Daniel 9:3

3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, seeking by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.

Daniel 9:3 Meaning and Commentary

Daniel 9:3

And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and
supplications
He set apart some time on purpose for this service, distinct from his usual stated times of prayer, as well as from his civil business and employment; and he not only set his face toward Jerusalem, as he used to do, ( Daniel 6:10 ) , the more to affect his mind with the desolations the city and temple lay in; but towards the Lord God, the sovereign Lord of all, who does according to his will in heaven and in earth, the Governor of the universe, the one true God, Father, Son, and Spirit: and this denotes the intenseness of his spirit in prayer; the fixedness of his heart; the ardour of his mind; the fervency of his soul; his holy confidence in God; the freedom and boldness he used in prayer, and his constancy and continuance in it; which is a principal means, and a proper manner of seeking God. The Septuagint version, agreeably to the Hebrew text ^F4, renders it, "to seek prayer and supplications"; such as were suitable and pertinent to the present case; most beneficial and interesting to him and his people, and most acceptable to the Lord: with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes;
as was usual on extraordinary occasions, in times of public mourning; and this he did, to show his sense of the divine Being, and of his own unworthiness to ask or receive anything of him; his great humiliation for the sins of the people; and to distinguish this prayer of his from ordinary ones, and to affect his own heart in it, with the sad condition his nation, city, and temple were in; and therefore abstained from food for a time, put sackcloth on his loins, and ashes on his head, or sat in them.

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 (Mynwnxtw hlpt vqbl) (tou ekzhthsai proseuchn kai dehseiv) , Sept; "ad quaerendum orationem et deprecationes", Montanus; "ad quaerendam orationem et supplicationem", Cocceius.

Daniel 9:3 In-Context

1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans"

2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, came to understand by books the number of the years, according to the word of the LORD as it came to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would spend seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, seeking by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.

4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession and said, "O Lord, the great and fearsome 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.