Daniel 9:3

"And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and made confession, and said, Oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and have dealt perversely, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from thy precepts and from thine ordinances; neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, that speak in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land."

DANIEL'S MARVELOUS PRAYER (Daniel 9:3-19)

Daniel here confessed the sins of Israel as progressing from mere wickedness and transgression to outright rebellion against God; also, it should be noticed that he included himself as partaker of the sins of the people and with them equally guilty before God. It was this general wickedness of Israel which had by no means abated during the "seventy years" captivity that actually moved Daniel to prayer. "The Exile had not produced the expected fruits of repentance; so that, although Daniel did not doubt the promise of God, namely, that the people would be returned; yet his concern appeared to be the blessings God had promised after their return."[3]

Notice the mention of the prophets having spoken to, "our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people." Why are not the priests mentioned here? Simply because, at the time when Daniel was written, namely, in Babylon shortly before the termination of the Captivity, there was no officiating priesthood of God's people in Babylon. This was definitely not the case in the days of the Maccabees, the period in which critics have vainly supposed this prophecy was written. As a number of other factors in this prayer also indicate, this refutes the false allegations of the late-date fad.

"To a man who still remembered the kings and princes in Jerusalem (as did Daniel), this language is natural;

"but in the age of Antiochus Epiphanes (the Maccabean period) this language would be absurd and meaningless."[4]