Dan. ix. 3 — 10. And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes : and 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 ; we have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have re- belled, even by departing from thy precepts, and from thy judgments : neither 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. O Lord, righteousness belong eth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day : to the men of Judah, and to the inhabi- tants 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 tres- passed against thee. 0 Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because toe have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him ; neither 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.
THE time for the captivity of the Jews in Babylon was fixed in the prophetic writings : yet, through the incredulity of all who had any influence among them, it was not known. Daniel, however, who at an early age had been carried captive, and who be- lieved the word of God, studied the prophecies of Jeremiah, and understood from them, that the time of deliverance was nigh at hand ; since about sixty- nine years out of the seventy, which was the ap- pointed duration of their bondage, had now elapsed3. Encouraged by this discovery, and well knowing that the deliverance was only to be obtained by prayer b, he set himself with all humility and earnestness to seek the Lord. To himself, at all events, this solemn
a Jer. xxv. 11, 12. and xxix. 10.
b Jer. xxix. 12 — 14. with 1 Kings viii. 46 — 50.