Deeper Reflection
Before we explore in understanding the difficult text of Daniel 11:36-45, it will be helpful for us to look at the fulfilment pattern of biblical prophecy. Biblical prophecy was often presented as one event, but its fulfilment can be more complex than that. We observe this within the Scriptures itself. God revealed Himself in biblical history progressively. God’s revelation in the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation was given progressively over a period of 1,600 years. Then correspondingly, biblical prophecy is fulfilled progressively as initial fulfilment, or partial fulfilment and toward the full and final fulfilment. We can observe this fulfilment pattern of biblical prophecy only in the light of the full revelation of God in Scripture.At the inauguration of His ministry, Jesus read Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue, after which He declared, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v.21). Jesus ended His reading of the Isaiah text at “to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (v.19), but he left out “… the day of vengeance of our God” (Isa 61:2). Jesus was deliberate in doing this. Isaiah prophesied the coming of the Messiah as one event, but Jesus fulfils the prophecy as two events. At His first coming, Jesus proclaimed redemptively “the favorable year of the Lord” through the cross, but at His second coming, He will judge the world in “the day of vengeance of our God”. We see “references to Antiochus Epiphanes taking on larger than life characteristics” in Daniel 11:36-45, which is anticipatory of the New Testament figure called “the antichrist” who “is coming” (1 Jn 2:18).¹

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¹ Tremper Longman III, Daniel, The NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan, 1999), 282