I, Daniel, was worn out. I lay exhausted for several days. Then I got up and went about the king's business. I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding. – Daniel 8:27

Today's Scripture Reading (November 6, 2026): Daniel 8

A friend of mine once joked that he thought he needed to be paid overtime because he often went to bed and dreamed about his job. The comment was a bit of a joke, but the truth is we have all had nights when our dreams have physically worn us out. That is exactly what seems to have happened to Daniel. The depth and terror of the visions God gave him at night left him exhausted. For a few days, he rested as he tried to process what he had seen.

However, Daniel could not let exhaustion keep him from his duties for long. While God had shown his servant a vision of the physical future, Daniel had always regarded the physical tasks he had completed in the king's service as a spiritual duty. Although Daniel likely no longer held the prestigious position he had held during the reign of the Babylonian Empire, he would not dishonor God by shirking his duty. Daniel would have been severely wounded if anyone suggested his visions and dreams had kept him from fulfilling his duty to the king.

Another part of the problem was that Daniel could not understand everything he had seen. He did not understand how God could ever abandon his people as he had seen. Yet he could not doubt what he had seen. All of this left Daniel extremely confused.

Some have proposed that the visions the prophets saw can be interpreted in up to three ways. The first is the near view: the prophet sees what he understands to be in the immediate future. The second is an intermediate vision. This intermediate vision may have concerned events that could take place on the prophet's horizon, at the edge of what the prophet could see. For many Hebrew prophets, this often seems to be a prophecy that can be applied to the coming of the Messiah. But sometimes prophecies extended beyond Messianic expectation, to something beyond that intermediate vision. Sometimes this includes the prophet declaring that these events will take place "In the day of the Lord," but not always.

What seemed to frustrate and exhaust Daniel was that this prophecy didn't seem to apply at all to either the near or the intermediate future; it applied to a time well beyond Daniel's horizon. Daniel didn't understand, but he also decided he didn't need to comprehend everything he had seen. Maybe that's a lesson we all need to learn. Some things we don't understand, we don't need to understand, and that is okay. Even Daniel struggled with some of what he was shown, but that didn't make him any less a man of God.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Daniel 9