Dan. 9
Let us now turn to the next chapter which contains Times and Seasons with their deeply interesting introduction. Why do we rise here? Because Christ is brought in, and Christ rejected. Notice further that here for the first time in these prophecies is Jerusalem expressly mentioned. There is also the sanctuary, and the One who sanctifies it and is infinitely higher, whatever unbelief may think or say. In order to have such a vision Daniel was again and more than ever on his face. It was a truly remarkable epoch too. Daniel was a student, among the other prophets, of Jeremiah, who is the weeping prophet of Israel. More than anyone else was he the witness of deep suffering, sorrow, and shame, and aware that deeper was coming. The consequence is seen in a whole book of his devoted to “Lamentations.” And Daniel had thorough communion with him, and knew through him that the time was come for “accomplishing the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.” Instead of elation, as the natural impulse would have been in hailing such an auspicious event, he betook himself to humiliation before God. “And I set my face unto the Lord God to seek after prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes; and I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and made confession.” A holy man, he looked beneath the surface of circumstances, so pleasant to the Jew, of returning to his own land. No doubt, the Jew was entitled to have a deeper feeling than others. It was “Immanuel's land,” and one day to be made worthy of the name, as Israel will be of Jehovah's choice. But the realization is inseparable from faith in the Messiah, Who alone will make either land or people what promise intends them to be.
No Christian should envy such a prospect: alas! that one should speak of a feeling so unworthy in a believer's heart. Are we not blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ? Let us rejoice that Israel are yet to be blessed on earth, and to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.
But Daniel, knowing the moral state of the Jewish captives, poured out his confession in verses 4-19, and found no rest save in God's manifold mercies. He was right. The heart of the remnant was sadly wrong. Nor in fact did Daniel return. As things were, he justly thought that he might as well die in Babylon as in Jerusalem. As we hear later (Dan. 12:13), his hope was in God for the end, and meanwhile it was for him to rest, and stand in his lot at the end of the days. He was waiting, not for Cyrus' proclamation, but for the great trumpet to be blown, that shall gather the perishing in Assyria and the outcasts in Egypt, who shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain at Jerusalem. Indeed it will be his to hear ere that a greater trumpet at Christ's coming, when “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in the twinkling of an eye.”
Daniel the prophet did not slur over his own sins, holy as he was, but he also confessed the sins of all Israel. Yet there was but a small part of Israel in Babylon, a little remnant of two tribes. Where were the ten? They are still in the east; and as Psa. 83 calls them, “hidden ones,” to emerge in due time. What nonsense has been talked about them! The American Indians, the Nestorians, the Anglo-Saxons! Nobody as yet knows anything of them; but all the world shall learn at the right moment. This will begin when the Lord has performed His whole work upon mount Zion and upon Jerusalem.
I met Dr. Joseph Wolff many years ago, and a question was raised by a person of learning, how it was that Israel, as compared with the Jews, only came distinctly forward in the middle or third book of Psalms (73.-89). In order to solve the question, during the course of a long conversation, W. was asked if he did not recollect once meeting a family in Central Asia, who claimed to be, not Jews, but Israelites? He had an excellent memory but had forgotten it, though repeatedly related in his Journals and Travels. Their tradition was that, when Cyrus proclaimed liberty to return, some did not avail themselves of it, to escape some terrible evil into which those returning were to fall. Therefore did they prefer to remain dispersed, till Messiah could recall His people triumphantly into the land. It is not far to seek. For as Isaiah long ago had predicted the rejection and sufferings of Messiah through Israel's unbelief (Isa. 1; 53), so it is made known in this very chapter to our prophet; and Zechariah named it more than once (ch. 12:10, 13:6-7). This extreme enormity of sin befell the Jews or two tribes that went up from Babylon. God is always righteous in His dealings, and special sin brought special suffering. Therefore are the Jews to go through the tribulation without parallel at the end of this age. The same people who rejected the true Christ will receive the Anti-Christ. The ten tribes, not having so treated the Messiah, will take no part with Anti-Christ. For the Jews is reserved this last hour of Jacob's trouble in its intensest degree. Then God will bring the ten tribes from their hiding place. Apparently this is what will trouble the last king of the north (Dan. 11), as we shall see later.
But here Daniel brings all the people before God. Is this what you do about Christians? The Pope is busy sending out his emissaries in the vain effort to unite all Christendom. If it could be, what would be the effect? “A hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird,” and if any saints could be there, only the more a conglomerate of horrors. More and more do the professors of Christianity deny the spotless humanity of Christ, as others His deity, while we hear of His person divided now as of old. Most prevalent is the revolt against God's judgment of sin, as well as against the divine authority of scripture. These abominations are as rife at least among Romanists as among Protestants, Anglicans, &c. What sort of Christians are such? and what would be the value of their re-union?
The Jesuits of course are committed to this and every other ambitious project of the Papacy; but Babylon is doomed to fall. Strong is the Lord God that judgeth her. For all saints there is revealed “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him.” This is our sure re-union, but it will be under a heavenly banner, and to the one Name, Who is worthy of all glory. In scripture we see that when Israel broke up into two kingdoms, and idolatry was imposed to keep up the breach, the time came for the dispersion of the ten tribes among the idolatrous heathen. In their case no such thing as re-union can be until Christ comes. Is it otherwise with the church? Long has it been broken up through sin and idolatry; never will it be re-united in a holy way; and the deeper the plunge of Christendom is into unbelief and pride and indifference to grace, truth, and holiness, the less desirable is the gathering of such abominations into one. The only way that glorifies God now is to keep Christ's word, and not to deny His name. Pretentiousness is of all things the least becoming in God's sight; as humiliation for all saints is precious to Him.
So Daniel brings “all Israel” (vers. 7, 11, 20) before God—the people as a whole. This was faith and love; for in fact only a remnant of Judah and Benjamin was in Babylon. Let us weigh too the righteous feeling, as well as the faith in God's compassion that pervades His prayer, “We have sinned” (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15). It is a mere cheat if we confess only some of our sins, and perhaps not the greatest. God will have all out in order to forgiveness. And oh! the sin and folly of making confession of our sins to man. Grace alone removes guile and imparts integrity.
When Daniel was humbling himself; and while he yet spoke in prayer, fresh light is given through Gabriel, who told the prophet that he was now come to make him skilful of understanding. It lies on the surface that Daniel was encouraged to consider the matter and understand the vision; and as he was inspired to write it, the Jews had it before them, as we now have had it before us. By faith alone can we understand this scripture or any other.