“Then the king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place."
The closing ten verses of this chapter present a problem for the reader. Just who is the king referred to here? Complicating the problem of identifying this king is the fact that little in the passage seems to indicate a transition in thought from the previous verses, which described the devilish work of Antiochus Epiphanes. (The verse starts in Hebrew with "and" or "then." But this is common.)
A natural question for the reader to ask, therefore, is, “Do the closing verses of chapter 11 give us additional information about King Antiochus?”
At first it might seem as if they do. The description begins with “The king will do as he pleases,” and Antiochus certainly did that.
This identification breaks down, though, in the next statement: “He will exalt and magnify himself above every god.” It was common for ancient kings to consider themselves sons of the gods; Antiochus was no exception.
But the description here goes beyond that. The king described here would exalt himself above every god. This Antiochus did not do. In the following verse, the king being described here is said to “show no regard for the gods of his fathers.” Antiochus was loyal to the gods of Greece—so loyal, as a matter of fact, that he tried to force them on the consciences of the Jews.
The conclusion is inescapable: Antiochus is not the one being spoken of here. But then who is?
Chapter 11 does not stand alone on the pages of the Scriptures. It follows the first ten chapters of Daniel’s prophecy.
Think back to chapter 7, where Daniel described his dream of the four beasts. As he looked at the fearful fourth beast, he noted ten horns and then another horn, symbolizing a king who “will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints” (7:25). Our identification pointed to the Antichrist, the archenemy of God. “Just as God gave definite signs and characteristics throughout the Old Testament whereby the Messiah could be recognized, so, too, the Word of God has made clear the identity of Antichrist” (Feinberg, Daniel, page 173).
The closing ten verses of chapter 11 no longer point to Antiochus Epiphanes but are an Old Testament prediction of God’s archenemy, of whom Antiochus was a foreshadow. Saint Paul gives us the key to the correct interpretation of this passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where he gives us a description of the Antichrist that is remarkably similar to Daniel’s: “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped.”
“He will say unheard-of things,” literally, “things which cause astonishment” because they are so blasphemous. The Roman Catholic papacy robs God of his supreme glory by attacking the very heart of the gospel, the teaching that the sinner is saved only by faith in God’s offer of mercy in Christ Jesus. There is no greater blasphemy than to attack this central teaching of Scripture. The appearance of the Antichrist and his blasphemous work is part of the preordained plan of God. This is the judgment on the sins of people who “refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:10).
37“He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or for the one desired by women, nor will he regard any god, but will exalt himself above them all. 38 Instead of them, he will honor a god of fortresses; a god unknown to his fathers he will honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts. 39 He will attack the mightiest fortresses with the help of a foreign god and will greatly honor those who acknowledge him. He will make them rulers over many people and distribute the land at a price.
The Antichrist will exalt himself above God not only by attacking what God has said but also by claiming to be the only divinely authorized spokesman for God. A further mark of identification is that he will “show no regard . . . for the one desired by women.” (This can also be translated, "the desire for women.")
The papacy’s low opinion of marital love is illustrated by the statement of Pope John Paul II: “Those who choose matrimony do well, and those who choose virginity or voluntary abstinence do better.” By forbidding its clergy to marry and by teaching its laity that remaining unmarried is a holier state than being married, the Antichrist shows a low opinion of the mutual love of man and woman. By contrast, God shows how highly he esteems marital love when in his Word he compares it to the love Christ has for his bride, the church.
This enemy of God is described further: “He will honor a god of fortresses.” The human heart is an idol factory. When a person refuses to acknowledge the true God as he has revealed himself on the pages of the Scriptures, that person will soon give his love to someone or something else. “Whatever I make the supreme object of my love is my God,” Luther once said.
Down through the centuries, the Antichrist has frequently shown a powerful fascination with warlike conquest, with influencing and controlling governments, with using military force to carry out his will. One thinks of how Luther’s life and his work of reformation were threatened by the combined authority of church and state. To gain the ability to bring military pressure to bear, the Antichrist has been willing to invest gold and silver, precious stones and costly gifts. He will greatly honor those who acknowledge him, sometimes by making them rulers over many or by dividing land among them as a means of gaining their allegiance.