Many have already made premature declarations that the final seven years have started or is very nearly upon us.
I am not discounting possibilities, but I’d be a lot more expectant if Jolani (aka Amed al Sharaa) had come into his position in Syria “peaceably”, according to Dan 11:21, but he did NOT. I’m aware that some translations translate Dan 11:21, “at a time of tranquility” but that too fails to fit the conditions of his replacement of Assad.
So could we be wrong that Dan 11:21 is not the introduction of the AC? Though several able commentators over the years have offered a compelling defense of the position we take (I have a few in my library), we remain in the comparatively rare minority.
The exegesis is too involved to go into all the points that show the discrepancies, but for just one example, how can Dan 11:31 be accepted as a second century B.C. event but Daniel 12:11 be understood as future, 3 1/2 years before the end? Note how the language describing this event in two nearly duplicated references (Dan 11:31; 12:11), both within the same continuous prophecy (Dan 10:14 -12:13), is almost exactly the same.
Jesus uses the same words, unchanged from Daniel’s prophecy to identify the event that starts the brief, age ending half week of unequaled tribulation that is immediately followed by the Lord’s glorious return in the clouds (compare Dan 11:31; 12:1-2, 7, 11; Mt 24:15, 21, 29-31; 26:64; with 1Thes 4:17; Rev 1:7).Are we to believe they are completely different events?
And it is just as clear that the nearly identical language of Dan 11:35 (allegedly fulfilled in the Maccabean struggle 167-164 B.C.) & Dan 12:10 (obviously the unequaled, great tribulation) cannot be separated by almost 22 1/2 centuries. Conspicuously, the same time and crisis is in view.
Notice that in Dan 11:27 that happens before the abomination of Dan 11:31 compared with Dan 11:35 that follows the abomination and removal of the sacrifice in Dan 11:31 both mention the same “appointed time of the end”. Many, actually most commentators make Dan 11:27 & Dan 11:35 to be speaking about two different ends of two different times, some 22 1/2 centuries apart. Now how likely is that? You make the call.
This and much more that could be mentioned casts serious doubt, not that Antiochus IV typifies and parallels the final AC. We agree that he does indeed, and this historical prototype is very instructive, but Antiochus IV falls short in certain points that do not adequately match some of the specific details of Dan 11:21-35. This argues for a fuller, more exact and complete fulfillment in the future.
Since Paul cites Dan 11:36-37 in 2Thes 2:4, most scholars that are premillennial recognize the obvious futurity of Dan 11:36 through to the end of the book in 12:13. This is why most will see a gap between antiquity and the end between Dan 11:35 & Dan 11:36, assigning all that precedes to past history. We, on the other hand, find the evidence favors recognizing the transition from past to future fulfillment between Dan 11:20 and Dan 11:21.
If Dan 11:21 introduces the AC of the end, we are furnished with a good deal more information concerning the events leading to the middle of the week found nowhere else in scripture. And if these verses have been misinterpreted as past already, then the witnessing, prophetic body of Christ risks being robbed of crucial end time information that is intended for their advantage and the greater glory of the God in the fulfillment of every jot and tittle of His infallible Word.
To read Dan 11:21, you get the impression that the AC rises to power during a momentary vacancy that permits his un-entitled rise to leadership (“to whom they shall not give the honor of the kingdom”).
So it would appear that a lot has to happen between what we’re seeing now and the “league made with him” in Dan 11:23.
From Dan 11:23-30, a whole sequence of events take place in what appears a straightforward chronological order. These must precede the start of the sacrifice and its removal in Dan 11:31.
To introduce the AC of the end from Dan 11:21 means that sometime “AFTER the league made with him” (11:23), he attacks and overcomes a king to his south. This is during the time he remains in league with Israel, as clear from Dan 11:23.
The alliance of Dan 11:23 seems clearly to be made with Israel, but since Dan 9:27 says he confirms the covenant “with many”, it seems evident that the AC is one among many other nations that are united in common consent to recognize (confirm) Israel’s right, not only to a portion of their promised Land, but also their return to the temple service commanded in the law. This marks the start of the seven.
Is this league / alliance is the same event described in Dan 9:27? I strongly tend to think so, but I’m cautious to say probably but not certainly.
After the alliance of Dan 11:23, a number of things have to happen before the placing of the abomination and the start of the great tribulation, among them, two distinct southward advances of the Antichrist, one a successful conquest and power expansion, and the other an unsuccessful initiative south that is intercepted and repulsed by what one must infer to be a very formidable Mediterranean naval power (Dan 11:29-30).
The first southward conquest is obviously not directed against Israel. Whether the second southward advance is against Israel is not clear, but regardless, his movements are viewed by the ships of Chittim as threatening the peace. In all probability, this why the ships of Chittim move to check his movement south and turn him back from his presumed ambitions to annex more territory.
This check and restraint proved short-lived, since in the very next verse he suddenly invades unsuspecting Israel with overwhelming force (“and arms shall stand on his part”; Dan 11:31; “who is like unto the beast? Who can make war with him?”; Rev 13:4).
Why and how would the Jews of the contemporary context ever so completely relax their guard as to be taken as much by surprise as they were on Oct 7, which was a tragic preview of Zech 14:2? How does Israel come to such a presumption of peace as described in Isa 28:14-18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; 1Thes 5:3?
I would propose that this comes, not only when peace is initially declared and internationally imposed and enforced upon hostile dissenters, but it is the glaze of delusion that will steal over most of the population when the ships of Chittim turn back the threat of the AC’s second southward advance. This will make the peace seem truly invincible. This is when the boast of immunity from invasion will be at high tide, as we see in Amos 9:9-10; Isa 28:14-18 & 1Thes 5:3.
I’ve always speculated that the ill-fated declaration of 1Thes 5:3 has most particularly to do with what Israel will feel after the ships of Chittim have successfully checked the second southward advance of the northern king. Doubtless it will ‘seem’ that the peace is invincible.
Ask this question: How formidable would the naval power have to be that can halt and turn back this man who in just the next verse (Dan 11:30-31) will rally and return and come like an unstoppable flood and overwhelm, not only unsuspecting Israel, but the west will doubtless be just as suddenly incapacitated, unable to successfully resist the Antichrist’s all prevailing military supremacy (Dan 11:31 with Rev 13:4)?
Could this happen in conjunction with an unexpected nuclear strike on the west?
That’s where I see the cumulative evidence pointing. There will be gaps in our knowledge and doubtless surprises, as more becomes unsealed as the day approaches, but who will not see that the unprecedented alignment of foretold events happening right before our eyes are giant steps towards what prophecy gives us to expect?
A fragile peace appears to be in the making, potentially unprecedented and against all odds. When consolidated and set in place, a growing sense of security will doubtless follow.
It may not take long for this ill-fated sense of security to become the prophecy denying boast of Isa 28:15, 18. That boast is against the warning that prophetic witnesses will be delivering to the leaders of Israel, perhaps the religious leaders in particular.
The warning will be generally dismissed, but it will continue to speak to Israel during the time of wildness flight from the face of the Antichrist. This pursuit of desperate persecution and distress will continue until the light of the gospel breaks through the veil, as the penitent Jewish survivors of the tribulation see Jesus returning in the clouds of divine glory (Zech 12:10; Mt 24:30; 26:64; 1Thes 4:17; Rev 1:7).
It is no accident that our president confidently announced “eternal peace in the Mideast”.
While we love and appreciate every friend of Israel, such excessive, ill-timed optimism reveals the very self-reliant humanism that is so opposed to the Spirit, since it boasts of accomplishing by and through man what God has reserved to Himself alone, namely, “eternal peace in the Mideast” by the long-awaited advent of the Prince of Peace.
So let us be careful and cautious to distinguish things that are not the same, lest we misidentify and thus mislead. There must be a disarming illusion of what may very well appear to be a lasting peace, protected by one or more of the great world powers. It may not immediately include the AC’s “confirmation” (recognition / endorsement / support) of the covenant of Dan 9:27, but it will be the framework that makes provision for this to happen in due course.
Why this caution? According to Dan 9:4; 11:22, 28, 30, 32, the covenant is not merely a peace pact, as many have perhaps too hastily assumed. In all other uses of the word throughout the book of Daniel, the covenant is God’s covenant with Israel. So if the covenant of Dan 9:27 signifies nothing more than a peace pact, this one verse would be the only exception.
But if the covenant of Dan 9:27 is the same as THE “holy covenant” of Dan 11:28, 30, a whole new vista comes into consideration. This would mean that the AC, with “many” others, will be confirming the very covenant that has come down through Abraham’s promise of the Land, through Moses’ institutions of temple service, and through David’s acquisition of the elect city of Jerusalem.
If this is the “covenant” that the AC confirms to begin the final 7 [years], then it is more than a peace pact with the AC. Yes, a preceding peace agreement will certainly need to be in place for the holy covenant to be confirmed, but the covenant may not be confirmed at the same moment the peace is first initiated. It may, but it may not. It remains to be seen.
In this case, it is NOT the peace agreement that starts the seven years but the confirming of the covenant, even the covenant that Dan 11:28, 30 calls the “holy covenant”. Although inextricably related, the peace treaty and the confirmation of the covenant are not the same. They may or may not happen at the same time.
It is possible the peace plan may come into play and be agreed on by the major parties and exists for some time before the AC, as one among “many” acknowledges, not only Israel’s right to exist, but right of access to the site of the temple to start the daily sacrifice.
So we must be careful of the order of events lest we add to the confusion that is sure to come, and lest we have no answer to disabuse our brethren of premature announcements, diverting from the real article of sober urgency when it arrives.
There may be much that remains unclear, but sufficient clarity is given that many of the false alarms of prophetic speculation can be safely ruled out as incongruent with the scripture.
Great confusion threatens where these distinctions are not considered.
Yours in the Beloved, Reggie
