Daniel’s Prayer for the People
“And I prayed to Yahweh 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, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments . . . O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face . . . to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.”
– Daniel 9:4-9
Whenever we ask for pardon, the testimony of repentance ought to precede our request; for God announces that he will be propitious and easily entreated when men seriously and heartily repent. It is impossible for us to pray rightly unless we humble ourselves before God. This humility is a preparation for repentance. Daniel, therefore, sets before him the majesty of God, to urge both himself and others to cast themselves down before the Almighty, that they may really feel penitent before him. God is, he says, great and awesome. Too often we are careless in prayer and treat it as a mere matter of outward observance. The pious must humble their minds to prevent their aspiring to any self-exaltation or being puffed up with any self-confidence. Unless we appear in his sight with fear and trembling, and become truly humbled in his presence, it is impossible to obtain anything from God.
We must here notice the real condition of the people: the Israelites were in exile. We know how hard that tyranny was, how they were oppressed by the most cruel reproaches and disgrace, and how brutally they were treated by their conquerors. This might have impelled many to cry out, as doubtless they really did, “What does God want with us? What better are we for being chosen as his peculiar people?” Thus the Jews might complain with the most bitter grief, with the weariness of the weight of punishment which God had inflicted upon them. But Daniel presents himself before God, not to object or murmur, but only to entreat his pardon.
“We have done wickedly.” Although we are easily induced to confess ourselves guilty before God, yet it is hard to find one who is affected with serious remorse; and those who do excel in this, who purely and reverently fear God, are still very dull and cold in recounting their sins. Scarcely do they acknowledge even one sin in a hundred. Of those which do come into their minds, they do not fully estimate their tremendous guilt, and although they perceive themselves worthy of a hundred deaths, yet they are not touched with bitterness; they do not loathe their own iniquities. Let us learn from this how far we are from penitence when we only verbally acknowledge our guilt. There are very few who prostrate themselves before God as they ought.
“Righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face.” We cannot praise God, especially while he chastises us and punishes us for our sins, unless we become ashamed of our sins and feel ourselves destitute of all righteousness. Whoever cannot bear this self-condemnation displays his willingness to contend against God.
Daniel betakes himself to God’s mercy as to a sacred asylum. It is not sufficient to acknowledge and confess our sins, unless we are supported by a confidence of our obtaining pardon from God’s mercy. Recognition of a fault is without the slightest profit unless it has the hope of pardon. Daniel rests this hope of pardon on the very nature of God, who is full of mercy, inclined to clemency and pardon, and exercises much forbearance. To God belongs lovingkindness, and therefore, since he can never deny himself, he will always be merciful. This attribute is inseparable from his eternal essence. However we may have rebelled against him, yet he will never cast away nor disdain our prayers.
We may conclude from this passage that no prayers are lawful or rightly composed unless they consist of these two members. First, all who approach God ought to cast themselves down before him, acknowledging that they are deserving of a thousand deaths. Next, in order to emerge from this abyss of despair and to rise up to the hope of pardon, they should call upon God without fear or doubt, but rather with firm and stable confidence. For what is left, but for us to throw ourselves with all our trust upon the clemency and goodness of God, since he has borne witness to his being propitious to sinners who truly and heartily implore his favor!
