The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

216 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
[the days or years of] your kingdom and has finished it.” In that
very night Belshazzar was killed, and the kingdom was given to
“Darius the Mede.” (Daniel 5:26–31, NW) Obviously, the seventy
years allotted to Babylon ended that night. This sudden collapse of
the Babylonian empire incited Daniel to turn his attention to
Jeremiah’s prophecy of the seventy years. He tells us:
Daniel 9:1–2:
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus of the seed of
the Medes, who had been made king over the kingdom of the
Chaldeans; in the first year of his reigning I myself, Daniel,
discerned by the books the number of the years concerning which
the word of Jehovah had occurred to Jeremiah the prophet, for
fulfilling the devastations of Jerusalem, [namely,] seventy years. ―
Daniel 9:1–2, NW.
It is not unreasonable to think that the “books” consulted by
Daniel may have been a collection of scrolls containing the
prophecies of Jeremiah. But the sources for his inquiry may as well
have been limited to the letters that Jeremiah had sent to the exiles
in Babylon fifty-six years earlier (Jeremiah 29:1–32), the first of
which dealt with the seventy years “for Babylon.” 28 No doubt,
these letters, at 1east, were available to him. The content of Daniel
9, in fact, and especially the prayer of Daniel recorded in verses 4–
19, is closely related to the content of Jeremiah’s 1etters, as has
been demonstrated in detail by Dr. Gerald H. Wilson. 29
C-1: Did Daniel understand the seventy-year prophecy?
When Daniel states that he “discerned” (NW) in the writings of
Jeremiah the prophecy of the seventy years, does this mean that he
“understood” (KJV, RV, ASV) the sense of this prophecy and
realized that the period had now ended? Or is he merely saying that
he “noticed” (Moffatt) or “observed” (NASB) the seventy years
mentioned by Jeremiah and “tried to understand” (NAB) them?
The Hebrew verb used here, bîn, may contain all these various
shades of meaning. However, if Daniel had any difficulties in
28 The Hebrew word translated “books” at Dan. 9:2, s e parîm, the plural form of seper,
was used of writings of various kinds, including legal documents and letters. Thus
the word seper is also used of Jeremiah’s first “letter” to the exiles at Babylon
recorded in Jeremiah 29:1–23. Verses 24–32 of the same chapter quotes from a
second letter sent by Jeremiah to the Jewish exiles, probably later in the same
year or early next year.
29 Gerald H. Wilson, “The Prayer of Daniel 9: Reflection on Jeremiah 29,” Journal for
the Study of the Old Testament, Issue 48, October 1990, pp. 91–99.