Daniel 9
1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the offspring of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans,
2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
3 I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
4 I prayed to Yahweh my God, and made confession, and said, “Oh Lord, the great and dreadful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who love him and keep his commandments,
5 we have sinned, and have dealt perversely, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from your precepts and from your ordinances.
6 Neither have we listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
7 Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you.
8 Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
9 To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness; for we have rebelled against him;
10 neither have we obeyed Yahweh our God’s voice, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
11 Yes, all Israel have transgressed your law, and have turned aside, that they should not obey your voice. Therefore the curse and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us; for we have sinned against him.
12 He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem.
13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us; yet we haven’t entreated the favor of Yahweh our God, that we should turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in your truth.
14 Therefore Yahweh has watched over the evil, and brought it on us; for Yahweh our God is righteous in all his works which he does, and we have not obeyed his voice.
15 Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made yourself a name, as it is today; we have sinned. We have done wickedly.
16 Lord, according to all your righteousness, please let your anger and your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us.
17 Now therefore, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant, and to his petitions, and cause your face to shine on your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake.
18 My God, incline your ear, and hear. Open your eyes, and see our desolations, and the city which is called by your name; for we don’t present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies’ sake.
19 Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, listen and do. Don’t defer, for your own sake, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.
20 While I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before Yahweh my God for the holy mountain of my God;
21 yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening offering.
22 He instructed me and talked with me, and said, “Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding.
23 At the beginning of your petitions the commandment went out, and I have come to tell you; for you are greatly beloved. Therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision.
24 Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
25 Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks. It shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times.
26 After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One shall be cut off, and shall have nothing. The people of the prince who come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall be with a flood, and war shall be even to the end. Desolations are determined.
27 He shall make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate; and even to the full end, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out on the desolate.”
Daniel 9 Commentary
Chapter Overview
Daniel 9 begins in the first year of Darius the Mede, after Babylon’s fall but before Jerusalem has been fully restored. Daniel studies the prophetic writings and recognizes Jeremiah’s promise that Jerusalem’s desolation would last seventy years. The discovery moves him to seek God through prayer, fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
Daniel’s prayer is one of Scripture’s clearest models of confession. He praises God’s covenant faithfulness, admits Israel’s rebellion, acknowledges that the exile is a just consequence of persistent disobedience, and appeals for mercy rather than merit. Although Daniel has shown remarkable personal faithfulness, he repeatedly says “we,” identifying himself with the sins and needs of his people.
While Daniel is still praying, Gabriel arrives to give him wisdom concerning a period of seventy “weeks,” or seventy sevens, decreed for Daniel’s people and holy city. The message stretches beyond the immediate seventy-year exile to a larger work involving the removal of sin, reconciliation, everlasting righteousness, an anointed ruler, the destruction of the city and sanctuary, and a final end to desolation.
The last four verses have produced competing chronologies. Responsible study should examine those views, but the chapter’s central assurances are not uncertain: God hears repentant prayer, history proceeds according to his decree, sin will be dealt with, arrogant desecration will be judged, and God’s redemptive purpose will reach its appointed completion.
Key Themes
Daniel understands Jeremiah’s prophecy by reading “the books,” probably including Jeremiah 25 and Jeremiah 29. Prophecy leads him back to Scripture rather than away from it. God’s promise of restoration becomes a reason to pray for its fulfillment, showing that divine sovereignty and earnest petition belong together.
The seventy years explain Jerusalem’s present desolation, but Daniel does not treat a revealed timetable as permission to calculate dates and wait. He turns his face toward God. Biblical hope produces repentance, worship, and readiness; it does not encourage detached curiosity about events while ignoring the spiritual condition of God’s people.
Daniel begins with God’s greatness, covenant, and loving kindness. Confession is grounded in God’s character before it names human failure. Because God is faithful, Israel’s unfaithfulness is exposed clearly; because he is merciful, confession is not hopeless. True repentance neither minimizes sin nor imagines that sin has exhausted God’s compassion.
The prayer repeatedly uses corporate language: “we have sinned,” “we have rebelled,” and “to us belongs confusion of face.” Daniel does not excuse wrongdoing, yet he refuses to stand over his community as though its judgment were someone else’s problem. Faithful intercession can acknowledge personal responsibility while also carrying the failures of a family, church, or nation before God.
Israel’s sin includes refusing God’s commandments and ignoring the prophets sent to kings, leaders, ancestors, and all the people. The exile is therefore not an arbitrary disaster. It is the covenant judgment long announced in the law and reinforced by the prophets. God’s patience had been extensive, but persistent refusal eventually brought the warned consequences.
Daniel says righteousness belongs to God while shame belongs to the people. This distinction protects repentance from self-pity. The prayer does not accuse God of unfairness or present Israel as merely a victim of stronger empires. Human agents remain accountable for their cruelty, but God is righteous in permitting the covenant consequences of Israel’s rebellion.
Daniel appeals to the exodus, when God brought Israel out of Egypt and made a name for himself. He asks God to act again for the honor of that name. The request is not simply for national comfort. Jerusalem, the sanctuary, and the people bear God’s name, so their restoration would publicly display his mercy and faithfulness.
Verse 18 gives the prayer’s spiritual center: “we do not present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies.” Daniel offers no record of achievement as leverage. Every request rests on God’s compassion. Grace does not make confession unnecessary; it makes honest confession possible because the sinner’s hope lies outside personal worthiness.
Gabriel says the command went out at the beginning of Daniel’s petitions. The answer is not caused by impressive length or eloquence. Daniel is heard as he begins, and he is called greatly beloved. The passage encourages persistent prayer while reminding readers that God’s attention precedes their ability to explain every need perfectly.
The expression translated “seventy weeks” literally means seventy sevens. Since Daniel has been considering seventy years, most interpreters understand the new period as seventy units of seven years, totaling 490 years. The expanded period shows that return from Babylon will not by itself solve the deeper problem of sin or complete God’s redemptive purpose.
Verse 24 lists six goals: restraining transgression, ending sin, making reconciliation for iniquity, bringing everlasting righteousness, sealing vision and prophecy, and anointing a most holy person or place. The wording points beyond rebuilding walls. Christian interpretation sees these aims reaching their decisive fulfillment through Jesus Christ, especially his atoning death and righteous reign, while awaiting the complete public realization of all God has promised.
The seven and sixty-two sevens lead to an anointed prince amid a rebuilt but troubled Jerusalem. “Anointed one” can describe a consecrated king or priest and is not automatically a technical title in every Old Testament occurrence. Many Christians understand the passage messianically and connect it with Jesus; other readings identify earlier anointed leaders within the restoration period. The text demands humility where proposed calculations differ.
Verse 26 says an anointed one will be cut off and that the people of a coming prince will destroy the city and sanctuary. Christian readers commonly connect the cutting off with Christ’s death and the later destruction with the Roman devastation of Jerusalem in AD 70. Other interpretations place more of the passage in the crises surrounding Antiochus IV. Either way, apparent catastrophe does not cancel God’s decree.
Verse 27 is especially disputed because the subject of “he” is not named directly. Some understand the anointed ruler as confirming a covenant and causing sacrifice to cease through an effective atonement. Others understand a hostile ruler who makes and breaks an agreement; dispensational readings often place this final week in a future tribulation. The grammar and structure should be discussed honestly rather than used to claim effortless certainty.
The abomination and desolation language describes sacrilege that invades what belongs to God. Antiochus IV’s desecration provides an important historical pattern, Jesus later uses similar language concerning coming distress, and some Christians expect a final expression of that rebellion. Yet the verse ends with determined judgment: the desolator’s power is limited, and the decreed end will be poured out.
Important Verses
Verses 2–3 show Daniel reading Jeremiah and immediately turning to prayer. He does not oppose God’s promise with human effort, nor does he use the promise to avoid effort. Understanding the Word awakens confession and intercession, demonstrating how sound Bible study should reshape the reader’s response to God.
Verses 4–5 place God’s covenant faithfulness beside Israel’s sin. Daniel begins with who God is and then says plainly what the people have done. Healthy confession avoids vague regret: it recognizes rebellion against a faithful Lord and trusts the loving kindness of the One being addressed.
Verses 9–11 contrast mercy with disobedience. Compassion belongs to God even though Israel has rebelled, while the curse written in the law has justly fallen. Mercy does not mean that judgment was unreal; it means judgment need not have the final word when God’s people turn back to him.
Verses 17–19 contain Daniel’s urgent appeal: hear, forgive, listen, and act. He asks for God’s face to shine on the desolate sanctuary “for the Lord’s sake.” The repeated petitions are bold, but their foundation is God’s name and mercy rather than Daniel’s ability to demand a favorable outcome.
Verses 24–25 move from seventy years to seventy sevens and from physical restoration to the ultimate dealing with sin. The rebuilt city matters, but God’s purpose is larger than architecture or national recovery. Reconciliation and everlasting righteousness stand at the center of the promised future.
Verses 26–27 join suffering, destruction, covenant, sacrifice, abomination, and final judgment. These compressed statements explain why interpreters differ over the chronology. The passage should be read with care, but every major reading must account for its governing truth: evil may desolate for a determined time, yet God has already decreed its end.
Practical Applications
Let Scripture direct prayer. Daniel’s study of Jeremiah does not end with information; it gives language, urgency, and confidence to his intercession. When a biblical promise exposes a gap between God’s will and present reality, believers should respond by seeking God, confessing what obstructs faithfulness, and asking him to accomplish what he has said.
Practice specific confession without despair. Daniel names rebellion, refusal to listen, and covenant unfaithfulness, but he prays to the God of mercy. General statements such as “everyone makes mistakes” rarely produce change. Repentance becomes fruitful when sin is named honestly and forgiveness is sought on the basis of God’s character.
Intercede as part of the community rather than only as its critic. Daniel could have emphasized how different he was from those who caused the exile, yet he says “we.” Believers can oppose wrongdoing clearly while still grieving, confessing, and laboring for the restoration of the people with whom God has joined them.
Base confidence on mercy, not spiritual performance. Daniel’s disciplined life does not become his argument before God. This guards both against pride when obedience is strong and against hopelessness when failure is obvious. Prayer approaches God through his compassion and, for Christians, through the reconciliation accomplished by Christ.
Hold prophetic conclusions with conviction and humility. Daniel 9 deserves careful study, and the messianic significance recognized by Christians is substantial. Still, competing starting decrees, calendar methods, and readings of the final week warn against making one detailed chart a test of faith. The clearest truths should govern the less certain calculations.
Remember that God sets limits on desolation. Jerusalem’s ruin, the cutting off of an anointed one, war, and sacrilege make the chapter sober, but none of them lies outside God’s knowledge. Faith does not deny painful history. It endures by trusting that sin will be answered, evil will reach its appointed end, and everlasting righteousness belongs to God’s final purpose.