“At the appointed time he will invade the South again, but this time the outcome will be different from what it was before. 30 Ships of the western coastlands will oppose him, and he will lose heart. Then he will turn back and vent his fury against the holy covenant. He will return and show favor to those who forsake the holy covenant.
31“His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. 32 With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.
In 168 B.C. Antiochus undertook another expedition against Egypt. The Angel informed Daniel that this would take place “at the appointed time,” that is, the time determined not so much by Antiochus but by God. This time the wicked king would not enjoy the success he had earlier.
The reason for this is that the Romans entered the picture, at the invitation of Egypt. While the troops of Antiochus were besieging the city of Alexandria, “ships of the western coastlands,” the Roman fleet, came to help the Egyptians. It brought Antiochus some bad news: the Roman Senate was demanding that he withdraw from Egypt or risk war with Rome.
Since Antiochus knew the power of Rome, he reluctantly ordered his forces to withdraw and to return to Syria. This forced withdrawal offered him another opportunity to show his special hostility for the people of God. And so began a second vicious round of persecution of the Jewish people. Antiochus paid special attention to “those who have violated the covenant,” Jews who had abandoned the sacred contract God had made with the descendants of Abraham. Antiochus wanted to use these apostate Jews to wipe out every trace of the God-given faith and to replace it with Greek customs and culture.
And so the detachment of troops Antiochus had sent to destroy and defile Jerusalem went to work. The Angel predicted they would abolish the daily sacrifice, and they did. To bring defilement on the sanctuary, “they will set up the abomination that causes desolation,” apparently a substitute altar and statue of Zeus, father of all the Greek gods.
By doing this to the temple, Antiochus desecrated it, so that no Israelite could worship the Lord there. Perhaps you remember that Jesus used the same expression in a conversation with his disciples a few days before he died. He mentioned terrible things that would happen when the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and described them as a sort of preview of the end of the world. He assured his disciples they would “see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel” (Matthew 24:15). Forty years later, when Jerusalem fell to the invading Romans, soldiers planted their pagan standards in the sacred soil of Jerusalem, signifying that its desolation was near (Luke 21:20).
By using flattery Antiochus managed to persuade many apostate Jews to help stamp out the worship of the Lord, the God of Israel. The Angel predicted, however, that God would see to it that another group of people would react differently to this awful persecution. Those who knew the God of Israel and understood his gracious plan would not bend to Antiochus’s flattery or buckle under his threats.