What Is Daniel's Prayer - and How Can We Pray Like Daniel?
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When we first ask, “What is Daniel’s prayer?” you wonder, “Which one?”
After all, if we know anything about Daniel’s life from Daniel 2-12, he prays a lot. Although we’d love to dissect every prayer of Daniel, the one we refer to in this article takes place in Daniel 9.
After Daniel receives a rather harrowing vision (or set of visions) in Daniel 7 and Daniel 8, he decides to pray to Yahweh right after. This article will consider what happens in Daniel’s prayer and how we can model our prayers to God after the one found in Daniel 9.
What Is Daniel’s Prayer in the Bible?
What is Daniel’s prayer exactly? As mentioned above, this particular prayer takes place in Daniel 9:4-19. Now to avoid giving my editor a headache, I won’t be quoting all of these verses. You can click the link above to read them for yourself. But I will break down what happens in each of these verses.
As we do so, remember that Daniel is coming out of several terrifying visions of Israel’s (and the church’s) future.
Daniel prays to God. He acknowledges that God upholds his promises to those who obey his commands. For those of us unfamiliar with covenants, these were essentially two-party agreements. If you upheld your end of the deal, the other party was required to do so. Often, if you broke a covenant, it resulted in death.
Daniel moves to a time of confession. Although the Bible never shows Daniel ever doing anything wrong (one of the few seemingly sinless figures), Daniel doesn’t portray himself as blameless. Daniel admits that he, along with his people, have disobeyed God. Not only that, but God sent prophets to warn them of their impending future. They didn’t listen. The fact the Israelites ignored the prophets would have been fresh in Daniel’s mind, as God is warning Daniel of future events. God had chosen Daniel to be one of his prophets.
Daniel acknowledges the consequences of Israel’s sin. Because they sinned, God scattered them. Those in the Northern kingdom were displaced by Assyria, and those in the Southern kingdom by Babylon. Although God relents for a short period, if his people continue to disobey, sin’s consequences tend to catch up with them.
Here Daniel remembers that although foreign powers such as Egypt had taken over Israel in the past, God heard his people’s cries (see the entire book of Judges). Eventually, God always relented and had mercy on his people, bringing them out of their bondage. Remember that Daniel is either having these visions during Babylonian or Persian rule. Most scholars think he had these visions earlier in life (so probably during the Babylonian period). Perhaps David even uttered this prayer soon after Babylon took Daniel himself captive. Daniel asks God to turn away from his anger and relent on his punishment. He reminds the Lord that Israel is his chosen people.
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What are the Main Points of David’s Prayer?
If we break down Daniel’s prayer into bullet points, it looks like this:
1. God, here’s how you’ve moved in the past
2. God, here’s how I (or we) have messed up
3. God, you warned me about the consequences of our sin
4. God, as I’m experiencing these consequences, I call upon your mercy
A key part of Daniel’s prayer is confession. Depending on which denomination you attended growing up, you may not have thought much about confession or had the best experience with it. We often don’t like to explore our sinful nature. But Daniel was keenly aware of how important confession is.
We’ll dive into this topic more in-depth. Before we get to that, since we mentioned Daniel often is seen praying, let’s explore the other times he prays in Scripture.
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What Are Other Times Daniel Prayed in the Bible?
Daniel prays throughout, you guessed it, the book of Daniel. And we often find him praying in the strangest of places. I’d love to break down several of these times of prayer and what this says about the nature of prayer itself.
Daniel 2 - Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
To cut a long story short, the king of Babylon has a frightening dream, and none of his magicians can figure out what happens in the dream. Nebuchadnezzar gets peeved and decides to murder all the wise men in the land. Daniel asks him to relent for a while so that Daniel can try to interpret the dream. God has already given Daniel the gift of interpreting visions.
Daniel prays to God. God reveals to him the contents of the dream, Daniel tells the king, and the king spares the lives of the wise men.
What We Learn from This Prayer: Daniel prays for wisdom when he doesn’t know what to do in a situation. He asks for revelation. Sometimes, God hasn’t revealed everything to us. And we need him to give us some answers. We can pray for those.
Daniel 6 - Before Lion’s Den
Daniel moved up the ranks in the courts of Babylon. Let’s just say others in the palace didn’t like his progress to the top. They noticed that Daniel often prayed to Yahweh. They decided to get Darius, the Persian king reigning at the time, to decree that for thirty days, no one could pray to anyone (except for the Persian king). This would not be the first time someone tricked one of the Persian kings into making a law he couldn’t undo (see the book of Esther for more on this).
Despite the decree, Daniel continues to pray several times.
What We Learn from This Prayer: Daniel knows the importance of communicating with God, even when death is on the line. As Christians, we can anticipate persecution for our beliefs. It may come to a day where prayers are illegal for us—as they are for many of our brothers and sisters worldwide. The power of prayer is so mighty that it is even worth risking our lives.
But what about the prayer in Daniel 9? The one we focus on in this article? What can we learn from that prayer?
What Can We Learn from Daniel’s Prayer?
I want to highlight two verses in Daniel 10 that are crucial to understanding Daniel’s prayer. An angel speaks to Daniel in response to his prayer.
“Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days.” (Daniel 10:12-13)
We learn something vital from this passage: it may take some time before we see the answers to prayer. Although the angel most likely refers to one of the less-remembered prayers (one of the prayers mentioned in Daniel 10), the famous prayer in Daniel 9 makes the same point more subtly. Remember, Daniel’s prayer likely happened at the beginning of Daniel’s exile. He prayed for deliverance, and Israel still had 70 years of captivity before his prayer got an answer. Similarly, Exodus mentions the Israelites crying out to God in their slavery in Egypt, and their slavery ends after 400 years. Although God may answer our prayers right away, sometimes spiritual warfare can delay the answer from reaching us. Patience goes a long way when it comes to prayers.
We learn other important things from the Daniel 9 passage. Daniel’s prayer emphasizes the importance of confession and seeking forgiveness. Mercy and healing cannot happen until we admit our sins and wrongdoings.
Furthermore, Daniel’s prayer teaches us the importance of knowing God’s character. It’s important to know that God will allow us to fall into sin and its consequences if we continue to return to it. But God is also merciful. He hears our cries and binds up the wounds of his people.
Further Reading:
Perspectives on Prayer from Daniel 9–10
Why Is Prayer Important for Christians?
How Do I Get Started Praying?
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Hope Bolinger is an acquisitions editor at End Game Press, book editor for hire, and the author of almost 30 books. More than 1500 of her works have been featured in various publications. Check out her books at hopebolinger.com for clean books in most genres, great for adults and kids. Check out her editing profile at Reedsy.com to find out about hiring her for your next book project.
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