{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-3849","native_reference":{"book_number":340,"chapter_from":9,"chapter_to":9,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":2,"verse_to":2},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Bede</b>: Darius, the son of Astyages, who destroyed the Babylonian Empire with the help of his kinsmen Cyrus, was sixty-two years old when he attacked Babylon. He is called by another name by the Greeks. He took the prophet Daniel and led him into the middle of his court and feted him with every honor. Daniel himself made mention of this Darius: \"In the first year of Darius.…\" In his chronology, Eusebius counts thirty years from the destruction of Jerusalem to the beginning of the reign of Cyrus, king of the Persians. Julius Africanus, however, counts seventy years. Moreover, Jerome has this to say in his exposition of the prophet Daniel: \"The Hebrews pass on a story of this sort up until the seventieth year, when Jeremiah had said that the captivity of the Jews would come to an end. Zechariah also speaks about this at the beginning of his book.\"<br/><i>— BOOK ON THE MEANING OF TIME 66</i></p><p><b>Hippolytus of Rome</b>: And so since even the angel Gabriel, just as it is understood by us, described these things in this way to the prophet, these things also happened and all these things are plainly recorded in the Maccabees, let us also see what he says in the vision of the weeks. For in this way, after reading the book of Jeremiah the prophet, in which it is written that the Most Holy Place is to be desolate seventy years, [Jeremiah 25:11] in fasts and petitions, he made confessions and asked that the people would quickly return from captivity to the city of Jerusalem.</p><p>And so in this way he describes this and says, \"In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans, I, Daniel, understood in the books the number of years for the completion of the desolation of Jerusalem, that is seventy years, as the word of the Lord came upon Jeremiah the prophet. And I gave my face to the Lord my God, to seek in prayer and supplications, with fastings and in sackcloth. And I prayed to the Lord my God and I confessed and I said, 'Lord, great and wonderful God who keeps your covenant and has mercy to those who love you and to those who keep your commandments, we have sinned, we did wrong, we were lawless, and we departed, and turned from your commandments and from your laws and we did not obey your slaves, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and our chiefs and our fathers and all the people of the land. To you Lord be righteousness and unto us be shame of face as on this day to the men of Judah and to those who dwell in Jerusalem.'\" [Daniel 9:1-7]<br/><i>— Commentary on Daniel 4.28.1-3</i></p><p><b>Ishodad of Merv</b>: When the time fixed for the captivity is completed, Daniel begins to pray for the return; indeed, he had not dared to pray [to that purpose] before that moment, in order not to press God needlessly and in order not to hear the word that had been addressed to Jeremiah: \"Do not pray for this people, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.\" But after seeing that the sentence had been executed, he prays with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. At the same time he thought that the Jews might stay a longer time in captivity because of their sins, according to the fact that God had added thirty years to the Jews in Egypt and had reduced [the time for repentance conceded] to the generation of Noah of twenty years and of fifty in the case of the house of Ephrem. Moreover, it is not at the beginning of their fault that the sinners ask questions of the judge but after the punishment.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Daniel 9:2</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: Verse 2. \"I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years concerning which the word of the Lord had come to the prophet Jeremiah, that seventy years would be accomplished for the desolation of Jerusalem.\" Jeremiah had predicted seventy years for the desolation of the Temple (Jeremiah 29:1-10), at the end of which the people would again return to Judaea and build the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. But this fact did not render Daniel careless, but rather encouraged him to pray that God might through his supplications fulfil that which He had graciously promised. Thus he avoided the danger that carelessness might result in pride, and pride cause offense to the Lord. Accordingly we read in Genesis that prior to the Deluge one hundred and twenty years were appointed for men to come to repentance (Genesis 6:3); and inasmuch as they refused to repent even within so long an interval of time as a hundred years, God did not wait for the remaining twenty years to be fulfilled, but brought on the punishment earlier which He had threatened for a later time. So also Jeremiah is told, on account of the hardness of the heart of the Jewish people: \"Pray not for this people, for I will not hearken unto thee\" (Jeremiah 7:16). Samuel also was told: \"How long wilt thou mourn over Saul? I also have rejected him\" (1 Samuel 16:1). And so it was with sackcloth and ashes that Daniel besought the Lord to fulfil what He had promised, not that Daniel lacked faith concerning the future, but rather he would avoid the danger that a feeling of security might produce carelessness, and carelessness produce an offense to God.<br/><i>— St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER NINE</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"fb1dbcae65d1c2e4e87985417e8445d7d8cc5e60ef566d5c77829dbdba1a942d","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":3849,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"4d634f38be87527e8eb1ebbd8e93b21f77230b07250e9d89c2a0d0309bf98e1a","translator":null,"work":null}