Daniel 10:16

16 And suddenly one with the likeness of a man ^[a] touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and said to the one standing before me, “My lord, because of the vision, I am overcome with anguish, and I have no strength.

Daniel 10:16 Meaning and Commentary

Daniel 10:16

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 ^F25 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).

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FOOTNOTES:

F25 Comment. Ebr. p. 713.

Daniel 10:16 In-Context

14 Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision concerns those days.”

15 While he was speaking these words to me, I set my face toward the ground and became speechless.

16 And suddenly one with the likeness of a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and said to the one standing before me, “My lord, because of the vision, I am overcome with anguish, and I have no strength.

17 How can I, your servant, speak with you, my lord? Now I have no strength, nor is any breath left in me.”

18 Again the one with the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me.

Footnotes

• [a] Most MT manuscripts; literally with the likeness of sons of man; DSS, LXX, and one MT manuscript with the likeness of the hand of a man