Danielchapter 10
21 verses · KJVDaniel book hub →
Key verse
But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
It stands in The prince of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, verses 10 to 14.
The chapter
Chapter summary
In the third year of Cyrus, Daniel mourns three full weeks, eating no pleasant bread, and by the river Hiddekel sees a man clothed in linen, his body like beryl, his face as the appearance of lightning, his eyes as flaming torches, his arms and feet like burnished brass, the vision John reworks in Revelation 1. The men with him flee; his own strength fails; a hand touches him. Then the curtain lifts on the unseen realm: his words were heard from the first day he set his heart to understand, 'but the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days,' until Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help. Prayer answered, delivery contested.
Context
Prophecy · Daniel · Daniel overview
Where the chapter sits
Daniel 10 falls in Apocalyptic visions (chapters 7–12). The four beasts and the Son of Man (7); the ram and the goat (8); the seventy weeks (9); the great vision of the final conflict and resurrection (10–12).
The great vision begins. The three-week fast; the Person by the Tigris; Michael the prince.
Before it: Court narratives, chapters 1–6.
The whole shape of Daniel→The world behind this chapter
Daniel 10The history
By this year the first caravan of returnees had been back in Judah for a couple of seasons. They had rebuilt the altar and laid the temple foundation, and then the work stopped, jammed by local opposition and official complaints. It would stay stopped for about sixteen years.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Daniel is roughly eighty-five and did not go with them. He mourns for three full weeks, taking no rich food, no meat, no wine, and no oil for his skin. In that climate, going without oil was a visible mark of grief that anyone would notice.
The vision he receives pulls the curtain back on why prayers can seem to go unanswered. A messenger tells him his words were heard on the first day, and that he was delayed twenty-one days by "the prince of the kingdom of Persia" until Michael came to help. The empire had a power behind it that could resist a messenger from God.
That is the chapter's contribution to the whole Bible: a look at conflict in the unseen realm running parallel to politics. Daniel's fast and the delay lasted exactly the same three weeks.
What it meant to them
For readers whose national comeback had stalled at the foundation stage, this said the delay was not silence. The answer left heaven the first day; the holdup was a fight, not a refusal.
It also told them their small struggle in Judah was tied to something much bigger. What looked like a permit dispute with provincial officials had princes and archangels involved. Prayer, in this chapter, is not a wish. It is participation.
Sources cited
- Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel
- Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The structure of this chapter
People1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Three weeks of mourning, then a man clothed in linen
1. (vv. 1-3)
Daniel 10:1
“In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia - In regard to Cyrus, see the notes at Isa 41:2. In Dan 1:21, it is said that “Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus.” But it is not necessarily implied in that passage that he “died” then. It may mean only that he continued in authority, and was employed, in various ways, as a public officer, until that time. See the note at that passage.”
Daniel 10:2
“Compare Mt 9:14, "fast," answering to "mourn" (Da 10:15). 1Ti 4:3, which prove that "fasting" is not an indispensable Christian obligation; but merely an outward expression of sorrow, and separation from ordinary worldly enjoyments, in order to give one's self to prayer (Ac 13:2).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Daniel 10:3
“I ate no pleasant bread - Margin, “bread of desires.” So the Hebrew. The meaning is, that he abstained from ordinary food, and partook of that only which was coarse and disagreeable. Neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth - That is, he lived on bread or vegetables. It is not to be inferred from this that Daniel ordinarily made use of wine, for it would seem from Dan. 1: that that was not his custom. What would appear from this passage would be, that he practiced on this occasion the most rigid abstinence.”
1 more voice on this verse
Daniel 10:3
“This abstinence Daniel used in order to please God by humiliation, and not for the purpose of producing a sensibility and wisdom for his soul previous to receiving communication by dreams and visions, as if it were not rather to effect such action in an ecstatic state. This "sobriety" … will have nothing to do with exciting ecstasy but will rather serve to recommend its being wrought by God.”
Tertullian· written before 220· ON THE SOUL 48patristic
In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia: The final vision comes in the third year of Cyrus, after the decree of Ezra 1 has already let a remnant go up, and the thing revealed is called true and the time appointed long, the corridor of chapters eleven and twelve now opened. Daniel mourns three full weeks, eating no pleasant bread, no flesh or wine, using no oil, a partial fast the bench connects to the resistance already raised against the rebuilding recorded at Ezra 4, grief over a work begun and then hindered. The date, the twenty-fourth of the first month, sets the vision just after Israel's own Passover season, the feast of the exodus kept while Daniel fasts over a second exodus stalled.
2. (vv. 4-6)
Daniel 10:4
“By the side of - Hiddekel - The same as the Tigris. the great river of Assyria; as the Euphrates of Syria, and the Nile of Egypt.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Daniel 10:4
“His dress was priestly, for he is the high priest of our profession, clothed in linen, as the high priest himself was on the day of atonement, that great day; his loins were girded (in St. John's vision his paps were girded) with a golden girdle of the finest gold, that of Uphaz, for every thing about Christ is the best in its kind.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Daniel 10:4
“I was by . . . the . . . river--in waking reality, not a trance (Da 10:7); when younger, he saw the future in images, but now when old, he receives revelations from angels in common language, that is, in the apocalyptic mode. In the patriarchal period God often appeared visibly, that is, theophany.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Daniel 10:5
“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked ... - While he was engaged in devotion. What is here said would lead us to suppose that he had been occupied in deep thought and meditation, perhaps with his eyes fixed on the ground. Behold, a certain man clothed in linen - One who had the form and appearance of a man. The subsequent disclosures showed that he was an angel, but when angels have appeared on earth they have commonly assumed the human form.”
Daniel 10:6
“His body also was like the beryl,.... That is, that part of it which was not covered with the linen garment, and was seen, was like such a precious stone, said to be of an azure and sky colour, signifying he was the Lord from heaven; though, according to its name, it should be of a sea colour, greenish; and so, according to some, the beryl is.”
1 more voice on this verse
Daniel 10:6
“His body also was like the beryl - There is a very striking resemblance between the description here given and that of the Saviour as he appeared to John in Patmos, Rev 1:13-16. See the notes at that passage. It contains, however, no description of the appearance of the body. “Beryl” is “a mineral of great hardness, occurring in green and bluish-green six-sided prisms. It is identical with the emerald, except that the latter has a purer and richer color. “ - Dana, in Webster’s Dictionary.”
the great river, which is Hiddekel: By the great river Hiddekel, the Tigris, a man clothed in linen appears, girded with gold, his body like beryl, his face as lightning, his eyes as lamps of fire, his arms and feet like polished brass, his voice like a multitude, a description the bench reads as the most exalted angelic appearance in the book. The commentators divide on his identity: many, Calvin and Keil among them, read him as Gabriel continuing the angelic ministry of chapters eight and nine, while others weigh the sheer glory of the description against a lesser messenger and hold the question open. The same vocabulary of eyes like fire and feet like burning brass returns for the glorified Christ at Rev 1:14-15, a parallel the older commentators note without claiming Daniel's man in linen and John's risen Lord are one and the same figure.
3. (vv. 7-9)
Daniel 10:8
"And I," he says, "was the only one left and I fell on my face upon the earth, and behold, with the hand of a man he touched me." [Daniel 10:8] He says, "the hand of a man," not yet a man, but indicating the coming of the economy through grace.
Hippolytus of Rome· written before 235· Commentary on Daniel 4.38.4patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Daniel 10:8
“Note, the greatest and best of men cannot bear the immediate discoveries of the divine glory; no man can see it and live; it is next to death to see a glimpse of it, as Daniel here; but glorified saints see Christ as he is and can bear the sight. But, though Daniel was thus dispirited with the vision of Christ, yet he heard the voice of his words and knew what he said.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Daniel 10:9
“Yet heard I the voice of his words - What the angel said when he appeared to him Daniel has not recorded. He says Dan 10:6 that the voice of his words was “like the voice of a multitude.” It is probable that those who were with him had heard that voice, and hearing it, and being struck with the remarkable character of the vision, they had suddenly fled in alarm. Daniel heard more distinctly what he said, though it does not yet appear that he had heard anything more than the sound of his voice.”
2 more voices on this verse
Daniel 10:9
“Yet heard I the voice of his words,....”
Daniel 10:9
“Was I in a deep sleep - I fell into a swoon.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I Daniel alone saw the vision: Daniel alone sees the vision, while the men with him feel only a great quaking and flee to hide themselves, seeing nothing yet sensing everything, the bench noting how fear of an unseen power can fall on those who never perceive its cause. Daniel's own comeliness, his natural color and strength, is turned to corruption at the sight, and he falls into a deep sleep with his face toward the ground even while still hearing the voice. The vision costs him bodily before it teaches him anything, the fear and weakness described in plain physical terms the older writers read as the ordinary human cost of a true encounter with the world beyond sight.
B. The prince of Persia withstood me twenty-one daysvv. 10-14
an hand touched me: A hand sets Daniel on his knees, and he is called a man greatly beloved for the third time in these two chapters, told plainly that his words were heard from the first day he set his heart to understand and chasten himself, three weeks before the messenger could arrive. The delay is explained on the messenger's own testimony: the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood him twenty-one days, until Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help him, language the text uses of its own accord rather than anything the notes construct beyond it. The bench reads this as Scripture itself setting angelic princes over the nations without building a system from it, the older writers naming Persia's and Michael's princes plainly while modern students of the divine council, Michael Heiser among them, read the same verses as evidence of a heavenly host set over the nations, cited here only where they add to what the text already states.
Daniel 10:10
“A hand touched me - Nothing was apparent or palpable but a hand. A hand had written Belshazzar’s fate upon the wall; and the hand is frequently mentioned when the power or majesty of God is intended. Perhaps by hand God himself may be meant.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Daniel 10:11
“IT did not do Daniel any harm to know that he was greatly beloved of God, or else he would not have received that information from Heaven. Some people are always afraid that if Christian people obtain full assurance and receive a sweet sense of Divine love, they will grow proud, and be carried away with conceit. Do not have any such fear for other people and especially do not be afraid of it for yourselves!”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2256: “Daniel's Band” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Daniel 10:12
“As unusual as it sounds, the angel sent to answer Daniel’s prayers had been delayed for 21 days by the demonic resistance in the spiritual realm.”
1 more voice on this verse
Daniel 10:12
“In Daniel 10 we see Daniel's prayers fueling a heavenly battle in which Gabriel is sent with a prophetic message but is delayed until Michael, the archangel, comes and fights this Persian principality.”
Jane Hamon· Resisting the Prince Of Persia (2026)Charismatic
Daniel 10:13
“Withstood me - God suffered the wicked counsels of Cambyses to take place awhile; but Daniel by his prayers, and the angel by his power, overcame him at last: and this very thing laid a foundation of the ruin of the Persian monarchies. Michael - Michael here is commonly supposed to mean Christ.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Daniel 10:14
“Daniel must be made to know what shall befal his people in the latter days of the church, after the cessation of prophecy, and when the time drew nigh for the Messiah to appear, for yet the vision is for many days; the principal things that this vision was intended to give the church the foresight of would come to pass in the days of Antiochus, nearly 300 years after this.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
C. Strengthened to hear the scripture of truth
1. (vv. 15-17)
Daniel 10:15
“I set my face toward the ground - He was standing upright, Dan 10:11, and he now bent his body in reverence, and looked down upon the ground. And became dumb - Found himself unable to speak.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Daniel 10:15
“And when he had spoken such words unto me,....”
Daniel 10:15
“And when he had spoken such words ... - Daniel was naturally overcome by the communication which had been made to him. The manner in which the prayer was answered seems to have been entirely different from what he had expected. The presence of a heavenly being; the majesty of his appearance; the assurance that he gave that he had come to answer his prayer; and the fact that he had important revelations to make respecting the future, overcame him, and he laid his face upon the ground in silence.”
Daniel 10:16
“Like the similitude of the sons of men - I think Gabriel is here meant, who appeared to Daniel in a human form; and so in Dan 10:18, and see also Dan 9:21. Touched my lips - Before this he was unable to speak. By the vision - The vision that I have already had, and of which I have not a proper knowledge has greatly afflicted me, because I see it intimates grievous calamities to my people. See Dan 9:26.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I became dumb: Daniel is struck dumb by the words, and one like the similitude of the sons of men touches his lips before he can speak at all, his sorrows turned upon him and no strength left, an experience of prophetic revelation registered as pure exhaustion. He asks how the servant of his lord can even talk with such a lord, since breath itself seems to fail him, the bench noting the honesty of a book that never dresses up its human cost. The messenger's touch loosens his tongue rather than restoring his strength outright, a partial mercy that still leaves him needing to be touched again.
2. (vv. 18-19)
Daniel 10:18
"And he came close," he says, "and he touched me as an appearance of a man and he strengthened me and he said to me, 'Do not fear cherished man. Peace to you, be strong like a man.'" [Daniel 10:18-19] For when all the strength and glory of our life is ended, then we are empowered by the outstretched hand of Christ, who also raises us as the living from the dead and as from Hades to the resurrection of life.
Hippolytus of Rome· written before 235· Commentary on Daniel 4.39.7patristic
Daniel 10:19
“O man, greatly beloved - איש חמדות ish chamudoth, man of delights; the most amiable of men. Let my lord speak - I am now so strengthened and encouraged, that I shall be able to bear any revelation that thou mayest make.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
4 more voices on this verse
Daniel 10:19
“And said, O man, greatly beloved,.....”
Daniel 10:19
"And when he spoke with me I was strengthened and I said, 'Let my Lord speak because you have strengthened me.'" [Daniel 10:19] For when the Word makes us hope in the coming things, we are also easily able to hear his voice.
Hippolytus of Rome· written before 235· Commentary on Daniel 4.40.1-2patristic
Daniel 10:19
“And said, O man greatly beloved - See the notes at Dan 9:23. Fear not - Neither at my presence, nor at what I have to say. There was nothing in the visitation of an angel that could be a ground of dread to a good man; there was nothing in what he had to communicate that could be a reasonable cause of alarm. Be strong, yea, be strong - These are words of encouragement such as we address to those who are timid and fearful.”
Daniel 10:19
“I ANTICIPATE an objection to my preaching from this text and using it in reference to any persons in this congregation. "The words were spoken to Daniel and we are not Daniels"—that is probably the shape which the objection will take in certain minds. And my reply is, If we are not Daniels, at least we should desire to be and we should remember that there are possibilities of our being such. In many parts of Daniel's character we can, by Divine Grace, tread in his steps. Daniel is not set up far above us as one who cannot be imitated—he is an example whom it should be our joy to follow. "But," cries one, "we shall never reach to Daniel's height of Grace." I pray God we may. Under all dispensations there have been men of the class to which Daniel belongs. The antediluvian period produced an Enoch who "walked with God and was not, for God took him," and he, like Daniel, prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord. In the Patriarchal period there was an Abraham who is called "the friend of God," with whom the Lord communed in a most peculiar manner. In the later days, under the Law, was there not a David, "a man after God's own heart"? And though his character was more faulty, yet still his nearness of fellowship with God, as we read of it in the Psalms, puts him in the same category. If you tell me that all these, and many more whom I might mention, belong to the olden times and to the days of miracles, and so forth, I would remind you that nowadays the child of God, under the Gospel, has privileges which were unknown to the greatest Believers in former dispensations! Even John the Baptist, of whom it was said that none born of woman was greater than he—it is said, also, he was less than the least in the kingdom of Heaven.”
one like the appearance of a man: touches Daniel again and strengthens him, calling him a man greatly beloved a third time across these two chapters, the same title given at 9:23 and 10:11, each time preceding words Daniel needed courage to hear. Peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong is spoken twice for emphasis, and only after it does Daniel find enough strength to ask the messenger to speak. The bench reads the doubled strengthening, hand then voice, as the pattern proper to a man facing what no unaided strength can carry.
3. (vv. 20-21)
Daniel 10:20
“Knowest thou wherefore I come - So high art thou in the favor of God, that he hath sent me unto thee to give thee farther satisfaction; though I was elsewhere employed upon a most important mission, and I must speedily return to accomplish it, viz.: - To fight with the king of Persia - To remove all the scruples of Cyrus, and to excite him to do all that God designs him to do for the restoration of my people, and the rebuilding of the city and temple of Jerusalem.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Daniel 10:20
“The Grecian monarchy, though favourable to the Jews at first, as the Persian was, will yet come to be vexatious to them. Such is the state of the church-militant; when it has got clear of one enemy it has another to encounter: and such a hydra's head is that of the old serpent; when one storm has blown over it is not long before another rises.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Daniel 10:21
“But I will show thee what is noted in, the scripture of truth - The word noted here means “written, or recorded.” The scripture of truth means the true writing, and the reference is doubtless to the Divine purposes or decrees in this matter - for (a) there is no other writing where these things were then found; (b) the angel came to make known what could be known in no other way, and therefore what was not yet found in any book to which man had access; (c) this language accords with common representations in the Scriptures respecting future events.”
1 more voice on this verse
Daniel 10:21
“Christ is the church's prince; angels are not, Heb. ii. He presides in the affairs of the church and effectually provides for its good. He is said to hold with the angels, for it is he that makes them serviceable to the heirs of salvation; and, if he were not on the church's side, its case were bad.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
to fight with the prince of Persia: The messenger explains his errand and its sequel in one breath: he returns to fight the prince of Persia, and when he is gone forth the prince of Grecia shall come, the same succession the goat and horns of chapter eight already pictured in symbol, now stated as ongoing conflict behind the nations' history. What he will show Daniel is noted in the scripture of truth, a title for the heavenly record the older writers read as underscoring the certainty of what follows in chapter eleven. None holds with the messenger in these things but Michael, Daniel's own prince, closing the vision on the same partnership that ended the delay twenty-one days before.
This page carries no textual note on Daniel 10. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Daniel; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Daniel; John Calvin, Commentary on the Prophet Daniel; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm.
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