What Does Daniel 9:18 Mean?
O my God, bend your ear, and hear. Open your eyes, and behold our emptied places, and the city which is called by your name, for we do not cast down our pleas before you upon our alignments, but upon your great compassions.
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 my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.THE KEY
The ruin is brought before God on the ground of his compassion, not the speaker’s righteousness.
THE MEANING
You bring devastation plainly before God and ask him to hear and see it, including the city marked by his name. Your plea does not rest on a claim of your own alignment; it rests on the abundance of God’s compassion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that you must prove your own righteousness before your devastation can be heard: the plea here rests on God’s compassion.
THE ROOT
רַחֲמֶיךָ
raḥamekha
GROWS FROM
רחם
To have compassion, with a sense of deep tenderness.
“compassions” in this verse is raḥamekha. The word translated “mercies” is rooted in compassion, the very ground Daniel names for the plea. Its kinship with the word for womb evokes tenderness that shelters and holds life.
ALSO GROWS
raḥum: compassionate
רַחוּם
This related word names compassion as a quality of God, echoing the nature Daniel appeals to.
reḥem: womb
רֶחֶם
This related word carries the root’s association with deep, protective tenderness.
צִדְקֹתֵינוּ
tsidqotenu
GROWS FROM
צדק
To be right or just; alignment.
“alignments” in this verse is tsidqotenu. The speaker explicitly sets personal alignment aside as the basis for this appeal. The verse gives the plea a different ground: God’s abundant compassion.
ALSO GROWS
tzedakah: justice, righteousness, alignment
צְדָקָה
This branch shows the field of right relationship that the speaker does not present as the reason to be heard.
tsaddiq: righteous, just, aligned
צַדִּיק
This branch names a person characterized by alignment, the very basis the speaker declines to claim.
שֹׁמְמֹתֵינוּ
shomemotenu
GROWS FROM
שמם
To become desolate or to be appalled.
“emptied places” in this verse is shomemotenu. The word holds the reality of devastation without softening it. Daniel asks God to see the ruin as it is, setting that visible brokenness before compassion.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: desolation, waste
שְׁמָמָה
This related word makes the verse’s plea about actual ruin, not an abstract shortcoming.
shamem: to be desolate, to be appalled
שָׁמֵם
This branch carries both devastation and the stunned response it can evoke.
THE PATTERN
A cry from devastation rests on God’s compassion rather than the supplicant’s claim to merit.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Show me favor, O God, according to your faithful love; according to the abundance of your compassion, wipe away my rebellion.And the tax collector, standing far off, would not so much as lift his eyes toward the heavens, but struck his breast, saying, God, cover me, the one who misses the mark.But God, rich in faithful love, for the great love with which he loved us,THE THREAD
As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those in awe of him.Daniel’s “mercies” and the LORD’s “pitieth” come from the root רחם (r-ḥ-m), expressing deep compassion. Psalm 103 makes that compassion vivid through a father’s tenderness toward his children.
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