Daniel 9:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Pay attention to the significant number of seven here. Just as he previously adjusted the four hundred and thirty years (Exodus 12:40) to two hundred and fifteen, I believe he now diminishes this count as well. As it is written, “For thus saith the Lord, When seventy years shall be fulfilled unto you in Babylon, then will I visit you, and fulfil my good word concerning you, to bring you back unto this place. And I will bring you back from captivity, and gather you out of all the nations and out of all the places where I have driven you out, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:10,14). Notice how God meticulously indicated both the city and the duration, as well as the location He intended to restore them to. Thus, when Daniel commenced his prayers, he realized the seventy years had already elapsed. This is confirmed by Daniel himself, who states, “And I, Daniel, began to attend to the king's business; I was astonished at this vision, and did not understand it” (Dan. 8:27). He confirms, “I perceived by the books the number of years, of which was the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, that seventy years would be fulfilled over the desolation of Jerusalem. And I turned my face unto the Lord God with prayer and supplication, in fasting, and vesture, and ashes” (Dan. 9:2-3). Have you noted how this enslavement was also prophesied and how the prophet refrained from lifting his prayers to God until the appointed time? This was done to avoid praying in vain, hoping not to receive the same response Jeremiah did, “Thou shalt not ask for this people, nor lift up prayer and supplication for them, nor make intercession before Me, for I will not hear thee” (Jeremiah 7:16). But once Daniel recognized that the prophecy had been fulfilled and that the moment for their return had arrived, he earnestly prayed, not merely in any manner, but “in fasting, and vesture, and ashes.”

Thus, in Genesis (6), we see that a time frame of one hundred and twenty years was designated for repentance prior to the flood; since humanity was unrepentant during the initial hundred years, God chose not to delay but acted sooner than the forewarned twenty years. Likewise, Jeremiah states that due to the obstinacy of the Jewish people, ‘Do not pray for these people, for I will not hear you’ (Jeremiah 7:16). Similarly, God speaks to Samuel asking, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him?” (1 Sam. 16:1). Therefore, Daniel implores with humility and in a state of mourning for the fulfillment of God’s promises—not out of disbelief, but because neglect leads to apathy, and apathy leads to transgression.

In the introduction of his account, Ezra briefly recounts the conquest of Jerusalem, the captivity of the homeland, and the settling of the exiles in Babylon. He adds: 'And there were his servants and his sons, even unto the kingdom of Jesse, in fulfillment of the words of the Lord from the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, Till the land be willing to keep its sabbaths, throughout all the time of its desolation, the sabbaths shall be kept in fulfillment of the years seventy. To Cyrus king of Persia of the first summer, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah' (2 Ezra 1:57, 58; 2 Ezra 2:1). The exceedingly divine Jeremiah states: 'Behold, I will send, and I will bring all the tribes of the north, and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon My servant: and I will bring him upon this land, and upon its dwellings, and upon all the languages round about it: and I will kill them, and will put them to terror, and to destruction, and to everlasting reproach. And I will destroy from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the fragrance of peace, and the light of the lamp. And it shall come to pass, that the whole earth shall come to desolation, and to terror: and these shall work in the Gentiles unto the king of Babylon seventy years. And when the seventy years shall be fulfilled, upon the king of Babylon, and upon his tongue,’ saith the Lord, their iniquities, and upon the land of the Chaldeans, and I will lay that land in everlasting desolation' (Jeremiah 25:9-12). The blessed Jeremiah clarifies that the period of captivity would conclude with the fall of the Chaldean empire, a detail that Ezra elucidates further by referencing Cyrus. However, the divine Zechariah presents a different calculation of this timeframe. After the reign of Cyrus and his son Cambyses, when the Persian authority passed to Darius the son of Istasnus, the Prophet mentions the period: 'In the twenty-fourth of the first month, which is the month of Sabat, in the second summer of the reign of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias the son of Barachinn the son of Addon, the prophet' (Zechariah 1:7). Shortly thereafter, he notes: 'and the angel of the Lord answered and said, “Lord Almighty, until you have mercy on Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, which you have despised, this seventieth summer' (Zech. 1:12). Some skeptics of faith believe that the holy prophets contradict one another; however, those who are nourished by sacred scripture and enlightened by divine grace recognize harmony among the prophets. As we seek a portion of this grace for ourselves, let us strive to illuminate this agreement for the unknowing. The duration of captivity is consistently evaluated by those divinely inspired: Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Ezra all confirm the period of seventy years but differ in when they begin their calculations. Some count from the time of Cyrus, while others from Darius. Blessed Jeremiah and Ezra rightly consider the span from the commencement of the first captivity until Cyrus the Persian king. In contrast, the divine Zechariah calculates from the final siege, during which the Jews faced ultimate devastation, asserting that the seventy years concluded during Darius's reign; for it was under him that the divine temple was rebuilt. The people of God experienced three exiles—first under Jehoiakim, son of Josiah; secondly under Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin; and thirdly under Zedekiah, who was both Jehoiakim's brother and Jehoiachin's uncle. Hence, it was essential for the return to occur in three waves: first under Cyrus the Persian, then under Darius son of Istaspes, and finally under Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, who initially sent Ezra and later Nehemiah to restore Jerusalem's walls. Thus, for those first exiled, the seventy years culminated during Cyrus's reign, while the ongoing desolation of the temple was resolved in Darius's second year; for both Jeremiah's and Zechariah's prophecies, along with Ezra's writings, are true and not false. When the blessed Daniel recognizes this timeframe and calculates it, realizing its imminent conclusion, he states: