that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince' (Dan.

Now Michael is 'the great prince which standeth for the children of thy

people' (i.e. Israel), and when he stands up there shall be an unprecedented

time of trouble, and a resurrection from the dead (Dan. 12:1,2).  Michael is

none other than 'The Archangel' (Jude 9 and 1 Thess. 4:16).

'The idea of sinister world powers and their subjugation by Christ, is

built into the very fabric of Paul's thought, and some mention of them

is found in every epistle except Philemon.  There is the Satan who is

constantly frustrating Paul's missionary work (1 Thess. 2:18; 2 Cor.

12:7).  There is the mystery of lawlessness which Paul at one time

believed to be on the point of open rebellion against God (2 Thess.

2:7).  There are the elemental spirits of the world by which both Jew

and Gentile were held in bondage, and which appear to have close links

with the law on the one hand and with astrology on the other (Gal. 4:3;

Col. 2:8,20).  There is the god of this age who "has blinded the minds

of the unbelieving, that they might not behold the light of the gospel

of the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4).  There is the ruler of the

authority of the air who is also described as the spirit now at work

among the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2).  There are the rulers of

this age who crucified the Lord of Glory and thereby compassed their

own downfall (1 Cor. 2:6).  There are the principalities and

authorities over which Christ celebrated His triumph on the Cross (Col.

2:15).  In spite of this defeat, the world-rulers of this darkness are

still operative, and the Christian must wrestle with them (Eph. 6:12);

they still hold the whole creation in bondage to futility, though they

cannot separate the Christian from the love of God (Rom. 8:20,38).  But

the day must come when every principality and every authority and power

will yield to Christ, since "He must reign until He has put all enemies

under His feet" (1 Cor. 15:25).  This, however, is not Paul's last word

concerning the destiny of the powers, for he came to believe that they

were created beings, created in and for Christ, whether thrones or

lordships or principalities or authorities (Col. 1:16; 2:10), and that

it was God's purpose that they should be reconciled to Him by the blood

of the Cross (Col. 1:20), that angelic as well as human tongues should

confess Jesus as Lord, that to the principalities and authorities in

the heavenly places there might now be made known through the church

the manifold wisdom of God' (Eph. 3:10) (Principalities and Powers by

G. B. Baird).

In the Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32, we read:

'When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He

separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according

to the number of the children of Israel' (Deut. 32:8).

The LXX reads here, 'according to the number of the angels of God'.

This reading has been somewhat confirmed by one of the Qumran texts -- see P.

W. Skehan, A Fragment of the Song of Moses (Deut. 32) from Qumran, Bulletin

of the American School of Oriental Research No. 136 (December 1954).  Another

strange yet suggestive reading is found in the LXX version of Deuteronomy

32:43, which reads: