AGAINST THE KINGDOM OF GREECE

"As for me said the angel, "in the year of Darius the Mede [539/538 B.C.E.] I stood up as a strengthener and as a fortress to him."  (Daniel 11:1)  Was no longer living but the angel referred to his reign as the starting point of the prophetic message.  It was this king who had ordered  that Daniel be taken out of the lion's pit Darius had also decreed that all his subjects should fear Daniel's God. (Daniel 6:21-27) However, the one for whom the angel stood up as a supporter was, not Darius the Mede, but the angel's associate Michael-the prince of Daniel's people.  (Compare Daniel 10:12-14) God's angel provided this support while Michael contended with the demon prince of Medo-Persia. 

God's angel continued: "Look! There will yet be three kings standing up for Persia, and the fourth one will amass greater riches than all others. And as soon as he has become strong in his riches, he will rouse up everything against the kingdom of Greece." (Daniel 11:2) Just who were these Persian rulers?

The first three kings were Cyrus the Great, Cambyses II, and Darius I (Hystaspes).  Since Bardiya (or perhaps a pretender named Guamata) ruled for only seven months, the prophecy  did not take his brief reign into consideration. In 490 B.C.E., the third king, Darius i, attempted to invade Greece for the second time. However, the Persians were routed at Marathon and retreated to Asia Minor.  Though Darius made careful preparations for a further campaign against Greece, he could not carry it out before his death four years later. That was left up  to his son and successor, the "fourth" king, Xerxes I. He was the King Ahasuerus who married Esther. -Esther 1:1; 2:15-17. 

Xerxes I did indeed "rouse up everything against the kingdom of Greece," that is, the independent Grecian states as a group.  "Urged on by ambitious courtier," says the book The Medes and Persians-Conquerors and Diplomats, "Xerxes launched an assault by land and sea."  Greek historian Herodotus, of the fifth century B.C.E., writes that "no other expedition compare to this seems of any account."  His record states that the sea force "amounted in all to 5`7,610 men. The number of the foot soldiers  was 1, 700, 000; that of the horsemen 80,000; to which must be added the Arabs who rode on camels, and the Lybyans who fought in chariots, whom I reckon at 20,000.  The whole numbers, therefore, of the land and sea forces added together amounts to 2,317,610 men." 

Planning on nothing less than a complete conquest, Xerxes I moved his huge force against Greece in 480 B.C.E. Overcoming a Greek delaying action at Thermopylae, the Persians ravaged Athens. At Salamis,m though, they met with terrible defeat.  Another Greek victory took place at Plataea, in 479 B.C.E. None of the seven kings who succeeded Xerxes on the throne of the Persian Empire during the next 143 years carried war into Greece.  But then there arose a mighty king in Greece.

Next time:  A GREAT KINGDOM DIVIDED INTO FOUR

From the book: PAY ATTENTION TO DANIEL'S PROPHECY! 1999