he reveals the deep and secret things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.
⛓ Read Daniel 2 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion2
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Paul's claim that the Lord at his coming 'will bring to light the hidden things of darkness' echoes Daniel's praise that God 'reveals the deep and secret things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.' The pairing of God revealing hidden things and darkness/light is verbally and conceptually close, and Daniel is a primary Second-Temple locus for divine disclosure of mysteries (mystērion), the very term Paul uses in v.1.
High confidence'The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God' (v.10) coheres with Daniel's 'he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness.' Within the same chapter Paul has already leaned on Daniel 2 for mystery-language (recurrence), so the depths/revelation motif here reinforces that dependence.
Medium confidenceEcho4
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him' pairs God with light over against darkness, mirroring 1 John's light/darkness antithesis. A contested but apt verbal resonance.
Low confidence'The mystery now revealed' (v.26) resonates with Daniel's 'he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him,' joining the revealed-mystery motif with the light/darkness imagery of v.12-13. Coherent but lower volume than Daniel 2:28.
Low confidenceDaniel's praise that God 'reveals the deep and hidden things, knowing what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him' supplies the light/revelation-of-the-hidden pairing of 8:16-17. Faint verbal contact; contested.
Low confidenceDaniel's praise that God 'reveals the deep and secret things' and that 'light dwells with him' resonates with the hidden-to-be-revealed/come-to-light pairing in 4:22, continuing the chapter's Danielic mystery-revelation vocabulary. The link is thematic and reinforces recurrence within the discourse.
Low confidence