But out of a branch, &c.— Rather, as in the Vulgate, Out of the branch of her root, shall stand up a plant; and he shall come, &c. This branch which sprung out of the same root with Berenice was Ptolemy Euergetes, her brother, who no sooner succeeded his father, than he came with a great army, and entered into the provinces of the king of the north; that is, of Seleucus Callinicus, who, with his mother Laodice, reigned in Syria; and he acted against them, and prevailed so far as to take Syria, Cilicia, the upper parts beyond the Euphrates, and almost all Asia. And when he had heard that a sedition was raised in Egypt, he plundered the kingdom of Seleucus, and took forty thousand talents of silver and precious vessels, and images of the gods two thousand and five hundred; and, had he not been recalled by a domestic sedition, would have subdued the whole kingdom of Syria. Thus the king of the south came into the kingdom of the north, and then returned, &c. He likewise continued more years than the king of the north; for Seleucus died in exile, by a fall from his horse, and Ptolemy survived him about four or five years. See Newton.

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