Daniel 9
In the first year of Darius the Mede, Daniel is reading. He is an old man who has outlived an empire, and the book in front of him is the prophecy of Jeremiah - where he understood by books the number of the years, that the LORD would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem (v. 2). The seventy years are nearly spent. What Daniel does with that knowledge is the first lesson of the chapter. He does not fold his hands and wait for the calendar to turn; he turns to God: And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes (v. 3). A sure promise becomes, for him, a summons to pray.3
What follows is one of the great prayers of confession in all of Scripture. Daniel takes his place among his people's sins rather than above them: We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled (v. 5). He sets God's righteousness against the people's failure without flinching - O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces (v. 7) - and yet, in the same breath, he reaches for the thing that makes prayer possible at all: To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him (v. 9). He asks for nothing on the ground of merit. We do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies (v. 18). And he presses it home with a string of pleas that hold nothing back: O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God (v. 19).
Then, whiles I was yet speaking in prayer, the answer comes - and it comes flying. The angel Gabriel, caused to fly swiftly, reaches Daniel about the time of the evening oblation and tells him he is greatly beloved (vv. 21-23). What Gabriel brings is a prophecy of the seventy weeks: a span set apart to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness (v. 24), running unto the Messiah the Prince (v. 25). And at its heart stands the line Christians have read as the clearest of all the ancient pointers to the cross: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself (v. 26). The chapter that began with one man owning sin and pleading mercy ends with the promise of the Anointed One whose death would answer for sin once for all.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Daniel 9:1-3I Set My Face Unto the Lord God
1In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; 2In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. 3And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:
The chapter opens with a date and a man at his reading: In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet (v. 2). Daniel has been carried into exile as a youth and has now grown old under one empire after another; Babylon has fallen, and a Mede sits on the throne. And in the middle of all that upheaval, what occupies Daniel is Scripture. He is studying the words God had given through Jeremiah, and one number arrests him: the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. Jeremiah had written it plainly - after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you (Jer. 29:10). Daniel does the arithmetic of his own lifetime and realizes the term is nearly up. Notice what kind of man this makes him. He does not wait for a fresh vision or a special sign; he reads what God has already said, takes it seriously, and lets it govern how he prays. The written word of God is not a closed book to him but a living summons.3
What Daniel does next is the heart of these opening verses: And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes (v. 3). Here is the response that catches us off guard. The promise was sure - God had said seventy years, and the seventy years were almost spent. A lesser faith would have reasoned, The deliverance is coming on schedule; there is nothing left to do but wait. Daniel reasons the opposite way. Precisely because God has promised, he prays toward the promise with everything in him. He sets his face - a phrase of fixed, deliberate resolve - and he comes the way the broken come: with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes, the marks of a man who is in earnest and knows his need. This is one of the quiet lessons of the whole Bible about how promise and prayer fit together. God's declared purposes are not a reason to pray less but the very ground on which we pray at all. Daniel takes hold of what God has said and turns it back to God in supplication - and the chapter will show that such prayer is heard.
Daniel 9:4-14We Have Sinned · Righteousness Belongeth Unto Thee
4And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; 5We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: 6Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7O LORD, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. 8O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. 9To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him; 10Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. 11Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. 12And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem. 13As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. 14Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.
Daniel opens his confession by naming who God is: O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments (v. 4). He begins not with the people's sin but with God's faithfulness - the God who keeps covenant and mercy, who has held to His word even when His people have not. And then, against that faithfulness, he lays the failure bare, and the pronoun is the thing to watch: We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled (v. 5). Not they. We. Daniel is, by every account the book gives, among the most faithful men of his generation - the one who would not defile himself, who prayed at his open window though it cost him the lions' den. If anyone could have prayed they have sinned and stood apart, it was Daniel. Instead he stands inside his people's guilt and owns it as his own. He piles up the words - sinned, committed iniquity, done wickedly, rebelled - not to wallow, but because honest confession does not soften what it names. This is what it looks like to own sin without excuse and without distancing yourself from it.
At the center of the confession stands a sentence that holds two truths in perfect balance: O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces (v. 7). Daniel draws the sharpest possible line between God and his people. To God belongs righteousness - He has done right in everything, including the judgment that fell. To the people belongs confusion of faces - the burning shame of those who know they have no defense. He repeats it so it cannot be missed: O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee (v. 8). There is no blaming the exile on bad luck or hard circumstances or even on God being harsh. The fault is entirely on the human side; the rightness is entirely on God's. This is the opposite of how wounded pride speaks. The natural heart, caught and suffering, looks for someone else to fault - and the last one it wants to clear is God. Daniel does the reverse: he clears God completely and accepts the shame himself. Only a soul that has stopped defending itself can pray like this.
And yet the confession is not despair, because Daniel knows where the door of hope is hung. Right after owning the people's shame, he turns to the one thing that makes any prayer possible: To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him (v. 9). Notice the symmetry with verse 7. Righteousness belongs to God - and so do mercies and forgivenesses. Both are His. The same God who was right to judge is also rich to forgive, and Daniel reaches for the second without minimizing the first. The little word though carries the whole weight of grace: mercies belong to God though we have rebelled. Not because we have improved, not now that we have earned it back - but in the teeth of rebellion, mercy is still with God. The rest of the prayer (vv. 10-14) circles back over the people's long disobedience and admits that the judgment written in the law of Moses has justly come, ending with the steady refrain that even now the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth (v. 14). Confession that knows God's mercy can afford to be this honest about sin, because it is not trusting in its own goodness to be heard.
Daniel 9:15-19Not for Our Righteousnesses, but for Thy Great Mercies
15And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly. 16O LORD, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. 17Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. 18O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. 19O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
Daniel now turns from confessing to pleading, and he begins by appealing to what God has already done: O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown (v. 15). He reaches back to the exodus - the great rescue that first made this people God's own and made God's name famous among the nations. The logic is quiet but strong: the God who once redeemed with a mighty hand is the God being asked to redeem again. Then comes the actual request: O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain (v. 16). Notice he does not ask God to set His righteousness aside in order to be merciful; he appeals according to all thy righteousness - as though God's very rightness is itself a reason to restore. And his concern is not merely the people's comfort. It is that Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us - God's own city, His own name, lies in the dust before the watching nations. Daniel is praying with one eye on God's reputation, not just the people's relief.
Here the prayer reaches its summit, and it is one of the clearest statements in all the Old Testament of where forgiveness must rest: O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations… for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies (v. 18). After everything - the fasting, the sackcloth, the long honest confession - Daniel stakes the whole prayer on the one thing that is not himself. He is not coming with a résumé. He explicitly refuses to. Not for our righteousnesses - we have none worth presenting - but for thy great mercies. The ground of the appeal is moved entirely off the human side and placed on the character of God. And then he twice anchors it to God's own name and honor: for the Lord's sake (v. 17), and again defer not, for thine own sake, O my God (v. 19). This is the deepest reason a soul can give God for hearing it - not because I deserve it, but for your own sake, because your mercy is who you are and your name is bound up with this people. Forgiveness, Daniel knows, is finally about what God is like, not what we have managed to be.
The prayer ends in a burst of short, urgent cries that hold nothing in reserve: O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name (v. 19). The careful structure of the earlier verses gives way to something raw and almost breathless. Four imperatives tumble out - hear… forgive… hearken… do - with God's name repeated at the head of each like a hand laid again and again on the same door. There is a holy boldness here that only confession can produce. Daniel can be this direct, this importunate, precisely because he has stopped pretending; a man who has fully owned his need is free to ask without hedging. And the final reason he gives is the same one he has leaned on throughout: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name. The honor at stake is God's own. Daniel does not say do it because we have suffered enough or because we have learned our lesson. He says, in effect, your name is on this people; act for the sake of your name. It is prayer that has found the firmest ground there is - not its own worthiness, but God's.
Daniel 9:20-27Messiah the Prince · Cut Off, but Not for Himself
20And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God; 21Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even 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 oblation. 22And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. 23At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. 24Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. 25Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 26And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. 27And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
The answer arrives before the prayer is even finished: And whiles I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel… even the man Gabriel… being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation (vv. 20-21). The timing is its own small sermon. Daniel is still mid-sentence, still confessing, when the response is already on its way; and Gabriel will tell him that the word went out at the beginning of thy supplications (v. 23) - before Daniel had finished his first petitions, the answer had been released. Heaven was not slow. The detail that Gabriel comes about the time of the evening oblation is tender: the temple lies in ruins, no evening sacrifice can be offered, and yet at the very hour the offering would have risen, God meets the prayer of one faithful man with a word from heaven. Gabriel comes caused to fly swiftly - in haste, with urgency - and says, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding (v. 22). Daniel had sought understanding from the books of Jeremiah; now understanding is sent to him in person. The God who hears prayer does not merely tolerate it; He answers it swiftly, and gives more light than was asked.
Before Gabriel says one word about the seventy weeks, he tells Daniel who he is in heaven's eyes: for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision (v. 23). This is said to a man in exile - far from home, a captive under foreign kings, an old man who may well feel like the forgotten remnant of a defeated people. And heaven's assessment of him is greatly beloved. The phrase is striking precisely because of who hears it and where. Daniel's circumstances shout that he is small and overlooked; God's messenger says he is precious. And mark the order: it is because he is greatly beloved that the great revelation is given to him. Understanding the matter is not a reward Daniel earns by cleverness; it flows from God's love for him. The deepest things God shows are shown to those He holds dear. This single phrase reframes the whole chapter. The prayer was not the cry of a nobody into an empty sky. It was the prayer of one greatly beloved, heard by a God who loved him - and who was about to show him the longest reach of His saving purpose.
Gabriel's revelation begins with its goal, not its arithmetic: Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy (v. 24). Before a single date is mentioned, six things are named that this appointed span will accomplish - and they are not political or military achievements but the deepest needs of the human soul. Read them slowly. To finish the transgression. To make an end of sins. To make reconciliation for iniquity. To bring in everlasting righteousness. To seal up - to confirm and complete - the vision and prophecy. And to anoint the most Holy. These are the words of atonement and restoration: sin dealt with and ended, iniquity reconciled, a righteousness brought in that does not fade. Daniel had just confessed, in agony, that the people had no righteousness of their own and could plead only mercy. Here is the answer that runs past his own day to the very horizon of God's plan: a righteousness brought in, sins ended, iniquity reconciled. Whatever else the seventy weeks involve, this is their burden - not merely the rebuilding of a city, but the undoing of sin itself.
The prophecy then frames its great span around a coming figure: from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times (v. 25). The reckoning here has been counted in more than one way across the centuries - where the count begins, how the “weeks” are measured, and how the final week is understood are all read differently by careful readers - and the chapter itself does not press a single calendar on us.3 What it does hold up, unmistakably, is the figure at the center: the Messiah the Prince. A rebuilt Jerusalem, even amid troublous times, is not the destination; the destination is the coming of an Anointed Ruler toward whom the whole span runs. The verse fixes the eye not on a date but on a Person. Whatever scheme a reader follows for the years, the prophecy bends them all toward one arrival - the Messiah, the Prince, the Anointed One whose coming is the point of the count. Daniel is being shown that the end of the seventy years of exile is only a small foretaste of a far greater appointment God has set: the coming of His Anointed.
Then comes the line that has arrested readers for two thousand years: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself (v. 26). The expected story of an anointed prince is that he comes to reign - to take a throne, to rule. This One comes and is cut off. The phrase is the language of death, of being severed from the land of the living; and the qualification that follows is the astonishing part: but not for himself. He is cut off, yet not for any cause of His own - not for His own guilt, not for His own sin. The death falls on Him, but the reason for it lies elsewhere. The rest of the verse turns to the aftermath - the city and the sanctuary destroyed, desolations determined - and verse 27 speaks of a covenant confirmed with many and of sacrifice and oblation made to cease. Readers have understood the closing details in more than one way, and it is no part of this passage's power to settle every clause. The load-bearing word stands clear of all the debate: Messiah… cut off, but not for himself. An Anointed One is put to death - and not for His own sake. Daniel, who had just pleaded that his people had no righteousness and could appeal only to mercy, is shown the shape of how that mercy will come: through One who dies, innocent, for others.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Daniel 9 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for mashiach (vv. 25-26, the “anointed” one), for nagid (v. 25, “prince” or ruler), and for the much-discussed phrase yikkaret ve-ein lo in verse 26 (“cut off, but not for himself”).
- Daniel 9 ↔ Isaiah 53 · 1 Peter 3 · 2 Corinthians 5 · Titus 3Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Daniel 9 to the rest of Scripture - the Anointed One cut off, but not for himself (v. 26) read beside he was cut off out of the land of the living (Isa. 53:8) and the just for the unjust (1 Pet. 3:18), and Daniel's plea resting on mercy rather than merit (v. 18) read beside not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy (Titus 3:5).
- Daniel 9 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Daniel 9 - the seventy years of Jeremiah read in verse 2, the structure and grammar of the confession in verses 4-19, the six purposes of the seventy weeks in verse 24, and the long-debated clauses of verses 25-27 concerning the Anointed One and His cutting off.
Where this echoes in Scripture
I Set My Face Unto the Lord God
- Jeremiah 29:10-11after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you... thoughts of peace, and not of evil.The very prophecy Daniel was reading in verse 2 - the seventy years whose end drove him to pray.
- Luke 9:51when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.The same fixed resolve as verse 3 - the Son setting His face toward the place of suffering.
- 2 Chronicles 7:14If my people... shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven.The pattern Daniel follows in verse 3 - humbling, seeking, turning, that God may hear.
- James 5:16The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.The kind of prayer Daniel prays here - fervent, fixed, and, the chapter shows, answered.
- Hebrews 7:25he ever liveth to make intercession for them.The intercession Daniel models pointing to the One who lives to intercede for all who come to God by Him.
We Have Sinned · Righteousness Belongeth Unto Thee
- Nehemiah 9:33thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly.The same confession as verses 7-8 - God in the right, the people in the wrong, the shame owned.
- Psalm 51:3-4For I acknowledge my transgressions... that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.The heart of verses 5-7 - owning sin so fully that God is cleared and the sinner accepts the verdict.
- Lamentations 3:22-23It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not... great is thy faithfulness.The hope of verse 9 - mercies that belong to God and do not run out, even after rebellion.
- 1 John 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.The promise behind Daniel’s whole confession - sin owned is sin forgiven by a faithful God.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.The sinless One standing inside the sin of many - the substance of Daniel’s “we” in verse 5.
Not for Our Righteousnesses, but for Thy Great Mercies
- Titus 3:5Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.The exact ground Daniel pleads in verse 18 - mercy, not merit, as the basis of being saved.
- Ephesians 1:6-7accepted in the beloved; in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.The forgiveness Daniel begs for held out freely in Christ - according to grace, not righteousness.
- Psalm 79:9Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name... and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake.The same plea as verses 17-19 - forgiveness asked for the sake of God’s own name.
- Luke 18:13-14God be merciful to me a sinner... this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.Daniel’s posture in verse 18 in miniature - the one who pleads mercy, not merit, goes home justified.
- Romans 3:24-25Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation.Where the mercy Daniel appeals to is finally poured out - justification freely given through Christ.
Messiah the Prince · Cut Off, but Not for Himself
- Isaiah 53:8he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.The same word and the same meaning as verse 26 - One cut off, and not for His own sin but for others.
- 1 Peter 3:18Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.The substance of “cut off, but not for himself” (v. 26) - the just dying for the unjust.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.The innocent One bearing what was not His - and the everlasting righteousness of verse 24 given to us.
- Hebrews 9:26now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.The work named in verse 24 - sin made an end of, by one sacrifice, once.
- Luke 2:11unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.The Messiah the Prince of verse 25 named at His coming - the Anointed One, the Christ.