Dusk in a plain upper room in Babylon: an open window with wooden lattice shutters, a tied scroll and a small clay bowl of ash on the sill, folded dark sackcloth on the floor below, the evening sky calm beyond.

Seventy weeks

Daniel 9

Babylon has fallen, 539 BC. When you pray about a mess, do you start with excuses or with confession?

27 verses≈ 7 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1Exiles at courtBabylon, 605 BC: four young men and the king’s food
2The king’s dreamAbout 603 BC: a statue, a stone, a kingdom forever
3The fiery furnaceThree men who would not bow
4The great treeNebuchadnezzar humbled, then praising God
5The writing on the wall539 BC: Belshazzar’s feast, Babylon’s last night
6The lions’ denDarius the Mede, and a man who kept praying
7Four beasts and the Son of ManBelshazzar’s first year: the kingdoms again
8The ram and the goatMedia and Persia, Greece, and a proud horn
9Seventy weeksDarius’s first year: Daniel’s prayer and Gabriel’s answerChapter 9
10–12The last visionCyrus’s third year: kings, the end, and the rising

Daniel’s Prayer for His People

Daniel

Daniel

In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes, a Mede by descent, who was made ruler over the kingdom of the Chaldeans— in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the sacred books, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

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Daniel

Evening light through an open window falls on an old man with white hair, seen from behind, sitting on the floor in coarse dark sackcloth with ash on his head.

So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

Daniel

And I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed, “O, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of loving devotion to those who love Him and keep His commandments,

Daniel

we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances. We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

Daniel

Evening on the flat steppe of upper Mesopotamia: a long thin line of weary exiles of Israel with bundles and donkeys, seen from far off, reaches a slow river lined with poplars and reeds, a mud-brick city on a high mound beyond.

To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You. O LORD, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You.

Daniel

To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, even though we have rebelled against Him and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God to walk in His laws, which He set before us through His servants the prophets.

Daniel

All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You.

Daniel

The empty ruins of Jerusalem long after its fall: a burned and fallen city gate, blackened stones, weeds grown through the rubble and a broken wall running down the slope under a gray morning sky; no people.

You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

Daniel

Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquities and giving attention to Your truth. Therefore the LORD has kept the calamity in store and brought it upon us. For the LORD our God is righteous in all He does; yet we have not obeyed His voice.

Daniel

Daniel

Now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and who made for Yourself a name renowned to this day, we have sinned; we have acted wickedly.

Daniel

O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.

Daniel

First light on the bare temple site in Jerusalem long after its fall: a cleared stony platform, fallen stones and old weathered beams, weeds between the stones; no people.

So now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of Your servant. For Your sake, O Lord, cause Your face to shine upon Your desolate sanctuary.

Daniel

Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name.

Daniel

For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.

Daniel 9:18

Daniel

O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name.”

Question

Quick question

Look again at 9:2 before you answer.

What moved Daniel to pray?

Gabriel’s Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks

Daniel

While I was speaking, praying, confessing my sin and that of my people Israel, and presenting my petition before the LORD my God concerning His holy mountain— while I was still praying, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.

Gabriel

Dusk in an upper room: an old man with a white beard kneels at an open window, seen from behind, while a soft white light fills the room from one side and falls across him.

He instructed me and spoke with me, saying: “O Daniel, I have come now to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your petitions, an answer went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly precious. So consider the message and understand the vision:

0:17

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Gabriel

Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

Gabriel

Gabriel

Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress.

Gabriel

Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed.

Gabriel

And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”

Pray

O Lord, we come to You not because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion. Thank You for Your Anointed One, who came to put an end to sin and atone for iniquity. Hear us, forgive us, and act, for Your name’s sake.

Seventy weeks

Whiteboard

Readers agree on the shape. They differ on when it starts and whether the last week follows at once or still lies ahead.

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Daniel 9

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A verse to carry with you

For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.

Daniel 9:18

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