NOTES for Dan 9:2-3

Historians, sociologists, psychologists, and economists in every age have tried to understand what drives history, what directs the historical process and how. The Bible speaks of God and of God's providence as the main active force of history. What about the human person? Can he participate in history, and how exactly? It would seem that great people answer this question, for it is usually about them that people say they "make history."

Although it would perhaps be more correct to say that history makes them: in essence, all great people became great not because they had outstanding qualities, though such qualities could help them become great and also might not, but rather, from an ordinary human point of view, by chance. It is not enough to possess the properties and inclinations of a great person, not enough even to have the will to victory and determination; one must also find oneself in the right place at the right time and, in addition, remain alive in order to become a great person in the ordinary human understanding of the word.

History carries its great people, manifesting through them the power and scale of historical processes. But to manifest and reveal is not yet to direct. To make history, one must become part of God's providence. It would seem that not very much depends on the person here: after all, God Himself chooses those He needs for solving His tasks. But there is one indispensable condition without which participation in God's work is impossible in principle: repentance.

Such as the main hero of the Book of Daniel has. Not repentance of the kind we often speak about today, as private or public self-flagellation, individual or even collective, in which there is usually nothing but fleeting emotions, but real repentance, which presupposes first of all reflection and awareness of what was done and, having been done, separated us from God. Indeed, to act together with God means to act consciously, not assuming but knowing exactly what God wants from us here and now, in the concrete situation in which we find ourselves.

Sin hinders such clarity, and repentance presupposes that we sort out what hinders us and where it came from. Only after that can one speak of some possibility of conscious participation in history. Of course, the scale of participation differs, but everyone who consciously acts together with God according to His plan participates in history. What role Daniel's prayer played in liberating the people from captivity is known to God alone. One thing is clear: he was not history's plaything, but a man of God. And therefore he made history.