Yet he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries [made principally to the King of Pergamus;] and the arms [which in favor of Heliodorus oppose him] shall be overflowed with a flood from before him, and be broken; yea also [Onias the high-Priest] the Prince of the covenant. And after the league made with him, [the King of Egypt, by sending Apollonius to his coronation] he shall work deceitfully [against the King of Egypt,] for he shall come up and shall become strong [in Phoenicia] with a small people. And he shall enter into the quiet and plentiful cities of the Province [of Phoenicia;] and [to ingratiate himself with the Jews of Phoenicia and Egypt, and with their friends] he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers fathers: he shall scatter among them the prey and the spoil, and the riches [extracted from other places;] and shall forecast his devices against the strong holds [of Egypt] even for a time.
These things were done in the first year of his reign, An. Nabonass. 573.
And thence forward he forecast his devices against the strong holds of Egypt, until the sixth year. For three years after, that is in the fourth year of his reign, Menelaus bought the high-Priesthood from Jason, but not paying the price was sent for by the King; and the King, before he could hear the cause, went into Cilicia to appease a sedition there, and left Andronicus his deputy at Antioch; in the mean time the brother of Menelaus, to make up the money, conveyed several vessels out of the Temple, selling some of them at Tyre, and sending others to Andronicus. When Menelaus was reproved for this by Onias, he caused Onias to be slain by Andronicus: for which fact the King at his return from Cilicia caused Andronicus to be put to death. Then Antiochus prepared his second expedition against Egypt, which he performed in the sixth year of his reign, An. Nabonass. 578: for upon the death of Cleopatra, the governors of her son the young King of Egypt claimed Phoenicia and Coelosyria from him as her dowry; and to recover those countries raised a great army. Antiochus considering that his father had not quitted the possession of those countries, denied they were her dowry; and with another great army met and fought the Egyptians on the borders of Egypt, between Pelusium and the mountain Casius. He there beat them, and might have destroyed their whole army, but that he rode up and down, commanding his soldiers not to kill them, but to take them alive: by which humanity he gained Pelusium, and soon after all Egypt; entering it with a vast multitude of foot and chariots, elephants and horsemen, and a great navy. Then seizing the cities of Egypt as a friend, he marched to Memphis, laid the whole blame of the war upon Eulaeus the King’s governor, entered into outward friendship with the young King, and took upon him to order the affairs of the kingdom. While Antiochus was thus employed, a report being spread in Phoenicia that he was dead, Jason to recover the high-Priesthood assaulted Jerusalem with above a thousand men, and took the city: hereupon the King thinking Judea had revolted, came out of Egypt in a furious manner, re-took the city, slew forty thousand of the people, made as many prisoners, and sold them to raise money; went into the Temple, spoiled it of its treasures, ornaments, utensils, and vessels of gold and silver, amounting to 1800 talents; and carried all away to Antioch. This was done in the year of Nabonassar 578, and is thus described by Daniel. And he shall stir up his power, and his courage against the King of the South with a great army; and the King of the South shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they, even Antiochus and his friends, shall forecast devices against him, as is represented above; yea, they that feed of the portion of his meat, shall betray and destroy him, and his army shall be overthrown, and many shall fall down slain. And both these Kings hearts shall be to do mischief; and they, being now made friends, shall speak lies at one table, against the Jews and against the holy covenant; but it shall not prosper: for yet the end, in which the setting up of the abomination of desolation is to prosper, shall be at the time appointed.
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