Daniel is not the man who stands before God, insisting on his rights. On the contrary, you read that he pleads. He acts like a supplicant. After Daniel has read the promises of God, he goes to his inner room. He knows that the promises of God do not make prayer superfluous. Nor does it make confession of guilt and knowing yourself to be small before God superfluous. On the contrary, when you read or hear God’s promises, it calls for humble prayer. The Lord wants to give us the content of his promises in the way of a prayer of faith. That is also true here in the promise of the seventy years. This promise calls for faith, for prayer. The Lord gives the content of his promise to those who pray to him in faith.
You also see this with Daniel. He does not feel too proud or too righteous to go to God as a beggar. He starts fasting, showing his dependence and smallness before God. He is in sackcloth and ashes, confessing his sorrow for his own sins. Full of deep reverence Daniel comes to ask the Lord to give his promise to his people as Daniel has read it. He does this in a prayer filled with confession.
3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.