Daniel is one of the few people in the Bible of whom we do not read any particular sin in his life. This does not mean that he was a sinless person. However, it does show that he was truly someone who lived close to the LORD. He was a righteous man, a believer who really lived his life based on the love of God. This was very different with the people he came from. We often read about apostasy among the covenant people.

Now it is precisely this righteous Daniel who confesses sins in prayer. He confesses them together with his ancestors. He even includes the ten tribes who have been in exile for so long. These tribes had been a community full of error and apostasy for so long. Despite all these things, Daniel confesses the sins of the kingdoms of both the ten tribes and two tribes as his sins! He also confesses his own guilt in the sentence of the exile, guilt of the punishment of God that came upon the covenant people. The righteous man, Daniel, the believer who lives in love with the LORD, prays no differently than the tax collector in Luke 18:13: God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Do we find it strange the way Daniel is praying here? Or do we recognize ourselves in it? Is it not often difficult for us to confess our own sins concretely? At the end of the day, for example, do you often think, I actually wouldn’t know what was wrong in my life today. I wouldn’t know what to ask forgiveness for. When this is the case in someone’s life, they often have a much harder time confessing sins that they themselves were not directly involved in. These are questions and issues that touch our personal life of faith very directly. The Holy Spirit helps us with these questions in our lives as we read Daniel 9.

In this chapter we see how Daniel prays. He pleads in his prayer on what the LORD has promised his people. But in doing so he does not forget the guilt of God’s own people. Daniel stands up as an intercessor for God’s people because he knows God’s promise to return the people from exile.