IT is the Assyrian or King of the north who acts as the overflowing scourge from without, and at first is successful against the willful king and the apostate mass of the Jews. But God shields the righteous remnant. While the king of the north goes down to deal with the king of the south, the Lord appears to the destruction of the wicked king, now reinforced by the beast from the west and his kings and their armies, which is described in chap. 19. of the Revelation. But it is omitted in our chap. 11. of Daniel, in order to pursue the conflicts of the north and the south about the land and its chief, and then to give the return of the king of the north into the land to find his dismal end, as the others had before.
“And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him [the willful king]; and the king of the north shall come against him [the same] like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass through. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many [countries] shall be overthrown. But these shall be delivered out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon” (vers. 40, 41). Beyond question he is not king of the glorious land, because he enters it as an enemy. Demonstrably it is the king of the north, and not the willful king who is here before us. “He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries; and the land of Egypt shall not escape” (ver. 42). This proves he cannot be the king of the south, because he attacks Egypt and spoils it. “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” (ver. 43). The conquered are compelled to fight under his banner. “But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him,” that is, out of his own country. I have little doubt that the tidings are about the movement of the ten tribes, in whom God is working to return from these parts to the land of their fathers. They were transplanted by the king of Assyria of old. And now the last holder of that power is on the alert to oppose their return. Much may be found in Isa. 10 which looks onward to the Assyrian in what Daniel calls “the last end of the indignation.” Sennacherib was but a type.
The dealings of God with the ten tribes come out in a very remarkable way, as we may read in Hos. 2 and Ezek. 20. It appears that God is to bring them through the wilderness again; where they are purified by a process of spiritual discipline through which the Lord will put them in those days.
Certain it is that tidings trouble the Assyrian out of the north and east, and he hurries back to Palestine. “And he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.” Already the proud powers of the west had gathered there for their doom, but this he does not consider if he knew it. Men are easily blinded by their passions; and there will also be the special delusion of Satan. The Lord shining from heaven will have destroyed Anti-Christ or the willful king of the land, as he also destroys the beast solemnly, slaying the kings and their armies that came up to support him. The emperor of the west and his ally in the holy land are both cast alive into the lake of fire, called in the Revelation “the beast” and “the false prophet,” for this king in the land pretends to be a prophet as well as to be Messiah and God. Those at the head of the western powers as well as their armies that follow them are slain on the spot, to be judged another day when raised.
After this comes up the king of the north at the head of a vast force. Then shall the Lord go forth at the head of His people “as in the day of battle.” So we find it stated in Zech. 14:33Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. (Zechariah 14:3). Before that it was the Lord coming from heaven that dealt with the beast and the false prophet. Now He will have taken up His people Israel. It is the rod of His power from out of Zion, as Psa. 110 expresses it, dealing with the head of a great country, who comes to the same end as the beast and the false prophet before him. This is described in the end of Isa. 30 For the king also [not “yea"] it is prepared, that is, for “the king” in the land as well as for the Assyrian. You will see that from the beginning of the 36 ver. of Dan. 11, it is entirely a future time that is referred to. Never has been anything like it; but God here reveals that it must be.
(To be continued, D.V.).