Gabriel Sent to Give Understanding
15 When I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. Then behold, there stood before me someone with the appearance of a man. 16 I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, which called and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” 17 So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was frightened, and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Understand, son of man, for the vision belongs to the time of the end.” 18 Now as he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face toward the ground; but he touched me and set me upright. 19 He said, “Behold, I will make you know what will be in the latter time of the indignation, for it belongs to the appointed time of the end.
An angel is named for the first time in Scripture and sent to explain — and before explaining anything he states twice how far the vision reaches.
When I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. Then behold, there stood before me someone with the appearance of a man.
He sought to understand, and help came. The book is consistent about this: the visions are not left as riddles for the ingenious, and every one of them is followed by an interpreter sent because a man wanted to know Daniel 7:16 Daniel 9:22 Daniel 10:12.
I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, which called and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.”
A voice commands, and the one commanded is named — the first angel in Scripture to be given a name, and the same messenger who will return to this chapter's unfinished business Daniel 9:21 and, centuries later, stand in a temple and in a Galilean house with two announcements Luke 1:19 Luke 1:26. The commission is specific: not comfort this man, but make this man understand. Heaven's intention for a prophecy is that it be understood.
So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was frightened, and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Understand, son of man, for the vision belongs to the time of the end.”
And the first thing Gabriel says is not an identification but a boundary, and he gives it twice. The vision belongs to the time of the end. Then again, after setting the prophet on his feet: I will make you know what will be in the latter time of the indignation, for it belongs to the appointed time of the end Daniel 8:19. A third statement closes the chapter — seal up the vision, for it belongs to many days to come Daniel 8:26.
Those three sentences are the chapter's own instruction on how far it reaches, and they come from the interpreter, before the interpretation. They are the reason a reading that exhausts this vision inside the Greek period cannot be what Gabriel says he is about to explain: a prophecy whose terminus is repeatedly placed at the appointed time of the end is not a prophecy about a persecution three centuries after Daniel. Whatever the horn is, the vision runs to the end — and the 2,300 with it.
Now as he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face toward the ground; but he touched me and set me upright.
The prophet is not enjoying this. Frightened, face down, then unconscious, and he has to be touched and stood up before he can hear the rest — the same collapse and the same remedy that meet him in the last vision Daniel 10:9–10 Daniel 10:18 and the seer of the last book of Scripture Revelation 1:17. Nobody in the Bible receives this material comfortably, and the touch that raises a man to hear it is as much a part of the account as the words.
settled What this mark means