Chapter 9. God’s Word and Daniel’s Confession
Chapter 9. God’s Word and Daniel’s Confession
It is rather astonishing that in both the seventh and eighth chapters the vision is given to the prophet, and yet afterwards he required an interpreter that he might understand its meaning, though he is said to have had “understanding in all visions and dreams” (Dan 1:17). As regards the visions and dreams given to the Gentile, this is easy to be understood, for we would not expect God to put Himself in direct communication with an idolater. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him” (Psa 25:14), and “He reveals His secret unto His servants the prophets” (Amo 3:7). But here is Daniel, a man greatly beloved, and he has to be made to understand the vision that has been given to him!
God was bringing before him, by means of this vision, the history and behaviour of certain powers that would have in some way to do with his people, and hence there was still something to be understood by him, that did not lie on the surface of the vision. God loves to interest the hearts of His people in the things that are of interest to Himself. It was surely a grief to the heart of the Lord to witness the indifference manifested by His disciples regarding the place to which He was going, when He has to say to them, “Now I go My way to Him that sent Me; and none of you asks Me, Whither goest Thou?” (Joh 16:5). They were more concerned about the place He was leaving, than they were about the place to which He was going; but as soon as the Lord was glorified, the place to which He had gone was everything to them.
Daniel knew that God had little interest in the warlike activities of the kings of the earth, whoever they may be. That all men are responsible to Him for the way in which they behave themselves in whatever position they may be found in the providence of God, is a solemn fact, whether the position be one of authority, or of subjection; whether it be of poverty, or of wealth; and for their behaviour in the circumstances in which they may be found, they must give account to Him; for in whatever way, or by whatever means, they may have reached the place in which they are, they are there by the ordering of God, though on their side it may have been by wickedness they arrived there.
God takes account of the doings of all His creatures whom He has set in relationship with Himself, but this does not mean that the behaviour of a king has more interest to Him, than has the behaviour of the subject. A position of authority may, and does, carry more responsibility with it, for in such a position there is more power for doing either good or evil, than there is in the position of the subject; but God has no more interest in the life of the one than in that of the other, though in His government of this world He has more to say about the life of the king than He has about the life of the subject; neither does He put on record the histories of kings or of kingdoms, any more than He does the histories of the common people, except where they may be found connected with His interests upon earth, which largely centre around the nation of Israel; and where this is the case He has much to say about them, whoever they may be, and will have more to say about them in the day of judgment.
Daniel was a man “greatly beloved,” and one to whom great understanding was given, and wisdom also, and to whom wonderful revelations were made; yet we learn from God’s ways with him that what we can learn by the study of His Word by means of prophetic writings, we cannot expect to receive in any other way. God has put on record the things He desires His people to know and understand; and to us has been graciously given the Holy Spirit, who inspired His servants to put on record these communications, and who is the power by which we may become acquainted with them. He has not cast us upon our own fancied ability to receive them intelligently, even when He has so wrought that a record of them has been made. In Daniel’s study of the sacred Word, while under the domination of the proud and victorious Gentile, he, by the leading of the Spirit, had been directed to the prophecy of Jeremiah, where he found that seventy years were to be accomplished in the desolations of Jerusalem. And here we may learn a very valuable lesson. Most of those who have been brought to faith in Christ would be glad to be better acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, and perhaps we have cried to God about it, and desired to be led into deeper knowledge regarding the thoughts of His heart. But we may not have taken the means that He has placed before us, that we may lay hold of the coveted treasure. We are informed that “the soul of the slothful desires, and has nothing”; and how constantly are we being made to experience the truth of the saying? But “the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” God has, in His great grace and love to us, made manifest the thoughts of His heart; and we have a record of them, and if we desire to know them, according to the strength of that desire will be our study of them. Let us learn a lesson from Daniel. The captive finds from the holy Word, that the time for the ending of the desolations of the city of the great king had drawn nigh, and he turns to God in prayer that there might be a fulfilment of that which was written. Not that he had the least doubt about it, but he was in the mind of God as to the accomplishment of His ways upon earth, and how His acts, either for blessing or otherwise, are consequent upon the prayers of His people. I will not weary the reader with many passages of Scripture, but will refer him to Eze 36:37; Zec 12:10; Rev 8:3-5. One might have supposed that the time for confession of sins, and for prayer for deliverance, was now too late, that God would carry out His purpose, and fulfil His Word apart from the prayers of His people. But these are only the thoughts of a careless heart. He has set man in dependence upon Himself; and that dependence is expressed in prayer, though none but His own people acknowledge this fact. He also carries out His gracious purposes with regard to His own, or with reference to His dealings with the nations, in answer to the expressed desires that ascend to Him from faithful hearts; and in His dealings with this world He does not set aside those that are His witnesses on the earth. His spiritual people are in His mind, and that which they see needful for His honour and glory, they appeal to Him about, and the answer comes in His own way, and sometimes in a way in which it is least expected. Still, it does come, and in response to their fervent supplications. May we ever keep this in mind. We are here on earthy and in one way very much like other men, but we are in the mind of heaven, and in charge of His interests, and His ears are open to our supplications. But it is only as we prayerfully study His holy Word that we can approach Him with any measure of intelligence. But if Daniel approaches the heavenly throne, realizing that the bright sun of deliverance for the holy city was about to break through the dark cloud of his people’s captivity, and if a joy fills his heart at the prospect, he must take into consideration in the presence of God that which had caused the vapours of the Divine displeasure to spread themselves so thickly across the azure dome of heaven. He cannot take the deliverance as a matter of course, any more than he could take that which had befallen his people as being the result of the fitful humour of a capricious autocrat. He is before the throne with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes, ascribing righteousness to God, and sins to himself and his nation. He ascribes righteousness to Jehovah, and confusion of face to the people to whom such favours had been shown.
Let us here learn our lesson. Daniel was a man greatly in the favour of God, and he was also a doer of His will, ready to give up life rather than disobey the Divine command, and yet is he very conscious of his imperfections and failures, though he is one of the very few of God’s people whose errors are unrecorded. Still, of this I have no doubt: he was well aware of the evil that lay in his fleshly nature, and that whatever he was, as a faithful servant of Jehovah, he was that by the favour of God. Hence he takes his place along with the sinners of his nation, not towering above them as a faultless exception, but placing himself among them as clay of the one lump of fallen humanity, and as a fruitless branch of a degenerate vine, “We have rebelled against Him; and we have not hearkened unto the voice of Jehovah our God.” He fully identifies himself with the nation.
There is a wholesome flavour about this confession coming from such a devoted servant of the Lord. There is no, “I thank Thee that I am not as other men.” Such words would not fit into the lips of a man like Daniel. God, who “desires truth in the inward parts,” finds it in the honest and heartfelt acknowledgments of this poor captive, and they are grateful to His holy ear. He has not one word to say on behalf of himself or of his nation, but he has a great deal to say on behalf of God and on behalf of the honour and glory of His holy Name. That which he desires to have done for his nation in the way of deliverance is for the Lord’s sake. He says, “Defer not, for Thine own sake, O my God! for Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy Name.” Splendid!
Heaven is moved! The ear of the living God is reached! The heart of the God of Israel responds to the cry of His faithful and devoted servant. He says, “Whilst I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.” How perfectly fulfilled to Daniel was the promise, “While they are yet speaking I will hear” (Isa 65:24)! Gabriel is caused to fly “swiftly.” Daniel is not to be kept waiting. The assault upon the throne of the Highest is too resolute and powerful to be set aside. The agony of the pleader is not to be despised by a God of infinite, compassion and of holy love. Swiftly is the messenger despatched with a message that gives a vision of the future until the day in which the Messiah, shall take the throne of the world. He is told that seventy weeks are apportioned out upon Daniel’s people, and upon the holy city, to finish transgression make an end of sins, make expiation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the holy of holies.