| Geneva Study Bible In the first year of Darius the son of {a} Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the {b} realm of the Chaldeans; (a) Who was also called Astyages. (b) For Cyrus led with ambition, and went about wars in other countries, and therefore Darius had the title of the kingdom, even though Cyrus was king in effect. Wesley's Notes 9:1 In the first year of Darius - That is, immediately after the overthrow of the kingdom of Babylon, which was the year of the Jews deliverance from captivity. Of the Medes - This Darius was not Darius the Persian, under whom the temple was built, as some have asserted, to invalidate the credibility of this book; but Darius the Mede, who lived in the time of Daniel. King James Translators' Notes which: or, in which he Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary CHAPTER 9 Da 9:1-27. Daniel's Confession and Prayer for Jerusalem: Gabriel Comforts Him by the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. The world powers here recede from view; Israel, and the salvation by Messiah promised to it, are the subject of revelation. Israel had naturally expected salvation at the end of the captivity. Daniel is therefore told, that, after the seventy years of the captivity, seventy times seven must elapse, and that even then Messiah would not come in glory as the Jews might through misunderstanding expect from the earlier prophets, but by dying would put away sin. This ninth chapter (Messianic prophecy) stands between the two visions of the Old Testament Antichrist, to comfort "the wise." In the interval between Antiochus and Christ, no further revelation was needed; therefore, as in the first part of the book, so in the second, Christ and Antichrist in connection are the theme. 1. first year of Darius-Cyaxares II, in whose name Cyrus, his nephew, son-in-law, and successor, took Babylon, 538 B.C. The date of this chapter is therefore 537 B.C., a year before Cyrus permitted the Jews to return from exile, and sixty-nine years after Daniel had been carried captive at the beginning of the captivity, 606 B.C. son of Ahasuerus-called Astyages by Xenophon. Ahasuerus was a name common to many of the kings of Medo-Persia. made king-The phrase implies that Darius owed the kingdom not to his own prowess, but to that of another, namely, Cyrus. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 9:1-3 Daniel learned from the books of the prophets, especially from Jeremiah, that the desolation of Jerusalem would continue seventy years, which were drawing to a close. God's promises are to encourage our prayers, not to make them needless; and when we see the performance of them approaching, we should more earnestly plead them with God. | 
