§ 1. In verses 38 and 39 that God is described thus: “But he will honor the god Maozim in his place, and a God whom his fathers did not know he will worship with gold and silver and precious stone and costly things, and he will act so as to fortify Maozim with a foreign God.” The Hebrew text has ואלה מעזים על כנו, weʾĕlôah māʿuzzîm ʿal kannô, “the God Maozim in his place or upon his throne.” The Septuagint translates θεὸν ἰσχυρότατον, “a most mighty God”; Aquila, θεὸν ἰσχύων, “a God of strengths”; yet others read θεὸν ἰσχυρόν, “a mighty God.”
The Greeks translate verse 39 thus: Καὶ ποιήσει τοῖς ὀχυρώμασι τῶν καταφυγῶν μετὰ θεοῦ ἀλλοτρίου, “And he will act upon the fortifications of the places of refuge with a foreign God.” Another reading is: Καὶ ποιήσει τοῖς ὀχυρώμασι τῶν πόλεων μετὰ θεοῦ ἀλλοτρίου, “And he will act upon the fortifications of the cities with a foreign God.” Theodotion translates thus: Καὶ ποιήσει ταῦτα ὥστε στερεῶσαι τὰ ὀχυρώματα μετὰ θεοῦ ἀλλοτρίου, “And he will do these things so as to make the fortifications firm with a foreign God.” Luther translates: Aber an dess statt wird er seinen Gott Mausim ehren—“But in its place he will honor his God Mausim”; and in verse 39: Und wird denen, die ihm helfen, stärken Mausim mit fremden Gott—“And he will strengthen Mausim for those who help him, with a foreign God.” In verse 38, without understanding the Hebrew language, he translates ʿal kannô as an dess statt, “in its place,” although it expressly means “upon its place” or “upon his place.” In verse 39, if he changed the points in the word lemibṣerê, he showed that they do not pertain to the essence of Scripture.
The sense of the words is that Antichrist will worship the God Mausim, the god of fortifications—a new God whom the ancients did not know—but will fortify these strongholds with a foreign God. For he will place impious and superstitious men in the fortifications; in them they will worship the devil himself. Nor is it marvelous that he worships no one and yet now worships. For he will be great and will openly put himself forward as God, as impious kings once did; but because he will use the aid of a daemon, he will dread and secretly worship it, while even his familiars are occupied in the same daemon-worship.
§ 2. Yet they interpret it variously. The Greek scholia have:
τὸν θεὸν τὸν ἰσχυρόν, ὃν προσποιοῦνται οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι σέβεσθαι, ἐν τῷ ναῷ δεξάσεται, ὅνπερ εἰς ἀπάτην τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἀνέξει.
“He will receive into the temple the mighty God whom the Jews pretend to worship, whom he will indeed raise up for the deception of the Jews.”
Thus also others interpret it, for the true God is called in Scripture the God of strength, Psalms 26:1 and 30:3. Thus the heretics Bruchthon, Junius, and Tremellius, who call him the God of Israel. Theodoret says that Antichrist himself is the God Mausim, for it will come to pass that he glorifies himself; for the Greek has δοξάσει, “he will glorify,” and the Hebrew has yekabbēd. Nor is this marvelous: formerly there were examples of such great madness. When Caligula had made himself a God, he offered sacrifice to himself.
In a marginal note Luther calls him “the God of garrisons”; but in the preface he asserts that “the God of fortifications” is in the temples and monasteries, which are like citadels and fortifications: their colleges, he says, serve the Pope. But specifically he claims that Daniel wished to say “the God of the Mass,” but in indignation broke the word Mass and called it Mausim; and that “to fortify Maozim” is to care for everything which pertains to the Mass. The Lutheran Strigel says that Maozim is every idolatrous worship: the adoration of the Eucharist and the prohibition of marriages.
§ 3. It must be said, first, that he is not the true God of the Israelites, for Antichrist will rise against that God, the God of gods. Therefore he will not venerate him.
Second, he is not Antichrist himself, because Antichrist will worship him with gold and silver, in which manner he will by no means worship himself. Then Scripture speaks of Antichrist and his God as two different beings.
Third, he is not the sacrifice of the Eucharist, or Christ in the Eucharist or in the Mass, because Christ is worshiped not in fortifications but in all temples and in the public squares; then our fathers worshiped Christ thus. Third, Antichrist is himself publicly worshiped above every God; therefore he does not publicly say that Christ is his God.
Fourth, the God Maozim is not fasts, celibacy, and similar things. First, because these are worship of God, but Maozim is the God himself. But if the God Maozim is called the God of fortifications or of strength, the interpretation is most inept if “the God of strengths” is said to mean “the God of the selection of foods, of celibacy, and of similar things.” Second, who worships celibacy and fasts with gold and silver and costly things? Thus feasts and marriage-beds are worshiped. Third, assemblies of virgins and vows of chastity were already used in the ancient Church, as were many fasts; they are therefore not new gods whom our Fathers did not know. Therefore the Pope does not worship or fortify the God Maozim.
That God, therefore, is the God whom Antichrist, supposing him to be the author and preserver of his strength and power, will worship with his followers with great care and expense, and that in fortified places and places containing treasures. The continual sacrifice, the spotless Lamb, is as far distant from Maozim as Christ is from Belial.