In some languages it will be more natural to restructure this verse in such a way as to place the fasting and sackcloth and ashes at the beginning, before the mention of prayer to God, since these actions were started before the prayer began.

Turned my face to the Lord God: a literal rendering of the verb phrase turned my face will probably sound strange in many languages. It simply focuses on the beginning of the action of earnestly praying to God. The word for Lord here is not the same as in the previous verse. In the tradition of most English versions the distinction is made in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation only by the use of capital letters for Yahweh (in verse 2) as opposed to only the initial upper case letter when translating the Hebrew term ʾadonai (as in this verse). The term found here is used both for God and for highly respected human beings—as in Gen 23.6.

By prayer and supplications: these two terms combined simply refer to sincere prayer and not to two different actions. They may be translated by a single verb in many languages. See comment on “supplication” in 6.11.

Fasting: together with the two terms that follow, this indicates Daniel’s attitude of humility in his prayer to God. On the term fasting, see 6.18.

Sackcloth and ashes: it will be important in most languages to include the appropriate verb with each of these two nouns. Sackcloth was worn around the waist, and people usually sat in ashes or put them on their heads (or both). In Jewish culture these two practices were ways of showing sadness, either caused by a calamity such as the death of someone (Gen 37.34 and Amos 8.10), or as a sign of distress and repentance for sin committed (Jonah 3.6). The context shows very clearly that in this case it was because of sin, since verse 5 says clearly “we have sinned.” Because of the context it may not be necessary to add the information here, that Daniel wore sackcloth and sat in ashes because he was distressed over the sins of Israel, but this will certainly be legitimate if the translators believe it to be necessary here. The term sackcloth has sometimes been rendered “a rough, coarse cloth around the waist” (it was usually made of the hair of a goat or camel), and it is important in the translation of ashes to be sure that the reader understands the term used as referring to cold ashes and not hot coals.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .