In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.
Parallel translations
- WEB In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three whole weeks.
- KJV In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks.
- BSB In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three full weeks.
- NASB In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks.
- NLT When this vision came to me, I, Daniel, had been in mourning for three whole weeks.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
At this time Daniel mourns and fasts for three full weeks. Earnest grief and self-denial prepare him to receive God's revelation.
Overview
Daniel describes a period of three weeks of mourning, likely over the troubles facing the returned exiles, expressed through fasting as the next verses detail. His sustained spiritual earnestness sets the stage for the heavenly vision that follows. This shows that profound encounters with God often come to hearts prepared by humility, prayer, and longing for His purposes.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Neh 1:4When I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned several days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven,
- Dan 9:24–27Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
- Ezra 9:4–5Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel were assembled to me, because of their trespass of the captivity; and I sat confounded until the evening offering.
- Rev 11:5If anyone desires to harm them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies. If anyone desires to harm them, he must be killed in this way.
- Jer 9:1Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
- Ps 42:9I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
- Ps 43:2For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
- Isa 66:10“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her. Rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn over her;
- Matt 9:15Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
- Ps 137:1–5By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
- Rom 9:2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.
- Jas 4:9Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Daniel sees the stone cut without hands that shatters the kingdoms, and 'one like a son of man' given everlasting dominion — titles and visions Jesus claims as his own.
How Daniel 10:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.