Daniel 5

Daniel 5:1-3

12. & vi. 14.

13. If the first year of ‘Darius the son of Ahauseras, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; 2. In the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to ‘Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the deliolations of Jerusalem. 3. ¶ And I set my face unto the Lord GOD, ’to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.

The date of this prophecy is in the first year of Darius, when the seventy years of the Jewish captivity ended, reckoning from the third of Jehoiakim.

1. Daniel had been diligently marching the Scriptures, and out of the book of Jeremiah understood that the time was at hand for the accomplishment of God’s promises in the restoration of his people. Note, They who diligently search the Scriptures will find there what will amply compensate their pains.

2. He became an earnest intoness for the accomplishment of the promised mercy. In fasting and sackcloth he deeply humbled himself, under a sense of the sins which had provoked God’s displeasure, and as a mourner over the deliolations of Zion; and

with faith and importunity for his face to the Lord, to seek by prayer and supplications the h داستان their deliverance in his good time. Note, (1.) What God promises should be the matter of our prayers. (2) They who have the intreaths of God’s church at heart, cannot but be deeply affected with its deliolations, and earnest supplications that God would receive his work in the midst of the years.

4. 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’ 5. ‘We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts, and from thy judgments. 6. ‘Neither have we hearkned 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. 7. O Lord, ‘righteousness + beingeth unto thee, but unto us’ confusion of faces, as at this day: to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants 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 trespassed against thee. 8. O Lord, ’to us doingeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. 9. ‘To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him. 10. Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws which he do before us by his servants the prophets. 11. Yes, ‘all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice, therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that it written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him. 12. And ‘he hath confirmed his words which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: ‘for under the whole heaven hath not been done, as hath been done upon Jerusalem. 13. ‘As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: ‘yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth. 14. Therefore hath the LORD ‘watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for ’the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doth: for we obeyed our his voice. 15. And now, O LORD our God, ’that hath brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hath gotten thee’ renown as at this day: ‘we have sinned, we have done wickedly. 16. O LORD, ‘according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, ’thy holy mountain: because for our sins, ‘and for the iniquities of our fathers, ‘Jerusalem and thy people’ are known a reproach to all that are about us. 17. Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, ‘and cause thy face to thine upon thy sanctuary’ that is desolate, ‘for the LORD’s sake. 18. ‘O my God, incline thine ear, and hear: open thine eyes, ‘and behold our deliolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee’ for our righteousness, but for thy great mercies. 19. O LORD hear, O LORD forgive, O LORD hearken and do, defer not, ‘for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.

Daniel 5:4-19

We have here Daniel’s effectual fervent prayer.

1. He opens with a most reverential address to the great and dreadful God; tremble to the sinner, and a consuming fine, yet full of mercy towards those who love and love him, and sackful to all the promises of that everlasting covenant he hath established with them, v. 4.

2. He makes his humble confession of sin, the cause of all their sufferings. They had provoked God by every possible aggravation of their iniquities; they had rebelled against him, rejected his government, broken all his precepts, positive and moral; and from the king upon the throne, to the mourns of the people, notwithstanding their peculiar obligations, all had joined in the revolt, and were alike dead to the admonitions of God’s prophets, the corrections of his providences, and the

ages; that divine righteousness, which in his own person, by his obedience to death, even the death of the creek, he should work out for his people; which should be brought in for their use and benefit, imputed to them as their own; and in virtue of which, the redeemed in all ages should be inflicted before God, and are enabled to claim the reward of eternal life, which God hath promised to perfect obedience: and to feel as she vision and prophesy, which should receive their full accomplishment in Christ Jesus; and to anoint the most Holy, the Messiah; most holy hath in his divine and human nature; and appointed to, and qualified for the office of mediator by that oil of gladness, the gift of the Spirit, which the Father without meekers imparted to him. Though this may also be applied to the people of God, who have an unction from the Holy One, and are fanciled by his Spirit, which in the days of the Messiah should be poured out in the most abundant manner. Hence therefore and understand, that from the time of the going forth of the commandment to refers and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three-)((seven) and two weeks: this is the period fixed, from whence the seventy weeks are to be dated; which some suppose commenced from that very day of Cyrus’s proclamation, and exactly ended at Christ’s death; but in order to make the intermediate time correspond herewith, they allow but 130 years to the Persian monarch; which, according to the best histrican, continued more than two hundred: others, and which seems the more approved way of computing these weeks, suppose the commencement of the time not to be from Cyrus’s permission of the Jews to return, but from the edict of Attarences, in his seventh year, &c. vii. 8—12. or from that given to Nehemiah, in the twentieth year of his reign, Neb. vi. 1—8. wherein express mention is made of rebuilding Jerusalem; and this will make the expiration of the sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years, fall just at the year thirty-three, being generally supposed the year of Christ’s death. The dividing of the weeks into different periods of seven, three (seven) and two, and one, seems to have refueled to the different events, peculiar to these several spaces of time. The first seven weeks, or forty-nine years, includes the troublous times when the city was rebuilding; during which Sambalat, Tabula, and Gethem, so opposed the week, as the like opposition may they expect who zealously stand up in every age to build the walls of Christ’s church; but again then no enemy shall finally prevail. And after three (seven) and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off; at the expiration of 483 years; but not for himself, but for the sins of his people, which were laid upon him: and the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, as the Roman emperor did with his armies; and the end thereof shall be with a stand, so irrefillably should they sweep the land, and unto the end of the war desolation are determined; from the beginning of the war to the end, God had in righteous judgment given the Jewish people up to be consumed. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: which, as some suppose, refers to Messiah the Prince, confirming the covenant of grace, and by his own oblation of himself putting a period to the ceremonial services; but rather refueces the prince of the Romans, who should come, having for that purpose made peace with other nations, as he did, in order to be more discouraged to wreak his vengeance on the Jews: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the ablation to cease; thro’ the Heaviness of the siege, the famine which prevails, and the tumults which were in the city, before it was taken they had ceased to offer the daily sacrifice; for the overthrowing of almoniations, for the wickedness of the Jewish people, who had filled up the measure of their iniquities, he shall make it deplore; God giving the land into the hand of the Romans: some read the words, upon the wing, or battlement, shall be the idols of the deplater; the Roman designs, with their idols, eleven on poutrayed, should be fixed on the walls, or in the sanctuary; even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the deplater; either these armies with their abominations should be made, and the land utterly deplater, or these desolations should remain till the time perished in the Divine decree, when the fulness of the Gentiles should come in, Luke xxi. 24. Some render the words, upon the deplater; meaning the Romans, who should themselves be at last cut off, and then the desolations of Zion shall cease.

This last week, according to the interpretation given, is separated from the rest, and the events contained in it, through the forbearance of God, deferred for a time, till about thirty years after the expiration of the sixty-nine weeks. On the whole, we have here an irretrangleable argument against the Jews, who reject the true Messiah; it being evident, according to their prophecies, that he must have appeared many hundred years ago; and all the things predicted of him, exactly corresponding with our adored Lord’s appearing in the flesh; we are assured that this is he that should come, nor look for another.