Catholic Commentary
Superscription: The Setting and Nature of the Revelation
1In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the message was true, even a great warfare. He understood the message, and had understanding of the vision.
Daniel 10:1 records that Daniel received a revelation in the third year of Cyrus of Persia, which he fully understood and recognized as true despite its description as involving great spiritual warfare. The verse establishes the historical reliability of the prophecy while emphasizing Daniel's complete comprehension of the divine disclosure about cosmic conflict between angelic forces.
Daniel receives a revelation so certain that God certifies it true before it's even spoken—because what follows is not political prediction but disclosure of the cosmic war raging behind history.
"He understood the revelation, and had understanding of the vision" This final clause is striking in its affirmation of Daniel's comprehension. In contrast to other biblical seers — such as Daniel himself in earlier visions (cf. 8:27: "I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it") — here he is explicitly said to have understood. This understanding is not natural intelligence but the fruit of prayer, fasting, and mourning described in the verses that follow (10:2–3). The superscription thus announces a crowning privilege: Daniel receives not only revelation but the grace of understanding it fully. The Catechism (§101–102) affirms that Scripture's truths require not only historical reading but an illumined understanding given by the Holy Spirit — precisely what Daniel models here.
From a Catholic perspective, Daniel 10:1 is theologically rich on several interconnected levels.
The Reality of Revelation. Catholic doctrine insists that divine revelation is a real act of God communicating himself and his purposes to humanity (see Dei Verbum §2–6). The verse's careful certification — "the revelation was true" — anticipates what Vatican II teaches: revelation is not merely a set of propositions but God's self-disclosure into human history. Daniel's experience is a type of the fullness of revelation in Christ (Hebrews 1:1–2), through whom all prior prophetic disclosure reaches its goal.
Spiritual Warfare as Theological Reality. The phrase "great warfare" opens what becomes in chapters 10–12 the most explicit Old Testament disclosure of angelic and demonic conflict in history. The Catechism (§328–336, §391–395) affirms that angels are real, personal spiritual beings who serve God and oppose evil, and that spiritual warfare is not metaphor but ontological fact. St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (I, Q. 113–114) systematically treats angels as providential agents governing nations — precisely what Daniel 10 will reveal.
Understanding as Gift. That Daniel "had understanding" points to what the Church calls the sensus fidei enlightened by grace. St. John Chrysostom observed that the prophets received not only the vision but its meaning — a double gift unavailable without holiness of life. This anticipates the Catholic teaching that true interpretation of Scripture requires the Holy Spirit (CCC §111–119), just as Daniel's understanding required the spiritual discipline that precedes chapter 10.
Daniel's Dual Name and the Church's Mission. The Church, like Daniel, lives under two names — she is the Body of Christ yet bears the wounds and marks of historical exile in the world. Pope Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth) drew on the prophetic figures of the Old Testament to illustrate how the remnant of Israel prefigures the Church as a witnessing minority in a culture that would reshape her identity.
Contemporary Catholics live in a cultural situation strikingly analogous to Daniel's: like him, we bear a divine name and identity (received in Baptism) while a surrounding culture imposes its own naming — its own account of who we are, what we should value, and how we should live. The world offers every Catholic a "Belteshazzar" — a functional identity stripped of its theocentric meaning.
Daniel 10:1 challenges us concretely: Do I take seriously the reality of spiritual warfare behind the surface of daily life and world events? The CCC (§2725) warns that prayer meets the "battle of prayer" — real opposition. The Catholic who prays, fasts, and mourns over sin (as Daniel does in 10:2–3) is not engaging in private piety disconnected from history; he or she is participating in the cosmic conflict this verse announces.
Practically, this verse calls Catholics to two habits: first, rootedness in real historical faith — not a vague spirituality but the faith of a specific people in a specific covenant, dated and concrete; and second, expectation of understanding — approaching Scripture, the Liturgy of the Word, and spiritual direction not as information-gathering but as occasions of genuine divine disclosure, praying for the same gift of understanding granted to Daniel.
Commentary
"In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia" The verse opens with a precise historical anchor: the third year of Cyrus (approximately 536–535 BC). Cyrus the Great had already issued his famous edict permitting the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland (Ezra 1:1–4), yet Daniel remains in Babylon — or possibly in the Persian capital — still serving in the royal administration. This chronological specificity is characteristic of the book of Daniel (cf. 1:1; 7:1; 8:1; 9:1), and it functions both historically and theologically: it declares that God's word breaks into real, datable human history, not into myth or timeless abstraction. The Catholic tradition, following St. Jerome's monumental Commentary on Daniel, takes the historical dating seriously as establishing the veracity of the prophetic claim. Jerome notes that Daniel's continued presence among the Gentile rulers, even after liberation was possible, marks him as a figure of providential placement — remaining where God needed him.
"A revelation was revealed to Daniel" The Hebrew underlying this phrase (davar niglah, "a word/matter was revealed") carries the sense of something hidden being unveiled — a apocalypsis in the Greek sense, which the Septuagint captures with logos apekalyphthē. This is not Daniel receiving a passing inspiration but the active disclosure of a divine mystery. The repetition — "revelation was revealed" — is an intensifying construction that underscores the gravity and certainty of what is communicated. Catholic exegesis, from Origen's Homilies on Daniel through the medieval commentators, reads this unveiling as a figure of divine condescension (synkatabasis): God stooping to communicate eternal realities through a human vessel.
"Whose name was called Belteshazzar" This identification is significant. Daniel's Hebrew name means "God is my judge," while his imposed Babylonian name, Belteshazzar, invokes the Babylonian deity Bel (cf. Daniel 1:7). The text holds both names in tension simultaneously, as it has throughout the book — Daniel is always dual-named, a man of God living under pagan nomenclature. The Church Fathers, particularly St. Hippolytus of Rome in his Commentary on Daniel (the oldest extant Christian biblical commentary), saw this duality as a figure of the Church: holy in her divine identity, yet bearing the marks of her historical situation in a world that would rename and reshape her if it could.
"The revelation was true, even a great warfare" The narrator — speaking with authorial gravity — certifies the revelation before it is even given: it is ( in Hebrew, the word for covenantal faithfulness and factual reliability). The phrase "great warfare" or "great conflict" () is remarkable. It prepares the reader to understand chapters 10–12 not merely as predictive prophecy about earthly kingdoms but as a disclosure of cosmic, angelic combat behind the veil of history. The (warfare/host) resonates with the "host of heaven" language used elsewhere in the Old Testament for the angelic armies (cf. 1 Kings 22:19; Isaiah 24:21). Catholic tradition consistently interprets this as confirming the reality of spiritual warfare — a war of angels and demons behind the movements of nations — a teaching affirmed in §391–395 regarding the fall of the angels and their ongoing opposition to God's plan.