Daniel 9:2
“Daniel Studies Jeremiah's Prophecy”Daniel 9:1–2
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain
Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain
Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain
Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain
Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain
- בִּשְׁנַתbish·Natin yearH8141Prep-b ¦ N-fscNoun Singular Feminine Constructבִּinשְׁנַתyear
- אַחַת'a·ChatoneH259Adj-fsAdjective Numerical Singular Feminine Absolute
- לְמָלְכוֹle·ma·le·Khoof reigning hisH4427Prep-l ¦ V-Qal-Inf ¦ 3msVerb Qal Infinitive Constructלְofמָלְכreigningוֹhis
- אֲנִי'a·NiIH589Pro-1csPronoun Personal 1st Singular common gender
- דָּנִיֵּאלda·ni·YelDanielH1840N-proper-mNoun Proper Masculine
- בִּינֹתִיbi·No·tiI observedH995V-Qal-Perf-1csVerb Qal Perfect 1st Singular common gender
- בַּסְּפָרִיםba·se·fa·Rimin the scrollsH5612Prep-b ¦ N-mpNoun Plural Masculine Absoluteבַּin theסְּפָרִיםscrolls
- מִסְפַּרmis·Par[the] number ofH4557N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Construct
- הַשָּׁנִיםha·sha·Nimthe yearsH8141Art ¦ N-mpNoun Plural (-îm ending) Absoluteהַtheשָּׁנִיםyears
- אֲשֶׁר'a·SherwhichH834RelParticle Relative
- הָיָהha·Yahit cameH1961V-Qal-Perf-3msVerb Qal Perfect 3rd Singular Masculine
- דְבַרde·var[the] word ofH1697N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Construct
- יְהוָהYah·wehYahwehH3068N-properNoun Proper Title
- אֶל'eltoH413PrepPreposition
- יִרְמִיָהyir·mi·YahJeremiahH3414N-proper-mNoun Proper Masculine
- הַנָּבִיאha·na·Vi'the prophetH5030Art ¦ N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absoluteהַtheנָּבִיאprophet
- לְמַלֹּאותle·ma·Lotto completeH4390Prep-l ¦ V-Piel-InfVerb Piel Infinitive Constructלְtoמַלֹּאותcomplete
- לְחָרְבוֹתle·cha·re·Votto [the] ruins ofH2723Prep-l ¦ N-fpcNoun Plural Feminine Constructלְtoחָרְבוֹת[the] ruins of
- יְרוּשָׁלִַםye·ru·sha·LimJerusalemH3389N-properNoun Proper Location
- שִׁבְעִיםshiv·'ImseventyH7657Adj-mpAdjective Numerical Plural Masculine Absolute
- שָׁנָהsha·Nahyear[s]H8141N-fsNoun Singular Feminine Absolute
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?
This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.
Words in [ ] are added by the English.
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Public-domain commentary
Matthew Henry
From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Daniel 9:1–3.
We left Daniel, in the close of the foregoing chapter, employed in the king's business; but here we have him employed in better business than any king had for him, speaking to God and hearing from him, not for himself only, but for the church, whose mouth he was to God, and for whose use the oracles of God were committed to him, relating to the days of the Messiah. Observe, 1. When it was that Daniel had this communion with God (Daniel 9:1), in the first year of Darius the Mede, who was newly made king of the Chaldeans, Babylon being conquered by him and his nephew, or grandson, Cyrus. In this year the seventy years of the Jews' captivity ended, but the decree for their release was not yet issued out; so that this address of Daniel's to God seems to have been ready in that year, and, probably, before he was cast into the lions' den. And one powerful inducement, perhaps, it was to him then to keep so close to the duty of prayer, though it cost him his life, that he had so lately experienced the benefit and comfort of it. 2. What occasioned his address to God by prayer (Daniel 9:2): He understood by books that seventy years was the time fixed for the continuance of the desolations of Jerusalem. Daniel 9:2. The book by which he understood this was the book of the prophecies of Jeremiah, in which he found it expressly foretold (Jeremiah 29:10), After seventy years be accomplished in Babylon (and therefore they must be reckoned from the first captivity, in the third year of Jehoiakim, which Daniel had reason to remember by a good token, for it was in that captivity that he was carried away himself, Daniel 1:1), I will visit you, and perform my good word towards you. It was likewise said (Jeremiah 25:11), This whole land shall be seventy years a desolation (chorbath), the same word that Daniel here uses for the desolations of Jerusalem, which shows that he had that prophecy before him when he wrote this. Though Daniel was himself a great prophet, and one that was well acquainted with the visions of God, yet he was a diligent student in the scripture, and thought it no disparagement to him to consult Jeremiah's prophecies. He was a great politician, and prime-minister of state to one of the greatest monarchs upon earth, and yet could find both heart and time to converse with the word of God. The greatest and best men in the world must not think themselves above their Bibles. 3. How serious and solemn his address to God was when he understood that the seventy years were just upon expiring (for it appears, by Ezekiel's dating of his prophecies, that they exactly computed the years of their captivity), then he set his face to seek God by prayer. Note, God's promises are intended, not to supersede, but to excite and encourage, our prayers; and, when we see the day of the performance of them approaching, we should the more earnestly plead them with God and put them in suit. So Daniel did here; he prayed three times a day, and, no doubt, in every prayer made mention of the desolations of Jerusalem; yet he did not think that enough, but even in the midst of his business set time apart for an extraordinary application to Heaven on Jerusalem's behalf. God had said to Ezekiel that though Daniel, among others, stood before him, his intercession should not prevail to prevent the judgment (Ezekiel 14:14), yet he hopes, now that the warfare is accomplished (Isaiah 40:2), his prayer may be heard for the removing of the judgment. When the day of deliverance dawns it is time for God's praying people to bestir themselves; something extraordinary is then expected and required from them, besides their daily sacrifice. Now Daniel sought by prayer and supplications, for fear lest the sins of the people should provoke him to defer their deliverance longer than was intended, or rather that the people might be prepared by the grace of God for the deliverance now that the providence of God was about to work it out for them. Now observe, (1.) The intenseness of his mind in this prayer; I set my face unto the Lord God to seek him, which denotes the fixedness of his thoughts, the firmness of his faith, and the fervour of his devout affections, in the duty. We must, in prayer, set God before us, an set ourselves as in his presence; to him we must direct our prayer and must look up. Probably, in token of his setting his face towards God, he did, as usual, set his face towards Jerusalem, to affect his own heart the more with the desolations of it. (2.) The mortification of his body in this prayer. In token of his deep humiliation before God for his own sins, and the sins of his people, and the sense he had of his unworthiness, when he prayed he fasted, put on sackcloth, and lay in ashes, the more to affect himself with the desolations of Jerusalem, which he was praying for the repair of, and to make himself sensible that he was now about an extraordinary work.
Historical interpretation
Four Centuries of Reception
3 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.
Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.
Verse 2. "I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years concerning which the word of the Lord had come to the prophet Jeremiah, that seventy years would be accomplished for the desolation of Jerusalem." Jeremiah had predicted seventy years for the desolation of the Temple (Jeremiah 29:1-10), at the end of which the people would again return to Judaea and build the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. But this fact did not render Daniel careless, but rather encouraged him to pray that God might through his supplications fulfil that which He had graciously promised. Thus he avoided the danger that carelessness might result in pride, and pride cause offense to the Lord. Accordingly we read in Genesis that prior to the Deluge one hundred and twenty years were appointed for men to come to repentance (Genesis 6:3); and inasmuch as they refused to repent even within so long an interval of time as a hundred years, God did not wait for the remaining twenty years to be fulfilled, but brought on the punishment earlier which He had threatened for a later time. So also Jeremiah is told, on account of the hardness of the heart of the Jewish people: "Pray not for this people, for I will not hearken unto thee" (Jeremiah 7:16). Samuel also was told: "How long wilt thou mourn over Saul? I also have rejected him" (1 Samuel 16:1). And so it was with sackcloth and ashes that Daniel besought the Lord to fulfil what He had promised, not that Daniel lacked faith concerning the future, but rather he would avoid the danger that a feeling of security might produce carelessness, and carelessness produce an offense to God.
Darius, the son of Astyages, who destroyed the Babylonian Empire with the help of his kinsmen Cyrus, was sixty-two years old when he attacked Babylon. He is called by another name by the Greeks. He took the prophet Daniel and led him into the middle of his court and feted him with every honor. Daniel himself made mention of this Darius: “In the first year of Darius.…” In his chronology, Eusebius counts thirty years from the destruction of Jerusalem to the beginning of the reign of Cyrus, king of the Persians. Julius Africanus, however, counts seventy years. Moreover, Jerome has this to say in his exposition of the prophet Daniel: “The Hebrews pass on a story of this sort up until the seventieth year, when Jeremiah had said that the captivity of the Jews would come to an end. Zechariah also speaks about this at the beginning of his book.”
When the time fixed for the captivity is completed, Daniel begins to pray for the return; indeed, he had not dared to pray [to that purpose] before that moment, in order not to press God needlessly and in order not to hear the word that had been addressed to Jeremiah: “Do not pray for this people, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.” But after seeing that the sentence had been executed, he prays with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. At the same time he thought that the Jews might stay a longer time in captivity because of their sins, according to the fact that God had added thirty years to the Jews in Egypt and had reduced [the time for repentance conceded] to the generation of Noah of twenty years and of fifty in the case of the house of Ephrem. Moreover, it is not at the beginning of their fault that the sinners ask questions of the judge but after the punishment.
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This verse
In that year Daniel learned from Jeremiah’s prophecy that the LORD had set seventy years for Jerusalem’s desolation, and he saw that those years were nearly complete.
“In the first year of his reign”
The same year as verse 1, shortly after Babylon fell, when the seventy years were nearly complete.
“I Daniel understood by books”
Daniel’s understanding came from the written prophecies he had in hand, which he studied with care.
“the number of the years,”
A specific count of years, the length of Jerusalem’s desolation.
“whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet,”
Daniel names his source and treats Jeremiah’s writing as the LORD’s own word, so the earlier revelation shapes the later one.
“that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”
God would bring the seventy years to completion. The ruin of the city and temple was his judgment for Judah’s sin, and it had an end.
Passage studyDaniel 9:1–2
Daniel Understands Jeremiah’s Seventy Years
Summary
In the first year of Darius the Mede, just after Babylon had fallen, Daniel was reading the prophet Jeremiah. There he found the number of years the LORD had set for Jerusalem to lie in ruins: seventy. Daniel was by now an old man who had served in the Babylonian court for decades, and those years were nearly spent. These two verses give the date and tell us what Daniel learned. What he did with it fills the rest of the chapter, first a long prayer of confession and then the angel Gabriel’s message of the seventy weeks. God keeps his word to the year, and he gives understanding of it to those who read it.
The first year of Darius the Mede
Verse 1 dates what follows with care. It is “the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes”, which is 539 or 538 BC, immediately after Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon. The fall of the city is told in Daniel 5, and the story of Daniel in the lions’ den comes from the reign of this same Darius (Daniel 6). Chapters 7 and 8 gave Daniel visions in symbols. Chapter 9 opens with a named year and a known political setting, so the prophecy later in the chapter stands within real history.
The name Darius, Dârᵉyâvêsh, is Persian in origin and was borne by several Persian kings. The father named here, Ahasuerus, is a different man from the Persian king of Esther’s time. “Of the seed of the Medes” gives Darius’s people. Zeraʻ means seed or grain, the seed that is sown, and from there it comes to mean offspring, so the phrase names his descent from the Medes. The Medes and Persians together took Babylon, and this detail shows the Medes at the front in the first years of ruling it.
“Which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans” uses the verb mâlak, to reign or to become king, in a form that means to be made king. Someone else put Darius on this throne, most likely Cyrus, who had conquered Babylon, so Darius held a delegated authority at a time of change. The realm of the Chaldeans is the Babylonian empire, which until that year had been the greatest power in the world.
Who was Darius the Mede?
Darius the Mede is the king who received the Chaldean realm after Babylon fell, a Mede by birth who was appointed to the throne. Records outside the Bible do not name him, and believers who trust Daniel’s account identify him in more than one way. Some take him to be a governor whom Cyrus set over Babylonia, often identified with Gobryas (Ugbaru in Babylonian records), the general who took Babylon for Cyrus. Others hold that “Darius” is another name for Cyrus himself, or that he was a lesser Median noble given authority over the city. On each of these readings Daniel is describing a real ruler in a real year at the turn from Babylon to Persia, a different man from the later Persian king Darius I Hystaspes.
God rules over the kingdoms
The change of power in verse 1 was God’s doing. Long before, Daniel had told Nebuchadnezzar that another kingdom would arise after his (Daniel 2:39). Isaiah had called Cyrus the LORD’s anointed (Isaiah 45:1), and Jeremiah had set seventy years for Babylon (Jeremiah 29:10). So the date in verse 1 marks the moment when those words were coming true, and the end of the captivity was at hand. God raises up kingdoms and brings them down according to his purpose. The same dream in Daniel 2 ends with the kingdom God himself sets up, “a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44).
Daniel understood by books
Verse 2 repeats the date, “In the first year of his reign”, and then Daniel speaks in his own voice: “I Daniel understood by books”. His name, Dânîyêʼl, is formed from Dân, judge, and ʼêl, God, and means “God is my judge”. All his life he stood in a pagan court as a faithful witness to God’s judgments, and here he discerns God’s judgment and its timing from the written page.
The word for books, çêpher, means a writing, a scroll or a document. Daniel had received visions before this, and here his understanding comes from careful reading of prophecy that was already written. God’s written word was enough to show him what God was doing.
What he understood was “the number of the years”, a set count for the length of Jerusalem’s desolation. God had given that number through another prophet, for “the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet”, and Daniel received Jeremiah’s scroll as the word of the LORD. One prophet learned from another, because God’s message is one from first to last.
What books did Daniel study?
Daniel studied the prophecies of Jeremiah, as he says himself. His scroll would have held the passages that foretold the seventy years. One says, “this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (Jeremiah 25:11–12). Another is the LORD’s promise to the exiles, “after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you” (Jeremiah 29:10). This tells us that Jeremiah’s writings were kept and valued among the exiles in Babylon, and the “books” may have included other prophetic scrolls as well.
Seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem
Jeremiah’s prophecy was that the LORD “would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem”. To accomplish the years is to bring them to completion, and it is God who does it. The word for desolations, chorbâh, comes from a root meaning drought or dryness, and it means a ruin or a waste place. It describes Jerusalem and the temple as the Babylonians left them, the judgment God brought on his people for their disobedience.
That judgment had a set length. God fixed it from the start, and so it was finite. By the first year of Darius the people had been in exile for nearly seventy years, years of great suffering and longing for home. When Daniel read the number and counted the years, he saw that the time of restoration was near. The Chronicler, looking back, says that the land kept its sabbaths through those years, in fulfilment of the word of the LORD by Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 36:21). God declares “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10), and here a number spoken decades earlier arrived on time.
Understanding that led to prayer
Daniel’s response to knowing God’s timing was to seek God earnestly. The verses that follow are his long prayer of confession and intercession for his people (Daniel 9:3–19), and that prayer brought the angel Gabriel with the prophecy of the seventy weeks (Daniel 9:20–27). Jeremiah’s seventy years stand behind that larger prophecy, which reaches far beyond the return from exile and sets out a timeline for Israel’s future and the coming of the Messiah. So a date and the reading of a scroll open one of the great messianic prophecies of the Bible.
Christ and the end of every exile
God brought Jeremiah’s prophecy to pass at its appointed time, and in the same way he sent his Son: “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4). The return from Babylon pictures the greater freedom Christ gives from sin and death: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). The desolations of Jerusalem find their final answer in the new Jerusalem, where Christ reigns and sorrow and death have passed away (Revelation 21:1–4).
Daniel read the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah, and Jesus is the Word himself, who was with God and was God (John 1:1) and was made flesh (John 1:14). He came to fulfil the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17), and after his resurrection he told his disciples that all things written of him in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44). We read the Scriptures, as Daniel did, to understand the One they speak of. He is King over every realm, and every knee will bow to him (Philippians 2:9–11).
Reading the Scriptures as Daniel did
Daniel was an old man with long experience of God and visions of his own, and he still sat down with a prophet’s scroll and counted the years. God’s word is “a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105), and the Bereans “searched the scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11). Steady, prayerful reading of Scripture is how you come to know God’s purposes and his timing, and what Daniel learned brought him straight to prayer for his people.
Kingdoms rose and fell around Daniel, and every change of rulers lay within God’s plan. The God who set a limit to Jerusalem’s ruin still governs the nations and keeps his promises, and you can bring the desolations you see to him in prayer, as Daniel did, trusting him to restore.
Daniel 9:1
“In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus,”
The first year of his rule over conquered Babylon, 539 or 538 BC. This Ahasuerus is a different man from the king in the book of Esther.
“of the seed of the Medes,”
Zeraʻ, seed, here used for descent. Darius came from the Median side of the alliance that conquered Babylon, which fits the succession of kingdoms foretold earlier in Daniel.
“which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;”
The kingship was given to him, most likely by Cyrus. Babylonian power had been overthrown completely, and the way was opening for the exiles to go home.
Daniel 9:2 This verse
“In the first year of his reign”
The same year as verse 1, shortly after Babylon fell, when the seventy years were nearly complete.
“I Daniel understood by books”
Daniel’s understanding came from the written prophecies he had in hand, which he studied with care.
“the number of the years,”
A specific count of years, the length of Jerusalem’s desolation.
“whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet,”
Daniel names his source and treats Jeremiah’s writing as the LORD’s own word, so the earlier revelation shapes the later one.
“that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”
God would bring the seventy years to completion. The ruin of the city and temple was his judgment for Judah’s sin, and it had an end.
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