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Catholic Commentary
Antiochus IV's First Campaign Against Egypt and Return
25“He will stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south will wage war in battle with an exceedingly great and mighty army; but he won’t stand, for they will devise plans against him.26Yes, those who eat of his delicacies will destroy him, and his army will be swept away. Many will fall down slain.27As for both these kings, their hearts will be to do mischief, and they will speak lies at one table; but it won’t prosper, for the end will still be at the appointed time.28Then he will return into his land with great wealth. His heart will be against the holy covenant. He will take action and return to his own land.
Daniel 11:25–28 describes Antiochus IV Epiphanes's military campaign against Egypt and his subsequent desecration of the Jewish Temple, revealing how internal treachery undermines kingdoms and how geopolitical conflicts mask deeper assaults on God's covenant people. The passage emphasizes that diplomatic deception and betrayal by trusted allies ultimately fail to alter God's appointed timeline for history.
Kingdoms fall not to external force but to the treachery of those fed at their own tables, yet God's appointed time remains unmoved by human schemes.
Verse 28 — Wealth, Homecoming, and the Turn Against the Covenant Antiochus returns north to Antioch "with great wealth" — the historical record confirms massive plunder of Egyptian treasuries. But the verse's theological center of gravity lies in the second movement: "his heart will be against the holy covenant." This is the first explicit mention of the covenant in this section of the vision, and it arrives like a shadow falling. On his return through Judea in 169 BC, Antiochus raided the Jerusalem Temple, stripping the golden altar, lampstand, and sacred vessels (cf. 1 Macc 1:20–24). "He will take action and return to his own land" — the action is Temple desecration. The verse thus pivots the entire narrative: what began as a geopolitical conflict between Hellenistic kingdoms reveals its deeper meaning as an assault on the covenant people of God. Antiochus's enmity with Egypt is prologue; his enmity with the holy covenant is the true story.
Catholic tradition reads Daniel 11 within a multi-layered hermeneutic: literally, as fulfilled prophecy of Antiochene history; typologically, as a figure of eschatological persecution; and spiritually, as instruction in providence and fidelity. St. Jerome's monumental Commentary on Daniel (c. 407 AD), the most exhaustive patristic treatment of the book, devotes careful attention to these verses, identifying each figure with historical precision while simultaneously insisting that Antiochus foreshadows the final Antichrist — a reading endorsed by the broader tradition of Origen, Hippolytus, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§314) teaches that divine providence encompasses even the apparent disorder of history: "God is the sovereign master of his plan." Daniel 11:27's insistence that no scheme "will prosper, for the end is at the appointed time" is a scriptural anchor for this doctrine. The Catholic tradition refuses both fatalism (as if human choices are insignificant) and anxiety (as if God has lost the thread), holding these in tension precisely as Daniel does: human actors act freely and wickedly, yet the môʿēd — God's appointed time — governs all.
The phrase "holy covenant" (bĕrît qōdeš, v. 28) carries enormous theological freight. In Catholic reading, the covenant is not merely a political or ethnic arrangement but the living bond between God and humanity that reaches its fulfillment in Christ's New Covenant (cf. CCC §1965). Antiochus's assault on the covenant thus anticipates every historical attack on the Church — the Body in which the New Covenant is perpetually enacted. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on the Book of Daniel, observes that such persecutions, far from disproving God's care, serve to purify and strengthen the covenant people.
These verses offer a sharp diagnostic tool for contemporary Catholic life. The image of those who "eat of his delicacies" yet betray their lord speaks directly to the danger of spiritual and moral compromise among those closest to power or privilege — within families, institutions, and even ecclesial structures. Catholics today are called to examine whether proximity to comfort has muted prophetic witness.
The "table of lies" in verse 27 resonates with a culture saturated in performative discourse — political, corporate, and sometimes ecclesiastical — where speech is instrumentalized rather than truthful. Catholic social teaching, rooted in the ninth commandment and the virtue of veracity (CCC §2464–2470), calls believers to make their own tables — family dinner, the Eucharistic table, civic conversation — spaces of genuine truth-telling.
Most practically, verse 28's pivot to "the holy covenant" invites Catholics to ask: what, ultimately, is under assault in the conflicts of our age? When cultural, political, or institutional pressures mount, the question is not primarily "who wins?" but "is the covenant — our relationship with God and neighbor — being protected, lived, and transmitted?" This is the question Daniel's vision presses every reader to hold.
Commentary
Verse 25 — The Northern King Strikes South "He" is Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BC), king of the Seleucid Empire ("king of the north"), who "stirs up his power and his courage" — an active, aggressive mobilization of will and military force — against the "king of the south," Ptolemy VI Philometor of Egypt. The language of stirring up (Hebrew: yā'ēr) echoes earlier divine awakenings in the book (cf. Dan 11:2) and implies that even this warlord's energy operates within a divinely permissive framework. The Ptolemaic king musters an "exceedingly great and mighty army," yet he will not stand. The reason given is not merely military inferiority but treachery: "they will devise plans against him." The anonymous "they" points to conspirators within Ptolemy's own court — a detail confirmed by ancient historians. Antiochus exploited divisions between Ptolemy VI and his brother Ptolemy VIII (Euergetes II), ultimately playing the brothers against each other. The verse introduces the motif that worldly power, however imposing, is hollow when corrupted from within.
Verse 26 — Betrayal by Intimates The phrase "those who eat of his delicacies" is devastatingly precise: those fed at the king's own table — courtiers, advisors, generals bound by the ancient honor of table fellowship — become his destroyers. In the ancient Near East, to share bread was to share loyalty; betrayal by a table companion was the most acute form of treachery (cf. Ps 41:9). The Ptolemaic army is "swept away," and many fall slain. What external enemies could not accomplish, internal corruption achieved. The verse operates simultaneously as historical record and moral diagnosis: institutions and kingdoms built on appetite rather than justice are always subvertible from within.
Verse 27 — A Summit of Lies With both kings seated together — likely referencing negotiations after the first campaign, when Antiochus and Ptolemy VI held ostensibly diplomatic talks — the text pierces beneath diplomatic appearances: "their hearts will be to do mischief, and they will speak lies at one table." Neither king negotiates in good faith. Antiochus offers false security to Ptolemy VI while consolidating control; Ptolemy dissembles to buy time. The repetition of the table image from verse 26 is no accident: the table of shared bread has become a table of mutual deception. Yet the divine commentary is immediate and definitive: "it will not prosper, for the end will still be at the appointed time" (lammô'ēd, literally "for the appointed time"). This phrase — a keyword in Daniel (cf. 8:19; 11:35; 12:4) — insists that history's ultimate schedule is not set by Seleucid or Ptolemaic strategists, but by God. Their cleverness is bounded.