James Nisbet Commentary - Daniel 9:23 - 9:23

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James Nisbet Commentary - Daniel 9:23 - 9:23


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THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH OF PRAYER

‘At the beginning of the supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee.’

Dan_9:23

What would that ancient, who first caught a faint glimpse of electrical power when he rubbed the amber ( åëåêôñïí , electrum) on the seashore, and saw the light straws put into motion round it,—what would he think if he were told that cities, two hundred miles apart, could convey messages and receive answers by means of this mysterious power with such rapidity that the three hundred and sixtieth part of a second of time is the only perceptible interval between the sending of the message and its arrival at its destination? So that, if only the wires could be laid, the antipodes would speak with each other in this way as rapidly as by words.

I. There is an electricity more rapid still than this—an electric telegraph between far-distant worlds, which has been long at work, though ‘not many wise’ have known of its existence; or, if they have heard of it, have smiled in supercilious unbelief.

II. Daniel knew how to use it, when, having ‘understood by books the number of the years whereof the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem, he set his face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.’ The petitions of that holy and humble man of God sped with speed above that of the vollied lightning—above that of the rapid sunbeam through this lower heaven around our earth, through the second heaven, blazing with those countless stars which require sixty millions of years to revolve round the central sun, to the third heaven,—to the very throne of God.

III. As he began his prayer on earth, a summons from the Almighty Word came forth—the waiting angel received ‘the commandment,’ and before the short prayer was ended, Gabriel stood by his dear ‘fellow-servant,’ to show him the things that should be hereafter. Blessed Christian! who hast such a means of communication with that glorious world, and that gracious King, always near and with thy reach! Christian mother! your child, the son of your prayers and your tears, of whom your heart has been so full as you have been lying awake in the silent night, rejoice—you cannot speak to your child,—you cannot warn him of the snares ‘of a world that lieth in wickedness,’—you cannot unseal his inward ear, even if he could hear your voice. But you can in a second, yea, in less time than thought could clothe itself in words, you can speak to Him, Who, if He speaks, will speak not to the ear, but to the heart and conscience and affections of your child and hold him back from evil—and keep him in temptation, when all the words even of a mother, and all the chains that man could forge to bind him, would be as tow before the fire, or green withes on Sampson’s arms.

—
Rev. Canon Champneys.