A prophetic address by an angel (Daniel 11)

Daniel 11 continues the message given by an angel to Daniel. In it, the angel outlines the future history of the world for several centuries concerning what would happen to the Persian and Greek empires. If you are interested in who is described in each reference, details about them can be found in a commentary.

I suppose one question that comes to mind is why God does not mention the names of those rulers apart from Darius in verse 1. It was not because God did not know their names. In Isaiah, he reveals the name of Cyrus who appeared a century after the prophecy containing his name. Is the reason that the Lord knew that eventually their names would be forgotten? After all, one of the predicted rulers is Alexander the Great, the man who wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. Of course, he didn’t know about the continent across the Atlantic or even about Australia. But how many of us know the details of his career?

Every ruler mentioned in this account did something notable, and those actions would have been spoken about when they happened. Their activities would have affected the lives of millions of people. But which of those millions did these rulers help take one step towards heaven? None, except for those believers that they martyred. Even when some of the rulers went through the promised land, they did not acknowledge the God of Israel but made attempts to remove his worship. Since that was the case, why should their names be remembered in God’s Word.

The obvious point of the chapter is that it reveals that God knows the future. It is all in his hands. He is the God of providence, raising up rulers and then replacing them with others. His control of events would go past the period covered in this chapter and extend until the end of human history. Although his kingdom seemed small at the time Daniel received this message, God’s kingdom has continued and today it is far bigger and has lasted much longer that those mentioned in this chapter. So we should thank God for his king and his kingdom.