Disciples Digital Library

The  Book of Daniel  is a well-structured literary work, not a collection of folk stories or random and unrelated visions. At its beginning, the key themes of the Book are presented in brief, then worked out in detail in its subsequent chapters, and each new vision builds on the preceding ones.

Synopsis: Daniel prays a collective prayer of repentance after contemplating a prophecy of Jeremiah - Daniel 9:1-23.  The “ first year ” of Darius the Mede locates the vision of the “Seventy Weeks” in approximately 538 to 537 B.C. This is the same period when Babylon fell to the “ kingdom of the Medes and Persians ,” as well as the release of the Jewish exiles from Babylon by the decree of Cyrus the Great (536 B.C. -  2 Chronicles 36:22-23 ,  Ezra 1:1-11 ).