In those days transgressors of the law came out of Israel and persuaded many, saying, “Let’s go make a covenant with the Gentiles around us; for since we were separated from them many evils have befallen us.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 11. Antiochus the illustrious; Epiphanes, the younger son of Antiochus the great, who usurped the kingdom, to the prejudice of his nephew Demetrius, son of his elder brother, Seleucus Philopater. Challoner.—Epiphanes means “renowed.” Worthington.—He took this title, particularly after the Samaritans had offered it to him. Joshua 12. Vaillant. A. 145.—His medals have always God prefixed, “the god appearing;” as he came opportunity, like a god, to defend the kingdom against the Egyptians, after he had been fourteen years a hostage at Rome. Calmet.—Nothing could be more abject than his character. Saint Jerome in Dan. viii. and ix. Athen. verse 4. and x. 12.—Greeks, counting not from the beginning of the reign of Alexander, but from the first year of Seleucus Nicator. Challoner.—The era of the Seleucides began in spring or autumn, A. 3692, B.Calmet. 312, though the Chaldees and Ptolemy date from the following spring. Calmet.—The Grecian monarchy had then stood twenty years. Eus. Worthington.
Or, nations: and so throughout this book.