What Does Daniel 9:16 Mean?
O Lord, according to all your alignments, I beseech you, let the burning of your anger and the heat of your fury turn back from your city Jerusalem, your set-apart mountain, because of our shortcomings and the crookedness of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who surround us.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us.THE KEY
The city’s name carries wholeness beneath its public reproach, and the prayer asks God’s righteousness to turn the heat away.
THE MEANING
This prayer speaks to the ache of seeing shared failure and inherited crookedness exposed as public contempt. It asks for God’s anger and fury to turn away from the community, appealing to God’s righteousness as the measure of that turning. Jerusalem is called God’s city and holy mountain even while it is named a reproach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Public disgrace means the community no longer belongs to God; the prayer still calls Jerusalem “thy city” and “thy holy mountain.”
THE ROOT
צִדְקֹתֶיךָ
tsidqotekha
GROWS FROM
צדק
צדק (ts-d-q) means to be just or right, to stand in alignment.
“alignments” in this verse is tsidqotekha. The word belongs to a family of justice, right conduct, and the person who is just. Daniel’s appeal is for God’s right-making character to shape what happens to the city.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: justice, rightness
צֶדֶק
It shows that righteousness carries the sense of what is rightly aligned, not only a moral quality.
tsedaqah: righteousness, justice, just conduct
צְדָקָה
This branch brings rightness into action, illuminating the appeal for God’s character to act toward the city.
tsaddiq: a just or righteous person
צַדִּיק
It shows the root can describe one who embodies justice, as well as the quality of justice itself.
חֲטָאֵינוּ
chata'einu
GROWS FROM
חטא
חטא (ḥ-t-ʾ) means to miss, err, or fail to reach a mark.
“shortcomings” in this verse is chata'einu. The verse names these as “our missings,” a shared failure laid openly beside the crookedness of those who came before. The root frames failure as a departure from a way or mark, not as the whole nature of the people.
ALSO GROWS
chata: to miss, err, fail
חָטָא
The verb makes the image active: the people have missed a mark, and the prayer names that plainly.
chatta't: missing, sin; an offering for the missing
חַטָּאת
This related form shows how the language can name both the failure and the response that addresses it.
chote: one who misses or errs
חֹטֵא
The root describes an action and its doer, without making the failure the person’s only identity.
יְרוּשָׁלַם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
שלם (sh-l-m, shalem) means to be complete or whole, or to bring something to wholeness.
Jerusalem’s name carries the consonants שלם, the family of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness). The verse holds that wholeness in the name while the city stands in public reproach.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness, peace
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch makes the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name visible.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
It gives the root’s basic sense directly: the city’s name holds the language of completeness.
shillem: to repay, make good
שִׁלֵּם
This branch extends wholeness into making good what is damaged, echoing the plea for the city’s condition to change.
THE PATTERN
Failure can be named plainly while a plea for restoration rests on God’s character.
Let the priests, the attendants of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Pity your people, LORD, and do not give your inheritance to taunt, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God?Help us, O God of our deliverance, for the weight of your nature; bring us out, and make a covering for our shortcomings, for the sake of your nature.If we speak our shortcomings into the open, he is steady and aligned, to release our shortcomings, and to cleanse us from all crookedness.THE THREAD
Yet you are aligned in all that has come upon us, for you have done truth, but we have done wickedly.Both passages carry צדק (ts-d-q, justice or rightness): Daniel’s צִדְקֹתֶיךָ (tsidqotekha, your righteousness) and Nehemiah’s צַדִּיק (tsaddiq, just). Each names the people’s wrongdoing plainly while appealing to the justice of the one addressed.
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