Daniel 10 Commentary
Daniel is waiting upon the LORD in prayer over Jerusalem. The LORD has answered, and Jerusalem must be resettled or restored to some extent. But then there are these delays that we are familiar with from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Could the prince of Persia be operating behind the formidable opposition that the returning Israelites face?
Yes, there are delays, but eventually, both the wall and the temple are built. Now we can tell who the real hero is behind the victory that the Jews enjoy. These milestone events are strong suspects for Daniel’s hopes and expectations, but only in part. The LORD answers Daniel, but the real restoration lies deep in Daniel’s future.
We can be delayed; the LORD cannot be delayed. We can run out of time; the LORD cannot run out of time. We appreciate the use of human language to describe matters that relate to us. We use phrases like, ‘the LORD is mighty in battle’, even when we know the Creator God cannot get into a war with the created. This is human language to describe the LORD’s intervention in our human struggles.
We were introduced to the serpent in the Book of Genesis. He influenced the course of history. But the material leading up to Ezekiel and Daniel’s time doesn’t say much about this creature. However, we have encountered angelic beings that often looked like normal human beings and spoke human language. We have also encountered special manifestations of divinity, as in the case of the Commander of the Armies of the LORD in Joshua chapter 5.
The Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece may be references to the ‘god of the world’. Unlike the ‘no gods’ of wood and iron, these are active event-changing beings who seek to delay the progress of the saint. The apostle Paul called them “powers of this dark age” and “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. It is the same space: no gods of wood and iron like Baal or actual demonic gods like the Prince of Persia. They all combine to lead the saint away from the true worship of the Creator God.
One easy pick from this chapter is that Daniel is left to fight his own battle: he humbles himself before the Sovereign LORD. He is an upright man. Let Gabriel and Michael fight their own battles. The battles Daniel fights require weapons of truth, faith, and the like, as listed in Ephesians.
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