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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Daniel 9:4 - 9:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
my confession - according to God’s promises in Lev 26:39-42, that if Israel in exile for sin should repent and confess, God would remember for them His covenant with Abraham (compare Deu 30:1-5; Jer 29:12-14; Jam 4:10). God’s promise was absolute, but prayer also was ordained as about to precede its fulfillment, this too being the work of God in His people, as much as the external restoration which was to follow. So it shall be at Israel’s final restoration (Psa 102:13-17). Daniel takes his countrymen’s place of confession of sin, identifying himself with them, and, as their representative and intercessory priest, “accepts the punishment of their iniquity.” Thus he typifies Messiah, the Sin-bearer and great Intercessor. The prophet’s own life and experience form the fit starting point of the prophecy concerning the sin atonement. He prays for Israel’s restoration as associated in the prophets (compare Jer 31:4, Jer 31:11, Jer 31:12, Jer 31:31, etc.) with the hope of Messiah. The revelation, now granted, analyzes into its successive parts that which the prophets, in prophetical perspective, heretofore saw together in one; namely, the redemption from captivity, and the full Messianic redemption. God’s servants, who, like Noah’s father (Gen 5:29), hoped many a time that now the Comforter of their afflictions was at hand, had to wait from age to age, and to view preceding fulfillment's only as pledges of the coming of Him whom they so earnestly desired to see (Mat 13:17); as now also Christians, who believe that the Lord’s second coming is nigh, are expected to continue waiting. So Daniel is informed of a long period of seventy prophetic weeks before Messiah’s coming, instead of seventy years, as he might have expected (compare Mat 18:21, Mat 18:22) [Auberlen].
great and dreadful God - as we know to our cost by the calamities we suffer. The greatness of God and His dreadful abhorrence of sin should prepare sinners for reverent, humble acknowledgment of the justice of their punishment.
keeping ... covenant and mercy - that is, the covenant of Thy mercy, whereby Thou hast promised to deliver us, not for our merits, but of Thy mercy (Eze 36:22, Eze 36:23). So weak and sinful is man that any covenant for good on God’s part with him, to take effect, must depend solely on His grace. If He be a God to be feared for His justice, He is one to be trusted for His “mercy.”
love ... keep his commandments - Keeping His commandments is the only sure test of love to God (Joh 14:15).