While he was saying this to me, I bowed with my face toward the ground and was speechless. 16 Then one who looked like a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and began to speak. I said to the one standing before me, “I am overcome with anguish because of the vision, my lord, and I am helpless. 17 How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone and I can hardly breathe.”
18 Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength. 19 “Do not be afraid, O man highly esteemed,” he said. “Peace! Be strong now; be strong.”
When he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Speak, my lord, since you have given me strength.”
20 So he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? Soon I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go, the prince of Greece will come; 21 but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth. (No one supports me against them except Michael your prince. 1 And in the first year of Darius the Mede, I took my stand to support and protect him.)
As the heavenly spokesman explained to Daniel the judgments that would come upon God’s people in the years ahead, Daniel was again overcome. He bowed with his face to the ground. Modesty—and perhaps also his weakened condition—kept him from raising his eyes to the heavenly speaker. In addition, he was speechless. The voice that once filled kings with awe was now strangely silent. Daniel lacked even the ability to say what was troubling him.
The visitor again touched Daniel, this time on his lips, and Daniel was able to put into words the agony he was going through. He told the Angel, “I know you have come to bring me a vision and revelation of things to come. But in my present condition, I’m not able to receive it. All I can see and feel is my weakness. My strength is gone, and I can hardly breathe.”
And so for the third time, the heavenly messenger, “who looked like a man,” came to Daniel and touched him. He again reminded Daniel that Daniel was beloved of God. He assured Daniel of God’s good purpose for the visit and urged him not to be afraid. Only then was Daniel ready to receive the vision, which will be reported in detail in chapter 11. One may wonder why this account supplies so much detail about the Angel’s approaching Daniel three times and strengthening him. It may well be a reminder that the revelation about to be given to Daniel is uncommonly important. It is also a reminder of God’s love and concern for his people.
An entire chapter has now been devoted to a description of some of the behind-the-scenes movements in history. In a way this was a disturbing message for Daniel to hear. He knew things had not been going well for his fellow Jews in their homeland. Although they had been freed from exile, their enemies were making a settled existence impossible for them. And now Daniel learned that Satan’s agent, working through the Persian government, was masterminding all of this.
And yet there was no reason for Daniel to feel discouraged. The Angel informed Daniel that he would return to fight against the evil prince of Persia, checking the power of evil that was making life so miserable for the returned exiles.
As soon as the conflict was over, however, another would take its place. When the Persian Empire fell before the Greek armies of Alexander the Great, Satan assigned another of his demonic agents (“the prince of Greece”) to hinder God’s work, this time through the Greek government. The Angel would have to oppose this evil prince too. His helper in this struggle would be the archangel Michael, the particular champion of God’s people. It was the other way around “in the first year of Darius the Mede.” When Michael encountered difficulty, perhaps in influencing the Persian leaders to free the exiles, the Angel came to his help and made sure that God’s design for his people was carried out.
Daniel’s heavenly visitor had spoken at length about evil angels and good angels and their respective roles in world affairs. Yet that was not the chief reason he had appeared to Daniel. He had a more important revelation to give Daniel, and in the following chapter he proceeds to do that. He says that the vision of what lay in the future was written in the “Book of Truth.” Although the events revealed to Daniel had not yet taken place, they were a matter of record as far as God was concerned.
These are matters of which God’s book alone bears record. Since God alone knows the future, he alone has reliable records of what the future will bring. It is comforting for the Christian to know that God foresees and controls the life and activities of his enemies as well as of his own children. The psalmist expressed his confidence this way:
All the days ordained for me are written in your book before one of them came to be
(Psalm 139:16).
Chapter 10 tells a strange story, a story not duplicated elsewhere in the Scriptures. Saint Paul has warned us, “Our struggle [as Christians] is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Daniel’s heavenly visitor gave Daniel and us a glimpse behind the scenes of history to see the hidden forces—angelic and demonic—that struggle to control the course of history.
How thankful we can be that God has hosts of angels— ten thousand times ten thousand. He uses them to carry out his good and gracious will. We rejoice to sing with the Danish poet Hans Brorson:
I walk with angels all the way; They shield me and befriend me.
All Satan’s power is held at bay When heavenly hosts attend me.