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Cyrus Sets the Exiles Free
245
“Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen
to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me
with all your heart.”
Verses 12, 13
.
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Shortly before Babylon’s fall, when Daniel was meditating on
these prophecies and seeking God for understanding, he received a
series of visions concerning the rise and fall of kingdoms. With the
first vision, recorded in
Daniel 7
, God gave an interpretation, yet it
did not make every point clear to the prophet. “My thoughts greatly
troubled me,” he wrote, “and my countenance changed; but I kept
the matter in my heart.”
Daniel 7:28
.
The Time Prophecy Unfolds
Another vision threw further light on future events. At the close
of this vision Daniel heard “a holy one speaking, and another holy
one said to the one that spoke, ‘For how long is this vision?’”
Daniel
8:13
, NRSV. The answer was given: “For two thousand three hun-
dred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.”
Verse 14
.
Filled with perplexity, Daniel tried to understand the relationship
between the seventy years’ captivity and the 2,300 years that would
elapse before the cleansing of God’s sanctuary. When the prophet
heard the words, “The vision ... refers to many days in the future,”
he “fainted and was sick for days.” He wrote of his experience: “Af-
terward I arose and went about the king’s business. I was astonished
by the vision, but no one understood it.”
Verses 26, 27
.
Jeremiah’s prophecies were so plain that Daniel understood “the
number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through
Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in
the desolations of Jerusalem.”
Daniel 9:2
.
Faithful Daniel Identifies Himself With Unfaithful Israel
Daniel pleaded with the Lord to fulfill these promises speedily
and to preserve the honor of God. He identified himself fully with
those who had fallen short of the divine plan, confessing their sins
as his own. Though Heaven had called Daniel “greatly beloved,” he
now appeared before God as a sinner, urgently presenting the need
of the people he loved. His prayer was eloquent in its simplicity: