Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. 13 But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. 14 Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”
Daniel had regained his composure sufficiently to be able to receive the information about the future that the heavenly visitor had come to bring him (the information recorded in chapters 11 and 12). God had heard Daniel’s anguished prayer for his people and resolved immediately to answer it. But first the Angel wanted Daniel to know about a supernatural struggle that was taking place.
“The prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.” With these words Daniel’s visitor gave him a glimpse into a world normally hidden from human eyes, the spirit world where the evil forces of “the prince of this world” (John 12:31) do battle with God’s good angels. We learn, first of all, that Satan had assigned an underling to work in the Persian government. This “prince of the Persian kingdom” must refer to an evil angel, whose assignment was to hinder God’s will in and through the Persian government.
We know that God had used the Persian government to benefit his people, freeing them from exile in Babylon. On the other hand, Satan was working through his agent to undermine those royal decrees. It is comforting to learn that Satan’s attempt to use the Persian government to overturn God’s good plan ended in failure when Michael came to help the Angel who spoke to Daniel. Michael, the only archangel named in the Scripture, helped to defeat Satan’s evil plan.
This must have been a reassuring message for Daniel, who was concerned because the plan for rebuilding Jerusalem was being delayed. For a while the satanic agent had apparently been successful in throwing roadblocks in the way of the returned exiles. But the angels of God had been at work countering that evil influence. A major conflict had been waged among supernatural powers concerning Israel’s welfare. The struggle was not over; the closing verses of this chapter speak of another difficult time just ahead when Satan’s agent would work through the Greek Empire to trouble God’s people.
The Angel’s appearance served to assure Daniel that although powerful evil forces were at work against God’s people, still more powerful agents of good were at work opposing the evil and dooming it to failure. There was also another purpose for the Angel’s appearance to Daniel. “I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future.”
When Old Testament prophets use the expression here translated as “the future,” the term always includes not only the immediate future but the distant future, reaching out even to the time of the Messiah and beyond. It is a long-range view of history that Daniel will be permitted to see. “For the vision concerns a time yet to come.”