Commentary - Daniel 7:28

Bird's-eye view

Daniel 7:28 serves as the personal postscript to one of the most stupendous visions in all of Scripture. Having witnessed the rise and fall of monstrous earthly empires and the climactic ascension of the Son of Man to receive an everlasting dominion from the Ancient of Days, the prophet is left utterly undone. This verse is not a theological addendum but a visceral, human reaction to a direct encounter with the majesty and terror of God's sovereign plan for history. Daniel, a man of profound faith and righteousness, is not comforted but alarmed. His face drains of color, not because the vision is bad news, it is the ultimate good news of Christ's victory, but because the glory and violence of it are too much for a mortal man to bear. He is shaken to the core. Yet, his response is not to babble or despair, but to quietly and soberly keep the matter in his heart. This verse, then, provides the proper emotional and spiritual posture for the saint in the face of God's earth-shattering revelations: a holy fear that leads not to paralysis, but to deep, internal meditation on the Word of God.

The core of the matter is this: God's kingdom does not advance like a quiet, respectable committee meeting. It advances through cosmic conflict, through the tearing down of savage beasts and the establishment of a rule that is utterly alien to this world. Daniel saw it all, and it wrecked him. His alarm is a testament to the sheer weight of the glory he witnessed. And his silence is the response of a man who knows he has seen something that cannot be processed with glib chatter, but must be turned over and wrestled with in the deep places of the soul until it produces steadfast faith and understanding.

Outline

Context In Daniel

This verse concludes the vision of the four beasts that began the seventh chapter. The first half of the book of Daniel (chapters 1-6) consists of historical narratives about Daniel and his friends, demonstrating God's sovereignty through their faithfulness in a pagan court. The second half (chapters 7-12) shifts to a series of apocalyptic visions, with Daniel speaking in the first person. Chapter 7 is the first of these, and it parallels the vision of the statue in chapter 2, but with a different emphasis. While Nebuchadnezzar's dream depicted the kingdoms of men as a gleaming, man-shaped idol, Daniel's vision reveals them for what they truly are: monstrous, predatory beasts rising from the chaotic sea of nations. The climax of this vision is not the destruction of the beasts by a stone, but the glorious courtroom scene where the Ancient of Days judges the final beast and gives everlasting dominion to "one like a son of man." This is a prophecy of the ascension of Jesus Christ. Daniel 7:28, therefore, is the prophet's raw response to seeing the entire sweep of history from God's perspective, culminating in the coronation of the Messiah. His terror is the appropriate reaction to witnessing the transfer of all authority in heaven and on earth to Jesus Christ, an event that would mean judgment for the old world and the violent birth of the new.

Key Issues

The Weight of Glory

We modern Christians have a tendency to domesticate the things of God. We want a faith that is encouraging, manageable, and fits neatly into our self-improvement projects. We want Jesus to be our buddy and for divine revelation to feel like a warm hug. Daniel 7:28 is a bucket of ice water on all such sentimentalism. Daniel, a man described as "greatly loved" by God, receives the greatest revelation of the gospel in the Old Testament, the triumph of the Son of Man, and his reaction is sheer alarm. His face turns pale. He is terrified.

This is because he saw the thing for what it was. The glory of God is not a tame thing. The establishment of Christ's kingdom is not a peaceful transition of power. It is a violent, world-ending, beast-crushing affair. Daniel saw the teeth of the lion, the claws of the bear, and the iron fangs of the dreadful fourth beast. And then he saw the Ancient of Days on a throne of fire, with a fiery stream issuing from before Him. He saw the judgment set and the books opened. And finally, he saw the Son of Man coming on the clouds to receive the kingdom. This is not a vision that makes you feel cozy; it is a vision that makes you tremble. Daniel's fear is not the fear of a man who doubts God's goodness; it is the holy terror of a creature who has peeked behind the curtain and seen the unveiled majesty and power of the Creator at war. It is the kind of fear that is clean, the kind that endures forever, the kind that is the beginning of all true wisdom.

Verse by Verse Commentary

28 “At this point the matter of this revelation ended. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts were greatly alarming me, and the splendor of my face changed, but I kept the matter in my heart.”

At this point the matter of this revelation ended. The Aramaic here is direct. The word, the message, was finished. The curtain comes down on the vision. This was not a dream that trailed off, but a formal, bounded revelation from the sovereign God. He had said what He intended to say for now. Daniel is now left alone with the aftermath, with the echoes of what he has seen and heard.

As for me, Daniel, my thoughts were greatly alarming me. The prophet turns inward. The public revelation gives way to private consternation. His thoughts were not just troubling him in a mild way; they were terrifying him. Why? Because he understood the implications. He saw that history was not a random series of events, but a battlefield. He saw that monstrous, godless powers would arise and do great damage to the saints. And he saw that the resolution would come through a divine judgment so immense that it shook him to his foundations. The gospel is good news, but it is not safe news. It is news of a coming King and a coming judgment, and the sane response to this, before the comfort settles in, is alarm.

and the splendor of my face changed. The inner turmoil had an immediate, visible, physical effect. The word for splendor can mean brightness or color. The shock and terror of what he had seen drained the blood from his face. He turned pale. This is a common biblical theme. When mortal man comes into contact with the raw glory of the immortal God, it has a profound physical impact. Jacob limped. Isaiah cried out, "Woe is me!" John fell down as though dead. Daniel's pale face is a sign that he has seen something real, something from beyond the veil of this ordinary world. It was not a mere idea he was wrestling with; it was a reality that had physically marked him.

but I kept the matter in my heart. This is the crucial conclusion. Overwhelmed, terrified, and physically shaken, Daniel does not run out into the street shouting. He does not form a committee to discuss his feelings. He does not try to forget what he saw. He does what Mary, the mother of our Lord, would later do when confronted with a similarly overwhelming revelation. He kept the matter, the word, and pondered it in his heart. This is the action of profound wisdom. He took this terrifying, glorious, world-altering truth and stored it deep within him. He knew this was not something to be understood in an afternoon. It was something to be lived with, meditated on, prayed over, and trusted in, even when it was alarming. True faith does not demand instant and complete understanding. It takes God at His word and then quietly, faithfully, and sometimes fearfully, treasures that word in the heart until the light dawns.

Application

We live in an age of chatter. We are quick to speak, quick to tweet, quick to offer our half-baked opinions on the deepest things of God. Daniel's response to this vision is a sharp rebuke to our modern sensibilities. He teaches us that the proper response to the profound truths of God's Word is often a stunned, reverent, and thoughtful silence.

When we read passages of Scripture that are difficult, or that reveal the violence of God's judgment against sin, or that speak of glories beyond our comprehension, our first reaction should not be to explain it all away or to reduce it to a tidy sermon outline. Our first reaction should be to feel the weight of it. We should allow it to alarm us. We should allow the truth of God's holiness and sovereignty to make us a little pale. We should be humbled into silence. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and this kind of holy alarm is the front porch of that fear.

And then, we must learn to do what Daniel did. We must keep the matter in our hearts. This means we must become a people of meditation. We must take the Word of God and turn it over and over in our minds, day after day. We must not be content with a superficial reading of the Bible. We must hide it in our hearts, ponder its meaning, and pray for the Holy Spirit to grant us understanding in His time. The truths that will sustain you through trial are not the ones you heard once in a sermon, but the ones you have wrestled with in the quiet of your own heart. Daniel saw the victory of the Son of Man, and it terrified him before it comforted him. Let us not seek a cheap comfort that bypasses the terror of God's majesty. Let us instead ask God for the grace to be rightly alarmed, so that we might then, like Daniel, keep His word and be truly wise.