1

March 10, 2013

ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

DANIEL’S PRAYER MINISTRY INVOCATION

“Almighty God: Our existence is predicated on Your Love for us and for that

we are humbled as well as blessed. There is No One greater than You. In Jesus’

Name, Amen.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW AND UNDERSTAND

“The purpose of prophecy is to speak the Word of God to the people who

need it. The people to whom Daniel was writing needed to hear that their

captivity would not last forever. God would come to their rescue in His time and

return them back to their homeland.”

THE APPLIED FULL GOSPEL DISTINCTIVE

We believe in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost for all believers and that the

Holy Ghost verifies and validates the Believer as part of the Body of Christ.

TEXT:

Background Scripture – Daniel 9:3-19

Key Verse – Daniel 9:9

Lesson Scripture – Daniel 9:4-14 (NKJV) 4 And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great

and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and

with those who keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned and committed iniquity, we

have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your

judgments. 6 Neither 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,

righteousness 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 To 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, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey

Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of

God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him. 12

And He has

confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us,

by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been

done as what has been done to Jerusalem.

2

13 “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet 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 kept the disaster in mind,

and brought it upon us; for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works which He

does, though we have not obeyed His voice.

COMMENTARY

ADORATION (9:4)

Daniel’s mind was filled with the Word of God, and this fact is reflected in his

prayer, which contains many allusions to earlier Old Testament passages. This

prayer is a model for believers today as they approach God. After a brief

introduction (v. 4a) it proceeds with adoration of the Lord (v. 4b), is followed by

confession of personal and national sin (vv. 5–14), and concludes with the

prophet’s petition (vv. 15–19). Here is the proper order, for only after the Lord is

praised and sin confessed is the believer qualified to offer requests to the holy

God.

9:4a “Prayed” is emphatic in the Hebrew, suggesting the fervency of the

supplication. Daniel addressed his petition “to the LORD.” “LORD” is the

translation of the Hebrew “Yahweh,” the particular name of Israel’s God.

Although this name emphasizes the personal nature of the prayer, primarily it

seems to have been chosen because this was a petition offered on behalf of the

Jewish people. The name Yahweh was associated early with the gracious,

covenant-keeping God of Israel and Daniel’s use of the appellation would in

itself be a reminder to God of His relationship to His people. Yahweh was about

to be asked to keep the covenant promises He had made to Israel.

Daniel addressed Yahweh as “my God”—the basis upon which he was able

to approach the Lord with his requests. He was a child of God. Specifying

Yahweh as “my God” also emphasizes that Daniel rejected the false idols of

Babylon; his God was Yahweh.

9:4b Daniel praised and adored his great God. He began by emphasizing

Yahweh’s sovereignty, addressing him as “Lord” (ʾădōnāy) and then calling

Yahweh the “great and awesome God.” “Awesome” (nôrāʾ) comes from a

Hebrew root that means “to fear,” and thus the word means “one who inspires

fear.” God’s greatness and power produce awe and wonder as frail human

beings survey His works.

Yahweh’s faithfulness is set forth as Daniel referred to Him as the One “who

keeps His covenant of love with all who love Him and obey His commands.”

Since the point of Daniel’s prayer is that the Jews might return to their land and

continue as a nation, the Abrahamic “covenant” must be in view, for it was in

this covenant that God specifically promised Abraham a land and national

3

existence for his descendants, Israel. The “love” (ḥesed) is that loyal love of God

by which He faithfully keeps His promises to His people, in this case, those of

the covenant. Daniel was appealing to God’s heart of love, and by designating

Yahweh as the covenant-keeper, he also was tactfully reminding Yahweh of His

promises to Israel, promises he was about to ask God to keep.

The Lord does indeed make good on His covenant promises and showers His

covenant love on “all who love him and obey his commands.” Daniel and the

other faithful Israelites were part of this group who loved God and were faithful

to His teachings. On behalf of the faithful, Daniel now appealed to God for mercy

and restoration. Today, all those who have received Christ have entered into a

covenant relationship with God and have become his spiritual children. Love

and obedience to God demonstrate that one has entered into God’s family. God

loves all of his children and faithfully keeps his promises to them now, just as he

did to Israel long ago.

CONFESSION (9:5–14)

Daniel began to pour out his heart to God as he confessed his sin and the sin

of his people Israel. Though he identified himself with his people, Daniel

certainly had not been part of the rebellious majority, who had brought the

wrath of God upon the nation.

Six different aspects of Israel’s sin are set forth in vv. 5–6. Israel had

“sinned,” “done wrong,” “been wicked,” “rebelled,” “turned away”

from Yahweh’s commands and laws and had “not listened” to

Yahweh’s prophets. What an indictment!

9:5 The Hebrew verb ḥāṭāʾ (“sinned”) basically means “to miss the mark.”

Ethically speaking, sin is missing God’s mark or goal of holy living that is

required for human beings. Israel as a nation had fallen short of God’s design to

be a holy people.

It appears to emphasize the fact that sin is “something twisted or perverted”

or that one who sins has veered from the straight and narrow road and “made

his paths crooked.” Words that express righteousness in the Old Testament

generally have the primary meaning of “straightness;” thus to make one’s paths

crooked is sin. This veering from God’s prescribed path is condemned because it

is deliberate.

“We have turned away,” rather than being considered a separate sin, seems

to describe the nature of Israel’s rebellion against God. Israel had rebelled against

Yahweh by turning aside from and refusing to obey His commands and laws. It

is not clear from vv. 5–6 whether by “commands and laws” Daniel was referring

to Mosaic legislation or to instruction that either included or was the same as that

which came from “your servants the prophets” in v. 6. Daniel also was thinking

4

of the “Law of Moses.” Therefore although Daniel referred to the penalties in the

Mosaic law, he considered Israel’s sinful rebellion as against the totality of God’s

instruction in the Scriptures, which he viewed as speaking with one unified,

divine voice.

9:6 Yahweh had graciously sent his “servants the prophets” to exhort the

people of Israel and their leaders to repent of their sins, but they refused to listen.

Not all turned from the Lord, of course. The prophets were faithful, and others

like Daniel and his friends remained true to the covenant. Nevertheless the

nation as a whole—“our kings, our princes and our fathers [ancestors], and … all

the people of the land”—had turned its back upon God.

9:7–8 Daniel contrasted the righteousness of the Lord with the unfaithfulness

of Israel. That Yahweh was punishing Israel for their unfaithfulness to Him was

evident to all who observed the nation’s present deplorable condition. Israel’s

shame was a result of their sins. This “shame” was the disgrace of the captivity

and the destruction of the land of Israel.

Israel was in a present state (“this day”) of disgrace that had continued since

the days of the Babylonian conquests. Jerusalem was still in ruins, and the whole

land was virtually desolate. Daniel was emphasizing the fact that Israel’s past

sins were continuing to bring dishonor upon the nation.

All of the Jews suffered this disgrace—“the men of Judah and people of

Jerusalem and [or “even”] all Israel.” None escaped. Daniel did not need to

single out the “people of Jerusalem” since “the men of Judah” would include

residents of the capital, but the prophet was stressing the fact that even the

citizens of the “holy city,” the city of God, did not avoid this fate. Probably no

greater humiliation could come upon a nation than that of being conquered by a

foreign power and having its citizens expelled from the homeland.

9:9 This verse begins literally, “To the Lord our God are the mercies and the

forgiveness.” In Hebrew, these plurals are intensive, emphasizing God’s great

and manifold “mercies” and his abundant forgiveness. Even though Israel had

“rebelled” (mārad) against him, there was yet hope because the sovereign Lord is

“merciful” and “forgiving.” All persons have rebelled against God to varying

degrees and need his mercy and forgiveness to be made right with him.

9:10–11 Verses 10–11a express similar thoughts to those found in vv. 5–6.

Israel had been disobedient to Yahweh and refused to keep the “laws” delivered

to the nation through his prophets. They had turned their backs upon the Lord.

Because Israel had forsaken God’s law, they had experienced “the curses and

sworn judgments” threatened by the covenant law. If taken in this manner, the

translation would be “the curse, even the sworn judgment.” What was this

“curse”? It was “the sworn judgment” spoken of in “the Law of Moses” for

breaking the covenant.

5

Just as God had sworn, the curse had been “poured out” upon the nation like

a flood. Hundreds of years earlier it had been written in the “Law of Moses” (v.

11) as a warning to Israel to remain faithful to the covenant. In Deut 28:15ff., the

contents of this curse are recorded. It included poor crops, infertility, disease,

lack of rain, defeat before enemies, and the most terrible penalty of all, expulsion

from the land of Canaan. Daniel concluded v. 11 by again stating that the curse

had come upon Israel because of its sin against God.

9:12 Yahweh had promised judgment upon all Israel (“us” and “our rulers”)

if they broke his covenant. Now the predicted “great disaster,” the present exile,

had come. As the Israelites considered their plight, they were reminded that God

does not lie.

Daniel’s statement regarding the uniqueness of Jerusalem’s destruction

strikes us as surprising. Certainly, other nations had gone into captivity, and

other cities and temples had been destroyed. Other nations had experienced

defeat and deportation, but their gods were idols of lifeless wood, stone, and

metal. Now the people of the true God were in exile, and his city and temple

were in ruins. Truly, nothing like this had ever happened in history.

9:13 Daniel reiterated that the disaster that had befallen them was predicted

in the law of Moses. The prophet grieved over the fact that even though this

great disaster had come upon Israel “just as it is written,” the nation as a whole

still had not repented. “Giving attention” means to listen and obey. “Your truth”

speaks of Yahweh’s true teachings. Turning from sins and obeying the Lord is a

description of true repentance.

9:14 “Did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us” literally reads “watched

[šāqad, “to watch or wake”] concerning [or “over”] the disaster and brought it

upon us.” The idea of God “watching” or “waking” concerning (or “over”) the

disaster is difficult, but the meaning seems to be that Yahweh had kept the

disaster ready (“watched over” it) in case Israel did not repent. Jeffery states that

God “forgot not the evil that was threatened as a consequence of sin.” When

Israel continued in sin, he brought the promised judgment to pass.

Judgment fell because Yahweh “is righteous in everything he does.” Here it

describes Yahweh’s actions as “just,” for justice demanded that Israel be

penalized for its crimes against God. The exile was deserved.

RELATED DISCUSSION TOPICS

CLOSING PRAYER

O God: I am grateful to have found You and kept You in the forefront of my

being. Bless us continually with Your grace and mercy. Amen.