What is Daniel 9 about? In Daniel 9, Daniel reads in Jeremiah that Jerusalem’s desolation would last seventy years, sees that the time is nearly fulfilled, and turns to God in prayer for his people. He confesses “we have sinned,” pleads for mercy not because of their righteousness but because of God’s great mercy (Daniel 9:18), and the angel Gabriel arrives with God’s answer before he finishes praying.
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When Daniel 9 Takes Place
Daniel 9 opens in the first year of Darius the Mede, who now ruled over the old Babylonian realm (Daniel 9:1). Babylon has fallen to the Medes and Persians, as Daniel 5 records. Daniel is an old man. He was carried from Jerusalem as a youth around 605 BC by the usual dating (Daniel 1), and he has served in the royal court for more than sixty years. Jerusalem and its temple still lie in ruins. The chapter is set in the same period as Daniel and the lions’ den, and it lets the reader hear what Daniel prayed about at his open window toward Jerusalem.
Daniel 9 begins with Daniel reading the Bible. He calls it “the books,” the Scriptures God had given Israel up to that time, including the prophet Jeremiah:
in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
Jeremiah had told Judah that the land would serve the king of Babylon seventy years, and that God would then punish Babylon (Jeremiah 25:11–12). He also wrote a letter to the exiles already in Babylon, and Daniel was one of them:
“For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the best-loved verses in the Bible, and its setting is the exile Daniel lived in. God promised the captives a future and a hope, and in the next breath He said they would call on Him and pray, and He would hear them. Daniel counted the years and saw that the seventy were nearly complete. He did not treat the promise as a reason to wait. He treated it as a call to pray:
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
God kept the promise on time. In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, the LORD stirred up the king to send the Jews home to rebuild the temple, “that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled” (Ezra 1:1). Isaiah had named Cyrus as God’s shepherd long before he was born (Isaiah 44:28), and Daniel 1:21 notes that Daniel remained until the first year of King Cyrus. The young man carried away at the start of the seventy years was still there when God brought them to an end.
Daniel’s Prayer of Confession (Daniel 9:4–14)
Daniel’s prayer begins with who God is, not with what Daniel needs:
I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 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 said “we have sinned,” not “they have sinned.” Daniel 6 records that his enemies could find no fault in his service to the kingdom, yet Daniel did not set himself apart from his people. He also confessed his own sin: when the answer came, he was “confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel” (Daniel 9:20). The Bible does not present Daniel as a man without sin, and the New Testament says that anyone who claims to have no sin is deceived (1 John 1:8).
Daniel put the shame on his people and the righteousness on God:
To us, O LORD, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him
Daniel did not blame God for the exile, and he did not blame Babylon. He said the curse written in the Law of Moses had come on them because they had sinned (Daniel 9:11), and he confessed that even under that calamity they had not entreated the favor of the LORD (Daniel 9:13). He declared that God was righteous in all He had done (Daniel 9:14). Daniel was not arguing with God; he was agreeing with Him. In this he was praying the prayer God Himself had invited: the Law promised that if the scattered people confessed their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, God would remember His covenant (Leviticus 26:40–42).
Daniel was not alone. Nehemiah prayed in almost the same words when he heard that Jerusalem’s walls were broken down (Nehemiah 1:4–11), and Ezra confessed the sins of his people as his own (Ezra 9:6). The great prayers for a nation in the Bible say “we.”
Daniel 9 and 2 Chronicles 7:14
Many readers set Daniel 9 beside 2 Chronicles 7:14, and the setting explains why. Solomon had just dedicated the temple. He had prayed that if God’s people sinned and were carried captive to a foreign land, and then repented and prayed toward their land, God would hear them (2 Chronicles 6:36–39). The LORD appeared to Solomon by night with His answer (2 Chronicles 7:12):
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
God first spoke those words to Israel about its land and its temple. Daniel 9 shows one of those very people doing what the verse describes: a man called by God’s name, far from the land, humbling himself, praying, seeking God’s face and confessing sin. The verse is not a formula that obliges God to heal any modern nation on demand. It does show what God desires from His own people, and the pattern still teaches believers how to pray: humble yourself, pray, seek His face and turn.
The forgiveness the verse promises is offered to every believer who confesses:
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
What Does Daniel 9:18 Mean?
After confession, Daniel asked God to act, and he grounded his request in what God had already done:
And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
The God who brought Israel out of Egypt could bring them out of Babylon. Daniel asked Him to turn His anger from Jerusalem, His holy hill, which had become a byword among the nations (Daniel 9:16). Then his prayer reaches its peak:
Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
Daniel 9:18 is the heart of the chapter: God’s people come to Him because of His great mercy, not their own righteousness. Daniel brought no list of good works. He pleaded for God to act for His own name’s sake, because the city and the people were called by His name, the same phrase God used in 2 Chronicles 7:14. The urgency of the closing lines shows a man pleading, not reciting: hear, forgive, pay attention, act, delay not.
God Answered Before Daniel Finished (Daniel 9:20–23)
The answer came while Daniel was still praying:
While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the LORD my God for the holy hill of my God, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice.
There had been no temple and no evening sacrifice for decades, yet Daniel still kept the hour of prayer. Gabriel, whom Daniel had seen in the vision of Daniel 8, brought God’s reply:
He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved. Therefore consider the word and understand the vision.
The word went out at the beginning of Daniel’s pleas for mercy. Before he reached the end of his confession, God had already answered. And the first thing Gabriel said about Daniel, who had come in sackcloth and ashes confessing sin, was that he was greatly loved. Gabriel went on to give the prophecy of the seventy weeks (Daniel 9:24–27), which Bible teachers interpret in several ways and which deserves its own study.
Believers in Christ pray with the same confidence Daniel had, and with more. Daniel prayed toward a temple in ruins; the church prays through Jesus, the great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14):
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
How to Pray for a Nation Like Daniel
Daniel 9 gives believers a pattern for praying for their own country in any season, and especially when a nation is divided or anxious:
- Start with the Bible. Daniel’s prayer began with Jeremiah’s scroll, so it stood on God’s promises instead of his fears.
- Begin with who God is. Daniel opened with “the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love.”
- Confess with the word “we.” Daniel, Nehemiah and Ezra stood with their people rather than pointing at others.
- Plead God’s mercy, not your record. Daniel 9:18 is the ground of every request.
- Pray for all who are in authority. Paul urges prayers and thanksgivings for kings and all who are in high positions (1 Timothy 2:1–4), and God told the exiles to seek the welfare of the city where they lived and pray for it (Jeremiah 29:7).
- Then act. Daniel prayed and served faithfully at the highest levels of two empires; Nehemiah prayed and then rebuilt the wall.
James adds that the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working (James 5:16). For a heart weighed down by worry about the nation, see Philippians 4:6–7: Do Not Be Anxious About Anything.
Continue the Series
This study comes from Day 5 of Faithful in Babylon: Lessons from Daniel, a seven-day Bible teaching on FaithNFreedom Social. Read the full teaching and join the discussion, then continue the series through Daniel 4–5 and Daniel 7. See the whole Faithful in Babylon series, or go back to Day 4, Daniel and the Lions’ Den.
▶ Read the Full Day 5 Teaching: Praying for a Nation
Closing Prayer
Father, You are the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love. We do not come to You because of our righteousness, but because of Your great mercy. We confess that we have sinned, and that Your people have not always listened to Your Word. Forgive us and heal our land. We pray for our nation and for all who are in high positions, and that many would come to know You. Give us courage to pray and to act, as Daniel did. Thank You that You hear us from the first word, and that in Jesus we are greatly loved. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Bible Teaching and Discussion
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Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Questions About Daniel 9
What is Daniel 9 about?
Daniel 9 records Daniel’s prayer for his people near the end of the Babylonian exile. Reading Jeremiah, Daniel saw that the seventy years of Jerusalem’s desolation were nearly complete (Daniel 9:2). He turned to God with fasting, confessed the sins of Israel and his own, and pleaded for mercy. While he was still praying, the angel Gabriel came with God’s answer and told Daniel he was greatly loved (Daniel 9:20–23).
Why did Daniel pray in Daniel 9?
Daniel prayed because he read God’s promise and saw it coming due. Jeremiah had foretold that the exile would last seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10), and that God’s people would then call on Him and He would hear them (Jeremiah 29:12). Babylon had fallen and the seventy years were nearly over. Daniel did not wait passively; he sought God by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting, sackcloth and ashes (Daniel 9:3).
What are the seventy years in Daniel 9:2?
The seventy years in Daniel 9:2 are the years of Jerusalem’s desolation that Jeremiah prophesied (Jeremiah 25:11–12). Daniel was taken to Babylon around 605 BC by the usual dating, and Cyrus allowed the Jews to return in his first year, about 538 BC, fulfilling Jeremiah’s word (Ezra 1:1). These seventy years are different from the seventy weeks Gabriel announces later in the chapter (Daniel 9:24–27).
What does Daniel 9:18 mean?
Daniel 9:18 means God’s people come to Him on the ground of His mercy, not their own merit. Daniel prayed, “we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.” He asked God to act for His own name’s sake, because the city and people were called by His name. The verse teaches believers to bring every request, including prayer for a nation, in humble dependence on God’s mercy.
How does 2 Chronicles 7:14 relate to Daniel 9?
2 Chronicles 7:14 was God’s answer to Solomon’s prayer at the temple dedication, promising to hear His people when they humbled themselves, prayed, sought His face and turned from their wicked ways. Solomon had asked God to hear captives who prayed toward their land from exile. Daniel 9 shows one of those captives doing exactly that. The verse is not a formula for any modern nation, but it still shows God’s people how to pray.
Was Daniel confessing his own sin in Daniel 9?
Yes. Daniel prayed “we have sinned,” counting himself among his people, and Daniel 9:20 says he was “confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel.” Daniel’s enemies could find no fault in his public service (Daniel 6:4), but the Bible does not present him as sinless. He confessed as one sinner among his people, and 1 John 1:8–9 calls every believer to the same honest confession.
How can Christians pray for their nation like Daniel?
Christians can pray for their nation as Daniel did by starting with God’s Word, praising who God is, confessing sin with the word “we,” and pleading God’s mercy rather than their own record (Daniel 9:18). They pray for all who are in high positions (1 Timothy 2:1–2) and for the welfare of the place where they live (Jeremiah 29:7). Then, like Daniel and Nehemiah, they act faithfully where God has placed them.
