Have you ever wondered why certain national leaders have taken such wicked or cruel actions? Think about the Egyptian pharaohs during Moses’ time, Jezabel, Manasseh, Stalin, and Hitler. Each of them chose to kill many people and seemingly with no good explanation for their actions. What caused them to go to such extreme steps?

Daniel 10 gives insight into what is happening in the spiritual realm. Angels are fighting other angels as they seek to influence nations in either a good or bad direction. The following quotation is a good summary of what is happening.

“Although the entire subject of the unseen struggle between the holy angels and the fallen angels is not clearly revealed in the Scriptures, from the rare glimpses which are afforded, as in this instance, it is plain that behind the political and social conditions of the world there is angelic influence—good on the part of the holy angels, evil on the part of the angels under satanic control. This is the struggle to which Paul referred in Ephesians 6:10-18.”

John Walvoord in Daniel The Key to Prophetic Revelation, Chicago: Moody, 1971, 247.