so soon as it was established, or stood up, was broken, and divided towards the four winds of heaven. Though the eighteenth successor, in the royal line, to the throne of Macedon, and the sovereign of an empire to which that country was a speck, yet no son of his succeeded to his throne; and neither was his kingdom divided to his posterity, nor did it continue according to the dominion which he ruled.

Roxana, the wife of Alexander, gave birth to a posthumous heir of his empire, but, ere her own child was born, timely guarding against the danger of a rival to him in the throne, she barbarously caused Statira, the daughter of Darius, whom also Alexander had married, to be put to death. Such atrocity was no security either of the kingdom or of life to her son. In the fourteenth year of his age, he, together with his mother Roxana, were secretly murdered by order of Cassander, even as she had compassed the death of Statira. The name of Hercules, the only remaining son of Alexander, by Parsine, did not save him from a similar fate, at the very time that he was proposed as of competent age to sit on the throne of his father. And the posterity of Alexander, without the kingdom being theirs, became extinct, by violent deaths. He was the greatest but the last of his kingly race. His brother Arideus, the natural son of Philip, weak in intellect and infirm of purpose, held, for six years, the nominal sovereignty of Macedon, and was slain by order of Olympias (the mother of Alexander) who was not destitute of the blood-thirsty spirit of her son. His captains, the governors of the chief provinces of the empire, held the virtual sovereignty from the time of Alexander's death. And after the extinction of his posterity, the four notable kingdoms of Syria, Egypt, Thrace and Macedon, with various countries annexed to them, arose as distinct dominions under Seleucus, Ptolemy, Lysima

chus and Cassander. Thus was his kingdom broken and divided, not to his posterity, but was plucked up for others beside those. It was divided to the four winds of heaven, the east, and south, the west and north.

The angel was to shew unto Daniel the things that should befall his people in the latter days, and omitting all direct reference to the history of the kingdoms of Thrace, and of Macedon, which were less important of themselves, and bore no relation to the state or interests of the Jews, the prophecy embraces only the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, denominated, from local relation to Judea, the kings of the south and of the north. In their frequent international wars, and in their respective fates, the interests of the Jews were involved and Jerusalem was occasionally subject to the one and to the other. The kingdoms of Egypt and Syria greatly surpassed the other two, and continued as distinct kingdoms for a longer period, and

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were at one time in a manner the only remaining kingdoms of the four."-Unlike to the rapidity with which the empire of the world, and even the hereditary dominion of Macedon, passed from the posterity of Alexander the Great, which, together with that of his father Philip, was so quickly extirpated, the families of Seleucus and Ptolemy, two of his princes, furnished a race of monarchs, who reigned over their respective dominions, till at last, like all the world besides, they bent beneath the iron yoke of Rome; and Syria and Egypt became provinces of the Roman empire. The eras of the Seleucida (or Lagida) and of the Ptolemies are well known in history, and highly useful in chronology. And from the time of the formation of their kingdoms the line of prophetic history is traced down in regular narrative, till the Romans attained an ascendency in the east, and established their authority within the boundaries of the kingdom

that had been Alexander's, thus connecting these great empires, the Grecian-from which the kings of Syria and Egypt took their rise,—and the Roman,by which their kingdoms were finally subverted.

CHAPTER V.

CAUSES, which are apparently the slightest, are sometimes productive of the most momentous events; and the fate of empires is often dependant on the private history of kings. And the circumstantiality with which the anticipated history of the successive kings of the south and of the north, or of Egypt and Syria, is narrated by the prophet, and every prominent event traced to its source, gives palpable illustration that, in the sight of the Eternal, there is no darkness in the most distant ages, and no secret in all the hearts of the children of men.

Ver. 5. And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes (i. e. of Alexander's princes); and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion, his dominion shall be a great dominion, or, as rendered by the Septuagint, and the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes shall be strong above him, &c. Ptolemy the first, or Ptolemy Lagus, the founder of his dynasty, was, on the original division of the kingdom of Alexander, the king of the south, or of Egypt. He was king of the south before the kingdom of Syria was established; and as he is first named in the prophecy, he was the first to reduce Judea and to take Jerusalem. Mild in his

government over the Egyptians, they yielded him a willing obedience; and, levying many troops, instead of fearing his enemies, he became an object of their dread. Lybia, Cyrenaica, and part of Arabia bordering on Egypt, were included in his dominions. Having aided the Rhodians in the famous siege of Rhodes by Demetrius, who was hence forced to raise it, he acquired the name of Soter, or the Deliverer. He conquered Cyprus, took Tyre, ravaged Cilicia, and reduced to his obedience the whole coast of Phonicia, and the greater part of Syria. He was, thus, strong, and he promised at first to unite under his sovereignty both Egypt and Syria.-But one of the princes of Alexander was strong above him. Seleucus, the first of the Seleucida, began his sovereign career by establishing his authority in the east. He

is not designated, as all his successors are called and were, the king of the north, but one of the princes. On the subdivision of the great empire, that title did not at first rightly pertain to him, till his conquests were extended over Syria, and that kingdom was his own; while Ptolemy was, from the first, as he is called, the king of the south. Strong as Ptolemy, the king of the south, was, Seleucus, one of Alexander's princes, was strong above him. Having subjected to his dominion Persia, Media, Babylon, Assyria, Bactria, and Hyrcania, he overthrew Antigonus, who had subdued the greater part of Syria and Asia Minor; he established himself on the throne of Syria; and extending his conquests still farther to the west and north, he conquered and slew Lysimachus, who had conquered Demetrius, and added their joint dominions to his own. He is distinguished in history from all the princes of his race, by the title of Nicator, or conqueror,-an honour which was earned by being, as Justin terms him," the conqueror of the conquerors ;" and he was the last survivor, as well as

He had

the greatest, of the princes of Alexander. dominion; and his dominion was a great dominion, extending, for a season, with the exception of Egypt, over all the conquests of Alexander. Many large and celebrated cities owed their origin to Seleucus; among which may be specified Seleucia, called by his name, and Antioch, so called from the name of his father and of his son, which was afterwards the seat of the government of his successors, thenceforth distinguished successively in the prediction by the appellation of the king of the north.

During the reigns of Antiochus Soter, the son and immediate successor of Seleucus, and of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second of the Ptolemies, these rival kingdoms were stirred up to mutual warfare, and the coast of Syria was partially ravaged by the Egyptians. Antiochus Soter, after reigning nineteen years, was succeeded by his son Antiochus Theos, while Ptolemy Philadelphus continued to reign in Egypt. A war was carried on with great violence between them for a long period; and the eastern part of the empire having revolted, and Parthia having cast off the Syrian yoke, the consequences threatened to be disastrous to the king of Syria, or of the north, whose kingdom, for the first time, was thus placed in jeopardy. Years having thus elapsed, the mode by which the war between these kings was terminated, and which deeply and permanently affected the interests of both kingdoms, as well as the Jews, is thus recorded in the prediction:

And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north, to make an agreement : but she shall not retain the power of his arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm (or seed): but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, (or rather, as on the margin, he whom she