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About Jesus Steve Sweetman This Section - Chapter 10 Daniel’s Vision Of A Man (ch. 10:1-21) There are a couple of things to note before we delve into chapter 10. One thing to note is scientific. Science tells us that only four to five percent of all matter is visible to human beings. Therefore, up to ninety five percent of all matter cannot be seen by man. This means that there is much more to the physical matter than what we see or experience. As a matter of fact quantum physicists are now discovering all sorts of sub-at0mic matter in this non-visible space. I’ve always said that the spiritual world around us is just a real, if not more real, than our material world. This invisible world might well be in the ninety five percent of unseen space. This chapter, as well as some of the earlier chapters, deals with angels and the universe in which they exist.
Both the Greek and Hebrew word that is translated as "angel" in the Bible means "a messenger." Therefore in English, when we think of angels, they are a messenger, either sent from God or the devil. Most being in the Bible that are called angels are from God. That being said, angels are ministering spirits according to Hebrews 1:14. Angels can, and often do, take on the form of a human that makes them visible to humans. Also, from I Corinthians 15 we see that angels have some type of celestial body that differs from ours. It is hard to say what angels really look like in their most pure form. The question can be asked, "When we see angels appear as men, is that how they really look, or do they just look like that so we can see them?" I don't think angels really look like the way they appear to us, but I can't say for sure. I've never seen an angel.
In this chapter Daniel is very old. He could well be in his early nineties.
In
verse 1 we see that the events of this chapter took place in the third year
of Cyrus, king of
In verse 2 we see that Daniel had yet another vision, this time about a great war.
In verses 2 and 3 we see Daniel was in the midst of a three week fast. This fast wasn’t a total fast. In the Bible, fasting does not necessarily equate to not eating any food. A fast could be total denial of food to partial denial of food. Here in Daniel’s case, he did not eat any choice food, meat or wine. This means that he did eat some food, but not the good food. He also did not put any lotion on his body. There’s a good chance that Daniel prayed in sack-clothe and ashes, as was the custom back then. At we know that this fast consisted of not cleansing himself and not using any type of deodorant. This is all part and parcel of humbling one’s self when coming to the Lord in a fast. Fating in the Old Testament was mainly a demonstration of repentance. The shabbier you looked, the more your shabbiness showed true repentance, or, at least that was the thinking.
In
verses 4 to 6 we see Daniel standing on the banks of the
Verse 7 should remind you of Acts 9 when the apostle Paul saw the light and heard the voice of Jesus. He was afraid and so was Daniel. It is a terrifying thing to see and angel no matter whom you are. Again, I've never seen an angel, but I believe it would be a scary thing. We see the same with John in the book of Revelation. John fell as if he were dead. That's how terrifying seeing an angel was to him.
In verses 8 through 9 we see that Daniel was so overwhelmed that he fell on his face into a deep sleep. Then in verse 10 the hand of the angel touches Daniel. He gets up to his knees while his body trembles and listens to the angel. The angel told Daniel to stand up and to listen to him very carefully. Daniel did as the angel told him.
In verse 12 the angel tells Daniel that since the first day that Daniel put himself to gain understanding and humble himself in fasting; he had left heaven in answer to Daniel's prayers. One thing we note here is that part of the reason, if not the whole reason, why Daniel fasted was to gain understanding. We often think fasting is to pray for God to answer certain prayers, yet in this case Daniel wanted understanding. I think that's worth praying for.
We should also note that it took twenty one earth days for this angel to actually get to Daniel, which is amazing in itself, knowing that angels seem to be able to just appear before our eyes. In verse 13 we see the reason why it took the angel twenty one days to get to Daniel. This sheds lots of light on the invisible spiritual world around us.
The
angel told Daniel that the "prince of the
This verse also tells us that there are fights in the heavenly realm. As a matter of fact, I believe the real battles of the universe don't take place here on earth but in the angelic realm.
Who
is this prince of the
This tells us something else about the spirit world. At least in this case, and we see it in the next verse as well, Persia had a demon working behind the scenes calling the shots. Cyrus may well have been the earthly king of Persia, but without him knowing, there was a demon influencing him and his nation.
The question can then be asked, "Do all nations have demonic forces influencing them?" The answer is probably "yes." In the beginning God told Adam to subdue the earth. This simply means that God put Adam in charge of this planet. Man was given the responsibility over the kingdoms of the earth, yet when Adam gave into satan’s temptation, he gave this responsibility over to satan. This is why satan came to Jesus in the great temptation and showed him the kingdoms of the world and said if Jesus would worship him, he’d give Jesus all these nations of the world. Of course Jesus didn’t worship satan because He knew that He’d inherit these kingdoms in the long run anyway, which He will at the Battle of Armageddon. For this reason Jesus calls satan the "prince of this world".
This angel finally gets to Daniel and he tells Daniel that this vision concerns his people, the Jews. We know for certain that this vision does not concern Gentiles, as the first two visions of Daniel did.
Once again, in verse 15 we see the strength leaving Daniel’s body. He bows and becomes speechless.
In verse 16 this angel touches the lips of Daniel so he can speak. Daniel calls this angel "lord," thus is one reason why some people think this is Jesus. Lord was most likely a title of distinction, especially since Daniel is so overwhelmed. Part of Daniel being so overwhelmed is that he is full of anguish over the vision he has seen. He tells the angel that he’s pretty well out of strength. True prophets are often pretty well out of strength at times because they so overwhelmed by the burden of the Lord.
In verse 18 to 20 the angel touches Daniel and gives him the strength that he needs. Daniel then tells the angel to go ahead and speak to him the things he needs to hear.
In
verse 20 the angel asks Daniel if he knows why he has come to speak to him.
It is fairly clear that Daniel probably knows that the angel will
help explain the vision. Before
the angel does he tells Daniel that he will return to heaven but on his way
he’ll have to fight against this prince of the
We also learn here that the angelic world is in a battle. This is a real battle. Battles between men and nations on earth will always be, but they pale in relation to the spiritual battles that take place in the spiritual universe. The truth of the matter is that our earthly battles won’t end until these heavenly battles end. The reason why we have the earthly battles is because of these heavenly battles. We are part of the battle ground for the battle between the angels. That’s basically why Jesus, in Matthew 24, says that we’ll always have wars, right up to the end of this age.
We now come back to how I opened this chapter. What we see in the material world around us is only five percent of real matter. The other ninety five percent is what scientists call "dark matter." It’s dark because we can’t see it. I believe this dark matter is the angelic or spiritual world. There’s more to the spiritual world than there is to the material world in which we live. We are just a small part of God's creation, yet being so small, we are greatly loved by Him.
The angel says one last thing to Daniel in this chapter and that is he was going to tell Daniel what was in the Book of Truth. This Book of Truth stands beside the Book of Life and the Books that have all our activities recorded in. Whether it’s literal or a figurative book, God only knows. He has books that contain certain knowledge. This Book of Truth was now going to be opened to Daniel so he could understand. This book contains the history of man, both past and future. The opening of this book takes place in the next chapter when the angel sets out detailed history of the next two hundred (200) or so years beyond Daniel’s time that concludes with the anti-Christ appearing in history.
The
angel told Daniel that only Michael supported him in his battle with the
prince of the
We
see a couple of interesting truths in this last verse.
First of all we see that Michael is called "your prince".
This is in connection with the prince of
The other point that is seen in this last verse is that this angel that spoke with Daniel took his stand with Darius the king. This suggests that this good angel who was speaking with Daniel had a roll in influencing and supporting Darius the king. This might give credence to the idea that God has special angels over all nations.
We need to note that scholars are somewhat divided to whom Darius is. Some say he is actually Cyrus. Darius is an obscure king in world history. Nevertheless, this angel was influencing Darius for the good of Israel.
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