Clearing up the confusion of the "he" in 2Thess. 2:6,7

After taking another look at Daniel 11, I found that I had missed the 4^th king of Persia in verse 2. Then reading through Daniel 11 again I found that I had overlooked some things that the kings of the south had done. The chapter 11 kings of the south don’t necessarily affect the number of kings of the north, but I made mistakes with the kings of the south, and therefore needed to stop the whole study. Not to make an excuse, but I was crowded with other aspects of my life, and wasn’t able to give it the focus that it needed.

However, my corrections on Daniel 11 don’t change the fact that Paul was referring to Daniel 11 in his interpretation of prophecy regarding the 2 Thessalonians 2:3 “son of perdition”, “man of sin”, and verse 7 “mystery of iniquity”. The main point of my blog post still stands, which was that Paul was not referring to the Holy Spirit when he said that “he would hold back the son of perdition until he is taken out of the way” (2 Thess. 2:7, my paraphrase). It isn’t the Holy Spirit that plays into Paul letter to the Thessalonian believers, and to us today. Paul was paraphrase-quoting from Daniel 11:36 and 45, which detailed the evils perpetrated by the vile king of the north. The Holy Spirit will be withdrawn from the earth as faith and love for God in the hearts of the world’s multitudes is replaced by violence toward Him. So, it doesn’t matter who the 7^th or 8^th or 9^th or jillion^th king of the north is regarding who holds back perdition, or who is held back. What matters is that the vile king of the north, which is showcased in the whole second half of the Daniel 11 vision, is the same key player of Daniel 8. Both vile king of the north of Daniel 11:21 and the abominable horn of Daniel 8:9 represent the same evil entity. 1) Both stand up against the Messiah the Prince (Dan. 8:11,25; 11:22). 2) Both cast down the heavenly sanctuary of strength (Dan. 8:11; 11:31). 3) Both  place the abomination of desolation (Dan. 8:13; Dan. 11:31). 4) Both use peace to destroy many (Dan. 8:25; Dan. 11:25). And, 5) both start small and grow to world-dominating power (Dan. 8:9; Dan. 11:23).

These five points of both Daniel’s prophecies establish the way to situate each prophecy one upon the other, and help find the key to understanding the seemingly convoluted Daniel 11 prophecy, as well as the 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 prophecy. But a mistake I made was in using Revelation 17:10 in conjunction with Daniel 11. The two visions aren’t compatible; they are apples and oranges.

Revelation 17 must use Daniel 7 for its precedent prophecy, although Revelation 17 uses the beast’s 10 horns for a eschatological application as opposed to the application that we see in Daniel 7’s fourth beast, which uses its horns to represent the Dark Ages Germanic kings that broke up Imperial Rome. Revelation 13 applies its first beast’s horns the same as Daniel 7 does its fourth beast, except that it looks at the heads also. Revelation 13 shows the beast with the ten horns that Daniel saw in his chapter 7 dream/vision, both blaspheming God and His kingdom for 1,260 prophetic days, and making war with the saints. Revelation 17 explains those heads consecutively (that is, the first five as fallen, the 6^th in existence, and the 7^th not yet come. And then an 8^th associated with them all, as if the first 7 were extra or ancillary to the original 8^th head of the beast controlled by the mother of harlots. It appears that what John saw was an 8 headed beast, not a 7 headed beast.

Daniel 7 and 8 are also connected in that both visions have a little horn as God’s primary nemesis. Both little horns are blasphemous, violent, and make war. Daniel 7, 8, 11, Revelation 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19 all point to the Roman papacy’s Dark Age and New Age phases.

Concerning the number of kings of the north I find 8 northern kings when we call the vile king of Daniel 11:21-39 the same king of the north in Daniel 11:40-45, as the vision calls him the same personality. That could point to the Revelation 17:11 8^th king, except for the difficulty of pinpointing the 6^th and 7^th kings of the north, and their respective associated descriptions: “one is” and “the other has not yet come for a time”. For the vile king of the north to be the old papacy as well as the New Age papacy, it must be preceded by pagan Rome’s Julius Caesar, as the 6^th king of the north, and the Augustan Caesars, as the 7^th king of the north, which would last only “a few days” (Dan. 11:20), and “continuing a short space” (Rev. 17:10). This could fit, except that then John heard of the 7^th king that he was “not yet come” (Rev. 17:10), but the Augustan kings had already started before Christ was incarnated. Therefore, the 7^th king’s placement doesn’t fit John’s historical perspective. John lived through several of the 7^th king Augustan Caesars “in the glory of the kingdom”, the first and main Augustan Emperor being Octavius, who, decades before John’s birth had died, “neither in anger, nor in battle” (Dan. 11:20).

The point I am making is that we can’t use Daniel 11 to interpret Revelation 17:11. We can only use 2 Thessalonians 2 to interpret Daniel 11.

Thank you for your patience with me. I hope I didn’t steer you off too far from the truth.