Deeper Reflection
The “people who know their God” are “the wise” (vv.32-33), who were “well versed in the Jewish Scriptures and who, on this basis, have an ‘understanding’ of God’s ways in history and so of how to respond in the current situation of crisis”⁷¹ . And in times of tribulations and trials, these people “give understanding to many” (v.33a), that they may know God and His ways. The “Word of Christ” ought to “dwell richly” in each one of us, that we may be “teaching and admonishing one another with wisdom” (Col 3:16). This is an important mark of a maturing disciplemaking fellowship.“Those who are wise” in Daniel 1 to 6 are like Daniel, who successfully provided solutions in times of crisis (Dan 2, 4, 5). But the success of “the wise” in giving understanding to others in Daniel 11 is “at the price of suffering”⁷² : “yet they will fall by sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder” (v.33b). These wise people expect suffering for the Lord. And they “give understanding to many” not in words only, but by their lives as examples of discipleship suffering. They can “give understanding to many” because they know the divine purpose for their suffering, and align their lives to that purpose: “they will fall, in order to refine, purge and make them pure” (v.35). This divine purpose is the wisdom of the only wise God (Rom 16:25). It is wisdom because tribulation has no power to inflict real hurt to God’s people: it is instead the means by which God refines and purifies us toward Christlike character.

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⁷¹ Earnest C. Lucas, 287 ⁷² Joyce G. Baldwin, 196