Daniel 9: Prayer and Confession
There are times I have prayed, and then because nothing changed right away, I started praying differently. Not necessarily less, but differently. I lowered the voltage. I made the request smaller. I tried to protect myself from disappointment by making the prayer sound more reasonable.
And then I read Daniel 9, and I realize Daniel does not do that at all.
Daniel prays like someone who has waited a long time. He prays like someone who has buried dreams. He prays like someone who knows what it feels like to watch a nation unravel and to feel powerless about it. And he also prays like someone who knows God is covenant faithful, which means God can be appealed to, not because we deserve it, but because He is merciful and because His name is on the line.
Then God answers him in a way that is almost impossible to wrap your mind around. Daniel is praying about seventy years of exile, and God responds with a prophecy that spans seventy sevens, which most understand as 490 years, and it points forward to the Messiah, the Messiah being cut off, Jerusalem being destroyed again, and a final season of conflict that is tightly bounded by what God has decreed.
If you have ever wondered whether prayer matters, Daniel 9 is going to mess with you in the best way.
So picture this like sitting with a friend who knows the Bible deeply. Not a person trying to impress you. Not a person trying to win an argument. Just someone who keeps opening the Bible and saying, “Look at that. Do you see what that means?” And by the end you feel both comforted and sobered, because you realize God is not playing games with history, and He is not casual about sin, and He is not deaf to prayer.
Let’s walk through this chapter.
1. The Setup: A World Change, an Old Man, and an Open Bible
Daniel begins with a timestamp.
“In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom.” (Daniel 9:1)
This matters because it places the story around 539 BC, after Babylon has fallen and Persia is in charge. Empires have shifted. Headlines changed. The kind of change that makes people say, “Everything is different now.”
And Daniel is not young anymore. Daniel is probably in his eighties. That detail is not just about his age. It is about what he has carried. He has lived through the whole exile. He has watched Jerusalem fall. He has watched the temple burn. He has lived decades in the tension of believing God’s promises while living in a foreign empire.
That is why what Daniel does next is so beautiful to me.
He reads Scripture.
“In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.” (Daniel 9:2)
Daniel is reading Jeremiah, likely Jeremiah 25:11 to 12 and Jeremiah 29:10, where God says the exile will last seventy years and then restoration will come.
And Daniel says he “understood.” That is the kind of understanding that is more than knowing the words. It is insight. It is the moment your brain does the math and your heart feels the implications.
Daniel realizes, “We are close.”
Now here is the crucial move. Daniel does not treat the promise like a reason to relax. He treats the promise like a reason to pray.
That is a lesson people miss all the time. They hear “God is sovereign” and translate it into “Prayer does not matter.” Daniel hears “God has promised” and translates it into “I need to pray.”
God’s promises are not sedation. They are fuel.
Think about how Jesus teaches us to pray. Jesus does not instruct us to pray for things God might do if we persuade Him. Jesus teaches us to pray for what God has already promised to do. “Your kingdom come, your will be done” (Matthew 6:10). The kingdom is guaranteed. The will of God will stand. Yet Jesus says to pray it.
Why? Because prayer is how we align, and prayer is how we participate.
And Daniel shows that pattern. He reads Jeremiah and says, “God, You said it. I am coming to You about what You said.”
That is not manipulation. That is faith.
2. Daniel’s Prayer: The Kind of Confession That Heals a People
“So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.” (Daniel 9:3)
Sackcloth and ashes is Daniel’s way of showing humility. He is not showing up polished. He is not showing up pretending. He is showing up with seriousness.
Then Daniel starts with God.
“I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” (Daniel 9:4)
This is how you pray when your life is loud. You anchor your heart in God’s character before you open the folder of your problems.
Daniel calls God “great and awesome.” He says God “keeps covenant.” That is covenant vocabulary. Daniel is not praying to a distant force. He is praying to the covenant making God of Israel.
And he says “covenant of love.” Behind that is the concept of hesed, the loyal, steadfast, covenant love of God. Not love as mood. Love as promise. Love as God binding Himself to His people.
Now watch Daniel’s confession, because this is where it gets uncomfortable and powerful.
“We have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled. We have turned away from your commands and laws.” (Daniel 9:5)
Daniel says “we.”
If you want to understand intercession, start right there. Daniel is not shrugging and saying, “Those people really messed everything up.” Daniel is stepping into corporate confession.
“We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name.” (Daniel 9:6)
This prayer is a masterclass because it is honest about sin without turning into despair, and it is confident about mercy without turning into denial.
Daniel does something else that modern prayers often avoid. He agrees with God about judgment.
“All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us.” (Daniel 9:11)
Daniel is reaching back into the covenant warnings, especially the shape and weight of Deuteronomy 28. He is saying, “God, You warned us. You said covenant rebellion would bring covenant consequences. This exile is not random. This is righteous.”
That is hard. But it is also freeing, because it means God is not being chaotic. God is being truthful. And Daniel is being truthful too.
Then Daniel brings in a line that makes room for hope:
“The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.” (Daniel 9:9)
Merciful and forgiving. Daniel keeps these traits in view the whole time.
And now Daniel turns the prayer from confession to pleading.
“Give ear, our God, and hear. Open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.” (Daniel 9:18)
That sentence is gospel logic before the cross. Daniel admits unworthiness and appeals to mercy. He says, “We do not deserve this,” and then says, “Answer anyway, because You are merciful.”
Then Daniel prays with urgency.
“Lord, listen. Lord, forgive. Lord, hear and act. For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.” (Daniel 9:19)
Notice the basis again. “For your sake.” For God’s name. For God’s glory.
When you pray like that, you are not trying to make God care. You are appealing to what God already cares about. You are praying from covenant ground.
Now let me bring this right into your life. If you have ever prayed for your family, your church, your nation, and you feel angry at “them,” Daniel 9 gently corrects you. Daniel does not pray, “Fix them.” Daniel prays, “We have sinned.”
And that is what separatess a critic from an intercessor.
A critic stands outside and points.
An intercessor stands inside and pleads.
Nehemiah does the same thing. “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you” (Nehemiah 1:6). Ezra does it. “My God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you… our sins are higher than our heads” (Ezra 9:6). The great renewals in Scripture often begin with leaders who stop separating themselves and start repenting with the people.
And then, in the deepest and most beautiful way, Jesus is the ultimate intercessor who stood with sinners. Isaiah says, “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). He bears sin not because it is His, but because He chose to carry it.
Daniel is not Jesus. But Daniel’s posture points in the direction of Jesus.
3. The Interruption: Heaven Arrives Mid Prayer
Now watch what happens next, because it is easy to read it fast and miss how shocking it is.
“While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill, while I was still in prayer.” (Daniel 9:20 to 21)
Daniel is still praying.
Then:
“Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice.” (Daniel 9:21)
God sends Gabriel before Daniel finishes.
And Gabriel says:
“Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.” (Daniel 9:22 to 23)
“As soon as you began to pray.”
That line is medicine for people who assume silence means God is absent. Daniel 9 says God can hear immediately and still unfold the answer through a process and a timeline. The hearing is immediate. The unfolding may be longer.
Then Gabriel says, “you are highly esteemed.”
Some translations say “greatly beloved.” The point is not that Daniel earned God’s affection like a salary. The point is that God’s relationship with Daniel is real. God values him. God is not annoyed at him.
If you are in Christ, you need to understand this part without putting distance between you and the text. Hebrews says, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence” (Hebrews 4:16). Why can you approach confidently? Because the throne is a throne of grace. Because Jesus is our great High Priest. Because the Father welcomes His children.
Paul says we have “received the Spirit of adoption to sonship” (Romans 8:15). He says we are “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). He says we have been “brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). That means you are not praying at a locked door. You are coming to a Father.
Daniel is called highly esteemed. In Christ, your access is even clearer.
4. Why God Answers Daniel With the “Seventy Sevens”
Now Gabriel gives the famous prophecy.
“Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city.” (Daniel 9:24)
Here is the key original language insight that makes Daniel 9 make sense. The word translated “weeks” is shavuim, which literally means “sevens.” This is not automatically seventy weeks of days. It is seventy sets of seven.
Sevens of what?
The context helps. Daniel is thinking in years, seventy years of exile. The prophecy points to events far broader than a little over a year. So many interpreters understand it as sevens of years. Year weeks.
That makes it 70 times 7 years, which is 490 years.
Now, what is God aiming to do in that decreed span?
“Seventy sevens are decreed… to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy.” (Daniel 9:24)
Do you see what God is doing? Daniel is praying about exile and restoration, and God answers by saying, “I am dealing with the deeper exile.”
Because exile is not mainly about geography. The deeper exile is separation from God because of sin. That is why the goals are focused on transgression, sin, atonement, righteousness, fulfillment.
“To atone for wickedness” is the phrase that grabs Christians immediately. Atonement is sacrificial language.
Paul connects atonement directly to Jesus. “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement” (Romans 3:25). Hebrews says Christ appeared “to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). Gabriel says God will atone. The New Testament says Jesus did.
Then “everlasting righteousness.” That does not sound like a brief return from exile. That sounds like the kingdom of God fully established.
This is why Jesus teaches us to pray for the kingdom. This is why Scripture talks about a new heavens and new earth. Daniel 9 is announcing that God is moving history toward an end where righteousness is not just a moment, it is the permanent atmosphere.
This is also why the New Testament talks the way it does about timing. Galatians 4:4 says, “When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son.” Luke 3:15 says the people were “waiting expectantly” and wondering about Messiah. Those phrases make more sense when you realize God had already put a clock inside the story.
Daniel 9 is not the only reason messianic expectation existed, but it is a major part of it.
5. The Timeline: Rebuild, Messiah, Cut Off, Destruction
Gabriel gives Daniel the timeline like this:
“From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven sevens, and sixty two sevens.” (Daniel 9:25)
Anointed One is Mashiach. Messiah. The word is sitting right there.
Seven sevens plus sixty two sevens equals sixty nine sevens. If these are year weeks, that is 69 times 7, which is 483 years.
Gabriel also says:
“It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.” (Daniel 9:25)
If you have read Nehemiah, that phrase feels like it was written by someone who watched the whole thing. Nehemiah 4 reads like rebuilding under pressure. They work while enemies mock them. They keep watch. They pray and they build. They organize and they guard. Restoration is promised, and struggle is acknowledged.
That is another quiet comfort. God can promise restoration and still tell you it will be hard. Promise and trouble can coexist.
Now here comes the shock.
“After the sixty two sevens, the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing.” (Daniel 9:26)
Messiah comes, then Messiah is cut off.
The Hebrew idea behind “cut off” is used for violent removal. And “will have nothing” is not a pleasant line. It reads like rejection, loss, emptiness.
This is where Daniel locks arms with Isaiah 53. Isaiah says, “He was cut off from the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8). Daniel says Messiah will be cut off. And then the New Testament says Jesus was crucified.
Why does the Messiah die? Because atonement is one of the stated goals. “To atone for wickedness” (Daniel 9:24).
Jesus’ death is not Plan B. Jesus’ death is the plan to deal with sin.
Jesus Himself later told His disciples that the Messiah had to suffer and then enter glory. “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:26). Then Luke says Jesus explained “what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Daniel 9 is part of that “all the Scriptures” picture.
Then Daniel 9:26 continues:
“The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.” (Daniel 9:26)
History tells us Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. Jesus also predicts that destruction. “The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you… They will not leave one stone on another” (Luke 19:43 to 44).
Daniel says city and sanctuary will be destroyed. Jesus says the same kind of thing. Then history records it happens.
Daniel adds:
“War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.” (Daniel 9:26)
That line sounds like the human story. But it also contains a comfort word: decreed. God is not surprised. God sees the end from the beginning.
6. The “Ruler to Come,” the Abomination, and the Decreed End
Now we reach Daniel 9:27.
“He will confirm a covenant with many for one seven. In the middle of the seven he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” (Daniel 9:27)
A few key connections matter here.
First, notice the text differentiates Messiah from the ruler. Messiah is called anointed. The other ruler is not called anointed. The ruler is connected to destruction and to a covenant that gets broken.
Second, Jesus explicitly references Daniel’s abomination language. “So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel” (Matthew 24:15). Jesus treats Daniel as real prophecy and treats the abomination as significant for understanding what is ahead.
Third, Paul describes a figure who fits the pattern of temple exaltation. “The man of lawlessness… sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3 to 4). That rhymes with the idea of a desolating abomination connected to the holy place.
Fourth, Revelation repeatedly uses time markers that many connect to half of seven years. Revelation 11 to 13 speaks in terms of forty two months and 1,260 days. Interpretations vary, but it is easy to see why many connect these intense periods to “the middle of the seven” language in Daniel 9:27.
Now, you wisely noted that not all Christians agree on every detail. Some see the seventieth week as future, often associated with tribulation. Others see the seventieth week as fulfilled in the first century. Some see a gap between the sixty ninth and seventieth week, others do not.
You do not have to settle every debate to teach the heart of Daniel 9 faithfully.
The heart is this.
God has a decreed plan to deal with sin through the Messiah.
God keeps His word in history.
God sets boundaries on evil.
God has determined the end.
And Daniel 9:27 ends with the line I want you to feel, not just understand.
“Until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” (Daniel 9:27)
Even the desolator has a deadline.
Evil is not infinite.
Evil is not sovereign.
Evil is on a leash.
God gets the ending.
7. The Pastoral Weight: This Chapter Is Not Just About Charts
Let me bring this back into the room where we actually live.
Daniel 9 teaches you to pray Scripture, not just feelings.
Daniel did not start with his mood. He started with Jeremiah. He started with God’s promise. Then his heart went to work.
If you want a simple practice that changes your prayer life, here it is: open the Bible, find what God has promised, and pray it back to Him. Not because He forgot, but because you are learning to want what He wants. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray kingdom prayers. We are praying our hearts into alignment with heaven.
Daniel 9 teaches you how to confess without collapsing.
Daniel is brutally honest about sin. He names it. He agrees with God about judgment. He does not blame shift. But he also never lets shame have the last word. He keeps God’s mercy in view. “We do not make requests… because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy” (Daniel 9:18). That is the difference between despair and repentance. Despair says, “We are too far gone.” Repentance says, “We are wrong, but God is merciful.”
Daniel 9 teaches you how to intercede without becoming cynical.
The “we” in Daniel’s prayer is a rebuke to self righteousness. It is also an invitation into love. Because it is hard to hate people you are truly interceding for. Real intercession softens you. It humbles you. It puts you on your knees instead of on your soapbox.
Daniel 9 teaches you that God’s answers can be larger than your question.
Daniel prays about exile. God answers with redemption. Daniel asks for restoration. God points him toward atonement and everlasting righteousness.
Sometimes when you pray, you are asking for God to fix the situation. God is also fixing you, and sometimes He is showing you that your situation is part of a bigger story. Not to minimize your pain, but to anchor your hope.
Daniel 9 teaches you that God is not late.
When Paul says Jesus came at the set time, the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4), this is the kind of chapter that shows what that means. God keeps time. God keeps covenant. God keeps His word.
And Daniel 9 teaches you that the cross was not an interruption, it was the center.
The Messiah being cut off is not a tragic derailment. It is the way atonement happens. Romans 3:25, Hebrews 9:26, and Daniel 9:24 all converge on the same truth. God deals with sin through sacrifice, and Jesus is the sacrifice.
Which means every time you feel unworthy to pray, you need to remember you are not approaching God on the basis of your worthiness anyway. You are approaching on the basis of mercy. You are approaching through the blood of Christ. You are approaching as a child because you have been adopted.
That is why Hebrews says you can approach with confidence (Hebrews 4:16).
8. A Closing That Feels Like Daniel 9 Itself
Let me close the way Daniel 9 closes in my mind.
Daniel is an old man in Babylon. He is not holding power. He is not commanding armies. He is not writing policy. He is reading Scripture and praying.
And God answers him.
God answers so quickly that Gabriel arrives while Daniel is still praying. God answers so deeply that the answer includes the Messiah. God answers so far into the future that the answer reaches the end of the age. God answers so clearly that you walk away realizing history is not a runaway train. It is on tracks God laid.
So if you have been praying and feeling like heaven is quiet, Daniel 9 is here to remind you that quiet is not the same as absent.
If you have been praying for your family, your church, your city, your nation, Daniel 9 is here to teach you how to pray without superiority. Pray “we.” Pray confession. Pray mercy. Pray for God’s name.
If you have been afraid of the future, Daniel 9 is here to anchor you. The desolator has a decreed end. Evil does not get to write the final chapter.
And if you are trying to figure out what God is doing in history, Daniel 9 points you to the center. God is dealing with sin. God is bringing righteousness. God sent the Messiah. The Messiah was cut off. Atonement was accomplished. And God will finish what He promised.
So pray like Daniel. Pray with your Bible open. Pray honestly. Pray boldly. Pray for God’s name. And keep your eyes on Jesus, because Daniel 9 is not ultimately about dates. It is about redemption.
Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.
