Apologies for being a day late with this one, but on with the study we go into Daniel 10. This passage joins Daniel while he is in mourning because he had had a vision of a great war. We are not told whether this is the war written about in Chapter 9 - in fact it could be the vision outlined in Daniel 11 and 12. Regardless of that, whatever the vision was, it troubled Daniel greatly.

In fact, it troubled Daniel so much that he took a few men and mourned for three weeks, fasted nice foods and did not annoint himself with lotion. Sometime near the end of Daniel’s fast, a man appears to him which leaves Daniel quivering and helpless. The man is described as:

a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. 6 His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.

The bible does not indicate who this person is, and while the first reading of the description makes me think that this could in fact be the Son of God, it is my conclusion that this is another angel sent to Daniel for reasons I’ll come on to later. However, I could be wrong on that one…

Daniel goes a bit giddy at this point and falls onto the ground into a deep sleep. The man strengthens Daniel and asks him to stand for he is about to say something to him. The man reminds Daniel once again that he is highly esteemed and that the reason he has come is because Daniel “set his mind to gain understanding and humble youself before God”.

Then the man says something quite interesting - he indicates that he was “resisted by the prince of the Persian kingdom” and detained there for 21 days (3 weeks). My study notes tell me that this probably refers to a demon exercising influence over the Persian kingdom in the interests of Satan - although other commentaries suggest that he may be directly referring to Cambyses (or an agent of Satan working through Cambyses), the son of Cyrus. Whilst the man was detained for a time, he was eventually helped by the archangel Michael so that he could come and talk to Daniel.

If any of you have read any of Frank Peretti’s books (such as This Present Darkness) then this will sound quite familiar to you as Peretti writes fictional stories but with the slant of seeing them with the actions of angels and demons in mind. The bible tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and it leads me to my conclusion that this man was an angel of heaven - as I find it hard to believe that the Son of God could be held by a prince of Satan and needed help to be released from his power.

Another interesting thing that strikes me is that the man was held by the prince of Persia for 21 days. The man indicates in v12 that he is coming in response to Daniels anguish but could not come instantly because of the resistence from the prince of Persia. So often when I pray and don’t see their fruits instantly I all too often fall into the trap of thinking that my prayers have fallen on Gods ‘bad ear’ and get discouraged. However, in this case the man was coming to answer Daniel - but the heavenly struggle prevented it happening straight away. This comes as an encouragement to me to keep praying for the things which I am not seeing immediate results - for the prayers I may be praying could be affecting the unseen actions of the heavenly armies even though I see no eartly result. As was the case here, the prayers I am praying now may have already been answered (or are being answered) and I may just not be seeing it right now.

The man then proceeds to give Daniel strength as he seems to be slightly lacking in that department before starting to unfold to him the reason why he came to speak to him. That signals the end of this chapter so we will leave it there for now and let the comments begin… :)