Daniel 9:1-3 “My Buddy Daniel!”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹In the year the first to Darius the son of Ahasuerus (from a seed of a Mede) who was made king upon the kingdom of the Kasidim, ²in the year the first of his reign, I, Daniel, understood in the books the number of the years which were of the Word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet to fulfill the desolations of Jerusalem seventy of a year, ³And I set my face to the Lord God to seek [by] prayer and requests in fasting and sack cloth and ashes ⁴and I prayed to the LORD my God...

My, my. What a treasure! This entire chapter promises enormous blessings, but I find that just these first few verses could keep us all learning and growing for a lifetime! The entire chapter offers us a glimpse into the very heart of our friend Daniel. Would we have the faith of Daniel? Would we live the faithfulness of Daniel? Then here we have a glimpse into the heart of Daniel, that we might learn from him and be like him.

The “first year of Darius” would be the first year after Cyrus the Persian conquered Babylon and killed wicked Belshazzar. The night Belshazzar died was chapter 5, the story of the handwriting on the wall. We first saw Daniel under Darius in chapter 6 with the story of the lions’ den.  There’s no way to know for sure, as Daniel writes this chapter 9, whether he’s already been through the lions’ den episode or not. We know he’s writing in the first year. It didn’t say in chapter 6 what year that was. All we know is this is the first year of Darius. My guess would be that he hadn’t faced the lions’ den yet. Back there in chapter 6, it said, “It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel.” It then goes on to say, “Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.” It’s hard to imagine all of that happening just in the course of the first year that Darius was ruling. So I will assume the lions’ den experience is still ahead for our 80-some year old Daniel.

Let us be reminded too these last few years have been emotionally brutal for Daniel. Being godly doesn’t exempt us from feeling the turmoil of a world in convulsions -- and that is about the best word you could use for Daniel’s world. Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar, had ruled the civilized world. Although Nebuchadnezzar was a wicked man, yet he was a very capable administrator, and Daniel got to enjoy the relative calm of living and working under that stable government. Since Nebuchadnezzar died, just eleven years earlier, he’s been through four changes of administration with the royal family butchering each other. That had gone on until the completely incompetent, profligate Belshazzar was placed on the throne and the nation finally collapsed as the Medo-Persian empire rose to power and themselves conquered the civilized world.

Let us remember no one likes change. I have many times observed people when their companies were being bought and sold. It is very unsettling to us humans. We like stability. We don’t like uncertain futures! From Daniel’s perspective, as I’ve noted before, all through human history it has been the common practice of conquering kings to kill everyone even remotely associated with the previous administration. Daniel, being high up in the government of Babylon would have been a prime target for exactly that sort of mayhem. Even if he didn’t fear death, he would have faced that awful uncertainty of the future. He no doubt had some sort of government salary he lived on and lived in his apartment. With every new administration, would he just be fired and pushed out on the street? It is too often true, when companies are being bought and sold, people lose their jobs. Remember too, he’s in his 80’s. If he can’t do his government thing, who will hire him to do anything different? Just like us, Daniel had to live in the moment, never knowing for sure exactly what the future holds.

In the midst of all this instability and chaos, what do we find our Daniel doing? Studying his Bible and praying! How encouraging is that! He says, “I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the Word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years, and so I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with Him...” What’s he doing? Exactly the same thing I’m doing (and I hope it’s true of you too!). He pulls out His copy of the Scriptures, picks a particular passage, studies it, and tries to understand what the Lord is saying. Words fail to express how much that warms my heart to see none other than Daniel himself doing exactly what I’m doing, 2,600 years later! I note too, that Daniel is no ascetic recluse, shutting himself in some room and spending all day every day reading the Bible and praying. Remember what it said in Chapter 6, “Now Daniel so distinguished himself by his exceptional qualities…” And chapter 8 just finished with the words, “Then I got up went about the king’s business…” My point is that Daniel is working hard at his job, but making time to spend studying his Bible and praying. What a wonderful example he is!

Then, think more about what he’s doing. He says he “understood from the Scriptures, according to the Word of the Lord…” Daniel believed the Bible was “the Word of the Lord.” Daniel believed in the inspiration of the Bible. While he hovered over the words, he was convinced he was reading a message straight from the mouth of God.

He says it was “the Word of the Lord, given to Jeremiah the prophet.” Daniel believed that Jeremiah wrote the words, but they were given to him by God. Then notice how he studies. When he reads in Jeremiah 25:11,12 or 29:10, that the Babylonian captivity would last 70 years, what does he think that means? It means 70 years. He could do the math. He could say something like, “Hey! I was 15 when I was brought here, and now I’m 85. 85-15 = 70! Oh, my goodness, that means…” It is always interesting to me when some commentator reads in Revelation 20:4 that Jesus’ people will rise and reign with Him “a thousand years,” then says, “That just means a long time.” They say that in spite of the fact those exact words get repeated in vv.5,6,&7. Four times in four verses, we’re told it will be “a thousand years.” What does that mean? A long time? No, it means a thousand years. What would Daniel have thought it meant? Seventy years meant seventy years. Daniel would tell us, a thousand years means a thousand years. It is enormously encouraging to see he believes exactly what we do!

For whatever it’s worth, I wanted to note that Daniel and Jeremiah were somewhat contemporaries. Jeremiah was actively prophesying when Jerusalem fell and Daniel was taken captive to Babylon. According to Jeremiah 1:2, Jeremiah started his ministry in “the thirteenth year of King Josiah” (626 BC), while Daniel was taken captive in 605. If Jeremiah started at age 20, he would have been 41 years old when Jerusalem fell. If Daniel was 15 at that time, then Jeremiah was 26 years his senior. It’s crazy to think Daniel probably actually heard Jeremiah’s preaching while he was still there in Jerusalem. Perhaps not a particularly important point, but provides a little context.

Finally, it is interesting that Daniel’s response to it all was to pray earnestly. Daniel has already clearly established in his book that he believes “the Most High rules in the nations of men.” God is absolutely sovereign. Now he reads that the Lord already said the captivity would only last 70 years. When he does the math and realizes the time is upon him, you would think he could sit back and say, “Yep. The Lord has it all under control!” However, that is not his response. His response is to pray earnestly. This is kind of a deep thought, but that tells us that Daniel realized God’s infinite sovereignty actually embraces our prayers. This fact is, in a sense, completely illogical. If God is infinitely sovereign, if He has already ordained all that will happen (like a 70 year captivity), then what is the point or even the need for us to pray?  Yet He Himself invites us to prayer. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God…” (Phil. 4:6). James would have us know, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective!” (5:16).

Our God is so infinitely sovereign He can actually include our very prayers in that great sovereign plan of His. Although He is, in fact, infinitely sovereign, He would stoop so low as to allow you and me to participate in that plan. Someone could ask, but wouldn’t it all have happened whether Daniel prayed or not? Do you see, that is a silly question? The fact is, Daniel’s prayers were a part of it all and it did happen. Period. That’s how great our God is and how amazingly gracious He is to us insignificant blades of grass – to let us be a part of what He is doing in this world.

As always, Daniel teaches us what it means to be a good citizen in this world, to be a good worker at our jobs, and yet to make time to study our Bibles, to pray, and to be a part of our God’s great purposes and plans in this world! Again, words fail me to say how encouraging it is to see Daniel studying His Bible just like you and me! What a good friend he would be if he were alive today! What a great example he is!

 

 

 

Daniel 9:4 “Daniel’s Theology 2”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴and I prayed to the LORD my God, and I confessed, and I said, “O Lord, the God the great, One being feared, keeping the Covenant and the lovingkindness to ones loving Him and keeping His commands…”

Continuing to think about how Daniel saw God, he describes Him as One “keeping the Covenant…” What is he saying? He’s saying our God is a Promise-keeping God. He does what He said He would do. We can count on Him – absolutely 100%, always. Another word we use to describe this is His faithfulness. Faith itself is, underneath it all, simply believing God’s promises, or should I say, believing He keeps those promises, that He is always, always, always faithful.

Peter references this in his second epistle, chapter 1 and verses 3 and 4: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the Divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” Notice how it says we can participate in the Divine nature and how we escape this world’s corruption – through His “very great and precious promises.”

Daniel is a Jew and lived under the Mosaic Covenant. It is notable to realize first of all that the Jewish people are who they are not because of the Mosaic Covenant but rather the Abrahamic. God promised Abraham three things: to multiply his descendants like the sand on the seashore, to give them the land of Canaan, and that He would be their God and they would be His people (Gen. 17:6-8). What was enormously significant about that Covenant was that it was unconditional. Gen. 15 describes the strange story of the Lord promising Abraham His blessings, then of Him having Abraham cut the animals in half, then putting Abraham to sleep, and the flaming torch passing between the pieces.

The significance of all of that was that the Lord passed through the pieces alone. That whole business was an ancient ritual where two people made promises to each other, then created the path with the bloody pieces on either side, then walked through them together. Each was thereby saying to the other, “May I become like all these bloody dead animals if I fail to keep the promise I have made to you.” Abraham would have understood that completely. However, when it came time to pass through the pieces, the Lord went through alone. He was saying that Abrahamic Covenant was unconditional. Whether or not it was fulfilled was dependent on God’s faithfulness, not Abraham’s. That is why to this very day, we believers acknowledge gladly that the Jewish people are the special people of God. They simply are. They may be very unfaithful to God, but He will never be unfaithful to them. They are joined to Him by an unconditional covenant.

Then there is the Mosaic Covenant. This one is a different story. The people had said to Moses, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do!” The Lord responded to Moses, “O that they had such a heart in them.” He knew they didn’t. The problem was they didn’t know they didn’t! They said, “Give us the rules, and we’ll keep them!” and the Lord said, “Fine,” then proceeded to give them some 618 rules to live by. They couldn’t keep those, so they made up literally thousands more until, by the time Jesus came, they had become a nation of Pharisees. As it says in Romans 9:31,32, “but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works,,,”

We learn in Galatians that the Mosaic Law was intended just for that reason – it was a “schoolmaster” to “bring them to Christ.” From the very beginning, they should have realized they couldn’t keep God’s laws. They should have then cried out for a Savior, but they didn’t. When they couldn’t keep the rules they had, they just made more. Like the rest of the human race, they were determined to earn God’s favor.

So He gave them the Mosaic Covenant. In this case, He promised them blessings and threatened them with cursings – all dependent on how well they kept that covenant. Read Deuteronomy 28 to see it all in one place. Back to the matter before us, Daniel says of God He is One “keeping the Covenant.” God keeps His promises. What is scary, however, is to realize that is a two-edged sword. He promises great blessings to those who are found righteous and terrible judgments on those who are not. This very business will drive Daniel’s prayer here  in this chapter. He will come to this faithful, covenant-keeping God, counting on the promise that the 70-year captivity will end, but confessing that the entire horrible Babylonian Captivity was simply more of God keeping His promises.

You and I too come to Him as our promise-keeping God. We born-again believers come to Him first of all by the blood of Jesus, confessing from the very start that we cannot keep His laws. We come acknowledging that, in fact, we do not have “such a heart in us.” He then promises to us to save us forever and to place His Holy Spirit in us, so that it turns out, we do have such a heart in us! It’s just not mine, it's His, and by grace, He does help us put off our old selves and be changed into His image. When it is true that our (His) heart is in it, then His faithfulness becomes our hope and joy.

All of this is why Daniel then says He is, “One keeping the Covenant and lovingkindness to those loving Him and keeping His commands.” Notice several interesting insights from just these few words. Note that Daniel says He is not only a promise-keeping God, but mixed right in with that is His lovingkindness. In Hebrew, He is literally, “One keeping the covenant and the lovingkindness.” The two are a package with our God. Uninformed people are always making claims that somehow the God of the OT is just a harsh, lightning bolt throwing, angry, rule-making god, while the NT God is loving and kind. Apparently Daniel would disagree with them!

Then note that Daniel says the Lord’s promise-keeping and lovingkindness are for “ones loving Him and keeping His commands.” The people who maintain the mean old God view of the OT would have simply said, “for ones keeping His commands.” Oh, golly, there’s another term in there: it is for “ones loving Him and keeping His commands.” For people who truly know God, everything is first of all about this love relationship. I discover (to my surprise!) that God really does love me. His love draws me into this relationship. As I described a few paragraphs above, what I find in His “commands” is simply an expression of what pleases Him and what does not. “Keeping His commands” is not the means to that relationship – it is the result. When you love someone, of course you care what does and does not please them. That is just part of any love relationship and maybe more so when we’re dealing with the God of the universe! And, the simple fact is that people who don’t love Him don’t care about His promise-keeping or His lovingkindness, so why should those qualities be “for them.” No. They are for “those who love Him and keep His commands.”

I would suggest it goes without saying that if people everywhere could simply see God through Daniel’s eyes, they would have a very different view of Him. The result of that would be to have a very different view of themselves, as Tozer said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” Of course, the whole reason the Lord moved Daniel to write these things down was for exactly this purpose – that we should see Him through Daniel’s eyes. That’s what a prophet does for us. It is only left to us to consider seriously what they’ve said and what it means for us.

I hope we’ve accomplished that here, even if it is just a tiny baby-step in the right direction!

 

Daniel 9:4 “Daniel’s Theology 1”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴and I prayed to the LORD my God, and I confessed, and I said, “O Lord, the God the great, One being feared, keeping the Covenant and the lovingkindness to ones loving Him and keeping His commands…”

In these few short words, Daniel tells us a lot of what he believed to be true of God. If we would learn from him, that is no small consideration. We all can admire the faith of Daniel and wish to be more like him, and I can say, from the very beginning, I have enjoyed studying this book precisely because Daniel is such a great example. I feel what I’ve learned from him and his friends has profoundly impacted my own faith and life. However, all that said, I would maintain that if anyone truly wants to live Daniel’s faith, we must begin by understanding his theology.

What I mean by that is we must look closely at what Daniel believed about God. In II Cor. 3:18, we learn that, “…we, as we behold the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory…” As we behold His image, we’re changed into that image. As A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us…the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.”

Beholding His image, we’re changed into that image. To see God, to clearly see Jesus, is to be profoundly changed forever. Martha was busy serving. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. Martha got tired. Mary could never be the same. Our friend Daniel is a Bible student. He, like Mary, has sat long at Jesus’ feet and therein lies the true explanation for who he was and what moved him to do what he did, to be the person he was. Here in this one simple verse, we can learn much of what Daniel saw when, in his mind, he saw God.

Note Daniel says, “I prayed to the LORD, my God.” Whenever, in the English Bible, you see God’s name translated as “LORD,” that is the Hebrew name “Yahveh,” which means “I am that I am.” It is the same name we call “Jehovah.” In Exodus 3, when Moses asked, “Who should I say sent me?” the Lord answers, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you…The LORD, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you” (vv.14,15).  The “I AM” is the Hebrew “Yahveh.” It is considered specifically the name of Israel’s God. Daniel then is very specifically calling on the God of Israel and that is notable when everyone else around is praying to Bel and Marduk and a host of other “gods.”

Then let’s not run past the simple little epitaph, “my God.” To Daniel, this is all very personal. The Lord is to Daniel “my God.” He is certainly the God of the Jewish people as a nation, He is the great Sovereign of all the Universe, yet He is a God who would have a relationship with each one of us personally. The greatest single possession of our human existence is to be able to look up to the Lord and address Him as “my God.” To have Him as my God means I have a Rock, a Fortress, a Shield and Defender, a Strong Deliverer, a Redeemer, Savior, Friend, Father, and King. Without Him, I’m just on my own. In a sense, this little truth is the reason why Daniel was everything he was – he was a man with a God. The wonderful news is realizing that same relationship is wide open and available to each and every one of us. Jesus said, “Whosoever will may come,” and “This is eternal life, that they might know You, the only true God…”

Daniel then addresses Him as “O Lord.” As we noted above, when in our English Bibles, you see the name “LORD,” you know that is actually the “I AM” of Hebrew. Here it appears as simply “Lord.” In this case, you can know that the actual Hebrew name of God being so translated is “Adonai,” which means “Master.” Here Daniel first addresses his prayer to “O Adonai,” “O Master.” Once again, what is Daniel’s constant theme throughout this book? “The Most High rules in the nations of men.” As Daniel looked out at his world, as he looked up to heaven, he saw our God as “the Master.”

Is that not, in a sense, the fundamental question before every human soul? Who is “the Master?” Satan couldn’t figure that out and got himself cast down from heaven. Adam and Eve got it wrong and were cast out of Eden. The whole human race gets it wrong and continually self-destructs until it finally would drag us all down to hell. Romans 10:9 would tell us, “That if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” Salvation itself comes down to first of all recognizing that, in fact, Jesus is Lord (Master) and accepting that the only answer for the cosmic rebellion I’ve lived to this day is His all-sufficient sacrifice in my place. There it is in plain English: Jesus is Lord and Savior. We each individually must address this question of who will be “the Lord, the Master” – me or God?

Daniel had it figured out and, even as he would open this most heartfelt and ardent prayer, he looks up to God and sees Him as Master. He carries this further as he then addresses Him as “the great and awesome God.” “Great” may have expressed many thoughts in Daniel’s mind, but it does us all well to stop and ponder exactly that – God’s greatness. Our God is infinite. He is not, like Marvel comics’ superheroes, simply a very, very great man. No. He is not a creature. He is God. He inhabits eternity. He exists entirely above this universe in which we live. He created it. He created us. He created time and space for us to live in, while He Himself exists entirely independent of it all. That is why we can observe of Him that He is all those things – omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and infinitely Sovereign. As we, like Daniel, would come to Him in prayer, we come to the One who in fact exercises absolute control over this universe in which we live. He rules in infinite wisdom, infinite power, infinite goodness, infinite love and invites us to come before Him in prayer. He is Great.

Then Daniel addresses Him as “awesome.” In Hebrew it means literally “One to be feared.” As we learn in Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (9:10). Today, everyone tries to downplay the “fear” factor and we opt for words like “respect,” but the Hebrew word means “fear.” Even from heaven itself, the Tribulation saints ask, “Who will not fear You, O Lord?” (Rev. 15:4). I’ve elaborated on this before, but, for me, it comes down to this: The fear of the Lord is, in fact, the beginning of wisdom. Any sane person should bow to Him even if for no other reason than just plain fear. “Our God is a consuming fire.” I believe there have been many people saved first of all simply out of fear of hell. That, we can all see is a good thing. Now, as a Christian, although I’m 100% assured of His unending love, yet I know He is my Father. He loves me too much to just let me sin and self-destruct. It is a scary thought to realize the power He has to bring me to my knees and get me back on the right course.

All of that said, His laws become like guardrails in my life. I fear to step over them. However, that fear itself is actually an expression of love to Him. Remember, although the fear of the Lord may be the beginning of wisdom, it is not the end. What is the end of wisdom? Is it not, “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind?” Even those believers who came to Him first of all only out of fear soon learn to embrace His love. Now what I try to say is that I don’t want to be sitting in His lap and then spitting in His face. That is now my life all day every day – to sit in my Father’s lap and enjoy His love – but, if I’m there, how can I let myself think thoughts or say things or do things I know grieve His heart? I guess the bottom line of what I’m saying is that, as Daniel realized, the fear of the Lord is something very real and should, in fact, be present in our hearts, but for us believers it is just another reality that drives us deeper into His big loving lap.

I want to think deeply about what else we can learn from Daniel’s theology in this verse, but I think I’ll close this post and continue in the next.

All praise to Him who reigns above in majesty supreme!