Daniel’s Prayer

Hear. Forgive. Act.

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O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. – Daniel 9:19 ESV

Daniel 9:4-19

As Daniel wraps up his prayer, he refocuses his attention on the mercy of God. He asks that God would hear his prayer. He asks that God would forgive the transgressions he has just confessed. Finally, he begs God to hear and do something about it. In the Hebrew, the next phrase is in the negative. He actually says, “delay not.” He is asking that God intervene immediately. In other words, he wants to see the power of God unleashed without delay. After all, they had been waiting 70 years. According to the writings of Jeremiah, the time was ripe for God’s promise or restoration to be fulfilled. Daniel wanted to see it happen ASAP.

But what is interesting is the reason Daniel gave for God to hear, forgive and act. He appeals to God based on His own name and reputation. From Daniel’s human perspective, he saw it as a case of God’s character being at stake. People had already been talking about the state of affairs in Israel, and how their God had abandoned them. Daniel had to have heard countless rumors and discussions regarding God’s apparent apathy toward His own people or His inability to do anything about their condition. Even the Israelites had to have given up hope that their God was ever going to do something about their captivity. That is probably why so many of them had turned to the gods of Babylon. But Daniel held on to what he knew about God. He put his hope in the reality of who God claimed to be and what He had already done for the people of Israel. The words of Jeremiah the prophet rang in his ear, providing him with the faith he needed to keep on believing.

There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is great in might. Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your due; for among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is none like you. They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood! Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz. They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith; their clothing is violet and purple; they are all the work of skilled men. But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation. – Jeremiah 10:6-10 ESV

Daniel’s God was incomparable. He was without equal in power and was worthy of all honor. Daniel longed for God to protect His own name, because he knew the people of Judah were incapable of carrying it off. He asked God to do something because he was painfully well aware that the chosen people of God had chosen to do nothing. There was nothing they could do. They were complete incapable of changing their ways. They were stubborn, rebellious and prone to solve their problems their own way. But Daniel knew they had one hope: God. He knew if anything was going to happen, it would have to be up to God. And if God was to do anything, it would be based on His own desire to protect the character and reputation of His name. God would not allow Himself to be perceived as a liar, as weak, as uncaring, without compassionate, powerless, indifferent, always angry, unmerciful, or unloving. God had promised to restore the people of Judah, and He would. God had made a covenant with the people of Judah, and He would keep it. God was all-powerful, and He would show it. God was loving, and He would prove it. God was sovereign, and He would reveal it. God would hear, forgive and act. Not because of the people of Judah, but because He is God.

Praying For God’s Glory.

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Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.  – Daniel 9:17-18 ESV

Daniel 9:4-19

Throughout his prayer, Daniel has used two different Hebrew names for God: Adonai and Elohim. The first refers to God’s sovereignty as King. The second speaks of His strength. Daniel was appealing to the Almighty God, the very same God who had created the universe, called Abraham, rescued the Israelites from captivity and proven Himself powerful and in control of all things over and over again. Daniel knew he was taking his appeal to the only one who could do anything about it. There was no other place to go and nothing else to do. So he asked God to listen to his pleas for mercy. He asked Him to see their desolations. He begged Him to make His face shine upon the devastated temple in Jerusalem. Daniel was asking God to take a long hard look at their situation, from Babylon all the way to Jerusalem, and do something about it. Not because they deserved His rescue, but because of His mercy. Because of His own reputation.

Daniel subtly reminds God that the devastated city of Jerusalem belongs to Him. It is the only city in the world where a temple dedicated to Him exists, and it is in ruins. Daniel appeals to God’s reputation. He shows concern for the name of God. This prayer is a whole lot less about Daniel and the people of israel than it is about the reputation of God. Daniel seems to know that God is going to act for the sake of His own name. He will protect the integrity of His reputation. He has given His Word to the people of Israel to be their God and to keep His covenant with them. Daniel knows that He will do what He has promised to do and boldly prays accordingly. Daniel also shows a great deal of concern for the city and Jerusalem and its temple. His was not a selfish, self-centered prayer, aimed at his own rescue and restoration. He was praying on behalf of all the people of Judah, including those back home as well as those in Babylon. His concern was for the nation of Israel, the chosen people of God, and the city that bore the distinction of containing the temple of God.

How often our prayers far more focused on our own needs than on God’s reputation and glory. Daniel seemed far more concerned with the fame of God than with his own situation. The truth is, Daniel had a pretty good thing going in Babylon. He had a government job. He had weathered the storms of persecution that took place early on in his stay in Babylon. Daniel had access to the king and was in his good favors. He most likely lived well and enjoyed a certain degree of prominence and prestige that his fellow Jews would have envied. But Daniel was more concerned about God’s glory. He couldn’t stand the thought of God’s temple lying in ruins, the city of Jerusalem sitting unoccupied and the remnant who remained living without a king. He wanted God to act. He longed to see God display His power and exert His sovereignty on the earth. It’s interesting to note that Daniel did not tell God what to do. He didn’t give Him a long list of expectations or demands. He simply asked Him to listen, see, and act. Sometimes we can be so bold and presumptuous as to not only tell God what is going on in our lives, but also how to solve it. We not only share our needs, we share our demands. And in doing so, our concern becomes less about God’s glory than about our own good. We want what we want, not necessarily what He wants. There is nothing wrong with sharing our requests with God. The Scriptures command us to do so. But there is a huge difference between sharing our problems with God and telling Him exactly how and when we want them solved. God is not our personal genie. He does not exist for our glory. Our prayers should focus far more on God’s reputation and glory than our own.

Daniel wanted to see God act. There is no doubt that Daniel would have loved to have seen Jerusalem restored, the people returned to the land, and the nation of Israel reborn as God’s chosen people. He had read in the scroll containing the words of Jeremiah the prophet that this was exactly what God had promised would happen. So Daniel wanted to see that promise fulfilled. But his concern was far more focused on God than on himself. A restored Jerusalem and a rebuilt temple would bring glory to the name of God all around the world. The release of the people of Israel after 70 years of captivity in Babylon would take a miracle of God, and when it happened, God would get the glory. And for God to do all of this despite the fact that the people of Israel didn’t deserve it, would speak volumes about His grace, mercy, love and forgiveness. It would display His power and prove His sovereignty over all nations. It would convince the people once again that He is a covenant-keeping God. Praying for God’s glory requires trusting in God’s goodness. We must learn to trust Him to do what is best. He will always do what is right and will always act in such a way that His reputation remains unstained. We may not always get it and even like it, but God will always do what brings Him glory and results in our ultimate good, whether we see it or not. The key is learning to care first for His glory, and less about our own good.

No Lesson Learned.

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As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. – Daniel 9:13-16 ESV

Daniel 9:4-19

The people of Judah had deserved just what they had gotten. God had been righteous in all of His actions. That was the stance of Daniel. He was not angry with God. He did not shake his fist in God’s face, demanding an explanation for the last 70 years of exile. He knew exactly why the people of Judah were living in Babylon instead of the land of promise. Moses had warned them of the consequences of living in disobedience to God. “But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you” (Deuteronomy 28:15 ESV). And he had been very specific. “The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone” (Deuteronomy 28:36 ESV). The amazing thing to Daniel was not what had happened to them, but that they had learned to lessons from their experience. He openly confessed, “Every curse written against us in the Law of Moses has come true. Yet we have refused to seek mercy from the Lord our God by turning from our sins and recognizing his truth” (Daniel 9:13 NLT). For seven decades the people of Judah had continued to live in stubborn and open rebellion against God. Their punishment had not produced any remorse or caused them to run to God in repentance. As God had predicted through Moses, they had simply acclimated themselves to their new surroundings and begun to “serve other gods of wood and stone.”

It is amazing how easily we can find ourselves under the loving discipline of God, but fail to see it for what it is. When we get into trouble, we tend to blame God, rather then consider what we might have done to deserve our fate. Sometimes we are suffering as a result of our own stupidity. We make decisions without consulting God. We live out from under the guiding and protecting influence of the Holy Spirit. And we end up reaping the negative consequences of our own sinful self-wills. It is at those times we need to humbly seek God and ask Him to reveal to us any sin that may have played a role in our suffering. We need to be willing to ask Him to use the circumstances of our lives to teach us more about ourselves and reveal to us more about Him. David prayed a prayer that should be a model for every believer who is serious about growing in his relationship with God. It is a dangerous and difficult prayer to pray. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:23-24 NLT). David is asking God to shine His examination light into the deepest recesses of his life and show him what he cannot see. David realized that there were things in his own heart to which he was oblivious. There were sins lurking in his life to which he was blind. And he was asking God to point them all out to him.

Daniel was shocked that the people of Judah had not done the same thing. They had not run to God and asked Him to expose their sin so that they could repent of it. Instead, they had spent nearly 70 years learning to live with their sins and passively accepting the painful consequences. Most of them had long forgotten about the land of promise. Thousands of children had been born who knew nothing about Jerusalem or the great temple of Solomon. They had grown up worshiping false gods instead of the one true God. They saw no repentance in the lives of their parents. No one wanted to accept responsibility for their predicament. But Daniel knew better. He confessed. He entreated God’s favor. He knew that God had been righteous in all He had done regarding Israel. It wasn’t God who was in the wrong, but the people who had been set apart by Him as His chosen possession. Even in the midst of their punishment, they had remained stubborn and rebellious. In another one of his prayers to God, David had admitted, “How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin” (Psalm 19:12-13 NLT). Even on the good days, we should long for God to mercifully and lovingly reveal any hidden sins in our lives. We should want Him to expose those things to which we are blind. Knowing we have a problem is the first step toward healing. It is difficult to confess sins we can’t even see. And so many times our sins are hidden from view – even our own. They remain in the dark recesses of our lives, until we allow God to expose them to us, so that we might confess them and receive His forgiveness. The people of God in Daniel’s day had not learned their lesson. They had not seen their circumstances as having come from God’s loving hand. So rather than return and repent, they had continued to live under God’s discipline. But Daniel wanted God’s blessing. He was willing to humbly confess and receive God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Righteous Wrath.

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All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. – Daniel 9:11-12 ESV

Daniel 9-4-19

You don’t want to make God mad. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? But there is a growing sentiment among Christians today that believes God is incapable of wrath. It’s the “God is love” movement, and while it is not new, it is gaining influence like never before. There are countless spokespersons for this popular perspective on God who are writing books, giving talks, filling sanctuaries and persuading others that their view of God is not only the right one, it should be the only one. They reject the notion that God could ever be angry, because God is love. They downplay the notion of judgment because God loves everyone, including sinners. They take a tolerant view of sin, downplaying its significance and, in some cases, denying its existence. In essence, they have taken the biblically accurate statement, “God is love” and turned it around to say, ”Love is God.” They end up worshiping the attribute of love more than they do the One whose very nature defines what love really is.

Daniel would not have been a fan of this camp. He knew first-hand what the wrath of God looked like. He had experienced it. As a young man, he had watched as King Nebuchadnezzar and his troops had besieged Jerusalem, eventually breaking down its wall and destroying the great temple of Solomon. He had been one of thousands taken captive and transported to the nation of Babylon. He had heard the warnings of God spoken by the prophets of God. He and all the other Israelites had known full well what God had said would happen if they did not repent and return to Him. “For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the Lord, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands” (Jeremiah 1:15-16 ESV). God was angry. But His was a righteous anger. He was justly upset with the people of Israel because of all that He had done for them and how they had ended up treating Him – over and over again. This was not the first time they had rejected Him and proved unfaithful to Him. They had a track record of infidelity and unfaithfulness. And because God is holy and righteous, He cannot overlook sin. He has to deal with it justly. He cannot turn a blind eye and simply love like it never happened. He is obligated by His very nature as a just God to punish sin.

That is the very nature of the gospel. Paul understood the love of God well. Listen to how he defined it. “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8 ESV). Don’t miss his point. God showed His love for us by sending His Son to die for us. He took out His wrath on His own Son. He had to punish sin. He had to deal justly with injustice and God’s solution was to send His Son as the substitute or stand-in for us. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV). Isaiah was predicting the substitutionary death of Jesus when he wrote, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6 ESV). Jesus took on the sins of all mankind and bore the full force of God’s righteous wrath in order to pay the penalty required. And that was a display of God’s love.

God loved Israel. But He could not and would not tolerate their sin. And contrary to popular opinion, it is IMPOSSIBLE to separate the sin from the sinner. God’s wrath against sin inevitably falls on the one who has committed the sin. We like to say, “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.” But that is not accurate. It is unbiblical. Paul would remind us, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18 ESV). God’s wrath is poured out on people, not impersonal acts of sin. But God does love sinners, just not in the way we sometimes think. His love took the form of a personal sacrifice. He sent His son to die for them so that they would not have to suffer His righteous wrath. God’s love was made available to them through His Son’s death. All they have to do is turn from their sin and accept the gift of His love made possible through Jesus Christ. The wrath of God is against ALL sinners. The love of God is available to ALL sinners. Daniel knew both of these truths well. He understood that all He had to do was confess, repent and turn to God. “‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the Lord; ‘I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God’” (Jeremiah 3:12-13 ESV).

Something You Can Count On.

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To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. – Daniel 9:8-10 ESV

Daniel 9:4-19

It’s clear from reading his prayer, that Daniel was well aware of Judah’s guilt and culpability. He knew there very presence in the land of Babylon was evidence of their own sin and rebellion against God. And they needed to own their shame. They had brought it on themselves. In allowing the Babylonians to defeat them and take them into exile, God had simply fulfilled all that He had warned would happen if they failed to return to Him. He had given them ample warning and more than enough time to change their minds (repent) and avoid the coming judgment that Jeremiah and so many other prophets of God had warned was coming. But as Daniel confessed to God, “We have sinned against you.” He openly admitted that “we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.” No excuses. Any shame they were experiencing belonged to them. It was their own fault.

But then Daniel says something that illustrates a remarkably stark contrast between mankind and God. “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness.” They are His because they are an expression of His very nature. Shame, guilt and sin belong to man because they are expressions of his nature. You can count on it. These characteristics always show up eventually. Why? Because man can’t help it. As Paul so painfully reminds us, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 ESV). Solomon echoed that sentiment when he wrote, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20 ESV). In His prayer at the dedication of the Temple, Solomon had asked God, “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near…if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you” (1 Kings 8:46, 48-50 ESV). Solomon’s request had foreshadowed the very circumstance in which the nation of Judah found itself. They had sinned. God had given them over to their enemy. He had sent them into exile. But He was also about to show them His undeserved mercy and shower them with His forgiveness – in spite of them. There was no indication that the people had “with all their mind and with all their heart” as Solomon had prayed. They had not pleaded with God in the land of their captors. The only one praying seemed to be Daniel. And yet God heard his prayer. And because mercy and forgiveness belong to God, He is free to give them whether they are deserved or not. As Paul so aptly puts it, “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills” (Romans 9:18 ESV). We can’t earn His mercy and forgiveness. We are incapable of doing anything that will force Him to give us what we so desperately need. But He gives mercy and forgiveness because He chooses to do so. That is the very hope of the gospel. Sin belongs to mankind. Mercy and forgiveness belong to God. Our sin can only produce death. God’s mercy and forgiveness result in life. And nowhere is that more evident than in the greatest expression of God’s mercy and forgiveness: His Son Jesus Christ. Paul states that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 ESV). Christ’s death was the ultimate act of God’s mercy. He died in our place. He took on our sin and suffered our punishment, so that we might receive God’s judicial pardon and be released from all condemnation. He died so that we might live. And all of this in spite of the fact that mankind had proven itself completely incapable of faithfulness to God. In fact, Paul says, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20 ESV). The worse sin got, the greater God’s grace became. God paid the ultimate price for the sin and rebellion of men. He gave His own Son as the sinless sacrifice required to satisfy His own just judgment of sin. He paid the debt we owed with the blood of His own Son. Mercy and forgiveness belonged to Him and He expressed it through Jesus. And while God could never count on us to remain faithful, we can always count on Him. “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9 ESV). Mercy and forgiveness belong to God, and He shared both with mankind through the loving sacrifice of His own Son. Rather than give us what we deserved: death, He gave us what we could have never earned: Life. The story of the Bible is summed up in the words of Paul to Timothy. “If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is” (2 Timothy 2:13 NLT).


Righteous In All His Ways.

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We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. – Daniel 9:6-7 ESV

Daniel 9:4-19

Along with the prophecies of Jeremiah, Daniel would have surely been familiar with the psalms of David. In more than one of his psalms David wrote of the righteousness of God. “The LORD is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness” (Psalm 145:17 NLT). “God’s way is perfect. All the LORD’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection” (Psalm 18:30 NLT). He would have also known the words of Moses regarding the righteousness of God. “He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!” (Deuteronomy 32:4 NLT). As a young Jew growing up in Judah, Daniel would have been well-schooled in the righteousness of God. And as an old man living in exile in Babylon, he was still holding on to what he knew and believed about God. As he continued his prayer of confession and contrition on behalf of the people of Judah, he openly and humbly admitted their full responsibility for their predicament and God’s right and responsibility to have dealt with them as He had. God had warned, but they had not listened. God had given His call to repentance to every king, prince, father and child in Judah, so that no one could have claimed ignorance. Their sin against Him had been knowingly and willful. As a result, Daniel confesses that their humiliation was well-deserved and should have been fully expected. Not only for those living in exile in Babylon, but for every Jew wherever they might be living.

How easy it is to snub our nose at God and then shake our finger in His face when things don’t turn out quite the way we expected. How many times had the people of Israel refused to listen to God and then attempted to blame Him for the consequences of their own rebellion? It would have seemed logical and only natural to question why God had abandoned them as a nation and allowed them to be defeated at the hands of their enemies. But the truth was that they had abandoned God. They had forsaken Him and refused to live according to His commands. And God had repeatedly warned them what would happen if they continued their pattern of ignoring His calls to repentance. So Daniel knew that God was in the right. He had kept His word and done exactly what He had said He would do. Because He is righteous. But God is far more than just a letter-of-the-law god. His righteousness has a purpose behind it. As David had said, “The LORD is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness.” Even in His punishment, He expresses love. “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (Solomon 3:11-12 ESV). “Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you” (Deuteronomy 8:5 ESV).

Daniel had had 70 years to consider why the people of Judah were living in the land of Babylon as exiles. He had had ample time to think about their circumstances and reach the conclusion that their situation was a result of their own sin and God’s righteous, yet loving discipline. Which is why he concluded that God had “driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed.” They were wrong. God was right. They had been unfaithful, but God had remained faithful. In fact, God had not only told Jeremiah what would happen if the people of Judah refused to repent, He had told him what He would do even after they stubbornly forced His hand. “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:10-11 ESV). God would be righteous and loving, just and gracious, holy and merciful. He is always righteous and forever loving. He is always firm in His discipline and yet forever faithful in showing kindness. Daniel knew he had no right to point his finger at God. He had no cause to blame God for the less-than-ideal circumstances of the people of Judah. They had gotten what they deserved. But God was about to give them what they didn’t deserve – His grace and kindness expressed in His miraculous restoration of them to the land He had given them. They deserved exile. They didn’t deserve restoration. God had righteously punished them, but was also going to lovingly forgive them. What a picture of the grace and mercy He poured out through Jesus Christ on the cross. The very death we deserved He asked His own Son to bear, so that we might receive pardon and enjoy restoration to a right relationship with God. And all we must do to enjoy this amazing grace is acknowledge our sin and admit our complete inability to save ourselves. We must believe that His Son is the only payment righteous enough and valuable enough to settle the debt we owed. Our death sentence was well-deserved. His grace and love, as revealed through the gift of His Son, was not. He is righteous in all His ways. He is loving beyond belief.

Corporate Confession.

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O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. – Daniel 9:4-5 ESV

Daniel 9:4-19

Daniel was living in exile with his fellow Jews in the former Neo-Babylonian empire. He was one of the thousands of Jews who had been sent into captivity when Nebuchadnezzar and his army had conquered and destroyed Judah. At the point David prays this prayer, he has been in captivity for almost 70 years. As the book that bears his name tells us, Daniel had been a faithful servant of God even from his earliest days as an exile when he was forced into servitude in the king’s palace. Now, as an old man, he was reading the scroll containing the writings of the prophet, Jeremiah, and ran across God’s promise concerning His chosen people. “I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years” (Daniel 9:2 ESV). In essence, Daniel had been having his “quiet time” and while reading the book of Jeremiah, he discovered the following words from God: “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:10-14 ESV). What a rush it must been when Daniel read these words and realized that the 70 year time period had arrived. God was going to visit Israel. He was going to fulfill His promise to bring them back to Judah. He was going to restore their fortunes, return them to the land, and renew His relationship with them.

And what was Daniel’s response? Did he jump for joy? Did he run outside to tell all his friends the good news? No, Daniel prayed. “Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession” (Daniel 9:2-4 ESV). Faced with the unbelievable good news of God’s pending deliverance, Daniel prayed a prayer filled with confession, repentance and an appeal for God to show mercy. He knew they didn’t deserve what God was about to do. And God had clearly indicated what they were to do. They were to call on Him and pray to Him. They were to seek him with all their heart. And if they did, He would hear and restore their fortunes. So Daniel did just that. He prayed. He called. He cried out to God and he confessed on behalf of the people of Judah. He directed his prayer to “the great and awesome God.” He appealed to the covenant-keeping, consistently-loving God of Judah. He acknowledged the greatness and goodness of God, fully recognizing and admitting that their predicament had been their own fault. “…we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules” (Daniel 9:5 ESV). Daniel wasn’t taking any chances. While his math convinced him that the 70 years was just about up, he was going to make sure that he did his part and call out and confess just as God had commanded. He may not have been able to coerce or convince the rest of the exiles to do the same, but he was going to everything in his power to see that God’s command was kept.

Daniel prayed. He humbled himself before God, “seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.” This was a serious, sold-out, no-holds-barred kind of prayer session. And it was anything but selfish. His was a corporately focused prayer, lifting up the entire nation of Judah and offered as an intercessory petition to God on their behalf. David could have simply focused on himself, regaling God with the stories of his of faithful service over the years. He could have reminded God of his unwillingness to worship the false gods of Babylon. He could have tried to impress God with his incredible faith illustrated by his encounter in the lions’ den. But instead, Daniel included himself in the sins of the people. He knew that God was interested in a corporate confession because He was offering a corporate restoration. Daniel was painfully aware that the people of God had not been faithful during their time in exile. Many of them had ended up acclimating quite well to their new environment, growing comfortable and complacent. They had compromised their faith and rejected their God for the gods of their captors. Having felt abandoned by God, they had chosen to put their hope and trust elsewhere. But Daniel knew that their only hope rested with the only true God. He alone could restore them. He alone could turn their fortunes around, taking them from captivity to freedom, from their well-deserved exile to their unmerited restoration to the land and His favor.

Daniel was comfortable in his circumstances. He could have been content to live out his days in Babylon, worshiping God and working at his government job. But he wanted what God wanted. He desired to see God’s power revealed in the affairs of his people. So he prayed. And he prayed diligently, fervently, passionately, persistently and expectantly.