God’s Word for You

Daniel 10:10-11 I have now been sent to you

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, December 30, 2025

10 But then a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 He said to me, “Daniel, you are highly favored. Understand the words that I am speaking to you. Stand up on your feet, for I have now been sent to you.” When he said this word to me, I stood up trembling.

We should notice the difference between the Lord’s encouraging words (even a great compliment!) and Daniel’s slow reactions. The pre-incarnate Christ reaches out and touches Daniel, who was lying face down on the ground. The verb nua, “to tremble, totter” is in the hifil stem here, making it causative: “He caused me to totter,” or as I have translated it, “he set me trembling on my knees and hands.” The word-order in Hebrew is “on my knees and the palms of my hands,” but the more familiar English phrase is “on my hands and knees.”

Christ calls the prophet “highly favored.” This is the same greeting Gabriel gave to Mary (Luke 1:28). There aren’t many people in the Scriptures who are described this way, or as God’s “friend.” Abraham is called this (James 2:23). And the Holy Spirit also reports: “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exodus 33:11). “To hear Christ say ‘friend’ should make a person leap for joy,” writes Luther, “If he would only believe it, this name would be enough for anyone” (Lectures on Isaiah, LW 27:40).

Besides encouragement, standing Daniel up on his feet, the Lord also begins to tell him things he can now understand. He even says (giving what he demands), “Understand the words that I am speaking to you.” For God does make many demands of us, but he also gives us the ability to carry those things out, whatever they might be. “A testing has not overtaken you yet except what is common to man. But God is faithful. He will not let you be tested beyond your ability. But when he tests you, along with the test he will give you an outcome that you will be able to bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

What is it that Daniel should understand? Firstly, that God thinks highly of him; that he is highly favored. What should Daniel make of this statement? If he were to let it go to his head, he would fall into the same trap that Satan tripped and fell into. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (Proverbs 3:34; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). A Christian is better to pray, “No, Lord! Do not call me highly favored, or your friend, for I have sinned against you and I have failed to do so many things that I cannot count them! My sins are like the grains of sand that lie at the bottom of the sea!” And so God does not say such things to very many. But when he does say this, it is like the call of a crow on Christmas day when every other bird is silent. It is a warning that there is hardship and suffering on the way. And for this reason he gives comfort and a message of his grace and favor ahead of time, as he did with Abraham, and with Mary. For to Mary the angel warned, “a sword will pierce your own soul” (Luke 2:35).

In dread and weakness, trembling and shaking, Daniel was raised to his tottering feet. And what is the reason that the Lord wanted Daniel to stand? “For I have now been sent to you.”

Who would send Christ? Only the Father; no one else has the authority or the ability to send the Son. This is a subject we hardly ever discuss apart from the sending of the Son for our salvation. We are always ready and willing to state; “The Word assumed the human nature into the unity of his person” (this is from the Apology of the Augsburg Confession) “and this same Christ suffered and died to reconcile the Father to us; and he was raised from the dead to rule, justify, and sanctify believers” (Apology III:1). But here, before his incarnation, he wanted to instruct Daniel in many things, and in particular about the rise of the enemy of the church, the Antichrist. Therefore he was sent by the Father to do this.

Christ is rightly called an Apostle for this reason, as he is in Hebrews 3:1, where Paul or whoever preached that sermon said, “Fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.” An apostle is a trusted messenger, sent out with authority to perform a specific task. The Father sent Christ and no other, not even the greatest of his angels, to redeem man from sin. That was Christ’s apostleship. It was Christ, the Angel of the LORD, who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush (Exodus 3:2), and it was Christ here who gave this warning to Daniel about the coming of the enemy who would rise up from the middle of the church (as Daniel’s vision about the four beasts had already shown, Daniel 7:8).

Like any and every sinful human being, it took Daniel several encouragements from the Lord, even from the hand of Christ himself, to get him back up on his feet. Our sins weigh us down, and our guilt and shame weigh heavily on our shoulders, so that we struggle to rise and do whatever God would have us do, even when it is so simple a thing as, “Stand up,” or “Sit here and listen to this sermon.” Is it on account of our sinful and contrary natures, that the simplest tasks God asks of us are the ones we balk at and complain about the most? But God forgives even such attitudes in his people. This is why the Father sent the Son, “To preach good news to the poor. To proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed” (Luke 4:18). And who is more oppressed than sinners, led astray by the devil? The hand of Christ reached out with divine fingers, loving and strong, to give strength to the shaking Daniel. Those fingers, divine but also human, will reach out and bring all of us out of our graves and guide us safely to heaven. For he loves us. He came to encourage Daniel and to warn us all about the coming dangers, but he came again in the flesh to rescue us all from our sins.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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