God’s Word for You

Daniel 11:20 A robbery gone south

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, January 14, 2026

20 “Then one will arise in his place who will send an oppressive tax collector for the glory of the kingdom. But within a few days he will be broken, though not in anger or in battle.

This new king was the son of Antiochus the Great. We know him as Seleucus Philopator, and he ruled about ten years. He tried to smooth things over with the Romans and knew right away that it was necessary for a weak nation like his (compared to the Roman Republic) to make concessions and to learn how to do things the Roman way. The Romans took hostages and treated those hostages well, assuming that when the time came, they would become the next ruler of the country that they came from and would rule with a positive attitude toward Rome. For this reason, Seleucus sent his own son rather than a nephew as a hostage.

He did not engage in any serious military actions. He once began a march with an army to join in a war against Galatia, but he thought better of it along the way and turned back. Syria had a decade of peace under this Seleucus.

But there is one incident for which he became known, and at this time the text of Daniel begins to overlap with some of the things recorded in the historical books of the apocrypha, 1st and 2nd Maccabees. A disgruntled government worker lied about the amount of treasure that was being stored in the temple in Jerusalem, and Seleucus sent “an oppressive tax collector” to investigate. This tax collector was a man named Heliodorus. The treasure in question, according to the disgruntled worker (a certain Simon) was that “the treasury in Jerusalem was full of untold sums of money, so that the amount of the funds could not be counted, and that they did not belong to the account of the sacrifices, so that it was possible for them to fall under the control of the king” (2 Maccabees 3:6).

When Heliodorus arrived in Jerusalem, he confronted Onias the high priest about this money. “The high priest explained that there were some deposits set aside for widows and orphans, and also some money of [a man named] Hyrcanus son of Tobias, a man of very prominent position” (2 Macc. 3:10-11). In fact, this Hyrcanus was from a family that was a rival faction to the current high priestly family. These various deposits totaled four hundred talents of silver and two hundred talents of gold—hardly an “uncountable” sum. The high priest also told Heliodorus that “it was utterly impossible that wrong should be done to those people who had trusted in the holiness of the place and in the sanctity and inviolability of the temple that is honored throughout the whole world” (2 Macc. 3:12).

The tax collector disregarded all of this and demanded to see the treasury of the temple for himself. And it is here that a supernatural incident is recorded in the text of the apocryphal account:

“For there appeared to them a terrifying horse with a rider that was equally frightening in appearance. It rushed furiously at Heliodorus and struck at him with its front hoofs. Its rider was seen to have armor and weapons of gold. Two young men also appeared with him, remarkably strong, glorious in appearance and splendidly dressed, who stood on either side of him and flogged him continuously, inflicting many blows on him.” (2 Maccabees 3:25-26).

The account says that his companions had to carry him away on a stretcher, and that he only recovered after the high priest Onias made a sacrifice and prayed for his recovery. Later, when he reported back to King Seleucus, he said, “If you ever need to send someone back there, make sure it’s an enemy or somebody who has plotted against your government, for you will get him back thoroughly flogged, if he survives at all, for there is certainly some power of God about the place” (2 Macc. 3:38).

Here we come to a question in our text in Daniel. The second half of verse 20 says, “But within a few days he will be broken, though not in anger or in battle.” Who shall we understand to be the “he” that is being spoken about? It could be the king who sent the tax collector, or it could be the tax collector himself.

So we have these two possibilities:

1, If it is the king, then this is a prophecy about the mysterious death of Seleucus Philopator. In September of 176 BC, the same Heliodorus the tax collector turned on the king and assassinated him. He briefly took control of the kingdom as regent for the king’s young son, but had to relinquish this power. Since the text says that he was killed “not in anger,” it follows that the king could have been murdered only for the lust of power and not in anger of any kind.

2, If the passage is speaking about the tax collector, then the same incident is being viewed but with all of the focus on this Heliodorus. After he murdered King Seleucus and became the regent of the king’s son, he fell out of power only a few months later when the king’s brother Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) returned home and was named king. After this, Heliodorus the tax collector disappears from history. He might have been put to death by Antiochus, or he might have been exiled. Either possibility would still fit the prophecy that “he will be broken, though not in anger or in battle.”

Of these, I think that the first is more likely. What we know for certain is that this King Seleucus died after just ten years of rule, and then the kingship passed to Antiochus Epiphanes. With his appearance on the scene, the strictly historical (or future-historical) prophecies of this chapter come to an end. After this, everything about Antiochus Epiphanes will also be caught up in additional foretellings about the coming of the Antichrist to plague the people of God.

Perhaps we are left with a question, and at least I for one have a question that begs the asking: Is or could be the incident described in 2 Maccabees 3:1-40, a true happening? Did angels beat up this tax collector in the temple? The prophetic statement here in this verse of Daniel gives it the most credibility, but on a lesser level, I will also acknowledge, not on behalf of my church or the excellent schools that gave me my religious education, or the exemplary faculties upon whose shoulders I have been privileged to stand, but entirely on my own and with the fault lying at my feet and none of theirs, I will state that I think it is possible. I say this because many of the things in 1st and 2nd Maccabees are presented simply as history. And while they are not a part of the sacred canon of Scripture, they can be read for our edification and instruction, and along with the rest of the apocryphal books, regular readers of my devotions will know that I quote them often. I do this especially for help with the definitions of Greek words, but also because many things in them are fine spiritual thoughts and applications of the teachings that are found in the 66 books of the Bible. I quote them in the same way that I often quote from Luther, Shakespeare, or from Mr. Lincoln as I did just yesterday, not because they are God’s word, but because they are often godly, or useful to help illustrate what is godly and the Word of God.

But here in particular we have a scene recorded that does no damage to the word of God whatever, and is entirely within what we know about ‘God and his angels’ (Henry V, act 1 scene 2). An angel on horseback with other angels with him beating the tar out of a rascal who attempted to steal money from widows and orphans in the temple would be a good, and fitting errand for a couple of angels, as good and proper “as one shall see in a summer’s day” in the second century BC. If it is nothing but a tall tale to explain why the robbery went south, then it is told well, and I think that our faith is not harmed for listening to it or repeating it. That is to say, there is a difference between believing a thing and believing in a thing. We believe, because it is history, that Beethoven tore the first page of his Third Symphony in half when Napoleon declared himself emperor and the great Lutheran composer lost all admiration and trust in the man who was now exposing himself as a tyrant and so removed his dedication to Bonaparte from his great work. And so we can judge that the things recorded in the books of the Maccabees are mostly true. But we believe in the Bible because it is God’s word for our eternal good, teaching us law and preaching to us the gospel for our eternal salvation by the grace of God and through the blood of Jesus our Savior, shed on the cross for our sins.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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