Daniel 11:2 (ESV)

2 “And now I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings shall arise in Persia, and a fourth shall be far richer than all of them. And when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece.

The Son of God mentions the truth here. For this we need to think back to Daniel 10:21. We already read about the book of truth there. That is the book of God’s counsel. God rules history according to that plan. We read about that same book in Revelation 5:1–14. There this book opens up even more than in this chapter.

Christ has completed his work to bring history, the world, and all of creation toward his goal. All of history is brought to eternal perfection and redemption according to God’s plan. It is that Christ who is also going to fulfill that which is revealed in Daniel 11 as part of the book of truth. He has in fact accomplished that.

In this verse the Lord tells us something more about the future of the Persian kingdom. Daniel is living under the first king of this new realm. The fourth king of this kingdom will be very rich and powerful. We know him in the Bible by the name of Ahasuerus (in some versions Xerxes). Ahasuerus, because of his wealth, was able to raise a huge army against Greece in 480 BC. The Persian Empire showed its teeth against Greece. The Greeks then had to acknowledge the supremacy of the Persians. It did not stay that way.