Daniel 10

10: 1 In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, even a great warfare: and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision. In those days I Daniel was mourning three whole weeks. I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled. And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel, I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with pure gold of Uphaz: his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to burnished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude. And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves. So I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I fallen into a deep sleep on my face, with my face toward the ground. And, behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands. And he said unto me, O Daniel, thou man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright; for unto thee am I now sent: and when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to humble thyself before thy God, thy words were heard: and I am come for thy words’ sake. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me: and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for the vision is yet for many days. And when he had spoken unto me according to these words, I set my face toward the ground, and was dumb. And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by reason of the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I retain no strength. For how can the servant of this my lord talk with this my lord? for as for me, straightway there remained no strength in me, neither was there breath left in me. Then there touched me again one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me. And he said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong. And when he spake unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me. Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I am come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I go forth, lo, the prince of Greece shall come. But I will tell thee that which is inscribed in the writing of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me against these, but Michael your prince. And as for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to confirm and strengthen him.

Chaps. 10-12 form a section of themselves. They occupy the position naturally assigned to them by their date (10:1) and by their contents; in the latter point being a development of the prophecies contained in chaps. 8 and 9. The section may be conveniently divided into three parts: the first, an introduction (10:1; 11:1) giving details of the circumstances connected with the vision and the mode of its communication; the second (11:2-45), the revelation of leading events in the history of the great southern and northern powers, and of the Old Testament Antichrist; the third (12), the victory and deliverance of God’s people in Messianic times; accompanied by some words of comfort specially applicable to Daniel himself.

The revelation—like those in chaps. 7 and 8—is communicated to the prophet by an angel. The vision itself is not one of monster beasts or of ram and goat, but of a “man;” the description of whom is given in language which recalls the language used in the description of the Ancient of Days (7:9). B. C.

The vision of the eighth chapter is described more fully and circumstantially in the second revelation, contained in chaps. 10-12. These chapters bear the same relation to the eighth as the seventh to the second. The prophecy itself is contained in the eleventh chapter, the tenth forming the prologue, the twelfth the epilogue.

The tenth chapter is as peculiar a phenomenon in Holy Scripture as the eleventh, and these two remarkable phenomena, unique in their kind, are connected not only outwardly, but also inwardly. Their relation to each other is that of the future and the invisible. It strengthened and elevated the people of God to be permitted to view the future in a prophecy during their heavy afflictions; but it was equally strengthening and elevating for them to have their eye directed to the mighty champions and allies which they possessed in the world of spirits. As Paul excites the Ephesians to an earnest struggle against sin, by reminding them that they have to “wrestle not with flesh and blood alone, but with principalities and powers,” so Daniel was commanded to inspire his people with courage and perseverance in their struggle with the world, by showing them that principalities and powers also are leagued against the world in its opposition to God. Auberlen.

Chap. 10. This entire chapter is introductory to the fourth and last of the visions, the vision proper occupying the two remaining chapters. This introduction is very full on the points of the prophet’s overwhelming agitation, grief and physical prostration; the renewed ministries of his revealing angel to comfort and strengthen him; certain remarkable yet little known conflicts between the angel-guardians of the Jews and other angels standing in perhaps analogous relations toward other kingdoms—coupled with several intimations that the matters to be revealed relate to long and grievous wars, some of which would befall Daniel’s people in future years.

1. The third year of Cyrus is the latest known date in the life of Daniel. Chap. 1:21 states that “he continued to the first year of the reign of Cyrus;” but does not say he died then; does not deny that he lived longer. That passage may mean only that he continued so long in active public service. He is now far advanced in age, it being not far from seventy-four years since he was brought, a captive youth, from Jerusalem to Babylon. H. C.

That Daniel was still found at Babylon in the third year of Cyrus instead of returning to “the city Jerusalem, the holy mountain” (9:16), will not be felt a serious difficulty. Daniel was very old; and the journey would have been such as few at his advanced age could have undertaken with safety. He may have felt that by remaining in exile he would be of greater service, comparatively speaking, than if he revisited the land of his fathers. Kranichfeld (p. 341) has well pointed out that had the Book of Daniel been written in the Maccabean period, the author would never have made the mistake of making Daniel so (apparently) indifferent to national and patriotic considerations. B. C.

2,3. So deeply affected was he with the anticipation of these things, even before they were definitely revealed. But it should be remembered that he has had the same general subject before his mind in at least two previous visions, those of chaps. 7 and 8. In both those visions the wars to be waged by the little horn against the saints of the Most High had been the leading theme, and had manifestly impressed his mind powerfully. Now, even before the details of this vision commence, his mind again comes under the strong impression of those scenes, and the deep fountains of his grief are broken up.

4-6. The river Hiddekel is better known as the Tigris. The personage described here was his angel-interpreter in human form, and in his whole appearance, splendid, majestic, awe-inspiring. Of the two usual Hebrew words for man, the one used here is that which involves most dignity. The other suggests frailty and mortality from the dust of the earth.

7. Daniel only saw the vision. His attendants did not see it, but were impressed with a sense of something supernatural, and hence were affrighted and fled to hide themselves. Similar phenomena occurred in the conversion of Saul. He heard audible words; his attendants heard a noise, but no words. The Spirit manifests Himself to whom He will. Daniel was powerfully affected. H. C.

8. Man is no better than a leaf driven by the wind, until he has conquered his lonely duties. This makes a man—the habit of confronting great things in solitude, and chiefly the habit of conversing with God alone, and of filling the soul with His strength. For, remember, the man who is a stranger to these habits of solitude is neither his own master nor the possessor of his own house. He owns a great house, a wonderful house, and an eternal house; but it is shut up and locked, and he lives outside, “until in his solitude he join God unto himself.” J. Pulsford.

11,12. As Gabriel touched the prophet on a former occasion (chap. 9: 21), and with a similar assurance (verse 23) of his being “greatly beloved,” it has been supposed that the same angel appeared to him in this manner. It was a cheering intimation that he was heard from the first day when he devoted himself to sacred study and humiliation; and his conduct furnishes an example worthy of imitation, of diligent inquiry into the oracles of God and the mind of the Spirit. There is no part of Scripture which does not deserve and demand investigation, and he who dictated these pages will, if we seek His illuminations, guide us into the knowledge of their contents. When the angel says, “understand the words that I speak unto thee,” it implies that they would not at first be obvious, but, like all important, and especially all figurative, communications respecting futurity and the government of God, would demand patient, serious and persevering research. We ought not assuredly to rest contented with a general or superficial acquaintance with Scripture, but feel it an incumbent duty to dig deep into the mines of revelation, and we shall certainly be repaid with the rich and abundant ores of heavenly wisdom. Let us remember that the profoundest humility accompanied, in the case of Daniel, the most anxious investigation, for he “set his heart to understand,” and at the same time “chastened himself before God;” and let us also remember that it is in immediate connection with this devout and inquiring spirit that he is called “greatly beloved.” F. A. Cox.

12. Prayer brings vividly before us and it harmonizes the two worlds to which we belong—the physical world, with its unchanging and beneficent sternness; the spiritual world, with its immeasurable potencies of free activity. We, at once creatures of time and heirs of eternity, come before God as those who are made capable of such approach, and who seek to use the prerogative of our nature. We, with our imperfect estimate of righteousness, limited by outward tests, with our narrow wisdom fashioned on fragmentary experiences, with our wayward love swayed to and fro with gusts of feeling, cast ourselves upon Him who is infinite righteousness and wisdom and love. His discipline is that to which we desire to conform ourselves; His counsel is that which we in our hearts strive to serve; His compassion is that which we in our truest moments seek to reflect. So we lay all our weaknesses, all our thoughts, all our aspirations, before Him, and in that very act we know that our prayer is heard and answered, and then we can go back to our work to realize alike in failure and in success the certainty of His promise: “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall receive them.” Bp. Westcott.

13. The tenth chapter opens to us marvelous glimpses into the invisible spiritual world, which forms the background of the world’s history. Nor is this without analogy in Holy Scripture (Job 1: 7; 2: 1, etc.; Zech. 3: 1, 2; Jude 9; Rev. 12: 7, etc.); but nowhere else are the revelations so clear and comprehensive. The general truth, that the angels are ministering organs of the Divine providence and government, is frequently, and in detail, asserted and proved by Holy Scripture, but, above all, in the two Apocalyptic books, in which the curtain that hides from us the invisible world is drawn aside. The Scriptures recognize the efficacy of angels in the whole life of nature, even in ordinary and regular natural phenomena (John 5: 4; Heb. 1: 7; Rev. 7: 1-3; 14: 8; 16: 5). And not only in nature, but in history also, for which our chapter is the classical passage. We see here individual angels standing at the head of individual kingdoms of the world; we see opposed to them, at the head of the Israelitish Theocracy, Michael, one of the first princes. In alliance with him, and opposed to the spirits of the world, there is another angel, Gabriel, whose object is to promote the realization of God’s plan of salvation in the heathen world. It is natural that this angel should be sent to reveal to Daniel the fate which the powers of the world were preparing for the people of God. He lets the prophet catch a glimpse of the invisible struggles between the princes of the angels, in which it is decided who is to exert the determining influence on the worldly monarch, whether the god-opposed spirit of this world, or the good spirit, whose aim it is to further the interests of God’s kingdom. We are wont to speak in a spiritualizing way of a struggle between the good and the evil spirit in man; Holy Scripture teaches us to regard such a struggle as real and substantial. (Cf. 1 Sam. 16: 13-15; 1 K. 22: 22.) The Satanic influences of which we have more particular knowledge, through the language of Jesus and His apostles, are essentially not different from this. The liberty of human actions is not hereby taken away; for the spirits exercise no compelling influence on men’s hearts. The question about the relation of the Divine government to human liberty rather loses than gains in difficulty, when we take the element of angelic ministry into consideration.

That glorious angel who appears to Daniel tells him that for twenty-one days he struggled with the angel at the head of the Persian monarchy and that finally, by Michael’s help, he subdued him and obtained superiority over the Persian king. But he informed him also that he had to enter upon a further struggle with that Persian angel, and that this would be succeeded by one with the Grecian, which, as he lets him dimly see, would not, for all the help of Michael, be equally victorious. These events in the world of angels will be better understood, when viewed in connection with the revelations concerning the future which follow in the eleventh chapter. While the Persian kingdom endures, the spirit of the world-power, hostile to God and His people, will be restrained and subdued, so that the Persian kings will follow the good spirit and be favorable to Israel. But with the Greek kingdom there will come a change. During its dominion the people of the covenant will have to suffer much from the wars of the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ; and it is out of this kingdom that the arch-enemy shall arise. Auberlen.

Three among the archangels, or chief among the angels, Scripture designates by name, two among the elect, one among the fallen angels. The two first are called Michael and Gabriel, names which express in human language the offices which they fulfil in the creation of God. The meaning of the word Michael is, Who is like unto God? In him we behold the being who is placed at the very summit of the scale of living creatures. One thought and feeling alone absorbs him, and makes the sum of his being—that of the immeasurable distance which separates him from the Creator. Himself at the very summit of all, he feels more than all others his own nothingness. Zeal for the glory of God, whom he adores while veiling himself, is the spring of his activity, the very principle of his existence. From this feeling arises the nature of the work he has to do, which is to overthrow everything that dares to make itself equal with God, or to oppose itself to Him, paganism in particular, under all its various forms. In the Old as in the New Testament, Michael appears as the protector of Israel, and the champion of Monotheism (of which this people was the depositary), and as the vanquisher of Satan, and the destroyer of his works. This archangel thus fitly preludes the final work of the Messiah as the Judge of the world.

The meaning of the name Gabriel, the second archangel of light, is the strong man, or God’s hero. In him we see the active executor of God’s designs for the salvation of men. While Michael is occupied in overthrowing all that opposes God, Gabriel hastens the realization of His plans. It is he who appears to Daniel to announce to him the return from the captivity, and to fix the time for the still distant advent of the Messiah; it is he who, in the New Testament, announces to Mary the birth of the Saviour of the world. Gabriel is the heavenly evangelist; he preludes the work of the Messiah as the Saviour of the world.

In the end of time the relation between men and angels, first contracted at the creation, and made more intimate during their development, will be sealed by a supreme event. On the one hand, Paul says that men “will judge angels”—i.e., holy men will judge the rebel angels; on the other hand, the angels will sift the tares from the wheat among mankind, garnering up the former, and burning the latter; such is the declaration of Jesus. And after each of these two classes of beings shall have thus rendered homage to the Divine holiness in the presence of the other, the end of God’s dispensations to both will be realized. He who has determined to “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth,” will join both men and angels in one under this single Head.

That was a magnificent duet which resounded in the Church when, for the first time, the believers from among the Jews, and the converts from among the Gentiles, united their voices to sing the new song, the hymn of salvation. They both celebrated the marvellous works of God, but each in his own manner; the former praising Him above all things for His faithfulness in the fulfilment of the promises made to their fathers; the latter publishing His mercy toward the people to whom He had promised nothing, but who, whatever might be their unworthiness, had notwithstanding received all. But even more rich and sublime will be the hymn with which the elect angels and glorified men will celebrate together the work of God; the former announcing the faithfulness of the Most High which so magnificently rewards their own faithfulness; the latter, in a graver tone and more restrained accent, as becomes beings whose song is born amid tears, glorifying the grace of Him who can blot out even unfaithfulness; those setting before us men, by their example, that ladder of light upon which it is possible to ascend to God without once departing from the truth, to attain to perfection not without trial but without falling, to realize progress in pure good—thus glorifying the holiness and the truth of that God who does not permit that sin should ever appear to be necessary or even in itself useful; and, on the other side, we men responding to them, and pointing in deep humility to the dark abysses of sin into which we had thrown ourselves, but from which the hand of God has drawn us by unparalleled marvels—thus glorifying in their eyes that grace which “where sin abounded did much more abound,” and which, in thus transforming even evil into good, has accomplished the greatest of all miracles. From the midst of the two races, henceforth to form but one, there will then rise that united hymn (last word of the history of free beings), of which the song of the angels and of the shepherds on Christmas Eve was the prelude: “Praise be to God and to the Lamb who sitteth upon the throne! Alleluia!” Godet.

14. This statement is of prime importance as giving a clew to the interpretation of this prophecy. It positively affirms that this prophecy (chaps. 11 and 12) relates to the fortunes of the Jews, Daniel’s own people, in future times. How far down in the future cannot be definitely determined from this general expression, “in the latter days.” There are instances in which this phrase refers to the times of the Messiah, the Gospel age of the world—e.g., Isa. 2: 2 and Micah 4: 1. But there are also other instances in which it refers to events far less remote—e.g., Gen. 49: 1, which looks to the various fortunes of the tribes, mostly long prior to the Gospel age. Also Num. 24: 14, the outlook of Balaam, which primarily goes not beyond the overthrow of Moab by David. H. C.

19. He silenced his fears and encouraged his hopes with good and comfortable words. He said unto him, Fear not, Daniel (verse 12). And again (verse 19), O man greatly beloved, fear not, peace be unto thee; be strong, yea, be strong. Never did any tender mother quiet her child, when anything had grieved or frightened it, with more compassion and affection than the angel here quieted Daniel. Those that are beloved of God have no reason to be afraid of any evil; peace is to them; God Himself speaks peace to them; and they ought upon the warrant of that to speak peace to themselves; and that peace, that joy of the Lord, will be their strength. Will God plead against us with His great power, will He take the advantage against us of our being overcome by His terror? No, but He will put strength into us (Job 23: 6). So He did into Daniel here, when, by reason of the lustre of the vision, no strength of his own remained in him; and he acknowledges it. When he had spoken to me, I was strengthened. God by His word puts life and strength and spirit into His people; for if He says, Be strong, power goes along with the word. And now that Daniel has experienced the efficacy of God’s strengthening word and grace, he is ready for anything. “Now, let my lord speak, and I can hear it, I can bear it, and am ready to do according to it, for thou hast strengthened me.” To those that (like Daniel here) have no might, God increases strength (Isa. 40: 29). And we cannot keep up our communion with God but by strength derived from Him; but when He is pleased to put strength into us, we must make a good use of it, and say, Speak, Lord, for Thy servant hears. Let God enable us to comply with His will, and then, whatever it is, we will stand complete in it. Give what thou commandest, and then command what thou wilt. H.

20. The hostility toward God’s people which the “prince of Persia and the prince of Grecia” showed, is illustrated historically in the opposition and hindrances endured by the Jews at Jerusalem, not only during the reigns of Darius Hystaspes, Xerxes and Artaxerxes (Ezra and