Daniel 9
Ishodad of Merv
Daniel 9:2
When the time fixed for the captivity is completed, Daniel begins to pray for the return; indeed, he had not dared to pray [to that purpose] before that moment, in order not to press God needlessly and in order not to hear the word that had been addressed to Jeremiah: "Do not pray for this people, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you." But after seeing that the sentence had been executed, he prays with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. At the same time he thought that the Jews might stay a longer time in captivity because of their sins, according to the fact that God had added thirty years to the Jews in Egypt and had reduced [the time for repentance conceded] to the generation of Noah of twenty years and of fifty in the case of the house of Ephrem. Moreover, it is not at the beginning of their fault that the sinners ask questions of the judge but after the punishment. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:2
Daniel 9:24
The words "seventy weeks will linger," that is, until the destruction caused by the Romans. In fact, even though, in the meantime, they are sometimes afflicted, they will not be abandoned completely. Seventy weeks make 490 years; they are calculated from the time when they will come back from Babylon and will begin to build the temple to the year when the Romans will make war against them after the ascension of our Lord. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:24
Daniel 9:26
Theodoret interprets ("the king who will come") as the foreign kingship and the unlawful doctrine. Others say, "With the king who will come," meaning with the Christ who will come. Instead of the words "the anointed one shall be killed," the Jews [say foolishly], "The oil shall be cut off." Therefore, since there is no oil, and the oil of the anointment does not flow anymore, and it stops and does not proceed anymore, there was nobody to anoint with it both the kings and the priests according to the rule observed since Moses and afterwards. It was necessary that the law come to an end, because without priesthood and without the anointment of all that was anointed under the law, the law itself could not survive anymore. In the same manner, with what will your "anointed prince" be anointed, as there is no oil or ointment? "Its end shall come with a flood" and with destruction just like in the deluge of the generations of Noah. — COMMENTARY ON DANIEL 9:26