Daniel 9:4 - Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

Daniel 9:4

2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through ^aJeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

3 ^aThen I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

4 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O ^aLord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments,

5 ^awe have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments.

6 ^aNeither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land.

7 O Lord, ^arighteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

8 “O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.

9 ^aTo the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.

10 We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets.

11 Yes, ^aall Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the ^bLaw of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him.

12 And He has ^aconfirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; ^bfor under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.

13 ^a“As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; ^byet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.

14 Therefore the Lord has ^akept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for ^bthe Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

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Daniel 9:4

my confession—according to God's promises in Leviticus 26:39-42, that if Israel in exile for sin should repent and confess, God would remember for them His covenant with Abraham (compare Deuteronomy 30:1-5; Jeremiah 29:12-14; James 4:10). God's promise was absolute, but prayer also was ordained as about to precede its fulfilment, this too being the work of God in His people, as much as the external restoration which was to follow. So it shall be at Israel's final restoration (Psalms 102:13-17). Daniel takes his countrymen's place of confession of sin, identifying himself with them, and, as their representative and intercessory priest, "accepts the punishment of their iniquity." Thus he typifies Messiah, the Sin-bearer and great Intercessor. The prophet's own life and experience form the fit starting point of the prophecy concerning the sin atonement. He prays for Israel's restoration as associated in the prophets (compare Jeremiah 31:4, Jeremiah 31:11-12, Jeremiah 31:31, etc.) with the hope of Messiah. The revelation, now granted, analyzes into its successive parts that which the prophets, in prophetical perspective, heretofore saw together in one; namely, the redemption from captivity, and the full Messianic redemption. God's servants, who, like Noah's father (Genesis 5:29), hoped many a time that now the Comforter of their afflictions was at hand, had to wait from age to age, and to view preceding fulfilments only as pledges of the coming of Him whom they so earnestly desired to see (Matthew 13:17); as now also Christians, who believe that the Lord's second coming is nigh, are expected to continue waiting. So Daniel is informed of a long period of seventy prophetic weeks before Messiah's coming, instead of seventy years, as he might have expected (compare Matthew 18:21-22) [AUBERLEN].

great and dreadful God—as we know to our cost by the calamities we suffer. The greatness of God and His dreadful abhorrence of sin should prepare sinners for reverent, humble acknowledgment of the justice of their punishment.

keeping . . . covenant and mercy—that is, the covenant of Thy mercy, whereby Thou hast promised to deliver us, not for our merits, but of Thy mercy (Ezekiel 36:22-23). So weak and sinful is man that any covenant for good on God's part with him, to take effect, must depend solely on His grace. If He be a God to be feared for His justice, He is one to be trusted for His "mercy."

love . . . keep his commandments—Keeping His commandments is the only sure test of love to God (John 14:15).

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