Daniel – Chapter 9b
Chapter 9 Outline
I. Historical 70 (9:1-19)
a. The Scripture (9:1-2)
1. Time (9:1)
2. Text (9:2)
b. The Supplication (9:3-19)
1. God’s Character (9:4-9)
2. God’s Command (9:10-14)
3. God’s Covenant (9:15-17)
4. God’s Compassion (9:18-19)
II. Prophetical 70 (9:20-27)
a. Gabriel’s Mission (9:20-23)
1. When he Came (9:20-21)
2. Why he Came (9:22-23)
b. Gabriel’s Message (9:24-27)
1. First Period (9:25)
2. Second Period (9:26)
3. Third Period (9:27)
Message
b. The Supplication (9:3-19)
1. God’s Character (9:4-9)
2. God’s Command (9:10-14)
Verse 10
When you look at Exodus 20:1-12 LORD thy God is used 5 times tying together the vertical commandments, that is man’s duty to God, and the horizontal commandments, that is man’s duty to his fellow man, are tied together with the words, “Thou shalt not.”
You can almost hear the disappointment in Daniel’s voice; he is dismayed by the fact that Israel broke all of the vertical commandments. They should have had no other gods. They shouldn’t have made any graven images. They should have reverenced God’s holy name. They should have observes the Sabbaths. They should have honoured their parents (as those who stand in the place of God to the child).
Israel failed, they had became an idolatrous nation, they seemed obsessed with the graven images and finally God had to send them to the capital city of idolatry to have the obsession of idol worship removed from the nation once and for all. Their land was occupied by enemy soldiers, their great city Jerusalem was in ruins, and their holy temple was desecrated, plundered and incinerated.
No wonder the Jews were ashamed! But it was their own sins that had brought on these disasters, because their king’s princes, and priests had disobeyed God’s laws and refused to obey God’s prophets, and ultimately had failed to obey God’s Commandments.
Verse 11
Here Daniel uses yet another word for sin, “Transgressed.” This word means, “to go beyond.” It seems that God will let us go so far, but when we cross that line that He has drawn, we can expect His judgement. Time and time again God had warned Israel about stepping over that line.
Leviticus 26:14 But if ye will not harken unto me, and will not do all these commandments… Then He goes on to say in verse 16 I will also do this unto you…..
Warnings were given in Deuteronomy Chapters 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32. Daniel was well aware of these passages of Scripture, as was the nation of Israel. They truly were without excuse. They would never be able to say, “I didn’t know, God never said….” They had His Word, His prophets, His Commands, but still the people would not listen.
Verse 12
Long after Moses was dead God sent other prophets to warn the nation against sin and certain judgement to come. Isaiah had preached with eloquence, Amos had spelt it out in logic, Hosea had broken his heart, Habakkuk had wrestled with the problem, Jeremiah had wept over his nations sins. Yet the people remained deaf to the prophets God had sent to His people.
The leaders and the people knew the terms of God’s commands, but they deliberately violated them. The Jews were unfaithful to God, but God was faithful to keep His Word. If the nation had obeyed, God would have been faithful to bless them Psalm 81:11-16.
Because the nation rebelled, God was faithful to chasten them, as Daniel said [God] hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: Israel had enjoyed great blessings when they had obeyed the Law, so why should they complain when they experienced great suffering for disobeying the Law? Daniel didn’t make excuse, he just confessed their sins.
Verses 13-14
But there was something worse than the sins that brought this divine judgment upon the Jews, it was their refusal to repent and confess their sins even after being taken captive.
Did the people repent when the Assyrians carried away the entire Northern Kingdom and invaded Judah, right down to Jerusalem? Only until the death of King Hezekiah, then Judah followed Manasseh into worse wickedness than before.
Did the people repent when Josiah found a copy of the Law in the temple after God’s Word had been completely forgotten and forsaken that he read it with astonishment? Only until his death
Did the people repent when the Babylonians first appeared and completely surrounded Jerusalem? No
Did the people repent when Jerusalem fell in 605 B.C. and the cream of Judean aristocracy was taken away to Babylonian captivity? No
Did the people repent when the second Babylonian expedition appeared before Jerusalem and Jehoiachin was deposed and Zedekiah installed as a puppet king in his place in 597 B.C.? No
Did the people repent when Zedekiah was summoned to Babylon in 594 B.C. ? No
Did the people repent when the Babylonians appeared in force before Jerusalem for the final siege in 587 B.C. ? No
Did the people repent when when Jerusalem fell and was ransacked and ruined in 586 B.C. ? No
Did the people repent when they were carried away captive to the idolatrous empire of Babylon? No
Rather than seeking God’s face and asking for His forgiveness, they just wanted the Babylonians destroyed. God’s will for His people in captivity was outlined in Jeremiah 29, but the Jews didn’t always follow it. But look at Daniel’s approach, it was biblical for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.
3. God’s Covenant (9:15-17)
Verse 15
The Exodus is heralded as a display of God’s awesome power. His mighty hand had humbled Egypt, and the fear of God had fallen upon the nations of Canaan. Why would God bring His people out of the land of Egypt only to allow them to waste away in Babylon? Daniel knew that God had a purpose for Israel to fulfil.
Verse 16
The holy mountain was Mount Moriah, where the temple had stood, where the Holy place was, where the Holy of Holies had been. There the triune God had once chosen to take up residence among His people.
But from the days of Solomon to Zedekiah what did Israel do? They provoked God to anger with their idolatry and apostasy. Their testimony to the pagan world around them was not projecting the image of God but projecting an image of a people addicted to religious apostasy, moral depravity and political insanity. God’s answer was Babylon.
He allowed the temple to be destroyed, Jerusalem to be reduced to rubble and His people to become captives in an idolatrous city.
Verse 17
The ground of this plea is not found in the prophet or in the people but in the Lord. If Daniel’s heart was broken over the desolation of the temple, how much more was God’s heart broken? It was His house.
We need to come to that place in our prayers. We must find our answers in God Himself. What is His interest in the matter? How can His purposes best be served? What will glorify His name? When we can pray with God’s perspective in mind our prayers will be lifted from a selfish plane on which we live to the sublime plane where He lives.
4. God’s Compassion (9:18-19)
Verse 18
The desolation of Jerusalem was awful. The Babylonians had done a good job. They had attacked the city three times. The last time, they made sure that they would never have to go up against that city again. Nehemiah 2:13-14 tells us what kind of a mess the city was in.
The ruins of this city was not a reflection on God but on the sinfulness of the Jews, but the pagans didn’t know that, they would have viewed Israel’s demise as a weakness of Israel’s God, how wrong they would have been.
Verse 19
Daniel desired the nation to be restored so that God’s name would be glorified. The Jews were God’s chosen people, and Jerusalem the place of His holy temple; the longer the Jews and the land were under God’s wrath the less glory the Lord would receive thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
God answered Daniel’s prayer. The next year, Cyrus issued a decree that permitted the Jews to return to their land, take the temple treasures with them, rebuild the temple and restore the worship.
What a phenomenal ministry Daniel had in Babylon. He was counsellor to four kings, intercessor for the Jewish people, a faithful witness to the true and living God, and the author of one of the basic books of prophecy in the Old Testament.
Daniel now knew God’s immediate plans for the nation of Israel, but what about the distant future? He had already learned from the visions God gave him that difficult days lay ahead for God’s people, that a kingdom would appear and would crush everything good and promote everything evil.
Would God’s people survive? Would the promised Messiah finally appear? Would the Kingdom of God be established on the earth?
Daniel is about to receive the answers to those question
