God’s Word for You
Daniel 9:11b-14 so great a disaster
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, December 15, 2025
Therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against you. 12 God has confirmed his words, spoken against us and against our judges, by bringing so great a disaster on us that what has been done against Jerusalem has never before been done under the whole heaven. 13 Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us. We did not seek the favor of the LORD our God. We did not turn from our guilt. We did not ponder his faithfulness. 14 So the LORD kept watch over this disaster until he brought it down upon us. The LORD our God is right in everything he does, but we have disobeyed his voice.
The curse written about in the law of Moses is the curse given in Eden. It is the curse of death, the curse of pain and trouble and difficulty all our short days of this lifetime, brought on by sin inherited from Adam and Eve but always augmented and built into a terrible pile of guilt by each one of us. The record book of our lives is filled with the story of sin: Temptation, sin, denial, guilt, accusation, gnashing of teeth, shame, and wretchedness. And then temptation follows temptation all over again.
Moses said: “The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God. Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess” (Deuteronomy 28:61-63). This was the curse for the sin of idolatry, and Daniel confesses that God is right in his judgments.
Verses 13 and 14 show the back-and-forth of guilt and regret. First, “we did not turn from our guilt.” Despite the preaching of the prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel (and Daniel, too) the people did not look carefully into the mirror of God’s law to see their sin there. But then, the people also failed in another way: “We did not ponder his faithfulness.” Keeping the law of God is, for the believer, always an act of faith and not an obedience that comes from fear or obligation. As the Great Psalm proclaims: “I have sought your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your testimonies. I will hurry, I will not delay. I will keep your commandments” (Psalm 119:58-60). Obedience to God comes from faith, love, and thanks for his greatness and his gifts.
But the Lord has been watching. In this case, Daniel reveals that this is something to dread for those who sin: “The LORD kept watch over this disaster until he brought it down upon us.” The Lord might hold back a disaster if someone intercedes (Amos 7:2), and the Lord will certainly hold back a disaster when someone repents (Jonah 3:5-10). But Judah did not repent, and its people went into captivity. Therefore Daniel confesses once again: “The LORD our God is right in everything he does.” When God allows trouble or disaster, it is to expose sin, to turn hearts, to chastise, or to lay a cross on shoulders that carry such burdens for their benefit. When God sent his people into their exile, it was for all of these reasons.
But there is something else. God is loving and forgiving. Already during the captivity and long before, God’s plan was in motion. The curse came first in the Garden, but so did the gospel of the promise. And the gospel promise came again and again.
What is the gospel? It is the removal of all evil things from us and from the fallen world. “God has laid on him (on Christ) the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “God made him to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). And the gospel also shows that the law is kept by Christ in our place. He came “to fulfill the law” (Matthew 5:17), and he is “the end, the completion, of the law for the righteousness of everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4).
In Christ, this gospel means liberation from the curse of the law. “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become the curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). It means we are reconciled to God, for Christ “made peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). We have liberation from Satan’s captivity and reign. “The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). This means that we have the adoption of sons of God (John 1:12), and God gives to us his Holy Spirit: “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts” (Galatians 4:6).
And finally, this means the promise of eternal life. “Grace rules through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:21). This was always God’s plan for us. May he keep us safe in our faith every day of our lives, preserved for the day of judgment by the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that when he calls us out of our graves, we will stand holy, justified, sanctified, and pure like the rays of the morning sun, to be carried home on the wings of angels, to the everlasting feast and celebration, the holiday of holidays, forever in heaven.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.