Antiochus

Antiochus was the name of several Seleucid kings of Syria whose reigns intersected with the history of the Jewish people between approximately 280 and 65 B.C. The most significant for biblical history is Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–163 B.C.), whose brutal suppression of Jewish religion and desecration of the Jerusalem temple in 167 B.C.—sacrificing pigs on the altar and installing the “abomination of desolation”—sparked the Maccabean revolt. His campaigns are described in detail in 1 and 2 Maccabees, and his rise and fall are prophesied in Daniel 11.

Antiochus III the Great (223–187 B.C.) figures in Daniel 11:10–19 as the king of the north who swept into Palestine and was eventually defeated by Rome. His reign marked the transfer of Judea from Ptolemaic to Seleucid control. The Antiochus dynasty represents the collision between Hellenistic culture and Jewish religious identity that defined the intertestamental period, making the name Antiochus a byword for pagan hostility to the covenant people in later Jewish and Christian literature.