I wonder what you are assuming about angels.  Are you assuming that the angels have infinite power?  Are you assuming that they can accomplish everything they attempt to do instantly?  What about the power of the angels who have rebelled against God?  Are the angels who have rebelled against God and who are in service to Satan any less powerful that Michael or Gabriel? These are open questions, but perhaps you have made assumptions about these questions in the past.

To be honest, we really know relatively little about angels from the Bible.  God’s army of angels is finite, as God’s army of Christians is finite.  Can Christians accomplish everything that God desires?  Does the fact that God’s will is not always done mean that God is not sovereign?  (That God’s will is not always done is proved by Matthew 6:10)  Does the fact that we humans are finite and limited mean that God is not powerful?  I do not think so.  Does that fact that angels are finite and limited mean that God is finite and limited? I do not think so.

So, I think that your question is created because of an assumption you might be making which simply is not correct–that God’s will is always done or perhaps that angels are so powerful that they can accomplish God’s will instantaneously.  What precisely was going on behind the scenes in Daniel 10 is not clear and God does not make it perfectly clear.  However, what is apparent is that there was an angelic battle going on behind the scenes to which we are only given a hint from the statements at the end of chapter 10 about the “prince of Persia,” the “prince of Greece,” and about “Michael your prince.”  I believe that “the prince of Persia” and “the prince of Greece” are likely to be angels who are in rebellion to God. (Dan 10:20)  The good news is that God’s angelic forces won the battle and the awesome vision was given to Daniel in Daniel chapter 11.

John Oakes