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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

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CLEOPATRA

Name of a queen of Egypt and her daughter mentioned in the Apocrypha and in the writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.

1. Probably the wife of Ptolemy VI Philometor (ruled 181–146 BC). Dositheus, who said that he was a Levite priest and Ptolemy’s son, brought the Letter of Purim to Egypt in the fourth year of Ptolemy’s reign (Add Est 11:1). This “Letter” probably refers not merely to Mordecai’s letter (Est 9:20-22), but to the Greek translation of the book of Esther made by Lysimachus.

2. Probably the daughter of #1 above. Cleopatra was married to Alexander Epiphanes (d. 145 BC) following his conquest of Syria, which he ruled from 150 to 145 BC (1 Macc 10:57-58). Later, as a sign of his anger against Alexander, Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy VI Philometor took her from Alexander and gave her to Demetrius Nicantor upon his invasion of Syria (1 Macc 11:8-12). Alexander was killed battling the combined forces of Demetrius and Ptolemy, while Demetrius himself was in captivity in Parthia, so that Cleopatra was married to Demetrius’s brother Antiochus VII (Sidetes), who in the absence of his brother had taken the throne of Syria in 137 BC.