The detailed description of the interrelationship between the kings of the south and the kings of the north in Daniel 11 has long challenged biblical scholars. The angel reveals to Daniel that three more kings (Cambyses, Smerdis, Darius Hystaspis?) will rule over Persia. The fourth (Xerxes I?) will try to incorporate Greece into the Persian Empire. Upon the death of Alexander the Great of Greece (“a mighty king,” 11:3), his kingdom was divided into four parts: Macedonia, Thrace, Syria (“the king of the North,” or the Seleucids), and Egypt (“the king of the South,” or the Ptolemies). Verses 5–20 relate the rivalry and wars between the Ptolemies and Seleucids until the appearance of Antiochus Epiphanes.

The Seleucid Antiochus IV (nicknamed Epiphanes, or “madman”) could be the “contemptible…