(surnamed Epiphanes):
By: Richard Gottheil, Samuel Krauss
King of Egypt from 205 to 182 B.C. He was a child of five when he came to the throne. The protracted struggle for the possession of Cœle-Syria and Palestine was now finally decided in favor of the Syrians. Antiochus the Great conquered the land (202); and the Egyptian general Scopas, who tried to retake it for Egypt, was defeated at the sources of the Jordan, his army being wholly destroyed at Sidon (Jerome on Dan. xi. 15). According to Josephus ("Ant." xii. 3, § 3), the Jews in Jerusalem aided Antiochus and even besieged the Egyptian garrison independently. This policy of the Jews appears to have been the result of the persecution experienced in the preceding reign; Daniel (xi. 14) appears to blame them for their attitude toward the Ptolemies, because the latter were at any rate preferable to the Seleucidæ. Ptolemy Epiphanes died from poison, as Jerome (on Dan. xi.) relates in the name of Porphyrius.
PTOLEMY V. (Epiphanes).—‘Ptolemy’ was the dynastic name of the Macedonian kings who ruled over Egypt b.c. 305–31; during the whole of this period Egypt was an independent country; it was not until the great victory of Augustus at Actium (b.c. 31) that Egypt again lost her independence and became a province, this time under Roman rule. Ptolemy v. reigned b.c. 205–182. He married Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus iii. the Great; this matrimonial alliance between the Ptolemys and the Seleucids is alluded to in Dan 2:43. During his reign Palestine and Cœle-Syria were lost to Egypt, and were incorporated into the kingdom of Syria under Antiochus iii.; this is probably what is alluded to in Dan 11:13-18; see Jos.
W. O. E. Oesterley.