“But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations. We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets, who spoke on your authority to our kings and princes and ancestors and to all the people of the land.” Daniel 9:5-6
Daniel begins his prayer by saying three things. We have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled. We have departed from your precepts and from your judgment. They rebelled against God. When one thinks of rebellion, one thinks of rebelling against God’s Commandments, and Ordinance. This is true, but if we look deeper, we see that this rebellion is against God and His Word. Rebellion steams from unbelief as it regards to God’s solution. This solution is the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Israel even in times of revival as the reign of Hezekiah, when the king’s messengers went throughout the land calling people to the Passover at Jerusalem, “The runners went from town to town throughout Ephraim and Manasseh and as far as the territory of Zebulun. But most of the people just laughed at the runners and made fun of them.” (2 Chronicles 30:10) Israel’s departure from the precepts and judgments of God’s Word, as well as the disregard of the prophets, is the beginning of all moral down fall.
Here began Daniel’s prayer of confession. He himself is one of the few major characters of the Old Testament to whom some sin is not ascribed, though we know he was not sinless. In the context of his prayer he was dealing not with his personal sins, but was identifying with Israel’s sin and the collective responsibility he shared both in God’s promises of blessing and warnings of divine judgment. Daniel did not spare himself or his people in his confession.