Daniel 10:16

10:10-21 Whenever we enter into communion with God, it becomes us to have a due sense of the infinite distance between us and the holy God. How shall we, that are dust and ashes, speak to the Lord of glory? Nothing is more likely, nothing more effectual to revive the drooping spirits of the saints, than to be assured of God's love to them. From the very first day we begin to look toward God in a way of duty, he is ready to meet us in the way of mercy. Thus ready is God to hear prayer. When the angel had told the prophet of the things to come, he was to return, and oppose the decrees of the Persian kings against the Jews. The angels are employed as God's ministering servants, Heb 1:14. Though much was done against the Jews by the kings of Persia, God permitting it, much more mischief would have been done if God had not prevented it. He would now more fully show what were God's purposes, of which the prophecies form an outline; and we are concerned to study what is written in these Scriptures of truth, for they belong to our everlasting peace. While Satan and his angels, and evil counsellors, excite princes to mischief against the church, we may rejoice that Christ our Prince, and all his mighty angels, act against our enemies; but we ought not to expect many to favour us in this evil world.

And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men,.... Not the man clothed with linen, or Christ; but either the same angel, Gabriel, who appeared more manifestly to him in a human form; or another of the attendants of Christ, who also had the similitude of a man: touched my lips; with his hand, as the Prophet Isaiah's were, by a seraph, with a live coal from the altar, Isaiah 6:7, thereby restoring him to his speech, and giving him freedom and boldness to make use of it; and removing from him his impurity, and a sense of it, which occasioned his silence: then I opened my mouth, and spake freely, and yet with all becoming modesty: and said unto him that stood before me, O lord; the angel that appeared in the likeness of a man, and stood before the prophet, and touched his lips, whom he calls "lord"; not because of sovereignty and dominion over him, which belong to Christ, as the Creator of all things, and Head of the church; but for honour's sake, being a noble and exalted creature: by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me; on sight of the glorious object represented to him in the vision, pains seized his body in all parts of it, sharp and pungent, like those of a woman in travail.

Gussetius (y) interprets it of the knuckle bones, which turned in the pan of them, like the hinges of a door, of which the word is used, Proverbs 26:14, and this through the tendons being loosed by the dissipation of the spirits; and this sense the Vulgate Latin version gives countenance to, my joints are dissolved; the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, are, "my inward parts or bowels are turned in me: and I have retained no strength"; See Gill on Daniel 10:8. (y) Comment. Ebr. p. 713.

And, behold, {l} one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, {m} by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength. (l) This was the same angel that spoke with him before in the appearance of a man. (m) I was overcome with fear and sorrow, when I saw the vision.

One like the similitude of the sons of men; an angel in the shape of a man, and no other but Jesus Christ, as before he that had humbled him now helped and encouraged him. I opened my mouth, and spake; which cannot be till the Lord touch our lips, Psalm 51:15 Isaiah 6:5-7 Jeremiah 1:9 . Though the angel appeared to him, and spake to him as a man, yet could not Daniel bear his presence without some dread.

16. touched my lips—the same significant action wherewith the Son of man accompanied His healing of the dumb (Mr 7:33). He alone can give spiritual utterance (Isa 6:6, 7; Eph 6:19), enabling one to "open the mouth boldly." The same one who makes dumb (Da 10:15) opens the mouth. sorrows—literally, "writhings" as of a woman in travail.

16 . A second touch restores Daniel’s power of speech. one like the similitude , &c.] not an actual man, but a figure or appearance resembling a man. The word rendered similitude is the one which in the visions of Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 1:5 ; Ezekiel 1:10 ; Ezekiel 1:13 ; Ezekiel 1:16 ; Ezekiel 1:22 ; Ezekiel 1:26 ; Ezekiel 1:28 ; Ezekiel 8:2 ; Ezekiel 10:1 ; Ezekiel 10:10 ; Ezekiel 10:21-22 ) is rendered regularly by likeness : the variation here is presumably for the purpose of avoiding the juxtaposition of ‘like’ and ‘likeness.’ touched my lips ] cf.—though the expression is not quite the same, and the purpose is in each case different— Isaiah 6:7 (‘ made it —the hot coal— touch my lips’), Jeremiah 1:9 (‘ made it —his hand— touch my mouth’). The touch having restored Daniel’s power of speech, he hastens to excuse his confusion: the vision, he says, had overpowered him. to him that stood in front of me ] The dazzling being, whom Daniel had seen in Daniel 10:5-6 . my lord ] 1 Samuel 1:15 ; 1 Samuel 1:26 ; 1 Samuel 22:12 , &c.; Zechariah 1:9 ; Zechariah 4:4-5 ; Zechariah 4:13 ; Zechariah 6:4 . by reason of the vision my throes were turned upon me ] i.e. came suddenly upon me. The word rendered throes is said properly of the pains of a woman in travail ( Isaiah 13:8 ); and the whole phrase occurs in 1 Samuel 4:19 of the pains of labour suddenly seizing Ichabod’s mother.

Verse 16. - And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength. The LXX. rendering differs from this, "And behold, as the likeness of the hand of a man" - due, more likely to explanatory paraphrase than to various reading of יר for בני ; still the phrase, "a likeness of sons of man," is somewhat violent, and not to be paralleled by Psalm 45:3 - "touched my lips, and I opened my mouth, and spake, and I said to him who stood before me, Lord, even when the vision was turned upon my side to me." Clearly צידי ( tzeedee ) has been read by mistake for צירי ( tzeeree ). The sense of the Massoretic is difficult; but this is nonsense. "And there was no strength in me," reading איולי instead of עצרתי . Theodotion renders, "And behold, as the likeness of a son of man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth, and spake, and said to him that stood before me, In thy appearance my bowels ( τὸ ἐντός μου ) were turned in me, and I had no strength." Theodotion has evidently had the singular בֶּן instead of בְנֵי , or perhaps regarded it as a survival of the old form of the construct. It is probably not due to a different reading, but to a different meaning given to צירים , that we have ἐντός .

The Peshitta resembles Theodotion very closely, having, however, enosh , "man," instead of "son of man." We have also go', "body," or "viscera," as the translation of tzeereem. The Vulgate renders to the same purport; the last portion of the verse runs thus: In visions tua dissolutas sunt compages meae et nihil in me remansit virium. It also has, in the first clause, similitudo filii hominis. It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that we should read "son of man" instead of "sons of man" Were there any diplomatic or other evidence in favour of the reading of the LXX., it would be much preferable to any other, as we have the description of the visitant whose hand touched Daniel, in vers. 5 and 6. Hence the assertion here, that the likeness of a son of man touched him, does not harmonize with this, as it seems to introduce a new person. There is no reference to hands in the description in vers. 5 and 6, "the hand as of a man" there would not be the introduction of something already mentioned. Touched my lips. In the previous chapter, ver. 21, the angel Gabriel "touches" Daniel. The emphasis of the act, in the present instance, does not be in the fact of touching, but in this - that it was the lips that were touched. In Isaiah 6:6 and 7 one of the seraphim touches the lips of the prophet with " a live coal from off the altar." In Isaiah the object is purification; in the case before us it is the restoration of the power of speech.