In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
These verses take us to the time when the proud Babylonian Empire had collapsed. The Medo-Persian Empire, under the leadership of King Cyrus, had toppled Babylon and had taken over its role as the leading nation of the world. The year was about 538 B.C. Thirteen years had elapsed since Daniel had received the vision recorded in chapter 8, the vision of the ram and the goat.
The opening verse of the chapter mentions a ruler whom historians and Bible researchers have trouble identifying. We have met the name Darius several times before on the pages of this book. The problem of identifying Darius was discussed in the commentary on chapter 6.
Briefly, the problem is that Cyrus, not Darius, was the head of the empire that brought about the fall of Babylon. Complicating the problem is the fact that no king named “Darius the Mede” is known from secular history. Still another complication is the fact that in ancient times men were sometimes known by more than one name. Many commentators feel that Darius is just another name for Cyrus. Others have suggested that Darius was an official whom King Cyrus appointed to rule over one area of what had been the vast Babylonian Empire.
For Daniel, the change in government meant more than just a shift in his political allegiance. From his study of the Scriptures, Daniel—now in his 80s—realized that an era had passed, an era about which God had spoken in his Word. From his reading of the prophet Jeremiah (25:11-14; 29:10), Daniel knew that with the fall of the Babylonian Empire, the time of exile should have been drawing to a close for the Jewish people. Babylon’s power had been broken, and the Persian government was in power—exactly what Jeremiah had predicted. A period of about 70 years had elapsed since Daniel and his three friends had been deported to Babylon.
Those years of exile, which coincided with the period when Babylon was the dominant world power, were difficult years for the Jewish people. Daniel referred to them as the time of “the desolation of Jerusalem.” God’s hand of judgment had rested heavily on Jerusalem and Judah during those 70 years. Babylon was the whip God had used on the backs of his people. And it hurt. “A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7), and the rebellion and unbelief and stubbornness of God’s Old Testament people had produced a harvest of suffering, just as God’s prophets had predicted.
But Daniel knew God’s prophets had predicted more. Isaiah had also prophesied that Babylon herself would fall under God’s judgment and would collapse (Isaiah 13). Jeremiah, on the one hand, had predicted that the homeland of the Jews would become a desolate wasteland and that its inhabitants would serve the king of Babylon 70 years. But Jeremiah had also recorded God’s promise: “When the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation . . . for their guilt” (Jeremiah 25:12). Through Jeremiah, God had promised his people: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place” (29:10). Daniel knew that God’s prophets had spoken not only of judgment and exile but also of deliverance and a return home after 70 years of captivity.
It is especially interesting to note that Daniel was personally able to study the writings of the prophets to learn what God had planned for the people of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. The fact that God’s people could study the writings of the prophets is evidence that even though they were in exile a thousand miles away from home, the Jews had taken along copies of these writings and had preserved them. Although more than a century and a half had passed since Isaiah wrote the prophetic book that bears his name, that precious document had not been lost.
This is a wonderfully reassuring thought for us who live several thousand years after the Old Testament was originally written by Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the rest. On the one hand, we don’t have exact information about the step-by-step transmission of the Old Testament books from the time they were first written down to the present. But we do know that God’s people received these documents gratefully, guarded them carefully, made copies of them, and passed them down from generation to generation. God used that special reverence the Jews felt for their sacred writings to preserve these writings. Thus Daniel in far-off Babylon could investigate what the prophets had predicted about the length of the Babylonian captivity.
The prophet Jeremiah had foretold “that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.” The particular 70- year period referred to here is never precisely identified in the Scripture. As a result, several different calculations have been suggested.
About 605 B.C. Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar deported the first contingent of Jewish citizens into exile. Seventy years from that date would mark the approximate date of the return to Jerusalem of the first group of exiles. Others prefer to take 586 B.C., the date when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, as the beginning of exile for the main body of Jews. Seventy years from that date takes us to 516 B.C., the date when the returning exiles finished the work of building the new temple in Jerusalem. Jeremiah referred to the 70 years as being the period of “the desolation of Jerusalem.” It surely is not improper to think of Jerusalem as being desolate as long as its temple lay in ruins.
Daniel did not say in just so many words that the 70-year period had now been completed. He was aware that although Babylon had fallen, Jerusalem and the temple still lay desolate. Did that mean God was postponing the return of the people of Judah? Had God been forced to cancel his promise because of the impenitence of the chosen people?
Daniel didn’t know, and so he turned to God in prayer. Some significant information is given to us about Daniel’s prayer. Note first that Daniel addressed his prayer “to the Lord God.” The spelling of the name “Lord” (in contrast to the spelling “LORD”) indicates that Daniel was referring to God as the supreme Master of the universe, the one for whom everything exists. Daniel approached God not as though he were God’s equal but as a creature who was designed to live under God as a servant. Humility is the only proper attitude of the sinner when approaching God.
Daniel demonstrated this humility in several ways. The word describing his prayer as a “petition” is a word meaning “a prayer for mercy.” As he prayed, Daniel realized that God owed him nothing. He accompanied his prayer to God with fasting, in sackcloth and ashes—outward signs of his inner attitude of penitence over sin and of his awareness that he was unworthy to approach God and ask for mercy. But before Daniel asked God to restore the desolate sanctuary in Jerusalem, there was something else he had to say to God.
4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. 6 We have not 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.
Daniel began his prayer with a confession of sin addressed to “the LORD.” This is God’s Old Testament Savior-name. It refers to the God who had made a covenant of love with the people of Israel. In that covenant, that solemn contract, God had told Israel, “I am your God; you are my people.” Daniel described God’s covenant with Israel as a covenant of love, and the word translated as “love” describes God’s faithful love, his loyal love, which he had demonstrated to his people throughout their history.
To that faithful love, Israel had responded shabbily, and Daniel confessed that. He used a number of different expressions to describe the sin of God’s people, with whom Daniel identified himself. “We have sinned,” literally, “We have missed the mark; we have fallen short of the goal you set for us when you adopted us as your people.” “We have done wrong.” A literal translation of these words would be “We have brought guilt on ourselves.” Even though Daniel’s age—like our own age—had an easy conscience about sin, Daniel confessed that rebelling against God’s will makes us guilty before God. It places us under God’s judgment.
“We have been wicked and have rebelled” against the God who made a solemn agreement of love with us. “We have not listened to your servants the prophets.” Throughout the history of Israel, God had spoken to his people. Through the lips of human messengers, God had actually shared some of his sacred secrets with the people of Israel. He had let them know who he is, and who they were, and what his holy design for them was. As the psalmist wrote, “He has done this for no other nation” (Psalm 147:20). And what was Israel’s response? They not only refused to hear the messengers who spoke for God; they actually tried to silence the prophets. Daniel called sin by its name—this is insolence; this is arrogance. Israel’s sin was not a sin of ignorance but of willful disobedience.
Daniel’s prayer was long, but it was not wordy. He was simply baring the thoughts of his heart before the Lord in honest confession. Note too that as he confessed the sins of Israel, he identified himself with the sinful people. This was his personal confession of sins as well.