for them to hide out reminds me when I see the historical narrative of where you hear the stories in the early American history of the pirates having certain islands out in the Caribbean that they would use as their point of attack well this is the case with the beginnings of Rome and so when we see the term robbers applied to them it's very fitting the robbers of thy people this is Rome coming into the prophecy and it says that Rome shall exalt himself certainly one of the characteristics of these pagan powers all of them in the book of Daniel is they exalt themselves but the premier power that exalts himself is once again Rome and the most important phrase in these first 14 verses I would in some ways I would think is that these people the robbers of thy people that exalt themselves that they are those that establish the vision and this to me is one of the main focuses in Daniel 11 is that this vision whether it's talking about Medes Persians Greeks or whatever the power that makes this vision stand is Rome it is the point of reference Uriah Smith Haskell everyone that addresses this verse speaks in the same terms that I am unfortunately you find Uriah Smith when he gets to the conclusion of Daniel 11 he sees no place for Rome involved in it he talks about literal Turkey and literal Egypt we'll deal with Uriah Smith as one presentation here and address some of his concepts in Daniel 11 but even he he can't get around verse 14 the truth it's in verse 14 is that the focus of Daniel 10 11 and 12 when it comes to the paradigm that you use to understand this is that it is Rome is the focus these other kingdoms are are the history that leads to Rome and then from verse 15 onward Rome is going to become the king of the north and it will remain the king of the north until it comes to its end until it falls as this verse 14 says and it's it's always amazed me that even Uriah Smith can make this emphasis about verse 14 but then when he gets into the concluding verses he doesn't he doesn't recognize that Rome as involved in a player he's talking he's identifying the country of Turkey making a march against the country of Israel and when this takes place human probation closes this is the the conclusion he draws one of the rules of Bible prophecy that we'll look at when we address Uriah Smith more fully is a rule that William Miller uses is and this is a paraphrase but this is basically what he says