OG Daniel 11:21 – Take over in inheritance
At the end of the verse, the Old Greek is quite different. It says the new king shall:
‘overpower in his inheritance’
But the Hebrew says, he will:
‘sieze by means of flattery (or intrigue)’.
Many people view the Old Greek reading here as contradicting the actual events because he didn’t ‘inherit’ the throne. No, Antiochus IV was never supposed to become king!
His brother was king, and when he was murdered, his brother’s eldest son should have inherited the throne, but he couldn’t because he was being held hostage in Rome as part of a peace treaty… So Antiochus took the throne instead of his nephew, and eventually manipulated matters so it would become permanent.
He basically stole the throne from his nephew through scheming!
So why might the Old Greek say inheritance instead of flattery/intrigue?
It could simply be a mistranslation from the Hebrew, as the word used to mean flatteries/intrigues comes from the root hlq. Now, if the translator wasn’t sure what the word meant, he may have decided to examine the root word for clues… The primary meaning is to divide, share, apportion, allot, which leads directly to words like inheritance. A secondary meaning is words like smooth or slippery, which, when doubled, means flatteries/intrigues.
So this is probably just a mistranslation from the Hebrew by our ancient Greek translator. Nobody’s perfect!