'O Lord of Hosts, how long wilt Thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on

the cities of Judah, against which Thou hast had indignation these

threescore and ten years?' (Zech. 1:12).

From Isaiah 10:5 we learn that the Assyrian is the rod of the Lord's

anger: 'and the staff in their hand is Mine indignation'.  The Assyrian is

sent against 'an hypocritical nation ... to tread them down like the mire of

the streets' (Isa. 10:6).  The Assyrian nation does not, however, intend to

be of service to the Lord: it is but fulfilling its own schemes of conquest:

'Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed His

whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of

the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high

looks' (Isa. 10:12).

We are prepared by our previous studies to find

the indignation accomplished against Jerusalem by the

Assyrian is a

foreshadowing of 'the last end of the indignation', a

future  period alluded

to in Isaiah 26:20.  This period is in mind in Daniel

9:

'In the first year of his (Darius') reign I Daniel understood by books

the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah

the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations

of Jerusalem' (Dan. 9:2).

Among the passages written by Jeremiah that Daniel would have read is

Jeremiah 25:11:

'And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and

these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years'.

Another passage that would have attracted Daniel's attention is

Jeremiah 29:1 -10:

'To all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from

Jerusalem to Babylon ... .  For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy

years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform My good

word toward you, in causing you to return to this place'.

A further passage that would have been of help to Daniel is found in

Jeremiah 27:7:

'And all nations shall serve him (Nebuchadnezzar, verse 6), and his

son, and his son's son (Belshazzar), until the very time of his land

come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of

Another item that bears upon this part of our study is found in Daniel

'In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the

Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans'.