Interpreting Angels & Heavenly Revelation

Apocalyptic literature does not explain itself. The genre communicates its message in visions and uses angelic mediators - which is why the visionary almost always needs someone beside him to say what he is looking at.
Daniel sees a ram and a goat and has no idea what they mean until Gabriel tells him. Zechariah has an angel at his elbow throughout. The interpreting angel is a standard feature of this literature, not an odd detail in it.
Ezekiel adds a wrinkle. When he is lifted up between earth and heaven, the text leaves it genuinely unclear whether it is the Spirit or the anthropomorphised man doing the lifting.
Scripture links:
- Daniel 8-10 - visions that require an interpreter.
- Ezekiel 8:3 - lifted up between earth and heaven.
If a vision in Scripture needed an angel to explain it to a prophet, we should be slower to assume it is obvious to us.