God’s Word for You
Daniel 10:14-17 The weakness of man
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, January 1, 2026
14 But now I have come to help you understand what is going to happen to your people in later days. For there is a further vision about those days.” 15 While he was speaking these words to me, I turned my face toward the ground and I became speechless. 16 Then someone with a form like a son of man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth to speak. I said to the one who stood before me, “My lord, pain has come upon me because of the vision, and I have no strength left. 17 How can my lord’s servant talk with my lord? For now there is no strength in me, and no breath is left in me.”
After a glimpse into the unseen realms of the angels and the warfare that they constantly fight against Satan and his demons, Daniel once again reveals to us just how weak and helpless this knowledge made him.
The message was going to be about “what is going to happen to your people in later days,” which is to say, in times that will come later on, after the present era. In the last sentence of verse 14, many translations say something along the lines of “the vision concerns a time yet to come” (NIV, ESV). But this takes the adverb ‘od (עוֹד) “yet, still” and moves it to the end of the sentence with “days.” Now, an adverb in a verbless clause modifies an adjective or an implied adjective. Here ‘od is at the beginning of the clause, and connected according to the accents (which are the familiar pair merka and tipha) with “vision.” I have taken ‘od with “vision” as “a yet/further vision” in the sense of “another vision.” The other option (that of the NIV) implies a verb such as “to come” and then supplies the verb. Both possibilities stand on firm grammatical ground, but I have chosen to stay with the accents and word-order as written in the manuscripts.
Jerome returns us simply and correctly to the main point: “The very petition which Daniel had requested is the thing which he deserves to hear from God, namely what is going to happen to the people of Israel, not in the near future, but in the last days.”
Daniel is once again overwhelmed. Unable to speak or even to raise his head, he is helped again by someone “like a son of man.” Earlier in the book, “one like a son of man” came with the clouds of heaven, approached the Ancient of Days, and was given authority, glory, and power (Daniel 7:13). That was Christ, and we understand this to be Christ as well, appearing both as the angelic being speaking and the son of man helping. But there are not two Christs here; only one. Now he does one thing; now he does another. He speaks, he helps, he speaks again.
Some witnesses to the text have “hand” in verse 16, implying that a hand touched Daniel’s lips. This would be implied even without the variant reading, which is mostly in Greek-language copies. Perhaps it was thought best to insert the word so that we might not mistake the touch for a kiss, but this would have no implication of intimacy beyond friendship, anyway, as we see from Exodus 4:27; 2 Samuel 10:1; and even Mark 14:45.
Even now, Daniel declares his weakness before the Son of God. And this is the lesson for us all. Sinful man, even when forgiven, is weak and helpless before God. The prophet is truly humbled, physically helpless, without Christ, even as he stands before Christ and has been touched by Christ. Jesus said, “No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Whoever is not drawn by the Father will perish and die, suffering the agony of hell. Whoever does not come to the Son of God, drawn by the Father, must be condemned. For if the Son does not help us, nothing will. Luther asks in a sermon, “Where are the theologians and professors who taught us that we become pious through our many good works? Here the great master Aristotle is put to shame, who proclaimed that reason strives for the best and always follows after the good. Christ says to this: ‘No; if the Father doesn’t come first and draw people, they must forever perish.’”
Therefore the Father draws us with his word, the law and the gospel, and brings us to Christ for forgiveness. The Holy Spirit gives and strengthens our faith, and this, too, is through the word. For we are powerless to do anything to help ourselves spiritually. But as he does with Daniel, the Lord comforts us and draws us and comforts us again, even though the greatest and mightiest of us is as weak and helpless as a dishrag. Pray for help. Pray for God’s holy strength. And he will comfort and strengthen you through his word, drawing you always to Christ, to his sacrifice and atonement. Draw strength from his cross, for there your greatest weakness and sin was atoned for, and you have been forever forgiven.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.