Daniel or the Dodo

I should start by saying that, as I write this, I have primarily the American situation in mind,

though the heart of what I am trying to convey applies to all, American or otherwise. I also want to

make it clear that, while I do have strong political opinions, my intention is not to promote or defend

the merits of any particular political party or ideology. I would like, rather, to address politics at a

much more fundamental level: the heart of every person in a nation. To do this, let's look at Daniel's

prayer to God on behalf of the Israelite people in Daniel 9:1ff (NIV, emphasis mine):

In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the
Babylonian kingdom - in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures,
according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of
Jerusalem would last seventy years.

Let me stop there and provide some essential background before we move on to the prayer itself. You

see Daniel and most of his brethren had been in exile for 671 years in the land of the Babylonians.

Around 606 or 605 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had besieged Jerusalem, destroyed it, and

taken control of the surrounding areas. Daniel was a young teenager at the time and, being a

descendant of the royal tribe of Judah, was one of a small number of young men selected to be trained

and put into the service of the king (Daniel 1:3-5). This is where we find Daniel in his prayer of Daniel

9 after having been in the service of the rulers of Babylon for many years2. Interestingly, he has been

reading the prophet Jeremiah, who had been one of only a handful of prophets warning Jerusalem of

the impending destruction, and how to stop it, in the years of Daniel's youth. They may have even

known each other all those years ago! None-the-less, because the people didn't heed the words of

Jeremiah, the city was ransacked and Daniel was deported.

1 All years and time periods expressed are approximate. Biblical chronology is an entire field of study on its own and can
be quite difficult. For that reason, depending on which scholar or commentary you consult, they can vary 1-2 years in
either direction.
2 At this point, Daniel is in his late 70's or early 80's. Probably no more than 82 years old maximum.
 So Daniel has been reading Jeremiah and discovers that the total number of years of Jerusalem's

desolation would amount to 70 years. We can see this for ourselves in Jeremiah 25:8ff (NIV):

Therefore the LORD Almighty says this: "Because you have not listened to my words, I will
summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares
the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the
surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and
scorn, and an everlasting ruin...This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these
nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

"But when the seventy years are fulfilled3, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the
land of the Babylonians, for their guilt..."

With this in mind, let's return to Daniel 9. Verses 2-6 read (ESV, emphasis mine):

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over
the realm of the Chaldeans— in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the
number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass
before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned my face
to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth
and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great
and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep
his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled,
turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the
prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the
people of the land.

Pleas for mercy? Confession? Sack cloth and ashes? This is a strange response from a man that just

discovered that his near life-long exile is about to come to an end. The NET bible places a study note

here that says, "When lamenting, ancient Israelites would fast, wear sackcloth, and put ashes on their

heads to show their sorrow and contrition." Why is Daniel lamenting? What does he have to be

sorrowful for? Yes, there was sin in Israel's past that led to this lengthy exile...but it is ending! It

seems that a celebration is order. But that is not what Daniel does.

I believe that Daniel didn't stop at Jeremiah in his studies of the scriptures to determine what

God's thoughts on the Israelite's present situation was. I believe that he also connected Jeremiah's

words with the book of Leviticus4. Why? Because Daniel's response is very much in accord with what

3 See also Jeremiah 29:10.

4 This can be seen later in the prayer (Dan 9:12-13). He says specifically that the what was done to Jerusalem and the
people fulfilled what was written in the Law of Moses, of which Leviticus is a part.
Leviticus says the people's response ought to be, should they find themselves in just such a position as

they were in at the time. To understand this, we must go back to God's commands concerning Sabbath

years in Leviticus 25:1-7 (ESV):

The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to
them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the LORD.
For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and
gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a
Sabbath to the LORD. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap
what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a
year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for
yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who
lives with you...

The punishment for ignoring this command should sound familiar and can be found one chapter later in

Leviticus 26:31-35 (The NET Bible):

I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your
soothing aromas. I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be
appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your
land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste. "Then the land will make up for
its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land
will rest and make up its Sabbaths. All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not
have on your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

Here we can see that ignoring the "Sabbath rests" for the land was the most direct cause (among other

things) for the destruction of Jerusalem, the desolation of the land and the deportation of the Israelites

to a foreign land. This is confirmed for us in 2 Chronicles 36:18-21 (ESV, emphasis mine):

And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the
LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.
And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its
palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who
had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the
establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of
Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept
Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

But God did not leave his people without a solution to the problem. Though the law may have been

broken, Leviticus 26:40-44 provides the remedy. The New International Version reads:

But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers—their treachery against me
 and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the
land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their
sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with
Abraham, and I will remember the land. For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy
its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they
rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of
their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking
my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God. (emphasis mine).

The remedy had two conditions:

Pay for their sin (the 70 years to allow the land its Sabbaths)

AND
Humble their hearts (i.e. confess their sins and that of their fathers)

Going back to our original passage in Daniel 9, we can see that this is exactly what Daniel did.

He recognized that the return of Israel to its own land was not a by-gone conclusion simply because

seventy years had passed. They also had to repent, and he does so on their behalf no less than 16 times

in a mere 19 verses. Starting in vs 4:

I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed:

“O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love
him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked
and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.
We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our
kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
“Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah
and people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you
have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you.
O LORD, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because
we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though
we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the LORD our God or kept the laws
he gave us through his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and
turned away, refusing to obey you. “Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written
in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have
sinned against you. You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our
rulers by bringing upon us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been
done like what has been done to Jerusalem. Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all
this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our
God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. The LORD did not
 hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in everything
he does; yet we have not obeyed him. “Now, O Lord our God, who brought your
people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures
to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. O Lord, in keeping with all your
righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your
holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our fathers have made Jerusalem and your
people an object of scorn to all those around us. “Now, our God, hear the prayers and
petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate
sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city
that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but
because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For
your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.”
While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and
making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill... (NIV, emphasis mine).

Now I won't deny that asking forgiveness for the sins of previous generations is a proper thing to do, if

for no other reason than that God tells us to do so. But why would it be a prerequisite for the

restoration of Jerusalem and Israel? After all, Daniel was a mere kid when his ancestors were

perpetrating all of this 67+ years earlier and most, if not all of them, were dead.. He couldn't have had

much of a part in their improprieties, if any, and neither could any of the other Israelites in Daniel's day

as most weren't even born at the time. But we must recognize what Daniel recognized...and this is the

primary lesson for this article.

You see, Daniel was in grief because he understood that, although it was his ancestor's actions

that were the root cause of the exile, yet he and his contemporaries had largely continued in the same

attitudes of heart and mind that their fathers had. Now Daniel was a good man, used mightily by the

lord and is one of the few men of scripture of which God speaks no evil, but his prayer makes clear that

he realized the depth of his own sin. After all, it had taken him 67 long years just to discover these

very plainly written verses about the position he was in. Had he not sought the scriptures for answers

to their plight before? It seems reasonable to think that none of the other exiles had noticed the verses

either. Otherwise Daniel, being in the prominent position that he was, would certainly have heard the

news. You would think the people would have been looking forward to the end of the seventy year

exile in the land of their enemy with intense anticipation, yet there is no recognition of it until a mere 3
years prior. Where was the word of God during that time? Apparently not in the hearts of the people!

Did they have God's redemption at the forefront of their minds? I guess not. Daniel saw that he and

his contemporaries needed to repent of the same sins and attitudes that their ancestors had engaged in

or they would not see their homeland again, for it would have been a mockery of God's justice.

The real beauty of this story is God's willingness to guide the captive Israelites into the

repentance they needed, despite their hard-heartedness. He could have waited until the required

seventy years had passed and simply said, "Sorry fellas, but you haven't changed a bit. Looks like you

are going be staying in Babylon for a while. But, I hear that they have some really world class

gardens...so...enjoy!" Notice that God didn't wait for the seventy years to pass before he started

working in this situation. Daniel realized the position they were in a full three years before. That

means that God had three years to work through his servant Daniel to ensure that the Israelites repented

and, therefore, had to serve no more than their minimum required time in exile. This is an excellent

example of the principle that Paul sets forth in Phillipians 2:13, "...for it is God who works in you to

will and to act according to his good purpose."

APPLICATION FOR US TODAY

It is no secret that America is going through a lot of political upheaval, as are other parts of the world.

Everyday the news is replete with people pointing fingers at one-another. Democrats blame

Republicans, Republicans blame Democrats. Banks blame government, government blames banks.

Big government proponents blame small government proponents, small government proponents blame

big government proponents. Current leaders blame the actions of past leaders. Past leaders blame the

actions of current leaders. Historians, economists and political analysts point to processes that began

years ago as a result of the greed or lack of foresight or lack of understanding of previous populations.

The list can go on and on.

What should be troublesome from a Christian perspective is the lack of attention, even in the
Christian world, to the example that God has provided us in Daniel. Remember what Paul said to the

Romans, "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through

patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope (KJV)." It is true that political and economic

crises are often the result of high level manipulation and impropriety by people or systems that we have

no control over. It is true that the pattern of manipulation or impropriety may have even been set in

motion many years ago, before you or I were even born; but if we have ever engaged in actions that

have enabled that manipulation or impropriety, then we have no right to pass blame.

The recent economic crisis should provide us with some food for thought in that regard. Many

point to the expansion of easy credit, poor oversight and regulation of banks, corporate greed, agenda

motivated government policies and the like5, but have any of us ever used a credit card to make a

purchase that we didn't really have the money for, and really didn't need? Have any of us ever put

ourselves in debt to buy something simply because the cheaper credit made it possible for us to do so?

Have any of us ever neglected to contribute to our savings so that we could impress out neighbor with

that fancy new what-cha-ma-call-it? If so, we have enabled and encouraged a destructive system for

the short-term satisfaction of our own ill-considered lusts.

Have any of us ever made use of loopholes in a legitimate law so that we could evade the spirit

of that law? If so, we have simply forced the authorities to amend and expand that law in order to

consider more contingencies, thus increasing its complexity and burden on ourselves. A dear mentor,

Colin Thornley, once taught me that, "If you don't follow the 10 commandments, then you'll follow the

10,000." Colin was right, and this kind of misuse of the law only leads political systems to become

increasingly oppressive6 and, therefore, ungodly.

5 Not that these types of things shouldn't be considered, but they don't relieve the Christian of the responsibility to
consider his or her own roll, however big or small it may be. Again, it is not the purpose of this article to debate the
validity of these arguments, whatever merit they may have.
6 This is true regardless of the type of political system.
SO WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT?

Daniel was honest with himself. We must be also and, "if there is any offensive way in me,

lead me in the way everlasting."7 "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus...being

found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself."8 No amount of finger-pointing, blame-shifting, re-

regulation or system-revamping will reverse the negative momentum our world is careening under if

we insist on continuing in the attitudes of heart and mind that our fathers had. We must be different.

We must do better than simply change those attitudes...they must be completely replaced by the love of

Christ.

1 John 4:8 tells us that, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love (NIV,

emphasis mine)." If we do not love, and teach others to love, very little will change. The importance

of that statement for our topic becomes clear when we compare it to Paul's words in Romans 13:9-10,

"...'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the

fulfillment of the law." That is God's very simple prescription for the smooth operation of our world,

our governments, our economies and our neighborhoods: love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore

love is the fulfillment of the law.

To wrap up, I think it is appropriate to consider for a moment the Greek verb for "love",

agapao. Bill Klein of the Bible Translation and Exegesis Institute, in his exegesis of Phillipians, notes

that the word root from which the word agapao comes is "ag". This is the same root from which we get

our English words "ag-ony" and "ag-riculture". The idea embodied in the root, and therefore in the

word agapao, is that of toil. Agapao love is that of toil on another's behalf. I think if we are all honest

with ourselves, we must admit that we probably are not very good at agapao. If we were, this world

would be a better place! So we are left with the same two choices that Daniel had:

7 Psalm 139:24 (NIV) paraphrase.

8 Phillipians 2:5,8 (NIV).
 The way of the Dodo or The way of Daniel

I know, I know...that sounds a little weird. What I mean is this: We can continue to convince ourselves

that other people, maybe more powerful people, are the ultimate cause of all this mess while we watch

our world and our societies die in quiet arrogance. We will go the way of the dodo bird. Or, we can go

the way of Daniel, admit that we are sinners that have most likely, in some way, contributed to the

problem at some point in our lives, and begin the process of transformation the same way that Daniel

did, with a heartfelt plea of mercy and repentance to God for ourselves, our brothers, and our fathers.