God’s Word for You

Daniel 11:14-15 New Testament towns

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, January 11, 2026

14 “In those times many will rise up against the king of the South. The violent men from among your own people will rebel in order to fulfill the vision, but they will be thrown down. 15 Then the king of the North will come and build siege works, and he will capture a fortified city. The forces of the south will not stand. Even his finest troops will be powerless to resist.

“Many will rise up against the king of the South.” This was going to be a new king, a young one. Ptolemy IV (also called Philopator) returned from his wars and fell into terrible sins that his people were ashamed of. Luther says briefly: “For the sake of a prostitute, Philopator murdered his queen Euridice, who was also his sister.” Not long after this, Ptolemy IV died, he left a child of just four or five years on the throne. This was Ptolemy V, Epiphanes. He is notable to history mostly because the famous Rosetta Stone was carved in his honor. This stone block is an inscription announcing Ptolemy V’s coronation. Written in three languages, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian hieratic, and Greek, it was re-discovered in 1799 when Napoleon invaded Egypt. A scholar named Jean Francois Champollion deciphered the stone by recognizing that the three inscriptions were the same text, and using clues based on the use of proper names to help him, he made a full translation in 1822.

Near the end of the third century BC (around 204 or 203), a Greek general named Scopas (Σκόπας) was placed in command of the Egyptian army of Coele-Syria. Coele (pronounced seely) means “heavenly,” and the region around Damascus north of Israel was known by this name during Greek and Roman times.

Some men of Judea and Jerusalem also rose up against Scopas. They were led by a man named Tobias, but this rebellion was quickly put down (“they will be thrown down”) when Scopas briefly occupied Jerusalem.

In 200 BC, Scopas and the Egyptians were defeated by Antiochus the Great at the Battle of Panius (Paneas, “the cave of Pan”) north of the Sea of Galilee. Scopas escaped with 10,000 men to Sidon, the coastal city in western Coeli-Syria (north of Tyre), but Antiochus the Great, “the king of the North,” came and laid siege to Sidon.

During that siege, the ministers who were in charge of Egypt (Ptolemy V was still a little boy) sent three of their best generals with their armies to break the siege, but they were all driven back. As the Angel told Daniel, “The forces of the south will not stand. Even his finest troops will be powerless to resist.” By the early winter of 198, Scopas was forced to surrender the city or die of starvation. He fled, and began to assemble an army with plans to take control of Egypt for himself, but this plot was discovered, and young Ptolemy had him arrested. The young king, now about 13, had him condemned to death for treason.

At this time, the historian Polybias reports that Antiochus (the king of the North) captured Bashan (Micah 7:14), Abila and Gadara (Matthew 8:28) on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, and Samaria as well.

We will hear more about the involvement of the Jews in the verses that follow.

One of the things that this prophesied history shows is the change in place-names from what was familiar in the Old Testament to things we recognize in the New Testament.

Panias was a cave at the foot of Mount Hermon, known as “the Cave of Pan” or even “the Gate of Hell” by locals. Later on, Herod the Great would build a shrine there, and his son Philip would give it the name Caesarea Philippi. It would be here that Jesus would ask his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:13), leading to Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matthew 16:16). Those are the best possible words to proclaim at a pagan shrine, especially one rumored to be “the gate of hell.”

Bashan was well-known in the Old Testament, famed as excellent cattle-country (Amos 4:1), but also occupied by one of the most famous of the Old Testament giants, a man named Og (Deuteronomy 1:4). He had been killed by battle by the Israelites, leaving no survivors at all (Numbers 21:33-35). In one of David’s prophecies about the crucifixion, he says, “Strong bulls of Bashan (that is, Gentiles) encircle me” (Psalm 22:12).

Abila was one of the cities of the Decapolis, a league of Hellenistic cities in eastern Galilee; it is not mentioned in the New Testament but played a role in the Maccabean revolt when Alexander Jannaeus captured the city. This Alexander was the brother of Aristobulus I, the first king of the Hasmonean dynasty, and whose family might have had ties to Herod the Great (see Romans 16:10).

Gadara was one of two or three towns with this name; this one was the city in the Decapolis on the south bank of the Yarmuk just a mile or two from the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. This area is the Gadarenes, where Jesus encountered two demon-possessed men in the tombs and drove out their demons (Matthew 8:28-34).

Samaria, of course, was the city that had been built by King Omri. He made it his capital, and the kings of Israel used it until the north fell in 722 BC.

Sidon is the coastal city where Jesus met a certain Syro-Phoenician woman (or Canaanite woman) who begged him to heal her daughter. “My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession,” she said. But he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” But she replied, “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s tables” (Matthew 15:21-27). So he healed her little girl, and taught us all that faith is a matter of trust even when everything and everyone seems to be against us, and that crumbs are enough.

There is always more to find out, always more to say. But while the enemies of God are frightened by a blowing leaf (Leviticus 26:36) the children of the Lord are nurtured by every good and perfect gift that comes from above (James 1:17). Enjoy the bounties God has given to you, even the very smallest of things, for “lucky joys and golden times and happy news” are found even in the song of the sparrows outside your window. But the Word of God brings greater joys than any that are here on earth. Savor the Scripture; search it, treasure it, take it to heart, and keep its promises right behind your eyes, always there as you look out onto God’s good earth, and know that through Christ, there is ever a better eternity to come.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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