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Context No. 258 of 4322 · Daniel (Greek)

Context · Reflection

Daniel (Greek) 10:7-11: in context

7I, Daniel, alone saw the vision; for the men who were with me didn’t see the vision; but a great quaking fell on them, and they fled to hide themselves. 8So I was left alone, and saw this great vision. No strength remained in me; for my face grew deathly pale, and I retained no strength. 9Yet I heard the voice of his words. When I heard the voice of his words, then I fell into a deep sleep on my face, with my face toward the ground. 10Behold, a hand touched me, which set me on my knees and on the palms of my hands. 11He said to me, “Daniel, you greatly beloved man, understand the words that I speak to you. Stand upright, for I have been sent to you, now.” When he had spoken this word to me, I stood trembling.

This is the start of Daniel's last and longest vision, and it opens not with information but with collapse. He is standing by the Tigris when something overwhelming appears, and the first thing the passage records is what it does to the people there. The men with Daniel do not see the vision, but a great terror falls on them and they run to hide. Daniel is left alone with it.

Being left alone with it nearly destroys him. My strength left me, he says, my face grew deathly pale, and I had no strength. He hears the voice and falls into a dead sleep with his face to the ground, unable to stand. This is a pattern all through Scripture, that the first effect of coming close to the holy is not comfort but undoing. Isaiah cried that he was ruined, Ezekiel fell on his face, and here Daniel, one of the most faithful men in the Bible, is emptied of strength and flattened. Then a hand touches him, and it does not haul him upright all at once. It sets him first on his hands and knees, still trembling, and only then comes the word: Daniel, greatly beloved, understand the words I speak, and stand up, for I have been sent to you.

The tenderness arrives inside the collapse, not instead of it. He is called greatly beloved while he is shaking in the dust with nothing left, and he is raised in stages because he cannot stand on his own. When something leaves me undone and emptied of strength, do I read it as God being far off, when it may be the nearness itself that has flattened me?

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