Daniel – Chapter 10
Chapter 10 Outline
I. Fasting And Prayer (10:1-9)
a. The Fast (10:1-4)
1. The Duration (10:1-3)
2. The Location (10:4)
b. The Feast (9:5-12)
1. The Man’s Apparel (10:5)
2. The Man’s Appearance (10:6)
3. The Man’s Affect (10:7-9)
II. Hindrances and Deliverances (10:10-21)
a. The Reassurance (10:10-11)
b. The Revelation (10:12-14)
c. The Reaction (10:15-19)
d. The Resolution (10:20-21)
Message
In Chapter 9, Daniel learned how God’s purposes were delayed; in Chapter 10 he will learn how our prayers are delayed. This chapter gives us an extraordinary insight into the workings of prayer and a glimpse of the spiritual forces that take sides for and against God’s people in the unseen world.
This chapter is a prelude to the astonishing visions of Chapter 11 with Chapter 12 being a postscript to that vision.
I. Fasting And Prayer (10:1-9)
Verse 1
The third year of Cyrus was 536 B.C.
Daniel had lived long enough to see Jeremiah’s prophecy fulfilled and the first group of Jewish exiles return to their land and start to rebuild the temple. Many Jews remained behind because they had become too comfortable in Babylon. Daniel was just too old to go on such a dangerous journey, if he was fifteen when he was taken to Babylon then he would be 84 or 85.
We can picture Daniel’s farewells to Zerubbabel, and to Joshua the rightful high priest. Many of the people who went must have been his friends, the children and grandchildren of those with whom he had been taken to Babylon years earlier.
I can just imagine Daniel seeing them off, embracing his friends, asking God to bless each one, promising them that his prayers would be with them. Babylon was lonelier without them, no doubt. It had been two years since they had left Ezra 1:1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia…..
a. The Fast (10:2-4)
1. The Duration (10:2-3)
Fasting in Scripture is never a prescribed ritual, neither is it a spiritual lever for forcing God’s hand. Fasting is brought about by a spiritual burden, by brokenness of heart before God because of some great need that takes away the desire for food, or that outweighs the demands of the physical with the demands of the spiritual.
So why had Daniel fasted and prayed for these three weeks? There are two possible reasons…
First Reason for the Fast
Daniel was a court official he would have heard how things had progressed with the exiles returning back home two years ago. He heard that they had arrived safely, that the temple treasures were intact, that the foundation of the temple had been laid, but that the work had been opposed and stopped. What if God would fail to fulfil the promise He made to Jeremiah.
The prophecy of the seventy years had a dual application, first to the people and then to the temple. The first Jews were deported to Babylon in 605 B.C. and the first captives returned to their land in 536 B.C. a period of seventy years.
The temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonian army, and the second temple was completed and rededicated in 515 B.C. another period of seventy years.
Don’t forget that God is never late Psalm 31:15 My times are in thy hand:
Second Reason for the Fast
He just wanted to understand more about the visions and prophecies he had already received and he wanted the Lord to reveal additional truths to him concerning the future of Israel.
One day we will realise the importance of prayer and that what happened to God’s people on earth depended a great deal on the prayers of burdened people like Daniel. Jeremiah 15:5 For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? Or who shall bemoan thee? Or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?
2. The Location (10:4)
Daniel’s fast had spanned two important Jewish feasts… Daniel fasted until the 24th Day of the First month (24th Abib) and he fasted for 3 weeks (21 days) so from the 3rd Abib until the 24th Abib.
Leviticus 23:5-6 In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’s Passover. [6] And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
Daniel’s fast spanned both the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, two feasts designed to remind Israel of their bondage in Egypt and their miraculous delivery – events that must have had a renewed significance to all the devout Jews in view of the decree of Cyrus.
John Phillips says that in Daniel’s day the “house of bondage had become the home of business,” and that most Jews preferred the onions and garlic of Babylon to the milk and honey of Canaan.
So, Daniel was sitting on the banks of the Hiddekel (the Tigris) when a divine visitor cam. Both the Tigris and Euphrates are connected with the Garden of Eden Genesis 2:14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
Just as God had come down in the cool of the day to talk and walk with unfallen Adam, so now He comes again to commune with His aged saint.
b. The Feast (9:5-12)
So who was this man? Was he an angel sent to assure Daniel that God’s heavenly armies would care for the Jewish people and see to it that God’s will was accomplished? Was it Gabriel, or was it a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ. If it is the same being who spoke to Daniel in Verses 11-15 then we have to say that it is Gabriel or another angel, because Christ would not need help from Michael to defeat an evil angel.
However, it would seem that the man who appeared to Daniel is different from the one that spoke to him. Let’s look at the description of this Man.
1. The Man’s Apparel (10:5)
Compare verse 5 with Revelation 1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
We see that He is arrayed in fine linen, the apparel of Israel’s priests, linen is also symbolic in Scripture of righteousness.
2. The Man’s Appearance (10:6)
Revelation 1:14-15 … his eyes were as a flame of fire. [15] And his feet like unto fine brass… and his voice as the sound of many waters.
The Mans body was like topaz (beryl or chrysolite), a beautiful gem, transparent. His face blazed like lightning, His eyes burned like fire,. His limbs looked like burnished brass (a symbol of judgement in the Scripture).
Many times in the Bible we see the Lord Jesus Christ appearing to His servants at special times, either to deliver a special message or to prepare them for a special ministry. He usually appeared in a fashion compatible with their circumstances or to their calling.
To Abraham, the pilgrim, Jesus came as a traveller (Genesis 18).
To Jacob the schemer, He came as a wrestler (Genesis 32)
Before Joshua attacked Jericho, Jesus came as the Captain of the Lord’s armies (Joshua 5:13-15)
To Isaiah, He revealed Himself as the King on the throne (Isaiah 6)
But to the two Jewish exiles – Daniel in Babylon and John on Patmos – Jesus appeared as the glorified King-Priest.
After seeing the Son of God, both Daniel and John received visions of future events that involved the people of God, events that would be difficult to accept and understand.
3. The Man’s Affect (10:7-9)
Here is another reason why I believe this to be Christ and not Gabriel. Daniel had seen Gabriel before and did not bow down and worship him but here Daniel is overcome. Just as Isaiah did when he saw the Lord high and lifted up he cried, “Woe is me! For I am … a man … unclean” (Isaiah 6:5).
Ezekiel, too, when he saw the terrible chariot of cherubim and became suddenly aware of God’s throne and the likeness as the appearance of a man above it, fell on his face (Ezekiel 1:26-28).
Saul of Tarsus, when he saw the Lord fell to earth and was blinded (Acts 9:3-4) and John when he saw the ascended Lord fell at his feet as dead (Revelation 1:13-17)
Daniel’s comeliness was turned into corruption. He saw himself as a man unclean in the presence of holiness before which none could stand. Daniel was a good man, a godly man a man greatly beloved, but who can stand in the presence of God…. How true, that when we see Him in all His glory every will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord.
We have absolutely no idea of what our Saviour is like – we see so many pictures of this handsome man – but how wrong people are – just to look upon Him in this glorified state sends you not to your knees but to your face – prostrate on the floor before Him.
II. Hindrances and Deliverances (10:10-21)
a. The Reassurance (10:10-11)
b. The Revelation (10:12-14)
c. The Reaction (10:15-19)
d. The Resolution (10:20-21)
