God’s Word for You
Daniel 10:1-3 The message
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, December 28, 2025
Chapter 10 begins the final vision of the book (chapter 10-12). Luther calls it the prologue to the eleventh chapter. We meet another angel, a very powerful angel who is more radiant than Gabriel and appears to be more powerful than Michael. We learn things about angels here and the unseen battles that they fight, more than in any other chapter of the Bible. As before, the vision makes Daniel sick and weak, but he is strengthened by the words of the angel.
10:1 In the third year of King Cyrus of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. The message was true, and it concerned a great war. He understood the message, having received understanding in the vision. 2 At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. 3 I ate no rich food, no meat or wine entered my mouth, and I did not anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.
In the first sentence, three details are interwoven in such a way that the unity of the book is established, and we are reminded of the details of the first chapter. To begin with, it is the third year of King Cyrus, which would be 537 BC, but more importantly, was just about the time that some of the exiles of Judah returned to Israel (Cyrus had given the order in his first year, 539, 2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-2). Those exiles had been brought to Babylon first with Daniel himself seventy years before (Daniel 1:1-6).
Second, Cyrus himself was first named in Daniel 1:21. And a third detail is that Daniel’s Babylonian name, Belteshazzar, was still with him after all these years.
A few details:
1, The first month of the year (Nisan) included a festival commemorating the release from Egypt (Passover). It was a time of feasting, and Daniel did not join in the full celebration or meal at this time. He was mourning for three whole weeks, and it’s reasonable to assume that this was because he had news of the first group of just about 60,000 returning exiles, who encountered resistance when they arrived.
2, The vegetable diet was similar to the one that Daniel had restricted himself to when he was first brought into the king’s service, but here he is clearly limiting himself and abstaining from rich food, and so we can say that he did not keep himself on the restricted diet throughout his lifetime of service in Babylon.
3, Anointing with oil, when this was done to oneself (not a ceremony) was a sign of rejoicing and celebration: “the oil of joy” (Psalm 45:7). Solomon urges men to anoint themselves with oil and enjoy life with their wives (Ecclesiastes 9:8-9), showing that this was an ordinary, everyday kind of anointing. Daniel, mourning for three weeks, avoided oil and rich food to focus on his repentant thoughts and (probably) concern about the exiles.
This passage therefore contains both law and gospel, although neither of these are very specific yet. Still, they reveal that more law and more gospel are to be expected, and not to be too overburdened by the law, nor ignore the law altogether on account of the approach of the gospel. The law here is found in two things: the prophet’s grief, and the warning about the approaching war. While we mostly speculate about Daniel’s grief, the announcement about the war makes us listen more carefully to what will be told to us. The gospel will come with the message, but this time Daniel received understanding along with the vision.
God’s holy law always shows us our sins in some way, revealing our need for the gospel of forgiveness. And together with the gospel, our heavenly Father keeps our hearts and minds focused on his word. We deserve only his wrath, but through Christ we have his forgiveness. For at the end of chapter 9 (9:26) we learned that Christ, the Messiah, would be cut off and put to death to atone for our sins. And while this brings shame to many, it brings joy to all who understand that he did this out of love, to bring us home to be with him forever in heaven.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.