Tonight in Bible readings I was brought back to a famous prayer (and prophecy) from Daniel 9. It was a prayer I’d once known well, and probably spoke approvingly of. And now those around me talked about how beautiful a prayer it was, and all I could think was how truly awful it was.

Some context

The prophet Daniel was taken from his homeland of Judah as a young man to serve the conquering Babylonians. In geopolitical terms, his king had backed the wrong ally and that had consequences, but in religious terms it was seen as their god’s punishment for not worshipping him correctly.

While in Babylon, Daniel resisted all attempts to impose other gods on him or to interfere with his religious practices. Most famously, that led him into a lion’s den, which he survived due to the protection of his god. If you’ve ever heard the classic song “Dare to be a Daniel” - well, that was him. Basically - he was one of the good guys.

At the time of this prayer he’s seen in his scriptures an opportunity for his nation to be restored, and will leave no stone unturned begging his god to make it happen. It turns out that that requires a lot of grovelling.

We were taught to see this as a powerful intercessory prayer. Despite being one of the good guys, Daniel was willing to humble himself on behalf of others, acknowledge their wrongdoings, and beg God on their behalf.

That may be true, but I think it misses something: As an elderly man and one of “the good guys”, Daniel is supposed to be showing us the right way to approach God. I can’t quite figure out whether he’s a deluded follower who really believes what he’s saying or an evil genius who’s spent a lifetime learning how to play this god, but either way the result ain’t pretty. This god won’t just act because it’s right or because he feels any obligation to his followers - it seems that he needs his ego to be stroked and to be reminded what’s in it for him.

Note: There’s good reason to believe that the book of Daniel was written hundreds of years after the events it supposedly described and after many of its so-called prophecies had already been fulfilled. I’ve written about it before. But for this post I’m going to assume the book is a genuine record of real events in the life of a historical Daniel. Why? Because I think the bigger issue is that even if everything in the prayer were correct, what it shows about God is disturbing.

Absolute power and conditional love

Here’s how Daniel begins the prayer:

Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong.

Daniel 9:4 - 5 (NIV)

God, it seems, wants to be thought of as great and powerful. He’s a wonderful God, trustworthy, loving, and sticks to his commitments.

There’s a catch, though. It seems his love only applies to those who really deserve it. (which is probably people who grovel as Daniel will for the rest of the prayer). But it’s simple, really: All you need to do to be part of God’s covenant of love is to love God unconditionally and obey his demands without question. While you’re at it, preferably belong to a nation where everyone else does the same, otherwise you might just be caught up in the punishment like Daniel was.

The importance of obedience

The importance of obedience and the wickedness of disobedience runs through the prayer. Daniel is busy confessing on his nation’s behalf: They’ve been unfaithful. They’ve sinned. They’ve rebelled against God. They haven’t followed his rules. They haven’t obeyed him.

In short, they’ve been super, super bad, and Daniel’s embarrassed even thinking about it, but he has to tell God that he gets that they’ve brought the punishment on themselves before he can beg God to change.

Crushing wayward followers is not optional

Consider these verses:

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.
…
The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him.

Daniel 9:11, 14 (NIV)

Earlier in the prayer Daniel called God “merciful and forgiving” - perhaps because he believed it, or perhaps because he knew that was what God wanted to hear - but there’s nothing in these words that suggests mercy or forgiveness. God had predicted “If you disobey me, punishment will come” - so that’s what had to happen. More than that, God was showing his righteousness by punishing Israel - so presumably it would have been wrong for him to show any mercy for such a heinous crime as daring to disobey him. On God’s part there was no hesitation, no regret - just the swift hand of punishment.

What’s more, it had to be a significant punishment:

Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

Daniel 9:12 (NIV)

God, you see, gave out the best punishments. No-one could punish quite like him. And it was important for Daniel to remind God of that.

A stirring call to action

Here’s how Daniel ends the prayer:

Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.

Daniel 9:19 (NIV)

It’s from this verse particularly that I get the “Daniel as evil genius” vibe. He’s appealed to God’s mercy, he’s suggested his righteousness could be shown in forgiveness, not just punishment, and now here comes the cherry on top. Yes, God, you’re totally justified in punishing us any way you like - but have you considered it’s making you look bad? We wouldn’t want that, would we? Sure, we humans can grovel appropriately if that’s what it takes, but you’d best get the job done quickly…

You know, he actually got a response

In universe, the call to action I quoted wasn’t meant to be a carefully calculated conclusion. In fact, Daniel was supposed to be interrupted mid prayer. The angel Gabriel had been sent in response to his prayer, and called him “highly esteemed” (see, Daniel definitely knew how to craft a prayer for maximum response).

At a national level, Jerusalem was to be restored and rebuilt, just as he’d asked for. So I guess the prayer really worked, no matter how much I dislike it.

Accurate foreknowledge isn’t enough

While the chapter is known for this prayer, it’s probably better known for the so-called Seventy Weeks Prophecy that Gabriel brought Daniel. I’m not going to go into the many interpretations, the complicated diagrams, or the claims about how the prophecy was / is being fulfilled and how that positively proves God’s existence, because it’s not relevant to my point.

Even if the Seventy Week prophecy was the most astoundingly unambiguous prophecy in history and proved beyond the shadow of doubt that there was a powerful entity behind it, that wouldn’t mean we should grovel before said entity.

What kind of god does this show?

This prayer presents the strange picture of a god who is totally loving and merciful - and yet seems compelled to exact the most dire punishments on anyone who hasn’t followed him well enough. Like I’ve said in the past about the death of Uzzah, sometimes it sounds like God doesn’t even have a choice. His love is very conditional, and he has to be grovelled to and begged and reminded how much it will affect him before he can be convinced to act mercifully.

If I’ve upset anyone by pouring scorn on their favourite prayer - well, I’m not really sorry. I was forced to read it tonight, and it was awful, and no-one else seemed to recognise it was awful.

Why not? It’s certainly not because they’re reading a different text from me, and I don’t think it’s because they have a fundamentally different idea of right and wrong from me. Just that they carve out special exceptions for their god, and are so used to doing so that I’m not sure they even notice it.

Perhaps Daniel’s placations were just the habit of a life-time serving powerful human kings, or perhaps I’m focusing too much on small details of the text. But if they were necessary, they show a god who perhaps should be feared, but certainly shouldn’t be worshipped.