And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes. The Septuagint Version here is slavishly close; it renders אֶתְּנָא (‛ettena) in accordance with its more common meaning, ἔδωακ, and the idiomatic phrase, "to seek prayer and supplication," is rendered εὑρεῖν προσευχήν.
The true rendering is, as Professor Bevan points out," to set to prayer." Theodotion is nearly as slavish; only he omits "ashes," and has "fastings." The Peshitta is close, but does not follow the change of construction in the last clause.
Jerome seems to have read, "my God." The cessation of the temple-worship, with its sacrifices, was naturally fitted to bring prayer as a mode of worship into a prominence it bad not before. Yet we find prayers made while the first temple was yet standing, as the prayer of Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:15), of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20:6).
The comparison more naturally stands with the prayers of Ezra and Nehemiah, as the subject of their supplication is similar to that of the prayer before us.