Daniel 11:37 Meaning: A King Who Rejects Everything to Exalt Himself

The Hebrew word translated 'regard' (yavin, from bin) means more than just noticing something. It carries the sense of giving attention, understanding, and treating something as important. This king deliberately refuses to give weight to the things that normally shape a person: the faith of his family, the hopes of women, and any god at all.

'The gods of his fathers' points to the ancestral religion, the beliefs handed down. To reject them was to cut off from tradition and community. Then comes 'the desire of women' (chemat nashim). Chemed means something deeply longed for, something precious. In the Old Testament, women longed for children, especially for the promised offspring who would crush evil (Genesis 3:15). So some see here a rejection of that messianic hope. Others connect it to the worship of Tammuz (Adonis), a fertility god popular among women that involved rites of mourning and desire.

Finally, 'he will magnify himself above all' uses the verb gadal (to become great). This is the core of the king’s sin: he sets himself in the place that belongs only to God. The cross-reference of Isaiah 14:13 echoes the same self-exalting pride that brought down the king of Babylon.

Christians have read this verse in different ways. Some, like the Cambridge Bible and Barnes, see Antiochus Epiphanes, the Greek king who desecrated the Jerusalem temple and tried to force Greek religion on the Jews. They note that Antiochus honored Zeus Olympios and neglected the gods of his own ancestors. Others, like Calvin and Gill, see a prophetic description of a later figure, the Antichrist spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, who opposes all worship except his own.

As for 'the desire of women,' views vary widely. Some take it as the longing for the Messiah expressed by Jewish women. Others read it as a reference to the worship of Tammuz (Adonis), whose rites involved women’s laments. Still others see a prediction of forbidding marriage itself, as in the Roman Catholic requirement of clerical celibacy, a point made by reformers.

A common misreading is to think 'the desire of women' means lust or sexual desire, as if the verse condemns normal human longing. In fact, the phrase is a technical term in the original Hebrew, probably referring to a specific deity (Tammuz/Adonis) or to the deep longing of women for the Messiah. The king rejects even that, showing his complete rejection of everything sacred.

This verse sketches the profile of a pride so complete it cuts every tie. Most of us will never rule a kingdom or persecute a people. But the question it asks each of us is quieter: are we slowly dismissing the faith we were given, the hopes of those who love us, and any loyalty to God, just to make ourselves feel bigger? This week, notice one place where you are tempted to ignore a conviction from your upbringing or to set aside a spiritual practice because it doesn’t serve your image. That small forgetting is where the pattern begins.