Daniel 9:8-14

9:8 O LORD, we have been humiliated ¹  – our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors – because we have sinned against you. 9:9 Yet the Lord our God is compassionate and forgiving, ²  even though we have rebelled against him. 9:10 We have not obeyed ³  the LORD our God by living according to ⁴  his laws ⁵  that he set before us through his servants the prophets.

9:11 “All Israel has broken ⁶  your law and turned away by not obeying you. ⁷  Therefore you have poured out on us the judgment solemnly threatened ⁸  in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against you. ⁹  9:12 He has carried out his threats ¹⁰  against us and our rulers ¹¹  who were over ¹²  us by bringing great calamity on us – what has happened to Jerusalem has never been equaled under all heaven! 9:13 Just as it is written in the law of Moses, so all this calamity has come on us. Still we have not tried to pacify ¹³  the LORD our God by turning back from our sin and by seeking wisdom ¹⁴  from your reliable moral standards. ¹⁵  9:14 The LORD was mindful of the calamity, and he brought it on us. For the LORD our God is just ¹⁶  in all he has done, ¹⁷  and we have not obeyed him. ¹⁸ 

[9:8]  ¹ tn Heb “to us (belongs) shame of face.”

[9:9]  ² tn Heb “to the Lord our God (belong) compassion and forgiveness.”

[9:10]  ³ tn Heb “paid attention to the voice of,” which is an idiomatic expression for obedience (cf. NASB “nor have we obeyed the voice of”).

[9:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “to walk in.”

[9:10]  ⁵ tc The LXX and Vulgate have the singular.

[9:11]  ⁶ tn Or “transgressed.” The Hebrew verb has the primary sense of crossing a boundary, in this case, God’s law.

[9:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “by not paying attention to your voice.”

[9:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “the curse and the oath which is written.” The term “curse” refers here to the judgments threatened in the Mosaic law (see Deut 28) for rebellion. The expression “the curse and the oath” is probably a hendiadys (cf. Num 5:21; Neh 10:29) referring to the fact that the covenant with its threatened judgments was ratified by solemn oath and made legally binding upon the covenant community.

[9:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “him.”

[9:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he has fulfilled his word(s) which he spoke.”

[9:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “our judges.”

[9:12]  ¹² tn Heb “who judged.”

[9:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “we have not pacified the face of.”

[9:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “by gaining insight.”

[9:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “by your truth.” The Hebrew term does not refer here to abstract truth, however, but to the reliable moral guidance found in the covenant law. See vv 10-11.

[9:14]  ¹⁶ tn Or “righteous.”

[9:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in all his deeds which he has done.”

[9:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “we have not listened to his voice.”