overthrow of Antiochus and the liberation of the Jews from the Syrian yoke, full help was not yet rendered to the people of God. The “little help” consists in this, that by the rising up and the wars of those that had understanding among the people the theocracy was preserved, the destruction of the service of Jehovah and of the church of God, which was aimed at by the hostile king, was prevented, and, as the following clauses express, the purifying of the people of God is brought about. This purifying is the design and the fruit of the oppression which God brings upon His people by means of the hostile king. The attaining of this end is a “little help” in comparison with the complete victory over the arch-enemy of the time of the end. Many shall connect themselves with the משׂכּילים (intelligentes, Dan 11:33) with flatteries (as Dan 11:21). “The successes of Judas, and the severity with which he and Mattathias treated the apostates (1 Macc. 2:44; 3:5, 8), had the result of causing many to join them only through hypocrisy (1 Macc. 7:6; 2 Macc. 14:6), who again forsook them as soon as opportunity offered; 1 Macc. 6:21ff., 9:23” (Hitzig, Kliefoth).
Verse 35
Such has been the experience in all periods of the church's history. Therefore does the church need to pass through the purifying process of affliction, in which not only the lukewarm fall away in the time of conflict, but also many even מן־המּשׂכּילים. מן is here partitive. יכּשׁלוּ (they shall fall) is to be understood (cf. Dan 11:33, בח נכשׁלוּ) not merely of death in battle, but of other calamities, such as being imprisoned, plundered, etc. בּהם לצרוף to melt, i.e., to purify by them, not as to them; for ב rof ;meht does not represent the accusative, as Kranichfeld thinks, referring in confirmation to Ewald, §282. The use of ב there spoken of is of a different nature. The suffix in בּהם refers neither to “those that understand” alone (Häv.), nor to the “many,” Dan 11:33 (v. Leng.), still less to the flatterers in Dan 11:34 (Maurer), but to all of these together, or to the whole company of the people of God in the sum of their individuals. The verbs וללבּן לברר serve to strengthen the expression (ללבּן for ללבּין on account of the assonance). קץ עד־עת (to the time of the end) is connected with יכּשׁלוּ, the chief idea of the passage. The stumbling and falling of “those who understand” (the pious) shall continue to the time of the end, to bring about the purification of the people for their glorification in the time of the end. For the end stretches itself out yet to the time appointed (cf. Dan 11:27); i.e., it does not come in with the “little
