Daniel 9:7–12

“O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

“O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him. And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.”

“Shame of face,” is the literal translation of “bo-set ha-pah-neem.” The ESV translates it as, “open shame.” The NIV says, “covered with shame.” These paraphrases obscure the point.

This refers to shame you can feel, shame that makes you blush, shame that makes your face hurt.

This is critical to understanding the passage because shame of face is a good thing. You have to be capable of embarrassment to be embarrassed. Your face only burns when you know you’ve done wrong. In other words, shame of face is repentance people can see. That’s a glorious, wonderful thing.

Unfortunately, Daniel isn’t saying that his people have achieved that level of repentance. He says that it belongs to them. “O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.”

It’s a call to repentance—literally a call to embarrassment.

This is exactly what we need. Our nation is in desperate need of revival and that revival starts with recognizing our need for revival.

But this is more than just recognizing that our nation needs a revival. We (the church) need revival. Revival starts with the church getting back to practicing the kingship of Jesus. After a year-long quarantine, everyone wants to get out and get back to normal—or at least get back to work.

But we weren’t that hard at the work of our Lord before. We need to regret the opportunities missed and get on with the work of the kingdom.

But there’s more. It’s more than recognizing that the church needs revival. I need revival. I need to repent of my apathy and sloth.

My face is burning.

These Monday—Friday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. To subscribe to all the DEEPs click here:

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.