18 O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness, but for thy great mercies' sake.
and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, saith Jehovah. But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.
Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where are thy zeal and thy mighty acts? the yearning of thy heart and thy compassions are restrained toward me. For thou art our Father, though Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us: thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name. O Jehovah, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways, and hardenest our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. Thy holy people possessed `it' but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are become as they over whom thou never barest rule, as they that were not called by thy name.
Turn again, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, And the stock which thy right hand planted, And the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down: They perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, Upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So shall we not go back from thee: Quicken thou us, and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O Jehovah God of hosts; Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. Psalm 81 For the Chief Musician; set to the Gittith. `A Psalm' of Asaph.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Daniel 9
Commentary on Daniel 9 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 9
In this chapter we have,
And it is the clearest, brightest, prophecy of the Messiah, in all the Old Testament.
Dan 9:1-3
We left Daniel, in the close of the foregoing chapter, employed in the king's business; but here we have him employed in better business than any king had for him, speaking to God and hearing from him, not for himself only, but for the church, whose mouth he was to God, and for whose use the oracles of God were committed to him, relating to the days of the Messiah. Observe,
Dan 9:4-19
We have here Daniel's prayer to God as his God, and the confession which he joined with that prayer: I prayed, and made my confession. Note, In every prayer we must make confession, not only of the sins we have been guilty of (which we commonly call confession), but of our faith in God and dependence upon him, our sorrow for sin and our resolutions against it. It must be our confession, must be the language of our own convictions and that which we ourselves do heartily subscribe to.
Let us go over the several parts of this prayer, which we have reason to think that he offered up much more largely than is here recorded, these being only the heads of it.
Dan 9:20-27
We have here the answer that was immediately sent to Daniel's prayer, and it is a very memorable one, as it contains the most illustrious prediction of Christ and gospel-grace that is extant in all the Old Testament. If John Baptist was the morning-star, this was the day-break to the Sun of righteousness, the day-spring from on high. Here is,