Daniel 11:43 Meaning But He Will Have Power Over

Bhava-taṇhā: Craving to Become Thirst for more being, more reach. The north is already his, and still the road runs south into Egypt, and past Egypt into Libya, and past Libya into Ethiopia. Conquest on this scale works like drinking salt water: every swallow sharpens the thirst it was supposed to end, so the map can never be large enough.

Lābhasakkāra: Gain and Honour The pair the old teaching treats as a danger, wealth arriving together with a following. Both land on him at once here, gold and silver stacked in the treasury, and whole nations walking behind him. Bait on a hook is pleasant while it lasts, and the one who swallows it is sure he is the one doing the catching.

Māna: Conceit Taking your measure from other people. A man reads his own size off the length of the line at his heels, and Libyans and Ethiopians make a long line. Let that line shorten and he shrinks with it, which is exactly why he can never stop adding names to it.

Anicca: Impermanence Everything on the move. The precious things of Egypt were already traveling long before he arrived, out of one vault and into the next, and his hands are simply the following stop, the way a coin passes from pocket to pocket across a market. He stands in the treasure's path for a while and calls that owning it.

Anattā: Not-self Nothing here answers to an owner. Power over gold and silver is a claim worth testing: tell the gold to stay, tell the borders to hold, tell Egypt to go on being his. Whatever ignores an order like that was never his to begin with, which is why he can pitch his tent between the seas and still come to his end with no one to help him.

Kamma: Action and its Fruit Deeds ripen. Libyans and Ethiopians walk at his steps this season and will drift toward the next strong man in the following one, while the sacking of Egypt stays closer than any of them. It keeps pace like a shadow, and no treasury, however deep, has ever bought that off.