agony for his people, is not to be curtailed. God’s plan must run its course, and it is this, no doubt, that prompts his question in v. 8. That there should be a period of waiting before ‘the end’ is what Daniel has difficulty in understanding. The victims have a right to question the inexorability of suffering, much more so when it seems to have on it the imprimatur of the deity. But Daniel’s expression of concern is cut short with the words, ‘Go your way …’. His half-hearted attempt to stall the