When Michael became the Guardian Angel of Israel

Daniel 10:19-21

What will happen in the future? When will the arc of justice bend towards the good and redemption from evil empires finally arrive?

Chapter 10 begins the final segments of the Book of Daniel, with startling visions of the end of time, giving the exiled Judeans a glimmer of hope towards a better future - however long it will take.

We too need some hopeful visions of better futures - right now.

Will the good guys + better days overcome these painful times of tyrants? These ancient/timely questions, asked with despair by pained people all over the world, including Jews throughout diasporas + exiles, have also produced some of the most magnificent visions and apocalyptic prophecies, Sci-Fi novels and blockbuster movies with detailed and sometimes deranged recipes for whatever will happen when this age ends and another begins. .

These futuristic visions often include angels and archangels in cosmic battles with the forces of evil. Some of these ideas emerge from today’s chapter in which a few celestial forces are seen by Daniel and specifically named.

That’s unusual. Angels are not often named in the Bible - but Daniel’s got his own style. Whoever wrote this book, likely in the 2nd Century BCE is already influenced by Greco-Syrian culture in which angelogy was popular.

We’ve already encountered the archangel Gabriel in a previous chapter. Today he is likely back, though not directly named, as the mysterious ‘man with cloaks’ - and with him comes a reference to Michael, the archangel identified as the guardian angel and protector of the Jewish nation.

This notion, suggested in these pages of Daniel for the first time, will evolve into a much more complex set of narratives in subsequent generations and mystical imaginations in which Michael is our celestial protector.

This is where myth and history blend.

So far, the contents of the Book of Daniel have been consistent with the era in which he had placed himself; namely, the final years of the Babylonian Empire and the transition to the subsequent empire of Persia and Medea. Even the appearance of several words of Greek origin was explicable, as the musical instruments they designate may have been imported from Greece.

Here, however, we encounter a clear reference to something inconsistent with Daniel’s ostensible time period.

In yet another vision that opens this chapter, dated in “the third year of King Cyrus of Persia , which would be c.560 BCE, Daniel described a three-weeks fast that he undertakes in order to decipher the diaspora’s future.

At the end of this meditative time, on the 24th day of the month of Nissan, (which, by the way, was yesterday!) while standing on the banks of the Euphartes river, he sees a terrifying and luminous vision. The other people there feel something and flee in terror - but only Daniel sees what’s in front of him -- ‘the man in cloaks’, presumably Gabriel, who is “dressed in linen, his loins girt in fine gold. His body was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and legs had the color of burnished bronze”

The angel announces that he has come with a mission:

וּבָאתִי לַהֲבִינְךָ אֵת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָה לְעַמְּךָ בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים כִּי־עוֹד חָזוֹן לַיָּמִים׃

So I have come to make you understand what is to befall your people in the days to come, for there is yet a vision for those days.”

Daniel 10:14

The angel goes on to give Daniel words of comfort and some specific and startling information:

וַיֹּאמֶר אַל־תִּירָא אִישׁ־חֲמֻדוֹת שָׁלוֹם לָךְ חֲזַק וַחֲזָק וּכְדַבְּרוֹ עִמִּי הִתְחַזַּקְתִּי וָאֹמְרָה יְדַבֵּר אֲדֹנִי כִּי חִזַּקְתָּנִי׃ וַיֹּאמֶר הֲיָדַעְתָּ לָמָּה־בָּאתִי אֵלֶיךָ וְעַתָּה אָשׁוּב לְהִלָּחֵם עִם־שַׂר פָּרָס וַאֲנִי יוֹצֵא וְהִנֵּה שַׂר־יָוָן בָּא׃

אֲבָל אַגִּיד לְךָ אֶת־הָרָשׁוּם בִּכְתָב אֱמֶת וְאֵין אֶחָד מִתְחַזֵּק עִמִּי עַל־אֵלֶּה כִּי אִם־מִיכָאֵל שַׂרְכֶם׃

He said, “Have no fear, precious one, all will be well with you; be strong, be strong!” As he spoke with me, I was strengthened, and said, “Speak on, my lord, for you have strengthened me!”

He said, “Do you know why I have come to you? Now I must go back to fight the prince of Persia. When I go off, the prince of Greece will come in.

No one is helping me against them except your prince, Michael. However, I will tell you what is recorded in the book of truth.

Daniel 10:19-21

What is the book of truth? Is it a historical record?

What’s being revealed here is that Greece will defeat Persia - which is correct - however, those victories occurred 60-80 years later that the timestamp given to this time by Daniel. The battle of Marathon was in 490 BCE and Thermopylae in 480, raising, again, the suspicion that the Book of Daniel is actually a product of the later Hellenistic era. This specific mention of the ‘Prince of Greece’ is the first time that this new political reality is named.

What are these celestial princes anyway?

Along with the “prince” of Persia and the “prince” of Greece, Daniel referred to Michael, whom the angel refers to as the “prince” of the Jewish nation . This is consistent with what’s depicted in later talmudic and mystical angelology that assigned various supervisory tasks to specific angels, including supervising specific nations. Michael, it seems, is the one designated to the Jews.

Midrash Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer claims that “Michael rises up to defend Israel in times of trouble, and his voice shakes the heavens.” Yet in another text, Midrash VaYikra Rabba, this support is conditional:

"When Israel does the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, Michael emerges as the high priest above, and offers their souls before Him."

Whenever Daniel was written and whatever challenging political and religious context his authors dealt with, the emergence of angels with specific names and roles already hints at a new era of the imagination -- motivated by crisis.

Prof. Rachel Elior, a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism, has extensively explored how angelic figures, particularly Michael, emerge in Jewish thought as responses to collective trauma and destruction. In her seminal work, Temple and Chariot, Priests and Angels, Elior discusses how the destruction of the Second Temple led to the development of mystical traditions that envisioned a celestial counterpart to the earthly Temple. She writes that

“These constructs of the religious imagination arose as a spiritual response to the sense of loss, desolation, and deprivation caused by the catastrophic events of contemporary history.”

Daniel’s visions portray apocalyptic visions, with celestial beings fighting on the people’s behalf, cryptic codes and calculations that will keep many up through many nights trying to decipher them. At some point, perhaps to help these seekers find some rest, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, along with a few others, made it into the Jewish bedtime prayer, surrounding each sleeper with angelic blessings for sound sleep, good dreams, and protection, all around. As history continues to unravel and so many doubts and sorrows still keep us up at night -- perhaps it’s not a bad idea to be calling all angels, activating ancient hopes and symbols to help us cope, and hope, and make it through another era, night by night?

Image: Natalia Goncharova, Archangel Michael, 1962

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