A LOOK AT REPENTANCE

This entry is a little different than my normal entries in context and form, but I wanted to add this one as God has been showing me details from the Book of Daniel, Chapter 9. I wrote this out in my own notes and thought, why change it? Maybe it will speak to you as God has been speaking to me in this season of Teshuvah and getting things right in this time of forgiveness. Please enjoy.

A Look at Repentance from the Book of Daniel, Chapter 9

- Daniel is said to be taken into Babylon during Jehoiakim’s reign in 605BC, putting him alive during the time of Jeremiah, who had been prophesying already for about 22 years.
- The book of Daniel begins roughly in 605BC, before the destruction of Judah, under the reign of Jehoiakim, and about 12 years prior to Ezekiel (593BC).
- Judah falls in 586, and Babylon takes control.
- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego happen in 585BC
- Daniel and the lion’s den in 539BC, followed by Daniel 9, also in 539BC.

1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

- In the writings of Josephus, it gives the name here as Astyages; not the same person as Ahasuerus/Xerxes from Esther.
- Chaldeans = Babylonians
- Jeremiah 29:10-14…10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

- PLEADED (5414) to give, put, make
- PRAYER (8605, root 6419) intercession, supplication
- PETITION (8469, root 2603) earnest prayer, intreaty, supplication
- FASTING (6685, root 6684) fast, to cover over the mouth

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.

- PRAYED (6419) to judge, intercede, make supplication
- CONFESSED (3034, root 3027) to use the hand, revere or worship, confess, thank
- Notice God keeps His covenant of love with those who obey Him
- Daniel places himself in the mix…WE have sinned, done wrong, been wicked, rebelled, and turned away from His commands and laws.
- In short, they missed the mark, they bowed down to things that they were never to have bowed down to, they violated God’s commands, rebelled, declined to do His will. They departed from the MITZVAH (ordinances) and MISHPAT (formal decrees) God ordered.

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.

- SHAME (1322) the feeling and condition of serving an idol, shame, confusion
- UNFAITHFULNESS (4603) to cover up, act covertly, transgress, trespass

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.

- SINNED (2398) to forfeit, expiate, lead astray, bear the blame, trespass
- He has mercy on us even though we rebel and fail to walk in the ways He has set before us.
- All Israel has TRANSGRESSED (5674) to cause alienation, do away with
- The punishment as told to Moses has come into effect.
- Deuteronomy 28:15-68 lists the curses, specifically stating that the people would be taken into bondage if they forsook God’s ways.
- 36 “The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. 37 And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you.
- 49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young.

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.

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.

- This disaster came, yet still Daniel states that the people did not turn and seek God, did not turn from their sin, and did not give attention to God’s truth.
- Deuteronomy 4:27-31
- 27 And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice 31 (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

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.

- The LORD kept His word; He did not hesitate to bring disaster.

15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly!

- Daniel begins taking account for the actions of the people, confessing their sin as if it was his own.

16 “O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us.

- ANGER (639, root 599) the nose or nostril, face, anger, countenance, wrath
- FURY (2534, root 3179) heat, poison of fever, hot displeasure, indignation
- Daniel is pleading that because of God’s justice, that the smell of sin that has angered God, and the poison of sin that has caused a sickness within the nation, be looked away from, for the people are shameful of what they have done.

17 Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.

- DESOLATIONS (8074) stupefy, destroy, waste
- MERCIES (7356, root 7355) compassion, tender love, bowels/womb
- Daniel is crying out for forgiveness not based on any good that the people hold, but only because of the mercy that God holds. He is asking God to not look at their sin, but to look inside at the ‘guts’ of His desire to create man, to remember this reason and have mercy on the people.

19 O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”

- HEAR (8085) to hear carefully, give attention to, to hear intelligently
- FORGIVE (5545) pardon, spare
- LISTEN (7181) prick up the ears, attend, heed, incline
- ACT (6213) to do or make, accomplish, be industrious, work
- Daniel is requesting that God not procrastinate is this request to hear His people’s request and pardon them. Daniel is asking God to heed this prayer and accomplish a sparing of His people once the seventy years is completed, as opposed to letting them stay in bondage longer for their continued acts of sin.


The ball is in our court now in this season of Teshuvah. Just like the people of Judah, who were still God’s chosen people, we have sinned. Even though we are believers, it is our sin that has placed us in the bondage that we are in now. Our righteousness is of no value, for our righteousness carries the weight of waste. But like Daniel, if we call out to God and ask for forgiveness for the sins we have committed, He will forgive us. He will spare us from more years of slavery if we only ask Him now to forgive us, and truly turn from the sin we have embraced. He is standing on the steps of the temple, blowing the shofar, and desiring that His alarm will wake us up and woo us back to Him wholeheartedly.