Daniel 9:2

The Seventy Weeks In the first year of Darius the Median, Daniel, by a diligent study of the prophecies of Jeremiah as to the number of years during which Jerusalem must lie desolate (Dan 9:1, Dan 9:2), was led to pour forth a penitential prayer, in which he acknowledges the justice of the divine chastisement which hung over Israel on account of their sins, and entreats the mercy of God in behalf of his people (vv. 3-19). In consequence of this prayer, the angel Gabriel (Dan 9:20-23) must pass over his people and the holy city before the consummation of the kingdom of God.

In this chapter we have, I. Daniel's prayer for the restoration of the Jews who were in captivity, in which he confesses sin, and acknowledges the justice of God in their calamities, but pleads God's promises of mercy which he had yet in store for them (v. 1-19). II. An immediate answer sent him by an angel to his prayer, in which, 1. He is assured of the speedy release of the Jews out of their captivity (Dan 9:20-23). And, 2. He is informed concerning the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ (of which that was a type), what should be the nature of it and when it should be accomplished (Dan 9:24-27). And it is the clearest, brightest, prophecy of the Messiah, in all the Old Testament.

9:2 reading . . . Jeremiah: Daniel apparently had a copy of Jeremiah’s prophecies. • Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years: Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC (see 2 Kgs 25:8), and the first return occurred in 538 BC—about 48 years later. The rebuilding of the city began almost at once (see Ezra 3:1-13; Isa 44:28), and the rebuilt Temple was completed in 515 BC—about seventy-one years after it was destroyed (Ezra 6:15). Daniel might have thought of Jerusalem’s “destruction” as having begun with his own exile in 605 BC (see Jer 25:11-12), with sixty-seven years between 605 and 538 BC.