Daniel’s confession and prayer: Gabriel informs him concerning the seventy weeks to the coming of Christ.

¹ In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the offspring of the Medes, who ruled over the kingdom of the Chaldeans,

² in year one of his reign, I, Daniel, understood in the books the number of the years, concerning the word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah, the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would be completed in seventy years.¹

1. 9:2Daniel initially thinks he has understood the number of the years as seventy, but later he is told that it is seventy times seven years, or seventy weeks of years.(Conte)

³ And I set my face to the Lord, my God, to ask and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.

⁴ And I prayed to the Lord, my God, and I confessed, and I said, “I beg you, O Lord God, great and terrible, preserving the covenant and mercy for those who love you and keep your commandments.¹

1. 9:4The word confessus is more literally translated as confessed, but is sometimes also translated as “gave thanks.” Even in English, the word confess can have a range of meanings which includes admitting ones errors and acknowledging God’s greatness (and thus thanking Him).(Conte)

⁵ We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we acted impiously and have withdrawn, and we have turned aside from your commandments as well as your judgments.

⁶ We have not obeyed your servants, the prophets, who have spoken in your name to our kings, our leaders, our fathers, and all the people of the land.

⁷ To you, O Lord, is justice, but to us is confusion of face, just as it is on this day for the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, for those who are near and those who are far off, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of their iniquities by which they have sinned against you.

⁸ O Lord, to us belongs confusion of face: to our kings, our leaders, and our fathers, who have sinned.

⁹ But to you, the Lord our God, is mercy and atonement, for we have withdrawn from you,

¹⁰ and we have not listened to the voice of the Lord, our God, so as to walk in his law, which he established for us by his servants, the prophets.

¹¹ And all Israel has transgressed your law and has turned away, not listening to your voice, and so the condemnation and the curse, which is written in the book of Moses, servant of God, has rained down upon us, because we have sinned against him.¹

1. 9:11Stillavit super nos means to fall in drops over us, in other words, to rain down upon us.(Conte)

¹² And he has fulfilled his words, which he has spoken over us and over our leaders who judged us, that he would lead over us a great evil, such as has never before existed under all of heaven, according to what has been done in Jerusalem.

¹³ Just as it has been written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, and we did not entreat your face, O Lord our God, so that we might turn back from our iniquities and consider your truth.

¹⁴ And the Lord kept watch over the evil and has led it over us; the Lord, our God, is just in all his works, which he has accomplished, for we have not listened to his voice.

¹⁵ And now, O Lord, our God, who has led your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and has made yourself a name in accordance with this day: we have sinned, we have done wrong.

¹⁶ O Lord, for all your righteousness, turn away, I beg you, your anger and your fury from your city, Jerusalem, and from your holy mountain. For, because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people are a reproach to all who surround us.

¹⁷ Now, therefore, heed, O God, the prayer of your servant and his requests, and reveal your face over your sanctuary, which is desolate, for your own sake.

¹⁸ Incline your ear, O my God, and hear, open your eyes and see our desolation and the city over which your name is invoked. For it is not through our justifications that we offer requests before your face, but through the fullness of your compassion.

¹⁹ Heed, O Lord. Be pleased, O Lord. Turn and act. Do not delay, for your own sake, O my God, because your name is invoked over your city and over your people.”

²⁰ And while I was still speaking and praying and confessing my sins, and the sins of my people, Israel, and offering my prayers in the sight of my God, on behalf of the holy mountain of my God,

²¹ as I was still speaking in prayer, behold, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, flying swiftly, touched me at the time of the evening sacrifice.¹

1. 9:21The man Gabriel: The angel Gabriel in the shape of a man.(Challoner)

²² And he instructed me, and he spoke to me and said, “Now, Daniel, I have come forth to teach you and to help you understand.

²³ At the beginning of your prayers, the message came forth, yet I have come to explain it to you because you are a man who is seeking. Therefore, you must pay close attention to the message and understand the vision.¹²

1. 9:23Sermonem can mean word, but it often refers instead to something more general, to a concept or a message, of some kind.(Conte)
2. 9:23Man of desires: that is, ardently praying for the Jews then in captivity.(Challoner)

²⁴ Seventy weeks of years are concentrated on your people and on your holy city, so that transgression shall be finished, and sin shall reach an end, and iniquity shall be wiped away, and so that everlasting justice shall be brought in, and vision and prophecy shall be fulfilled, and the Saint of saints shall be anointed.¹²

1. 9:24Literally, “Septuaginta hebdomades” means seventy groups of seven. Here the revelation to Daniel is correcting his misunderstanding; he thought it was seventy years, but the angel informs him it is actually seventy groups of seven (years). The translation uses “weeks of years” because years is clearly implied and because “weeks” is a concise way to say “groups of seven.”(Conte)
2. 9:24Seventy weeks: Viz., of years, (or seventy times seven, that is, 490 years,) are shortened; that is, fixed and determined, so that the time shall be no longer.(Challoner)

²⁵ Therefore, know and take heed: from the going forth of the word to build up Jerusalem again, until the Christ leader, there will be seven weeks of years, and sixty-two weeks of years; and the wide path will be built again, and the walls, in a time of anguish.¹²³

1. 9:25The “Christum ducem” is quite a striking expression in the Latin; clearly, to a Christian mind, the translation of Christum as Christ is justified. But, in the case of the leader who arrives after only seven weeks of years, this is not Christ himself, but a Christ-like leader (the great monarch). In the case of the leader who arrives after the additional sixty-two weeks of years, again this cannot be Christ himself (since there is still one more week of years to be completed), but again a Christ-like leader (this time it refers to the king of the South, as well as the Pope). Some translations give the weaker and more ambiguous translation of “Anointed one.”(Conte)
2. 9:25From the going forth of the word, etc: That is, from the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, when by his commandment Nehemias rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, 2 Esd. 2. From which time, according to the best chronology, there were just sixty-nine weeks of years, that is, 483 years to the baptism of Christ, when he first began to preach and execute the office of Messias.(Challoner)
3. 9:25In straitness oftimes: angustia temporum: which may allude both to the difficulties and opposition they met with in building: and to the shortness of thet ime in which they finished the wall, viz., fifty-two days.(Challoner)

²⁶ And after sixty-two weeks of years, the Christ leader will be slain. And the people who have denied him will not be his. And the people, when their leader arrives, will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will be devastation, and, after the end of the war, the desolation will be set up.¹²

1. 9:26Again, the Christus who is killed is not Christ himself. Rather, this text refers to the king of the South, a Christian, a Christ-leader, the king of the last bastion of Christianity, the only one of the ten kingdoms that still tolerates Christianity. He is defeated in battle, because of betrayal or denial by some persons, but not by any people who are Christians. Some non-Christians betray him. Then the Antichrist and his people arrive in the Holy Land of Israel and destroy the city and the sanctuary. They also kill the Pope of that time, another Christ-leader. The desolation is the abomination of desolation, which begins at this time, but does not reach its full power until the last half of the Antichrist’s reign.(Conte)
2. 9:26A people with their leader: The Romans under Titus.(Challoner)

²⁷ But he will confirm a covenant with many for one week of years; and for half of the week of years, victim and sacrifice will nearly cease; but there will be in the temple the abomination of desolation. And the desolation will continue even to the consummation and the end.”¹²³

1. 9:27The phrase “hostia et sacrificium” could also be translated as “sacrifice and offering.” The phrase “abominatio desolationis” could also be rendered as “the detestable thing of abandonment.” From a Catholic perspective, the first phrase clearly refers to the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the Mass. Thus, the abomination of desolation is a perverse imitation of the Eucharist and the Mass, a false Eucharist, which continues for about three and one half years, even until the end of the Passion and Crucifixion of the Church and the end of the reign of sin on earth.(Conte)
2. 9:27In the half of the week: or, in the middle of the week, etc. Because Christ preached three years and a half: and then by his sacrifice upon the cross abolished all the sacrifices of the law.(Challoner)
3. 9:27The abomination of desolation: Some understand this of the profanation of the temple by the crimes of the Jews, and by the bloody faction of the zealots. Others of the bringing in thither the ensigns and standard of the pagan Romans. Others, in fine, distinguish three different times of desolation: viz., that under Antiochus; that when the temple was destroyed by the Romans; and the last near the end of the world under Antichrist. To all which, as they suppose, this prophecy may have a relation.(Challoner)