 1 Samuel 13:12–13 Matthew 26:52.
So the king of the north will come and cast up a mound, and take a well-fortified city. The forces of the south won't stand Daniel 11:15.
Siege warfare in its plainest description — a ramp thrown up against a walled city, and it falls. Neither the southern army nor its select troops can hold; the vision repeats the failure three ways in one verse.
But he who comes against him will do according to his own will, and no one will stand before him. He will stand in the glorious land, and destruction will be in his hand Daniel 11:16.
And here the chapter's real subject shows itself for the first time. Through eleven verses of campaigns the reader might have supposed the vision was interested in the two powers; it was not. It was waiting for one of them to stand in the glorious land. That phrase — the land of the covenant, of the city Daniel had prayed for, of the sanctuary Jeremiah 3:19 Ezekiel 20:6 — is what the whole geography of north and south exists to frame. Everything before this was the approach march.
He will set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, and with him equitable conditions. He will perform them. He will give him the daughter of women, to destroy the kingdom, but she will not stand, and won't be for him Daniel 11:17.
Another marriage, another failure. This time the northern power sends a daughter south as an instrument of subversion, to destroy the kingdom from within — and the plan collapses because the woman does not act in her father's interest. The second attempt to win by wedding is as futile as the first Daniel 11:6; the chapter has now shown both directions trying it.
After this he will turn his face to the islands, and will take many, but a prince will cause the reproach offered by him to cease... he will cause his reproach to turn on him Daniel 11:18.
An overseas campaign, initial success, and then a check administered by a prince who turns the insult back on its author. The northern power's westward expansion runs into something stronger than itself.
Then he will turn his face toward the fortresses of his own land; but he will stumble and fall, and won't be found Daniel 11:19.
Home, and finished. Won't be found is the vision's way of closing a career — a power that had taken walled cities and stood in the glorious land ends without a battle, disappearing from the account. The next verse begins another reign, and after two more the chapter's tone changes from campaigns to covenant.
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