Daniel 9:4 Commentary and Bible Study

Daniel characterises his prayer as confession. It is one of the great example prayers of the Bible. He begins with worship and in particular the rehearsal of some of the attributes of God. At the start of our prayer, we must stir up our minds to have a more real understanding of who we come to, and we may do this with God’s help by considering what God has revealed about himself. We know that our understanding is feeble, but by focusing on the nature of our God we strive towards a deeper knowledge of him. Prayer requires effort and active thought; it is a wrestling with God, as Jacob learned. ‘O Lord, the great and dreadful God’ – we come to the God who is unapproachable but for his mercy and his gracious invitation to draw near. Without this we would be afraid to draw near to him. We must come through our Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, for without Christ the holiness of God would destroy all who approach. The reminder of this prevents us coming without solemn reverence. Then Daniel thinks of God’s faithfulness – ‘keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments.’ Daniel knows that Israel is in a covenant relationship with the Lord, and, even though they are in exile, God has not utterly rejected them as a nation. They have come under severe discipline but they have not been altogether cast off. The promise given through Jeremiah is that God will bring them back from Babylon, and remember his covenant. This is because of the faithfulness of the Lord to his own word. No one watches over him to make sure he keeps his word; he guards his own promises and his people rely on this. But Daniel adds that the covenant is ‘to them that keep his commandments’. Is this works religion? No, but it means obeying and honouring God’s law. We must take these things seriously, and yet Daniel knows that Israel has failed to do this, which makes his confession all the more urgent. He understood why the nation was in captivity in Babylon – for their sins. He understood that without repentance there is no forgiveness of sin. He therefore leads the nation in a solemn prayer of repentance.He uses several terms for sin, and they are all meaningful. Sin, first of all, actual offences – missing the mark. Iniquity means perversion, that which is twisted or bent – our hearts are perverted through habitual sin. And then wickedness and rebellion, in departing from God’s right ways and rebelling against his right government over us: determination to turn from him. All these things are mentioned. When Daniel repents he does it in detail, and we too must think about the different aspects of our sin in order to confess it meaningfully.‘Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets.’ This is an acknowledgment that God has many times sent his servants, the prophets, to correct the sins of the nation and the sins of individuals, but the people blocked their ears. This has aggravated their guilt enormously. They were rejecting God’s merciful correction which they did not deserve to receive. They had run the risk of having him withdraw from them completely. They had already disobeyed and he had declined to cast them off, and instead reasoned with them. But they ignored this also. God had spoken to their kings and their princes, their high officials – some had suffered illness, others had been removed from the earth. He had spoken to their fathers in past generations, and the people who came after should have taken the lessons to heart. He had spoken to the people by sending war and oppression and then alleviating them when they cried out to him. All this had gone on for centuries. Paul quotes Isaiah as saying, ‘I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, that walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts’ (Isaiah 65:2). We too can fail to listen to the word of God and push past conscience and persist in doing what we want and what we know to be contrary to the will of God.