In the same year that Antiochus by the command of the Romans retired out of Egypt, and set up the worship of the Greeks in Judea; the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, the fundamental kingdom of the Empire of the Greeks, and reduced it into a Roman Province; and thereby began to put an end to the reign of Daniel’s third Beast. This is thus expressed by Daniel. And after him Arms, that is the Romans, shall stand up. As * signifies after the King, Daniel 11:8; so * may signify after him.
Arms are every where in this Prophecy of Daniel put for the military power of a kingdom: and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful.
Hitherto Daniel described the actions of the Kings of the North and South; but upon the conquest of Macedon by the Romans, he left off describing the actions of the Greeks, and began to describe those of the Romans in Greece. They conquered Macedon, Illyricum and Epirus, in the year of Nabonassar 580. 35 years after, by the last will and testament of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all Asia westward of mount Taurus; 69 years after they conquered the kingdom of Syria, and reduced it into a Province, and 34 years after they did the like to Egypt. By all these steps the Roman Arms stood up over the Greeks: and after 95 years more, by making war upon the Jews, they polluted the sanctuary of strength, and took away the daily sacrifice, and then placed the abomination of desolation. For this abomination was placed after the days of Christ, Math 24:15. In the 16th year of the Emperor Adrian, A.C. 132, they placed this abomination by building a Temple to Jupiter Capitolinus, where the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stood. Thereupon the Jews under the conduct of Barchochab rose up in arms against the Romans, and in the war had 50 cities demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men slain by the sword; and in the end of the war, A.C. 136, were banished Judea upon pain of death, and thenceforward the land remained desolate of its old inhabitants.
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