Daniel 9:1

CHAPTER IX

Daniel, understanding from the prophecies of Jeremiah that the

seventy years' captivity was now terminating, pours out his

soul in fervent prayer to God, and earnestly supplicates pardon

and restoration for his captive people, 1-12.

When thus supplicating God in behalf of Israel, the angel

Gabriel is sent to inform him of the seventy prophetic weeks,

or four hundred and ninety natural years, which should elapse

from the date of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple

to the death of the Messiah, 20-27;

a prophecy most exactly fulfilled by the event, according to

the computation of the best chronologers. Dean Prideaux states

the commencement of these seventy prophetic weeks to have been

in the month Nisan, in the year of the Julian period 4256,

which corresponds with A.M. 3546, B.C. 458, according to the

Usherian account. How awfully are the Jews blinded, who, in

contradiction to so clear a prophecy, still expect the Messiah

who was cut off, and, after suffering, is entered into his

glory!

NOTES ON CHAP. IX

Verse Daniel 9:1. In the first year of Darius] This is the same Darius the Mede, spoken of before, who succeeded Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans. See Daniel 5:31.