HOMILETICS
SECT. XXX.—DANIEL’S PRAYER (Chap. Daniel 9:1-14)
We come to what, in more than one respect, is among the most remarkable portions of Scripture. The chapter before us contains one of the most precious predictions concerning the promised Saviour and the work of redemption which He was to accomplish. It has two peculiarities which place it in advance of every other: the one, that it gives the name or title by which He was to be known throughout the dispensation He was to introduce, and which was at the same time to designate that dispensation, viz., Messiah or the Christ; the other, that the time of His advent is distinctly and unmistakably marked out.
This remarkable communication was given to the prophet in answer to prayer. That prayer, itself remarkable, is also recorded in this chapter,—the second circumstance that distinguishes it as a portion of Holy Scripture [247]. The prayer is peculiar, not only from its own intrinsic character, but as being the prayer of a prophet, a patriot, a statesman, holding the highest office in the second great universal empire, and an eminent saint of above fourscore, who had walked with God in Babylon for threescore years and ten. It is to this remarkable prayer we now turn our attention. We notice—
[247] This prayer, observes Keil, has been judged very severely by modern critics. According to Bertholdt, V. Langerke, Hitzig, Stähelin, and Ewald, its matter and its whole design are constructed according to older patterns; in part, according to the prayers of Nehemiah (chap. 9) and Ezra (chap. 9) But we have only to examine the parallel thoughts and words adduced in order at once to perceive that, without exception, they all have their roots in the Pentateuch, and afford not the slightest proof of the dependence of this chapter on Nehemiah 9. The whole tone and language of the prayer also is such that it seems impossible to conceive of it as a forgery under the name of Daniel.
I. The time of the prayer. “In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus [248], of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans” (Daniel 9:1). This was that “Darius the Mede” who, on the death of Belshazzar and the fall of Babylon, “took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old” (chap. Daniel 5:31). As Darius reigned only two years, and as Cyrus his successor granted the Jews their liberty to return to their own land in the first year of his reign, after a captivity of seventy years, at the commencement of which Daniel was a youth of about fourteen or sixteen years of age, he must now have been something above eighty years old. Daniel, as we have seen, had been a man of prayer from his youth. Neither his engagements as a statesman and prime minister, nor the seductions of a luxurious court, had been able to turn him aside from his beloved practice. The path to the mercy-seat had become to Daniel a well-beaten one. The throne of grace was now well known to him for a refuge. He had long experienced the truth of the divine title, “Thou that hearest prayer” (Psalms 65:2). He spends his last days in the happy familiar exercise. As in the case of President Lincoln, prayer had become a confirmed habit. His constant resource amidst the difficulty and trials of life, it is his solace as he approaches the solemnities of death. As the burden of state business and the splendours of a palace, so the infirmities of old age failed to lessen his relish for the hallowed employment.
[248] “Son of Ahasuerus.” This Ahasuerus was a brother of Cyrus’s grandfather, Darius being Cyrus’s uncle. Ahasuerus was a common name among the kings of Persia, its Greek form being Artaxerxes. See note at chap. Daniel 5:31. The Ahasuerus, however, who is here mentioned, is called by heathen writers Astyages, Oriental monarchs usually having several names. The first year of the reign of Darius the Mede over Babylon was probably 538 b.c. Mr. Bosanquet indeed contends that this Darius was Darius Hystaspis, and that this vision was given in the sixty-second year of his age, 592 b.c. He also thinks of this Ahasuerus as Cyaxares, of the seed of the Medes, whose son or grandson he may have been by birth, adoption, inheritance, ancestral descent in male or female line, son-in-law, or simply successor to the throne of this Median king. He thinks that it was in the second year of that Darius that the indignation against Jerusalem ceased, and the seventy weeks of mercy began (Zechariah 1:12), and that it was therefore at that period when the present prophecy was delivered. See note (4).
II. The occasion of it. This was the reading and study of the Scriptures which he possessed, and more especially the prophecies of Jeremiah. “I, Daniel, understood by books [249] the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that He would accomplish seventy years [250] in the desolations of Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:2). From this prophet Daniel knew that the time for the termination of the captivity could not be far distant, from whatever period its commencement was to be dated. His concern was that no sin or unbelief on the part of his people might cause the promised term to be prolonged, as in the case of their fathers in the desert. Knowing well their past provocations, he sets himself to supplicate pardon and grace on their behalf, according to the divine direction given in the same prophet (Jeremiah 29:10-12). Not even a direct promise intended to supersede the duty of humiliation and prayer, but rather to stimulate to the performance of it. God free even in the fulfilment of His promises. “Ye shall know my breach of promise” (Numbers 14:33). “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you” (Jeremiah 5:25). The fulfilment of a promise to be secured by prayer and prepared for by humiliation. So the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 1:4-5; Acts 1:14; Acts 2:1).
[249] “By books.” בַּסְּפָרִים (bassepharim), “in the books,” the sacred books which he possessed, especially those of the prophets, and more particularly the writings of Jeremiah. Neither the prophecies of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, nor the histories of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the two Books of Chronicles, were yet written. Hengstenberg observes that nothing more can be gathered from this passage than that Daniel was in possession of certain sacred writings, embracing the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Obadiah, Micah, a collection of Psalms, and the Book of Job. Equally numerous were the writings which Zechariah had before him. Hence the text affords no argument that the Book of Daniel was first composed at a time when the rest of the canon was already made up and regarded as a complete whole. Keil, with Maurer and Hitzig, renders the words, “I marked or gave heed in the Scriptures;” and adds: “הַסְּפָרִים (hassepharim), τὰ βιβλία, is not synonymous with הַכְּתוּבִים (hakkethubhim), αἱ γραφαὶ; but denotes only writings in the plural, without saying that these writings formed already a recognised collection; so that from this expression nothing can be concluded regarding the formation of the Old Testament canon.” Dr. Pusey remarks that the date at which the Jews in the time of Josephus believed the canon of the Scriptures to have been closed was about four centuries before the birth of our Lord. Josephus probably fixed on the reign of Artaxerxes as being the period of Nehemiah’s great work of restoration, although the actual closing of the canon probably took place during the second visit to his country, the probable date of the prophet Malachi, under the son and successor of Artaxerxes or Darius Nothus. Dr. Pusey, however, remarks that what is said here about the books, i.e., the biblia, the Scriptures, exactly expresses what we see from the writings of the prophets before the Captivity to have been the fact, that the books of the prophets were collected together. He adds: “The canon was almost completed before the return from the Captivity. Of the former prophets or historical books, the Kings at most had yet to be formally added to it. Of the latter prophets, there remained perhaps the formal reception of Ezekiel; the three last prophets only had not been sent. Of the Hagiographa, there remained the collection of some later psalms,—some in the last Book of the Psalms were not yet written. Daniel was perhaps then formally added: the historical books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the Chronicles, were as yet unwritten.” Professor R. Smith thinks we have here the prophetic literature referred to under the name of “the books,” which he understands as equivalent to Scriptures. He remarks that the first unambiguous evidence as to the close of the canon is contained in the list of Josephus, composed towards the close of the first century; and that we can affirm, with practical certainty, that the twenty-two books of Josephus are those of our present Hebrew canon. He thinks, however, that the force of this evidence is disguised by the controversial purpose of the writer, which leads him to put his facts in a false light, viewing the close of the canon as distinctly marked by the cessation of the succession of prophets in the time of Artaxerxes, while there was clearly no regular and unbroken series of sacred annals officially kept up from the time of Moses onwards. He regards the view of Josephus as a theory, and one inconsistent with the fact that we find no complete formal catalogue of Scriptures in earlier writers like the Son of Sirach, who, enumerating the literary worthies of his nation, had every motive to give a complete list, if he had been in a position to do so; inconsistent also with the fact that questions as to the canonicity of certain books were still undecided within the lifetime of Josephus himself; referring to those of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon, about whose character, as inspired Scripture, the Mishna records some Rabbinical disputes. Mr. Smith thinks that the clearest evidence that the notion of canonicity was not fully established till long after the time of Artaxerxes is in the Septuagint, as containing some apocryphal additions; from which he concludes, that the canon of the Old Testament was of gradual formation; that some books, now accepted, had long a doubtful position, while others were for a time admitted to a measure of reputation, which made the line of demarcation between them and the canonical books uncertain and fluctuating; the canon of the Old Testament passing through much the same kind of history through which we know the New Testament canon to have passed; the position of several books being, as a matter of fact, still subject of controversy as Antilegomena in the apostolic age, and not finally determined till after the fall of the Temple and the Jewish state; the Hagiographa not forming before that date a closed collection with an undisputed list of contents, so that the general testimony of Christ and His apostles to the Old Testament Scripture cannot, in his opinion, be used as certainly including those books.
[250] “Seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:2). There have been two reckonings of these seventy years: one, which is generally accepted, from the captivity in the third year of Jehoiakim, ending with the first year of Cyrus; the other, from the captivity of Zedekiah, ending nineteen years later, in the second year of Darius Hystaspis (Zechariah 1:12). The later adopted by Theodoret, Pellican, and Œcolampadius. The Duke of Manchester thinks there were two periods of seventy years: the one, that of the servitude in Babylon; the other, that of the desolation of Jerusalem, terminating in the first year of Darius Nothus. Dr. Pusey observes that the time of seventy years, counting from the year when captives were first taken to Babylon, the first of a long series of such removals, viz., in the third year of Jehoiakim, was fulfilled to the exact year. According to the canon of Ptolemy, Nebuchadnezzar reigned forty-three years; Evil-Merodach, two; Neriglissar, four; Nabunahit, who for a time associated his son Belshazzar in the government, seventeen; to which should probably be added a year or eighteen months preceding that part of the fourth of Jehoiakim with which Nebuchadnezzar’s accession to his father’s throne coincides, and the two years during which Darius the Mede was viceroy in Babylon after Belshazzar’s death. Prideaux thinks that it was not only exactly after seventy years that the release from the Captivity took place, but that it was in the very month, viz., November, in which, seventy years before, it had commenced; the Jews who returned being found for the first time in Jerusalem in the month Nisan (our April), after a four months’ march and one month’s preparation for it.
III. The preparation for it. “I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplication [251], with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes” [252] (Daniel 9:3). Daniel’s prayer was to be no ordinary one, and to be engaged in in no ordinary manner. The prayer was to be for an object of the highest importance, not so much to himself personally, as to his people, the cause of religion, and the glory of God. It was to be for the promised removal of evils long threatened and justly executed on account of the aggravated and long-continued sins of his people, and which impenitence and unbelief on their part might still retard. The prayer needed therefore to be not only made with deepest earnestness and fervour, but to be accompanied with heartfelt humiliation and confession of sin, in the name of his guilty countrymen as well as his own. All the powers of his soul must therefore be aroused to intense exercise, while he must be brought under a deep sense of the sins which he has to confess as the cause of his people’s severe and protracted calamities. He has recourse, therefore, to what were not only the ordinary outward expressions of self-abasement, humiliation, and sorrow, but natural helps to the attainment and maintenance of such a state of soul, and suitable accompaniments of it. Special prayer demands special preparation. “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” “Thou wilt prepare their heart; Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear.”
[251] “Prayer and supplication” (Daniel 9:3). Keil thinks that תְּפִלָּח (tephillah), “prayer,” is prayer in general; תַּהֲנוּנִים (takhanunim), “supplications,” prayer for mercy and compassion, as also petition for something, such as the turning away of misfortune or evil. Dr. Cox observes that Daniel’s prayer divides itself into three parts—the address, the confession, and the petition. He remarks that the prayer is remarkable for the large proportion of it that is occupied with confession; the reiteration of phrases descriptive of sin, examplifying the depth of his penitential sorrow; the simplicity of the diction; the minuteness of the detail; the profound humility indicated; the vindication of God and the spirit of self-reproach; the high estimation expressed of the mercy and forgiveness of God.
[252] “With fasting and sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). Calvin remarks that Daniel, though naturally alert in prayer to God, was yet conscious of the want of sufficiency in himself; and hence he adds the use of sackcloth and ashes and fasting. He observes that every one conscious of his infirmity, ought to collect all the aids he can command for the correction of his sluggishness, and thus to stimulate himself to ardour in supplicating God.
IV. The prayer itself. This prayer of Daniel, perhaps beyond any other in the Bible, contains in it all the elements of devotion. Those in Ezra 9:6, &c., and Nehemiah 9:5, &c., dictated by the same spirit, probably moulded by this of Daniel. As its constituent parts we have—
1. Adoration. Expressing—
(1.) Reverence. “O Lord, the great and dreadful God” (Daniel 9:4). The Lord is great and greatly to be praised, to be held in reverence of all that are about Him. Great fear due to Him in the meeting of His saints and in all their approaches to His throne of grace. “Of all the people will I be sanctified.” Filial confidence not inconsistent with the deepest reverence. The song of the glorified on the sea of glass: “Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name for Thou only art holy” (Revelation 15:4). The tendency of such adoration to deepen our sense of sin.
(2.) Faith. “Keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep His commandments” (Daniel 9:4). Faith in God as merciful, gracious, and ready to forgive, also expressed in Daniel 9:9: “To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him.” “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). Confidence in God’s mercy to be coupled with reverence and holy fear. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Daniel’s faith further expressed in his appropriation of the Lord as his God. Not satisfied with calling Him “our God,” he twice over invokes him as “my God.” Faith believes, accepts, and appropriates God as our covenant God in and through Christ. “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” “My Lord and my God.” “If we wish our prayers to be heard,” says Keil, “then God, to whom we pray, must become our God.”
2. Confession. “We have sinned,” &c. (Daniel 9:5-14). This confession, large and full, occupying the greatest part of the prayer. Felt by Daniel, in the circumstances, to be that which was so much called for, and so necessary to the obtaining of the object sought He confesses the sins of the whole people in both its sections, and of all classes, including his own. With the sins he acknowledges the sufferings entailed by them, and the justice that inflicted them. “Righteousness belongeth unto Thee, but unto us confusion of face” (Daniel 9:7-8). Mentions as an aggravation of their case that while the Lord was visiting them for their sin they still refused to repent and pray, and hardened themselves against His corrections. In confessing sin we are to remember and confess its peculiar aggravations.
3. Thanksgiving and praise. Daniel makes thankful acknowledgment of God’s past mercies. “O Lord God, that hast brought Thy people out of the land of Egypt,” &c. (Daniel 9:15). Thanksgiving to accompany prayer and supplication in making our requests known unto God (Philippians 4:7). Thanksgiving for past mercies a tribute due to their Author and the means of obtaining more. Gratitude both glorifying to God and a gain to ourselves. “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.” What God has already done, a never-failing source of thanksgiving.
4. Petition or supplication [253]. “O Lord, according to all Thy righteousness, I beseech Thee let Thine anger and Thy fury be turned away,” &c. (Daniel 9:16-19). Supplication and petition, prayer properly so called. To pray is properly to ask or make request; supplication is earnest asking. Without this there may be devotion and communion with God, but scarcely prayer. This part of Daniel’s prayer the centre and kernel of the whole. His object in the exercise to entreat for forgiveness and favour on behalf of his people and country. In this part of the prayer we observe—
(1.) Intense earnestness. “O Lord, I beseech thee.… O my God, incline Thine ear and hear.… O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for Thine own sake, O my God.” An instructive specimen of earnest pleading. This the “effectual fervent prayer” of the righteous man that “availeth much.” Jacob wrestling with the angel and refusing to let him go without bestowing a blessing.
(2.) Deep humility. “We do not present our supplications before Thee for our own righteousnesses, but for Thy great mercies.” “To us belongeth confusion of face.” Humility refuges every plea for acceptance but God’s free mercy. It can indeed plead a righteousness, but not its own. The Lord Himself is its righteousness, wrought out in the person of the Son and freely made over to faith. “This is the name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness.” “I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only.”
(3.) The prevailing plea. “For the Lord’s sake” (Daniel 9:17)
(8). No doubt as to who this is. “Daniel sets before God the Mediator by whose favour he hopes to obtain his request.”—Calvin. “The Lord (Jehovah) said unto my Lord (the Anointed or the Christ, the promised Saviour), Sit Thou on my right hand,” &c. (Psalms 110:1). The same Messiah who forms the subject of the following vision, God’s anointed King of Israel on His holy hill of Zion (Psalms 2) Raising Him from the dead and placing Him on His own right hand, God declared Jesus to be “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). It was through Him that God blessed Israel and that He now blesses men. Prayer accepted and answered on His account, and therefore to be made in His name. Thus David prayed: “Behold, O God, our shield; look on the face of Thine Anointed.” “Let Thy hand be upon the Man of Thy right hand, upon the Son of Man, whom Thou hast made strong for Thyself” (Psalms 84:9; Psalms 80:17). This divine and God-given plea made more fully known after His appearance in the flesh and the acceptance of His offered sacrifice. “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.” “Having a great High Priest who is passed into the heavens, let us come boldly to the throne of grace.” “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (1 John 2:2; Hebrews 4:14-16; Romans 8:32).
(4.) Large-heartedness and unselfishness. Daniel’s petitions and pleadings more on behalf of others than himself. Self forgotten in his deep concern for his country and the cause of God. He pleads for Jerusalem, God’s city and sanctuary that was desolate, His holy mountain, and His people. Personally, Daniel himself was in comfort, and never expected to see again his native land and beloved city. But his people were still captives and Jerusalem was in desolation. The cause of God and of His Christ was in the dust. Hence his unselfish pleading. Grace enlarges the heart and makes the cause of others our own. The mark of the spirit of Jesus to be burdened with the sins and sorrows of others. True patriotism and benevolence learned at the feet of Him who wept over Jerusalem. “For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, till the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.” The sign of a mere nominal Christianity and a heartless religion when its professors “drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the chief spices, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph” (Amos 6:6). Such was not Daniel’s. “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning” (Psalms 137:5).
[253] Dr. Rule observes that it is evident from the utterances of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, that after the giving of the promise of a gracious return of the captives from Babylon, the wickedness of those left behind in Jerusalem had exceedingly increased; that there was not yet any appearance of the restoration of the Jews in captivity; and that all that was royal, noble, brave, or worthy in that city had been swept away. See Ezekiel 8-11; Jeremiah 7:30; Jeremiah 32:34. The captives themselves in general apparently not much improved by their affliction. See Ezekiel 2:3; Ezekiel 33:30-32.
From the whole prayer we may learn—
1. The spirit of prayer characteristic of a child of God. Prayer in a child of God as natural as a child’s cry to its mother. God has many suffering children, but no silent ones. “We cry, Abba, Father!”
2. God’s Word the study and enjoyment of His people. Daniel not only a man of prayer but a man of study. “I understood by books.” These books the Scriptures. Other books not neglected, but these his daily food. “It is my meditation all the day.” “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he doth meditate day and night.” God’s Word the stream that nourishes the roots of godliness, the oil that makes the lamp of grace to burn. This inclusive of prophetic Scripture. Prophecy a large proportion of the Bible. Daniel moved to pray by the word of prophecy. That word to be taken heed to “as to a light shining in a dark place.” Daniel, though a prophet, himself a careful reader of the prophecies of others.
3. The Word read to be turned into prayer. Believing prayer a fruit of the study of Scripture. Daniel read and then prayed. To read little is often to pray little; and reading without praying is of little worth. That is the most profitable reading of the Scriptures that sends us to our knees. That the most lively, fervent, and successful prayer that is the child of a precept, a promise, or a prophecy.
4. Prayer to be accompanied with thanksgiving and confession of sin. God’s past mercies and our own past sins never to be forgotten at the throne of grace. He prays ill who forgets God’s favours and his own faults.
5. Believers especially to cultivate intercessory prayer. For this purpose Christ makes us priests. Our high calling to be God’s remembrancers. God’s people watchmen set on Zion’s walls to give Him no rest till He establish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. A wide field and a loud call for earnest intercessory prayer. Prayers and intercessions to be made for all men (1 Timothy 2:1). “Seek the peace of the city, and pray unto the Lord for it.” “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” “Brethren, pray for us.” “For all saints.” “Pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” Abraham’s intercession all but saved Sodom. Paul’s prayers saved the lives of all that sailed with him (Acts 27:24).