Daniel 11:42

‘He will stretch forth his hand also on all countries, and the land of Egypt will not escape. But he will have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt. And the Libyans and Ethiopians will be at his steps.'

All the countries of the Near East will be subject to him, and this will extend as far as Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia. These are probably to be seen as the three horns taken by ‘the horn, the small one' in Daniel 7:20. The treasures of the Near East will be his, and the treasures of Egypt were proverbial. The fourth empire, the apocalyptic empire, is being re-established.

In the case of the nations amassed to go against Israel in Ezekiel 38 Jordan and Arabia were onlookers (Ezekiel 38:13), not participants. The same is the case here in Daniel. But the remainder of the Near East become one empire, including Lybia and Ethiopia, and at length mass against Israel. There may be some literal truth here, for these are all mainly Muslim countries, and it may be that they could produce a leader who will see himself as semi-divine, as did the Mahdi in Sudan. But in the end we should look wider than this for Daniel is seeking to depict the end time empire.

For in Ezekiel the picture is of the nations from remote places of the known world amassed against God's people in the days leading up to the everlasting kingdom, and the Israel is not an earthly Israel as such, for it dwells safe and secure from these mighty foes in unwalled cities, as the people of God protected by God and therefore untouchable (compare Revelation 7). It symbolises a world, and Satan, at enmity with the people of God, and the people of God secure in the hands of God where none can hurt them. It is similar in picture to that of Revelation in Revelation 20:7 where the camp of God's people, a worldwide camp, is also protected by God, which is also at the end of time.

Thus we are probably to see this picture in Daniel as summing up the same situation in vivid symbolism. On one side the Kingly Rule of God, on the other the world going its own way in rebellion against Him.