To the Lord our God: since this is a prayer addressed to God, it will be advisable in most languages not use the third person forms as in the original. If the structure of Revised Standard Version is retained, it will be necessary to say something like “to you, O Lord our God.” Note that Good News Translation shortens this considerably.

Mercy and forgiveness: the first of these two nouns refers concretely to the intestines (often translated “bowels” in King James Version). For the Israelites this was considered the seat of the emotions of goodness, love, and affection. The two terms together speak of compassion that forgives wrongs.

Because: this conjunction in Revised Standard Version gives the wrong impression that the rebellion and sin of the people of Israel were the cause of God’s mercy. But it is rather in spite of their disobedience that God forgave them. It is therefore advisable to use a connecting word like “although” (Good News Translation), “even though” (New International Version), or “since” (New Jerusalem Bible). In other languages translators may prefer to begin a completely new sentence using the words “In spite of that.”

Rebelled: see verse 5.

Against him: this verse and the following one speak of God in the third person singular, but in verses 8 and 11 Daniel addresses him in the second person. Such changes of grammatical person are not unusual in Hebrew, but they do not indicate that the writer is passing from dialogue (here a prayer) to narrative. Since Daniel is praying directly to God, it will be unnatural in most languages to use a third person pronoun here. It is much more natural to say “against you.” Compare verse 4b.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .