Dan 9:3-23 | KingComments | STEP | What Daniel read could have made him very glad. He has read that the seventy years are over and that the restoration is therefore imminent. But there is no joy in Daniel. What he has read leads him to confession. He knows God and knows that God only grants mercy when there is confession of sins. Without that He can do nothing. The direct consequence of what Daniel read is that he turns to God. He does not go with the good news of his discovery to his friends or fellow exiles. Through his fellowship with God he sees the low spiritual state of the people. He sees its true character, and that leads him to confession instead of a cry of joy. Only in that position and in that feeling intercession for others can be done. Those who are spiritual are first when it comes to confession. They feel more than others how much God is dishonored by His people. That makes the prophet an intercessor. Knowledge of the future leads in the first place to intercession, that is to say, to speaking to God for the benefit of the people, and only then can there be spoken to the people on behalf of God. God makes the future known in order to speak to our hearts and not to satisfy our curiosity. Prophetic statements are not about processing sensation, but about an experience according to God’s thoughts. Daniel begins his confession by honoring God in His greatness and awesomeness. He is deeply impressed by that. Anyone who knows God and has a relation with Him will address Him with great respect – and also speak of Him with great respect. That is general. At the same time, this mighty majesty gives the great confidence that He keeps to everything He has said. He does not only say, but He acts as well. He is able to do what He says and has promised. Daniel reminds God, as it were, of His covenant and His faithfulness to it. To this Daniel also connects His mercy. That is God’s side of the covenant. However, there is also the side of human responsibility. The covenant and mercy of God apply to those who love Him and keep His commandments. And there it went completely wrong. That brings Daniel to his poignant confession.

‏ Daniel 9:3-23

Daniel Prays and Confesses

What Daniel read could have made him very glad. He has read that the seventy years are over and that the restoration is therefore imminent. But there is no joy in Daniel. What he has read leads him to confession. He knows God and knows that God only grants mercy when there is confession of sins. Without that He can do nothing.

The direct consequence of what Daniel read is that he turns to God. He does not go with the good news of his discovery to his friends or fellow exiles. Through his fellowship with God he sees the low spiritual state of the people. He sees its true character, and that leads him to confession instead of a cry of joy. Only in that position and in that feeling intercession for others can be done.

Those who are spiritual are first when it comes to confession. They feel more than others how much God is dishonored by His people. That makes the prophet an intercessor. Knowledge of the future leads in the first place to intercession, that is to say, to speaking to God for the benefit of the people, and only then can there be spoken to the people on behalf of God. God makes the future known in order to speak to our hearts and not to satisfy our curiosity. Prophetic statements are not about processing sensation, but about an experience according to God’s thoughts.

Daniel begins his confession by honoring God in His greatness and awesomeness. He is deeply impressed by that. Anyone who knows God and has a relation with Him will address Him with great respect – and also speak of Him with great respect. That is general. At the same time, this mighty majesty gives the great confidence that He keeps to everything He has said. He does not only say, but He acts as well. He is able to do what He says and has promised.

Daniel reminds God, as it were, of His covenant and His faithfulness to it. To this Daniel also connects His mercy. That is God’s side of the covenant. However, there is also the side of human responsibility. The covenant and mercy of God apply to those who love Him and keep His commandments. And there it went completely wrong. That brings Daniel to his poignant confession.

We Have Sinned

Daniel makes himself one with the people in their departure from God and His commandments by speaking of “we”. He confesses the sins of God’s people. It is striking that he expresses himself in all kinds of ways. It is as if his feelings need all these words to get a way out of the enormous burden that weighs on his heart. He does not get rid of it with a quick, meaningless, general “we are sorry”, but he speaks of “committed iniquity”, “acted wickedly” and “rebelled”.

The cause of the misery in which God’s people find themselves is the departure from God’s commandments and ordinances. But not only that. When the people turned aside, God also sent His servants, the prophets, to His people. The wicked state of the people became all the more apparent then. This evil situation was present in all parts of the people, with kings, princes, fathers, yes, all the people of the land. To all is spoken by the prophets in the name of the LORD. But what does Daniel say? “We have not listened.” From the account in 2 Chronicles we know how much the LORD has made an effort to make the people return to Him, but that they have even despised and dishonored His prophets (2Chr 36:15-16).

This confession of the sins of the people by Daniel also has something to tell us. We also have not only personal to do with God, but also as a community. If we call ourselves Christians, we bear the blame for the dishonor that Christians bring to the Name of Christ, after Whose Name we call ourselves. Even if we honor Christ as Lord in our personal lives, we are ashamed and confess our guilt for the injustice that occurred in the Name of Christ. We are to blame with all Christians together.

This also applies to the faith community of which we are a part. There is weakness and unfaithfulness, worldliness, carnality, legalism. There is nothing to boast about, as if we were better Christians if in “our” faith community certain sins do not occur or are removed through discipline. It takes faith and a spiritual mind to come to such a confession. These are only present when there is knowledge of one’s own heart and when there is an awareness of the grace that must always save us. Who can say that he has always listened to God’s voice in His Word?

The People and the Lord

After Daniel has confessed the sins of “all the people of the land”, he justifies God in that He has judged the people (cf. Lam 1:18). He is aware that when division and scattering occur, these evil things must be accepted from the hand of God. They are certainly also the consequences of man’s evil deeds, but above all we must see that God acts in holy discipline.

We see this clearly, for example, in the great division of Israel, when the people fall apart into ten tribes and two tribes. Rehoboam was the actual cause of this tearing. But if he wants to undo this tearing by himself and on his own initiative, God says: “This thing is from Me” (2Chr 11:4). 450 years later Daniel acknowledges this for the situation which he finds himself in. He confesses to the Lord that He has expelled His people to all the countries in which they are now.

Daniel does not mention any names and does not point a finger at a certain person. He does not speak of Zedekiah and his follies. Nor does he refer to Nebuchadnezzar and his brutal performance. He looks above people and circumstances upwards and sees in the division and scattering the hand of a righteous God. Thus, sometime later the LORD speaks through the prophet Zechariah: “But I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known” (Zec 7:14a).

A little later, Nehemiah recalls in his prayer the words of the LORD, Who said through Moses: “If you are unfaithful I will scatter you among the peoples” (Neh 1:7-8). We do not read that these men speak of a ‘permission’ to scatter. They say clearly that God has driven the people away and brought this evil upon them.

Contrary to justifying God in His dealings with them, Daniel speaks of open shame of the people. God did nothing other than what He said He would do if the people were unfaithful. The people have become unfaithful, and the only thing that suits them is shame because of their sins which they have committed against God. The only thing Daniel can still call upon is God’s mercy, for they depend on it.

He knows God as the righteous God, but also as the God of “compassion” and of “forgiveness”. Compassion means full of compassion and forgiveness means manifold forgiveness. This is a beautiful expression, which flows over with hope and trust. There is not just a little compassion in God, no, He is full of it. There is no need for a little bit forgiveness for a single sin, no, with God there is manifold forgiveness for a multitude of sins. God “will abundantly pardon” (Isa 55:7) and is “willing to forgive” (Psa 86:5). Nehemiah knew God as “a God of forgiveness”, which means that He forgives many times (Neh 9:17). Daniel clings to this as the only possibility, for the reality is that “we have rebelled against Him”, so that every right to blessing has disappeared.

Not Obeyed

Once again Daniel speaks in these verses about the fact that the voice of God has not been obeyed. All the misery that has come upon the people can be traced back to this. If we do not obey God’s Word and do not take the warnings to heart, God will fulfill His Word on us, not for good, but for evil. We lose the promised blessings and receive the promised curses. Daniel acknowledges that what has come upon the people is nothing but the fulfillment of what God said would happen if they turned aside. He understood that well. We see Daniel emphasizing time and again in his confession that none but God Himself has broken His people (Dan 9:7 ; 12 ; 14). That is the basis of his pleading.

We also see that the disaster is unparalleled. Never has a city been judged as severe as Jerusalem. That is because there has never been a city that has been so privileged. It is the only city God has chosen to establish His throne and to have His dwelling place, His holy temple. Of these people He says: “You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Judgment has come upon those nearest to Him and in whom He sanctifies Himself (Lev 10:1-3). “For [it is] time for judgment to begin with the household of God” (1Pet 4:17a; Eze 9:4-7).

These verses also imply a serious message to God’s people for the days in which we live. The people of God are scattered and divided because of their sins. But who laments about that? We see it and accept it resignedly or even see it as a ‘valuable multicolor’. It shows that the truth of God about the unity of the church is hardly known. What is worse, there is hardly any desire to know that truth.

It is to be hoped that we will be spiritually exercised about the condition of God’s people. Then it will drive us out to prayer before the Lord our God. God will be able to let His Word speak to us and we will learn to deal wisely with God’s truth. The latter means that we will know God’s truth, absorb it and obey it. Dealing with God’s truth wisely means taking every word of it seriously, both the promises and the warnings.

Because the people of God did not deal with the Word of God wisely, evil came upon the people. God keeps Himself to His Word. He watches over it. He also watches over the doom that He has pronounced in it, so that it may come when the actions of the people demand it. The LORD also said this to Jeremiah: “Behold, I am watching over them for harm and not for good” (Jer 44:27) and also: “As I have watched over them to pluck up, to break down, to overthrow, to destroy and to bring disaster” declares the LORD” (Jer 31:28).

We can understand – and we like to hear it – that the LORD watches over His people to protect them. But here we find that He watches over them for evil and that Daniel justifies Him in it: “For the LORD our God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which He has done, but we have not obeyed His voice” (Dan 9:14b).

Confession and Request

After his confession Daniel calls upon the “Lord our God” as the One Who once redeemed his people and thereby “made a name” for Himself. He also speaks to God about “Your people”. God does not yet see it this way, for the people are not yet His people. But faith speaks in all circumstances in this way about God’s people. The name “Lord” is the translation of the Hebrew Adonai, that is the Ruler, the Commander, while “LORD” is the translation of Yahweh, that is the God of the covenant with His people. Daniel now addresses the Lord as the sovereign God Who has acted in the past for the benefit of His people.

At the same time he says to Him that “this day” He still bears the Name He made then. So he begs the Lord first to think back to His redeeming work He did before by saving His people from slavery. Then he calls upon Him to live up to that Name once more and now because they have sinned and acted wickedly.

The Name of God is magnified in a glorious way when He shows grace, for He proves grace by virtue of His righteousness. Because the Lord Jesus has fulfilled all God’s righteous demands, God can prove grace to the repentant sinner. With this, He has made a Name forever. When people ‘make a name’, it’s because of a certain achievement. But there are always imperfections to this achievement. God has made a Name through a redemption that is perfect and that remains forever.

After his confession “we have sinned, we have been wicked”, Daniel pleads with “the Lord” to turn away His anger and His wrath from Jerusalem. He speaks to the Lord about Jerusalem as “Your city” and “Your holy mountain”. He sees and acknowledges in faith that the Lord is the Owner of it and not the nations, although the city is given by God into the hands of the nations.

He also identifies the city and the mountain on which the city lies, that is Mount Zion, with each other. It is a “holy mountain”. It is the mountain on which Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac long ago. This speaks of the sacrifice God the Father brought by giving His Son. Because of that sacrifice there could be a temple in which God could dwell. So it is with the church in which God now dwells and which is also called a temple (1Cor 3:16; Eph 2:22). For faith, the church is the dwelling place of God in the Spirit, no matter how much the church has in practice become a place where people who do not have the Spirit regulate the service.

It strikes Daniel deeply that God’s city and God’s people have become a reproach to all around them. How is it with us? Do we also go through everything that the church and the living together of God’s children have become a reproach to the world around us? What my brother and friend John Bax experienced when he told the gospel to someone, illustrates it painfully clearly. In a report of this illustration, he writes the following:

An older man came to me when I shouted loudly: “Be reconciled to God” and John 3:16 “God so loved the world” etc. We had a conversation about the Bible. He had a lot of criticism and commentary and ‘why-questions’. He did not understand that if there is a mighty God, He does not intervene because of all the evil in this world. When I said: “And if God should intervene one time because of all the evil in your own life?”, he was no longer so open and complained about the Christians, what they have done about it. He said, “How many churches are not empty today? What kind of happy message is brought when people run away? How many schisms have there been in history in which you cannot agree together? Just look at all the different churches and denominations that are nowadays. In your churches you have great conflicts about faith. If you had something precious together, you should certainly show what keeps you together.”

I told him: “If I have to look at man and at Christianity, I must unfortunately agree with you. What we have made of it is shameful. But I want to tell you about the Person of the Lord Jesus Who died in my place for all my sins. And for everyone who believes in Him. I wanted to explain the gospel to him further, but he walked away. After that I was a little distressed by this conversation, and sad, because the world is indeed watching us and seeing how we deal with each other. And also that this is put forward as a reason to reject the precious gospel. I was reminded of the Bible verse: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). [End of quotation.]

I think I don’t need to add something to this. Let us take it to heart and beg God to forgive us in His grace and give us another opportunity to be the church according to His thoughts. He desires to have a dwelling place on earth. That is where His own come together and dwell together in subjection to His Word and guided by His Spirit.

The Lord Jesus said: “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst” (Mt 18:20). God dwells where He can be God, that is, where He is recognized in His rights as God. We can still ask for and search for that place. If we use His Word as a guide and follow the instructions of the Spirit, He will certainly lead us there.

Daniel Begs God to Listen

Daniel does not beg for an end to the exile nor for his personal interests. The subject of His supplications are the city, the holy mountain, the holy temple and the people of God. He begs God “for Your sake” to let His face shine on His sanctuary. He is concerned about the glorious Name of the Ruler and Commander. Daniel draws His attention to the fact that His sanctuary is desolate. He exclaims that God can’t leave it that way, can He?

So we must also learn to beg in view of what is now God’s sanctuary, His church, which is “a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph 2:21). If we see what remains of that in the practice of Christian faith, we must also say that that temple has been destroyed. If we were to share more in God’s feelings about this, we would be more like a Daniel begging God to let His face shine on it. What comes into His light He redeems and restores (Psa 80:3). His light reveals what is going on and also shows the solution. Without His light everything remains in darkness. If we long for Him to shine His illuminating and restorative light upon His church, we will take to heart the word of Isaiah and do it according to it: “And give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (Isa 62:7).

We will continually, vigorously, and almost shamelessly, beg God to open and incline His ear and open and see with His eyes (Lk 11:5-12 ; Lk 18:1-8). Daniel clearly mentions that he does not present or as it is literally “cause to fall” or cast down his supplications before God – another powerful expression that fits this intense prayer – on account of any merits of their own, for they do not possess them. He casts them down on the basis of God’s “great compassion”. The deeper we are permeated by this, the more boldly we will approach God, yes, rushing at Him and, as it were, continuing to bombard Him with our supplications.

Daniel does so with a threefold “Lord”, in which he insistently pleads that the Lord hears, forgives, listens and takes action, and does not delay any longer. In short sentences, he strongly states his words. The various expressions show a heart that is completely overwhelmed by the matter that is before his attention. It expresses an intense commitment. He also pleads with God not to wait with His actions in favor of His city and His people. The seventy years are over, he read in the book of the prophet Jeremiah.

The prayer is that of a prophet, a man of God, a man who loves his land, a man who has the glory of God as the highest goal of his life. He has a close, personal relationship with God, whom he calls in Dan 9:18 “my God” for the first time in his prayer. If such a person intercedes in this intense way and confesses sins and puts forward arguments for action, he will be accepted by God.

He does not say these things to teach God and he does not argue to influence God. This is the way God wants to be called upon, for it is the only way our thoughts can be brought into the right state. If we have the spirit, the faith, the repentance and the seriousness of Daniel, we can be sure that our prayers will be answered, just as his prayer will be answered.

The ground on which he begs all this is “for Your own sake”. He seeks in everything the honor of God. It is about His Name. That Name is by Himself inextricably bound to His city and His people, for that is where His Name is proclaimed. What happens to His city and His people touches Himself. That is the argument for Daniel. We must also have this plea to beg God to stand up for His church, “which He purchased with the blood of His own [Son]” (Acts 20:28).

The Answer Comes

Daniel experiences that God hears while he still speaks and prays (Isa 65:24 ; Isa 30:19b). That Daniel “was speaking and praying” seems to indicate that he prayed out loud. Speaking while praying he is busy “confessing my sin”. This is very personal. He has always involved himself by talking about ‘we’ and ‘us’. But now he says “my”.

We do not read of Daniel any sinful deed or a wrong word. Yet he is also a man to whom the words Solomon speaks in his prayer apply: “For there is no man who does not sin” (1Kgs 8:46). Believers who live most devotedly to the Lord are most aware of their own sins and deficiencies. Daniel is also fully aware that he is one with the sinning people, whom he calls “my people Israel”. He knows he is not better than they are.

After he had spoken before about presenting his supplications before God, he now speaks about causing to fall [as it is literally] his supplications before the LORD his God. He knows that he himself is in the presence of God. This places him directly at “the holy mountain of my God”. The mountain where the city of God and the house of God are, are the cause of his supplication. He keeps it personal by talking about “my God” once more. We will only be able to share in God’s feelings about His dwelling place if we have such a personal and profound relationship with God. If we look at God’s church with His eyes and if we know God’s heart about it from His Word, our prayer for God’s church will increasingly resemble that of Daniel for God’s people of that day.

In Dan 9:21 it is again said that Daniel is still busy expressing his prayer, to which is now added that this is the moment he gets a visit. This underlines the value of his prayer to God. This prayer is a prayer according to His will. God is quick to answer that prayer.

The timing of the response is also significant and interesting. It is “about the time of the evening offering”, that is to say the time when the daily burnt offering was brought in Jerusalem. This is not happening literally at that moment, because there is no temple and no temple service anymore. But faith does think about what is due to God and what God takes into account. Daniel lives in it and thinks about it. The same applies to us. When God intervenes through our prayer, it is always in connection with His Son and His work on the cross, of which the sacrifices are a shadow.

There are some remarkable events in Scripture associated with this “time of the evening offering”. So it is at this same time that Ezra is appalled by the sin of the people (Ezra 9:4). It is the hour of prayer, the hour when Cornelius receives an answer to his prayer (Acts 10:3 ; Acts 3:1). God likes to hear at that hour. The reason for this is that at that hour He did not listen to Someone else. The ninth hour is the hour when the Lord Jesus was not heard for our sake (Mt 27:45-46).

Daniel is so much in prayer that Gabriel must touch him to let him know he is there. Gabriel could also have made his presence known by speaking a few words. But the touching shows that the angel is actually personally present with Daniel. The touch means the end of Daniel’s prayer. To God it is sufficient. He knows the desires of his heart.

Gabriel tells Daniel that as soon as he has started praying, a word of God has gone out in heaven. That word was addressed to Gabriel and contained the instruction to go to Daniel and teach him and to give him insight into what he has heard and seen in the vision. Here we see how God is ready to answer a prayer of His own. Sometimes the answer can be stopped for some time, as we will see in the next chapter (Dan 10:12-14). This does not mean that the answer does not take place, but that the answer is postponed. We may know that this also fits into God’s plan.

It is not enough that Daniel has received revelations about future things. What he also needs is insight into its meaning. Only then will he benefit from it. The Lord Jesus also opened the Scriptures, and He opened the disciples’ understanding to understand the Scriptures (Lk 24:32 ; 45). We also need an opened understanding, as well as an opened Scripture. Thus, Paul says to Timothy: “Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2Tim 2:7).

If we want to understand the thoughts of God, we have to reflect on them. . We need to focus our attention on them, ponder them and compare Biblical texts with each other. That the revealed will of God is so often unknown to us, and that we err in it, is because there is so often a lack of real attention and thoughtfulness on our part.

Our understanding is opened and we are given insight into the meaning of God’s Word when it also can be said to us that we are “highly esteemed”. All the children of God may know that they are “esteemed”. Every child of God may know that he is in God’s favor (Rom 5:1b-2). That is not because of who he is in himself, but because he is favored “in the Beloved”, that is the Lord Jesus (Eph 1:6). But there are children of God of whom He says they are “highly” esteemed. These are those children who desire to act and to walk in everything according to His will and to His honor.

It will be clear that He looks at them with greater pleasure than believers who are unfaithful. Abraham and Lot are both believers. However, God cannot share His thoughts with Lot, but He can share His thoughts with Abraham (Gen 18:17-19). Daniel is one in whom the fear of the LORD is and with whom the LORD can therefore deal confidently and make known what is on His mind (Psa 25:14).