And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and speak monstrous things against the God of gods; and he shall prosper until the indignation be accomplished for that which is determined shall be done.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And he will not regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women; nor regard any +god for he will magnify himself above all.
A new figure steps into Daniel's prophecy at verse 36, called simply "the king," and he dominates the closing scenes. Verse 37 lists three things he refuses to honour, and each refusal tells us who he is and where he comes from.
The chapter has tracked a king of the north and a king of the south. Daniel gives this one no country. That is how an Israelite would speak of his own king.
The second beast of Revelation 13, the man of sin of 2 Thessalonians 2, the king of Daniel 11:36-39, and the antichrist of 1 John 2:18, 22 are clearly the same person. This chapter deals with a king of the north and a king of the south. So some readers have thought that "the king" must be one of those two. But for an Israelite to mention his own king in this indefinite way is perfectly natural, both here and in Isaiah 30:31. When an English newspaper says that "the King" is going to Scotland, there is no need to add "the King of England"... So Daniel and Isaiah name the king of the north or the king of the south when they mean those kings. But "the king," with nothing added, means the king of Israel.
The ESV reads "the gods of his fathers"; older translations have "the God of his fathers," and the commentators work from that singular. A non-Jew would not use the phrase at all.
An Englishman who believes may speak of God as his Father, but he cannot talk of "the God of his fathers" except as imitating the phrase of a Jew. This reference is of course to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are the true fathers whom God chose to be the holders of promise, on behalf of their descendants and their land.
One writer adds why that descent matters.
The God of his fathers is mentioned twice, which probably indicates that this person will be of the Jewish race — a strong qualification in someone presenting himself to Israel as Messiah and Messianic king.
The ESV renders this phrase "the one beloved by women"; older translations have "the desire of women." One writer reads it from the company it keeps in the sentence.
The great desire of all Hebrew women was to give birth to the Messiah. So Gabriel greeted Mary as "highly favoured among women," when the miraculous conception of the Saviour was announced. The verse names "the desire of women" between "the God of his fathers" and "any god." That connection shows something similar in nature is meant, not something entirely different. He is an Israelite. Yet he heeds neither the LORD, the God of the nation, nor the Messiah, the hope of the nation, nor even the false gods the nation so often turned to.
Others have read the phrase as the name of an idol. One writer rejects that reading.
In Daniel 11:37, "desire of women" clearly means the Messiah. Gesenius grants some deity is meant, saying the context demands an idol that Syrian women worshipped. Rationalism always cuts down and degrades.
The verse ends with the reason for the whole list: he magnifies himself above all.
This is a strong feature of the pride of man: he magnifies himself above all. He would wipe out every idea of the true God. He is indifferent whether it is real religion of the heart or the religion of his fathers. He dislikes even the name of Christ, called here "the desire of women." He is even against religious customs and religious nationality. He has no respect for any god.
The next verse gives him a god of his own, and that turn exposes something about the human heart.
The Antichrist will be an unbeliever, but not merely an unbeliever. He will have rejected the God of Israel, and the Messiah. Nor will he honour any of the gods of the Gentiles. But even this man, although he sets himself up as the true God on the earth, will still have someone to whom he bows and makes others bow with him. The human heart, even in Antichrist, cannot do without an object of idolatry.
John's letters describe the antichrist by two denials, and they match the refusals here.
On the subject of the Antichrist, the apostle adds in verse 22 that "he denies that Jesus is the Christ... he denies the Father and the Son." We see two sides of his apostasy: first, he joins with Jewish unbelief; second, he rejects Christianity.
- His name. "The king," with no nation attached, is Israel's own king — the same figure called the man of sin and the antichrist elsewhere.
- His first refusal. "The God of his fathers" points back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, marking him out as a Jew who has abandoned Israel's God.
- His second refusal. "The desire of women" is the Messiah every Hebrew mother longed to bear; he refuses the nation's hope as well as the nation's God.
- His third refusal. He will not even keep the idols his people once ran after. One motive drives all three refusals: he magnifies himself above all.
- His substitute. Verse 38 shows that even the man who claims to be God bows to something. The heart that refuses the true God does not stop worshipping; it invents.