• Title Page
• Pentateuch
• History
• Poetry
• Prophets
• Post Captivity Prophets
  • Lesson 33: Summing Up The Ante-Captivity Prophets
  • Lesson 34: Daniel
  • Lesson 35: Ezra and Haggai
  • Lesson 36: Zechariah
  • Lesson 37: Nehemiah and Malachi
• Gospels, Acts
• Pauline Epistles
• General Epistles

2. We find that in this Greek division there are two of the four kingdoms which come in for all the prophetic treatment, the other two being unmentioned. These two which are emphasized are the southern kingdom, Egypt, and the northern, Syria. War is almost continuous between these two with varying fortunes. At first the king of the south is preeminent (Daniel 11:5-8), but finally the king of the north prevails (Daniel 11:9-20). It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that this brief prophetic outline found a most literal fulfillment in the history of these kingdoms down to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

3. We have the history of Antiochus set before us in some detail, especially as to his actings towards the Jews and Jerusalem, B.C. 170 (Daniel 11:21-35). But at the very moment when we reach a kind of climax in his affairs our thoughts are carried off to another king (Daniel 11:36), who is neither the king of the north or the south (Daniel 11:40), but who seems to have been foreshadowed by the former. This person, it is believed, is the Antichrist again, whose last campaign, is outlined for us in Daniel 11:40-45, and who “shall come to his end, and none shall help him,” just as we have seen in all the preceding prophecies concerning him.

As a further confirmation of the fact that we are here dealing with this person and the events at the end of the age, attention is called to the opening verses of Daniel 12. Michael, the arch angelic defender of Israel, is seen; the latter is passing through the tribulation, but the remnant is being delivered, thank God. A resurrection scene is brought before us (Daniel 12:2), which seems to coincide with that of the saints, the first resurrection, mentioned in Revelation 20, and also of the wicked, and the millennium has begun.

Ezra and Haggai

Ezra

We have already seen that the Babylonian captivity did not bring the Jews to national repentance, and so lead to national restoration. As the reading of Ezra will disclose, when Cyrus, king of Persia, gave permission to the captives to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, scarcely 50,000 availed themselves, of the privilege, a considerable proportion of whom were priests and Levites and of the humbler and poorer class. And although the number and influence of these vastly increased in time, yet at