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prophets, “is the beginning of all moral disorders,” as Leupold expresses
it. 12

9:7–9 “To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, butto us open shame, as
at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and
to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the
lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that

they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame,
to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have
sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and
forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him.”

In verses 7–8, Daniel contrasted God’s righteousness with the
confusion that belonged to Israel. God had been righteous in His
judgments upon Israel, and in no way did Israel’s distress reflect upon

the attributes of God adversely. By contrast, Israel’s shame of face that
had made them the object of scorn of the nations was their just desert
for rebellion against God. Daniel itemized those who were especially
concerned: first, the kingdom of Judah that was carried into captivity by
the Babylonians, and second, “all Israel, those who are near and those
who are far away,” that is, the ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel that
were carried off by the Assyrians in 721 B.C. The scattering of the children

of Israel to “all the lands to which you have driven them” was not
occasioned by one sin, but by generation after generation of failure to
obey the Law or to give heed to the prophets.

Tatford summarizes Daniel 9:5–8 in these words:

There was no tautology in the prolific accumulation of expressions he
used: it was rather that he sought to express by every possible word
the enormity of the guilt and contumacy of himself and his people.
They had sinned in wandering from the right, they had dealt
perversely in their willful impiety, they had done wickedly in their

sheer infidelity, they had rebelled in deliberate refractoriness, they
had turned aside from the Divine commandments and ordinances.
Their cup of iniquity was full. Their guilt was accentuated by the fact
that prophets had been sent to them with the Divine message and they
had refused to listen. All were implicated—rulers, leaders (the term