Nehemiah 1:6

1:6 may your ear be attentive and your eyes be open to hear the prayer of your servant that I am praying to you today throughout both day and night on behalf of your servants the Israelites. I am confessing the sins of the Israelites that we have committed ¹  against you – both I myself and my family ²  have sinned.

Leviticus 26:39-40

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ³  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ⁴  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ⁵  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁶  by which they also walked ⁷  in hostility against me ⁸ 

Ezra 9:6-7

9:6 I prayed, ⁹ 

“O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God! For our iniquities have climbed higher than our heads, and our guilt extends to the heavens. 9:7 From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and ¹⁰  priests, have been delivered over by the local kings ¹¹  to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment – right up to the present time.

Ezra 9:15

9:15 O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we are left as a remnant this day. Indeed, we stand before you in our guilt. However, because of this guilt ¹²  no one can really stand before you.”

Psalms 106:6-7

106:6 We have sinned like ¹³  our ancestors; ¹⁴ 

we have done wrong, we have done evil.

106:7 Our ancestors in Egypt failed to appreciate your miraculous deeds,

they failed to remember your many acts of loyal love,

and they rebelled at the sea, by the Red Sea. ¹⁵ 

Daniel 9:3-10

9:3 So I turned my attention ¹⁶  to the Lord God ¹⁷  to implore him by prayer and requests, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. ¹⁸  9:4 I prayed to the LORD my God, confessing in this way:

“O Lord, ¹⁹  great and awesome God who is faithful to his covenant ²⁰  with those who love him and keep his commandments, 9:5 we have sinned! We have done what is wrong and wicked; we have rebelled by turning away from your commandments and standards. 9:6 We have not paid attention to your servants the prophets, who spoke by your authority ²¹  to our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors, ²²  and to all the inhabitants ²³  of the land as well.

9:7 “You are righteous, ²⁴  O Lord, but we are humiliated this day ²⁵  – the people ²⁶  of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far away in all the countries in which you have scattered them, because they have behaved unfaithfully toward you. 9:8 O LORD, we have been humiliated ²⁷  – our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors – because we have sinned against you. 9:9 Yet the Lord our God is compassionate and forgiving, ²⁸  even though we have rebelled against him. 9:10 We have not obeyed ²⁹  the LORD our God by living according to ³⁰  his laws ³¹  that he set before us through his servants the prophets.

Daniel 9:20

Gabriel Gives to Daniel a Prophecy of Seventy Weeks

9:20 While I was still speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my request before the LORD my God concerning his holy mountain ³²  –

Daniel 9:1

Daniel Prays for His People

9:1 In the first year of Darius ³³  son of Ahasuerus, ³⁴  who was of Median descent and who had been ³⁵  appointed king over the Babylonian ³⁶  empire –

Daniel 1:7-9

1:7 But the overseer of the court officials renamed them. He gave ³⁷  Daniel the name Belteshazzar, Hananiah he named Shadrach, Mishael he named Meshach, and Azariah he named Abednego. ³⁸ 

1:8 But Daniel made up his mind ³⁹  that he would not defile ⁴⁰  himself with the royal delicacies or the royal wine. ⁴¹  He therefore asked the overseer of the court officials for permission not to defile himself. 1:9 Then God made the overseer of the court officials sympathetic to Daniel. ⁴² 

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “have sinned.” For stylistic reasons – to avoid redundancy in English – this was translated as “committed.”

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “the house of my father.”

[26:39]  ³ tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

[26:39]  ⁴ tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

[26:40]  ⁵ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

[26:40]  ⁶ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

[26:40]  ⁷ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

[26:40]  ⁸ tn Heb “with me.”

[9:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “I said.”

[9:7]  ¹⁰ tc The MT lacks “and” here, but see the LXX and Vulgate.

[9:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the kings of the lands.”

[9:15]  ¹² tn Heb “this”; the referent (the guilt mentioned previously) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[106:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “with.”

[106:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 7).

[106:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Reed Sea” (also in vv. 9, 22). “Reed Sea” (or “Sea of Reeds”) is a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew expression יָם סוּף (yam suf), traditionally translated “Red Sea.” See the note on the term “Red Sea” in Exod 13:18.

[9:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “face.”

[9:3]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew phrase translated “Lord God” here is אֲדֹנָי הָאֱלֹהִים (’adonay ha’elohim).

[9:3]  ¹⁸ sn When lamenting, ancient Israelites would fast, wear sackcloth, and put ashes on their heads to show their sorrow and contrition.

[9:4]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here and in vv. 7, 9, 15, 16, and 19 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[9:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “who keeps the covenant and the loyal love.” The expression is a hendiadys.

[9:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “in your name.” Another option is to translate, “as your representatives.”

[9:6]  ²² tn Heb “our fathers” (also in vv. 8, 16). The Hebrew term translated “father” can refer to more distant relationships such as grandfathers or ancestors.

[9:6]  ²³ tn Heb “people.”

[9:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to you (belongs) righteousness.”

[9:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and to us (belongs) shame of face like this day.”

[9:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “men.”

[9:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “to us (belongs) shame of face.”

[9:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “to the Lord our God (belong) compassion and forgiveness.”

[9:10]  ²⁹ 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]  ³⁰ tn Heb “to walk in.”

[9:10]  ³¹ tc The LXX and Vulgate have the singular.

[9:20]  ³² tn Heb “the holy mountain of my God.”

[9:1]  ³³ sn The identity of this Darius is a major problem in correlating the biblical material with the extra-biblical records of this period. Most modern scholars treat the reference as a mistaken allusion to Darius Hystaspes (ca. 522-486 B.C.). Others have maintained instead that this name is a reference to the Persian governor Gubaru. Still others understand the reference to be to the Persian king Cyrus (cf. 6:28, where the vav (ו) may be understood as vav explicativum, meaning “even”). Under either of these latter two interpretations, the first year of Darius would have been ca. 538 B.C. Daniel would have been approximately eighty-two years old at this time.

[9:1]  ³⁴ tc The LXX reads “Xerxes.” This is the reading used by some English versions (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV). Most other English versions retain the Hebrew name “Ahasuerus.”

[9:1]  ³⁵ tc The present translation follows the MT in reading a Hophal (i.e., passive). Theodotion, the Syriac, and the Vulgate all presuppose the Hiphil (i.e., active). Even though this is the only occurrence of the Hophal of this verb in the Bible, there is no need to emend the vocalization to the Hiphil.

[9:1]  ³⁶ tn Heb “was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans.”

[1:7]  ³⁷ tc The LXX and Vulgate lack the verb here.

[1:7]  ³⁸ sn The meanings of the Babylonian names are more conjectural than is the case with the Hebrew names. The probable etymologies are as follows: Belteshazzar means “protect his life,” although the MT vocalization may suggest “Belti, protect the king” (cf. Dan 4:8); Shadrach perhaps means “command of Aku”; Meshach is of uncertain meaning; Abednego means “servant of Nego.” Assigning Babylonian names to the Hebrew youths may have been an attempt to erase from their memory their Israelite heritage.

[1:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “placed on his heart.”

[1:8]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “would not make himself ceremonially unclean”; TEV “become ritually unclean.”

[1:8]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “with the delicacies of the king and with the wine of his drinking.”

[1:9]  ⁴² tn Heb “Then God granted Daniel loyal love and compassion before the overseer of the court officials.” The expression “loyal love and compassion” is a hendiadys; the two words combine to express one idea.