I have for some time been of the opinion that we are far enough into the ‘end times’ that the entities that ‘end time’ prophecy points to, should be starting to be discernable. As I have studied, the descriptors of the symbols in prophecy  have brought to mind modern military powers and leaders, countries, kings and presidents. 

As history continues to unfold, more of end time prophecy comes into clear focus. As focus clears, or, ‘knowledge is increased’, my interpretation, or my assignment of modern entities that prophecy points to, is sometimes changed. One instance of such a change of mind is Daniel 11:2.

           2 And now will I shew thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than

           they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.

Until just recently, I assumed this fourth king of Persia and the last king of Medo-Persia(highest horn of the ram Dan. 8:3, 4) were one in the same. But, since Ahmadinejad has been doing his thing, I have changed my assumption and I  now believe that the actions of ‘the fourth’ king ‘in Persia’ are playing out before our eyes today in the stand-off of Iran and the West.

I continue to believe that the ‘realm of Grecia’ is the Western nations, or the western most nation(s) that Daniel knew of when he penned the prophesies. ‘Grecia’ is the Old English translation of ‘Javan’ - or the nations that were settled by Noah’s grandson, Javan, when ‘the earth was divided’, which is believed to be the area west along the northern Mediterranean Sea.

I would like to continue to set down my thoughts on Daniel 11.

           3 And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.

This ‘mighty king’ is the leader of the ‘realm of Grecia’ at the time that fourth king ‘in Persia’ is stirring up all Islam against the ‘realm of Grecia’ and especially against the United States of America and her closest ally Israel. This ‘mighty king’ is also the ‘notable horn’ of the ‘he goat’ of Daniel 8.

           4 And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his

           posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his

kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.

In verse 4a, I believe, is another time delimiter. In the power struggle between the ‘fourth’ king of Persia and the ‘mighty king’; when he, the ‘mighty king’ ‘shall stand up’, and this is inferred, against the ‘fourth’ king of Persia, then the ‘mighty king’ will lose his ‘dominion which he ruled’.

The rest of the verse has totality of the catastrophe for those of us who live in ‘his dominion’; and it will be divided ‘not to his posterity’ ‘nor according to his dominion’, but ‘for others beside those’. This is why I believe that the president of the US which leads the coalition of Western nations(‘he goat’)  against Iraq(‘ram’) the second time, will be the last president.

This ‘great dominion’(US) is also the ‘lion with eagle’s wings’ of Daniel 7 which is humiliated and given the powers of a mere man in a world of beasts. Even if the U.S. continues to be one nation it will be relegated to a third world nation status..

           5 ¶ And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his

           dominion shall be a great dominion.

           6 And in the end of years they shall join themselves together;...

These verses define the ‘king of the south’ as the closest ally to the ‘mighty king’ of the ‘great dominion’ of verse 3. Many believe the ‘king of the south’ to be Egypt, but verse 8 will show that this is not so. Israel is the ‘king of the south’.

            *...for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an

           *agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand,

           *nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her,

           *and he that strengthened her in these times

I struggled with this verse for a long time, but I came to the conclusion that it is out of chronological order and that it is actually telling of the trip that Golda Meyer made to Syria to try to get a peace ‘agreement’ but could not pull it off. To come to the conclusion that Syria is the ‘king of the north’, I assume that these two entities mentioned so often in Daniel 11 are actually the two kings that occupy the same space today as did the ancient Israel that Daniel knew, and I believe that the next few verses will argue to that assumption.

           7 But out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army, and shall enter into the fortress

           of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail:

           8 And shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold; and

           he shall continue more years than the king of the north.

           9 So the king of the south shall come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land.

Verse 8 actually says in the Hebrew:

          *8 And also their gods, with their princes, with their vessels of desire, silver and gold,

          *and into captivity he bringeth Egypt, and he doth stand more years than the king of the north.

This war, I believe is the 7-day war of 1967, in which Israel overpowered Syria and Egypt as Jordan stood aside because of the warnings of Israel. ‘Out of a branch of her roots’ can also be stated as being born of Hebrew parentage.

10 But his sons shall be stirred up, and shall assemble a multitude of great forces:

and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through: then shall he return,

and be stirred up, even to his fortress.

          11 And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north:

           and he shall set forth a great multitude; but the multitude shall be given into his hand.

         12 And when he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up; and he shall cast down many ten thousands: but he

          shall not be strengthened by it.

These verses describe the Yom Kippur War, which Israel barely escaped with what was considered a win, she did that only because the US was giving her weapons as fast as they were destroyed by the enemy. ‘His sons’ are the next generation of Syrians who kept harassing Israel, until Israel took a military war to Syria.

          13 For the king of the north shall return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former, and shall certainly come after

           certain years with a great army and with much riches.

          14 And in those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south: also the robbers of thy people shall exalt themselves

           to establish the vision; but they shall fall.

           15 So the king of the north shall come, and cast up a mount, and take the most fenced cities: and the arms of the south shall not

           withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to withstand.

           16 But he that cometh against him shall do according to his own will, and none shall stand before him: and he shall stand in the

           glorious land, which by his hand shall be consumed.

           17 He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom, and upright ones with him; thus shall he do: and he

           shall give him the daughter of women, corrupting her: but she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him.

Verses 13-17, I believe tell of a future war, which is right on the doorstep. Notice verse 14b - This could be the Palestine movement trying to set up a State of Palestine on the Promised Land of Israel. Also notice verse 14a - Ezekiel tells of a war against Israel in which all of Edom(Islam) will wage war with Israel ‘as a cloud to cover the land’ which agrees with the phrase ‘there shall many stand up against the king of the south’. Verse 17 is still a mystery.

          18 After this shall he turn his face unto the isles, and shall take many: but a prince for his own behalf shall cause the reproach

           offered by him to cease; without his own reproach he shall cause it to turn upon him.

When all of ‘Edom’ come against Israel, I believe, that we will be seeing the birth of the ‘fourth beast, dreadful and terrible’ that ‘had ten horns’, which is a regional power and not a global power. It will feel its power and as prophesied in verse18a will not be satisfied warring against Israel and will continue to harass the Western countries around Israel until ‘a prince’ will persuade this army to cease. I believe that this is the same prince as the ‘anointed prince’ of Daniel 9:25 who is the Roman Pope who is sent to Jerusalem to enforce peace and rebuild the city after the holocaust of the war that has decimated Jerusalem and Damascus.

           19 Then he shall turn his face toward the fort of his own land: but he shall stumble and fall, and not be found.

This first Pope is frail and becomes ill enough to return to Rome where he soon dies.

           20 Then shall stand up in his estate a raiser of taxes in the glory of the kingdom: but within few days he shall be destroyed,

           neither in anger, nor in battle.

This second Roman Pope may be associated with raising taxes or may raise taxes to restore Jerusalem. He will continue to rebuild Jerusalem and the third temple until the end of the 69th  week of Daniel 9 and then he will turn Jerusalem over to his successor.

          21 ¶ And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in

          peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

          22 And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.

          23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.

         24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done,

          nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices

          against the strong holds, even for a time.

His successor is the Antichrist - the man of sin himself, fulfilling the prophecy of Jesus.

Joh 5:43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall

come in his own name, him ye will receive.

The Jew, the Christian, and the Muslim all agree to give Jerusalem, the place where God staked his claim to the Earth and her inhabitants, to the man of sin, the prince of the air. Verse 22 sounds like there will be some sort of conflict, and in Daniel 7, when the ‘little horn’ with eyes and a mouth appears, then three horns are uprooted. This reminds me of the verse:

Isa 19:24 In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria,

even a blessing in the midst of the land:

Lamen 4:12  The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world,

would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have

entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

These next few verses may not be in chronological order, because just a few days after the appearing of the Antichrist, he takes over the third temple. But it seems as if even the government of the Antichrist cannot contain the animosity between ‘the king of the north’ and ‘the king of the south’.

          25 And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south shall

          be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they shall forecast devices against him.

           26 Yea, they that feed of the portion of his meat shall destroy him, and his army shall overflow: and many shall fall down slain

          27 And both these kings' hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper: for yet the

          end shall be at the time appointed.

          28 Then shall he return into his land with great riches; and his heart shall be against the holy covenant; and he shall do exploits,

         and return to his own land.

          29 At the time appointed he shall return, and come toward the south; but it shall not be as the former, or as the latter.

          30 For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the

          holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.

          31 And arms shall stand on his part,...

Then the end of the 70 weeks, and the Jew loses her supposed way ‘to make reconciliation for iniquity’

           ...and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination

          that maketh desolate.

         32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries:...

As Satan ‘is standing’ where he ‘ought not’, the ‘abomination of desolation‘ takes away the use of the Temple from the Jew as a place to make atonement for transgression. Those in Judea who have studied the scriptures are fleeing and the Christian realize that we are in the ‘time of Jacob’s trouble’. It is time for Antichrist to woo the Muslim and set up the ‘image to the beast’.

           ...but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.

           33 And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity,

           and by spoil, many days.

           34 Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.

           35 And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end:

           because it is yet for a time appointed.

As I showed at the beginning of this paper; my ideas are not infallible, nor is my model written in concrete; but, I read the Bible for myself and I listen to other ideas and I pray for spiritual guidance. They ‘that know their God’ and ‘understand...shall instruct many’. This statement, along with:

Eze 33:6 But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet,

and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from

among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require

at the watchman's hand.

drive me to continue to voice my ideas, my beliefs, to anyone who will listen, because a failure to understand God’s prophesies and purpose in sending His Son the Messiah as a man to be executed instead of a king to rule the earth, caused many to oppose the work of Christ and even His being the Messiah. Can it be that by failing to understand the end time prophecies that many will miss the purpose of the ‘time of trouble’ and even miss out on the ‘rescue’ of the Messiah King? Without the faith of a personal relationship with Jesus that is brought about by the perception of prophecy and how it relates to the unfolding of history; how can one be ‘caught up’ during the 2nd Coming? Will Christians oppose the 2nd Coming as the Jews opposed the Life and Crucifiction?

           36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak

            marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined

            shall be done.

            37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself

           above all.

           38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold,

            and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.

           39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he

           shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.

The antichrist will do all he can to misdirect the attention of the world; and everyone will be watching him. He is the Imam of the Muslim, the Messiah of the Jew, the ‘angel of light’ of the Christian, the minister for those seeking for a ‘new’ religious experience, the source of prosperity for the merchant, the  general of the habitual mercenary, the dispenser of power for the power hungry, etc. He starts out as the answer for every question everyone has.

           40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a

           whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships;...

Until those with their eyes open see that everything is being skimmed, and the cream is ending up in Jerusalem.

Then those closest to the source of the irritation will be the first to start to react, but everyone will start to turn against the very person that was a short time ago the answer to all the questions.

           ...and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

           41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand,

            even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.

           42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.        

            43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the

            Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.

            44 But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him:

            therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.

At first he will succeed in his military exploitations, in every country except the hiding place of the ‘woman’ of Revelation. But as more and more of the world population get fed up with his government and way he and his cronies skim from the economy and reward the powerful with the treasures of the lands that they overpower and for fear of being overpowered the ‘king of the east’ and the ‘kings of the north’ prepare to make war. This I believe is the true Armageddon(which in Hebrew means ‘war of the Mount of Congregation’).

          45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain;...

This verse chronologically goes with verse 31b, as the antichrist takes up his residence in the Most Holy Place of the new temple. In doing this he fulfills the prophecy of:

          Is 14:13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven,

          I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the

          mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

                 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

         ‘I will ascend into heaven’;

this is far enough into the heaven that he can perform a counterfeit Second Coming.

         ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars of God’,

is saying that his throne is more exalted than the covering cherub(‘stars of God’) as he sits on the Mercy Seat of the newly installed Ark of the Covenant ‘like the Most High’.

          ‘In the sides of the north’

denotes where the new temple is to be constructed. One of the little known facts is that the Dome of the Rock is not where the Temple sat as the Muslim believe. But, instead, the true site of the Temple is to the north and the little dome of the spirit is situated over the spot where the Ark of the Covenant sat. The new Temple can be constructed beside the Mosque, in so doing fulfill the prophecy:

          Eze 43:8 In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts,

          and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name

          by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed

          them in mine anger.

This is also the reason that the new Temple does not have an outer court.

          2 Thes 2:3  Let no  man  deceive you by any means: for [that day shall not come],

          except there come a falling away first, and that  man of sin be revealed,

          the son  of  perdition;

                        4  Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all

          that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple

          of  God, shewing himself that he is God.

The promise is that the government of the antichrist  will last a limited time.

          Dan 8:14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days;

          then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

           45...yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.