06/09/2026
The view now being advanced by several expositors of prophecy, including yourself, is this: that the king of the south, understood to represent atheism, pushed against the king of the north, understood to represent the Papacy, in the year 1798, when the pope was taken captive and the Papacy received what is described as a deadly wound. Then, after allowing a period of 191 years to pass, the interpretation presents the king of the north, again understood as the Papacy, as coming like a whirlwind against the king of the south by aiding in the downfall of communism and atheistic power through the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989.
But here a serious question arises: Is such a construction natural to the prophecy itself? In the previous conflicts recorded in Daniel 11, when the king of the north and the king of the south are brought into direct engagement, the conflict is presented as occurring within the same prophetic setting, not as an event divided by nearly two centuries. The prophecy does not appear to introduce one power in 1798, suspend the conflict for 191 years, and then resume the same engagement in 1989 as though no interruption had occurred.
Therefore, when this interpretation is compared with the earlier movements of the king of the north and the king of the south throughout Daniel 11, the proposed gap of 191 years does not seem to harmonize naturally with the prophetic pattern. Rather, the text itself appears to call for a more immediate and connected struggle between the two powers mentioned in the verse.