Daniel Chapter 9/Commentary

Daniel Chapter 9

9:1 There is some question concerning the identification of the Darius mentioned in this verse.

This is the same Darius mentioned in Daniel 5:31 and 6:1. Some feel that this Darius was appointed by Cyrus to rule over Babylon (9:1 “made king”).

9:2 “No apologies are offered here for calling Jeremiah a prophet. No mumbling about the possibility of the message of Jeremiah being the message of God” (McGuiggan p. 145).

“Observed in the books”: We should note that Daniel is about 1000 miles from Jerusalem, and yet Daniel has not only the book of Jeremiah, but other Old Testament books as well. While Daniel had been in Babylon before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., Jeremiah had been in Jerusalem during the same time. It has been almost 70 years since Jerusalem had been under Babylonian control, and yet 1000 miles away, Daniel has a copy of Jeremiah’s work. This demonstrates how quickly the Scriptures were distributed and copied, even during times of intense persecution and war. “Namely seventy years”: Jeremiah 25:11 and 29:10 speak of seventy years of captivity. The captivity started with the first attack on Jerusalem in 606 B.C. (when Daniel was taken into captivity). Now in the first year of Darius’ rule (536 B.C.), from reading the book of Jeremiah, Daniel realizes that the time of the captivity is coming to an end.

Why Seventy Years?

“The law of Moses had commanded the Israelites to acknowledge every seventh year as a sabbatical year. The ground was to lie at rest (Leviticus 25:1-7). Apparently, across the centuries Israel had ignored that divinely-imposed regulation. In their pre-captivity history there seems to be no example of their ever having honored the Sabbath-year law. Thus, according to the testimony of one biblical writer, the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity was assigned ‘until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths’ (2 Chronicles 36:21). If each of the seventy captivityyears represented a violation of the sabbatical-year requirement (every seventh year), this would indicate that Israel had neglected the divine injunction for approximately 490 years. The captivity era therefore looked backward upon five centuries of sinful neglect” (The Christian Courier, 11-9-1998, Wayne Jackson).

9:3 We already know that Daniel took his praying seriously (Daniel 6). “It’s true we don’t have to wear sackcloth, but wouldn’t it be just great if we were altogether serious about our talking to God?!” (McGuiggan p. 145). Daniel, reflecting upon the time-span suggested by Jeremiah’s 1

prophecies, calculated that the captivity period almost was over, he thus approached Jehovah in prayer.

9:4-13 Daniel understood that Moses had revealed in the Law the principle on which God would deal with His covenant people: obedience would bring blessing, and disobedience would bring discipline. One form of discipline was that Israel would be subjugated to Gentile powers (Deuteronomy 28:48-57; 64-68). Israel’s experience in Babylon was the outworking of that principle. Moses revealed the basis on which the discipline would be lifted and the nation would be restored to her land and blessings (Deuteronomy 30). She would have to return to God and obey His voice; then God would turn back her captivity and restore the people to the land from which they had been dispersed. Daniel knew that the years in Babylon were a divine discipline on Israel. Knowing that confession was on requisite to restoration, he confessed the sin of his people. We need to be impressed that the proper understanding of the Scriptures will enable us to maintain the right perspective. Instead of being angry at God or thinking that God had either failed Israel or that God did not even exist, Daniel knew that what Israel had experienced was due to her own sins.

9:5-6 “We have sinned”: Daniel clearly loved Israel, but such love does not make excuses for the people we love. True love sees what people really have done. “The man makes no bones about it, Israel asked for what she got” (McGuiggan p. 146). Note that such sin was willful and deliberate. “We have not listened to Thy servants the prophets”: Rather, they listened to popular false prophets who tickled their ears by telling them “peace, peace” when there was no peace (Jeremiah 8:11). While God’s prophets may not be heeded by a particular generation, the message and work of those prophets was always vindicated. In the book The Embarrassed Believer, the author notes that modern bestsellers that proclaim the “everyone’s OK theology” are selling millions of books, but hardly one word that any of these folks wrote is of lasting value. “They are authors who represent a particular age and mind-set. Because they have perfect pitch for these times, they cannot print their books fast enough. And when they depart from the formula, their sales plummet. But when the music changes, and it will change, for it always does, their books will drop from sight” (pp. viii-ix).

9:7-8 “Open shame”: This is what every unrepentant sinner will face, either sooner or later (1 Timothy 5:24). Even in our society which claims to be accepting of all behaviors, there is still “open shame” for the sinner who is caught or exposed. For the Jews the “open shame” was in the fact that they had been removed from their land and their center of worship destroyed.

Imagine all the questions that the Jewish people kept fielding from unbelievers concerning “why” such had happened to them? Imagine all the ridicule they faced for seventy years! “If you serve the true God, then why is His temple destroyed?”

9:9-11 God is merciful but one receives such mercy by seeking to comply with His commandments. Grace and obedience do go hand in hand. Let us remember that obedience is involved in coming back to God and repenting, “Therefore bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8); “that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance” (Acts 26:20).

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9:12 “He has confirmed His words”: God keeps His promises even when most people are not being faithful. God keeps His promises even when most people are not even believing in Him. What the majority thinks or does has no impact upon the certainty of God’s truth. When people ignore God, God does not leave the scene, but continues to carrying out His will and His judgments.

9:13 “As it is written in the law of Moses”: “Here is a prophet of God putting the stamp of divine authority on the law. He further makes it clear that in the 6 th century B.C., the Jews understood Moses to be the author (under God) of the law bearing his name. The Mosaic authorship of the Penteteuch was only attached after organic evolution had made headway into the other disciplines of life: particularly, literature” (McGuiggan p. 147).

9:14-15 For repentance to be effective and sincere, one needs to be black and white as far as sin is concerned. God is righteous and we have not obeyed His voice, it’s that simple. Daniel does not seek to “understand” why people did not obey God. There is no thought that maybe we should walk in the shoes of the unfaithful Israelites before we judge them so harshly. There is no hint that maybe God would share some of the blame for the rebellion among His people, i.e., “maybe He was too overbearing”, “did not address their true needs” or, “did not use the right tone”.

9:16-17 Daniel’s concern is with both the city and the sanctuary. Both were desolate, and both were generating ridicule for God and His people. Like Moses, Daniel is intensely concerned about God’s reputation among the nations. “Above all else he wishes the Lord to act to glorify His own holy name just as He did in His miraculous deliverance of weak, humiliated Israel from Egypt. The next concern is that God withdraw His desolation of the Holy City, not from any selfish motive on Daniel’s part, but in order that God’s righteousness, mercifulness, and power may be vindicated before the eyes of the heathen world which has taken great delight in mocking God and His people because of their seeming powerlessness at the heathen’s hand” (Butler pp. 337-338).

9:18-19 “Any merits of our own”: Israel does not deserve to be forgiven. “Daniel is not concerned that the people be delivered in order to enjoy physical ease and comfort. Daniel is not interested that the people be delivered in order that their wounded pride be avenged. His only interest is that God’s holiness and faithfulness be vindicated. After all, sinning man deserves only judgment” (Butler p. 338). Daniel begs that God do three things, hear, forgive, and do (what needs to be done).

9:20 “And confessing my sin and the sin of my people”: Daniel was a righteous man, yet he did sin. Even though Daniel had not sinned like many other rebellious Israelites before the fall of Jerusalem, this does not give Daniel any comfort concerning his own sin. Daniel recognized that his own personal sins in some way contributed to the downfall and corruption of the nation just like the many sins of others. Daniel needed God’s mercy just as much as the most unfaithful Israelite, his own personal sins had created a debt that he could not pay (Luke 7:36ff). Often 3

people will detach themselves from the rest of men and seek to absolve themselves from the direction a society is headed, but Daniel could not do that. Daniel did not have a “who cares attitude” toward the future of Israel and neither did he say, “Well am I old and on my way to heaven, so it really does not matter to me what happens to this nation”.

9:21 Daniel had prayed that God would not “delay” (9:19), and God did not delay, for the angel Gabriel was standing before Daniel with the answer to his prayer before Daniel even finished praying, “while I was still speaking in prayer” (9:21). Gabriel had appeared before to Daniel in 8:15-16. “In my extreme weariness”: Are we worn out after we pray? Do we put our entire being into our prayers to God? The “evening offering” was one of two daily sacrifices required in the Law (Numbers 28:3-4). Even though the temple had been destroyed for some 47 years so that sacrifices could not be offered, Daniel continued to observe that time of day as an appointed time of worship. “Gabriel was ‘caused to fly swiftly’ while Daniel was in prayer. It has been suggested if Gabriel were to catch us in prayer he’d have to come exceedingly swiftly.

Prayer is difficult for us who are constantly on the move, doing things, planning things. Would to God that we understood!” (McGuiggan p. 146). Notice how God is eager to hear and answer our prayers. A righteous man is praying, haste is needed!

9:22 “Teaching is such a vital thing. It does make a difference what a man believes! What enables some people to handle the storms of life and sadly watch others drowning in them? It’s their view of life, purpose, death, and the other basic issues. Teaching is fundamentally important. There have been no great men or women without great convictions” (McGuiggan p.

147). Notice that God takes the time to praise Daniel for his faithfulness. In the end, all that matters is that we are highly esteemed by God, all other forms of praise or reward are temporary, fleeting and chasing after the wind. “’They don’t want me anymore’, sang Norma Desmond in the wonderful song from Sunset Boulevard, ‘With One Look’. ‘They all say I’m through’, she lamented. And ‘they’ were right—and not just in the movie. All fame fades” (Hewitt pp. 10-11).

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