Just as his voice or word went throughout the land to gather at Jerusalem to deal with the issue of foreign wives, so his word was sent forth after the episode to call the people back to Jerusalem for its reconstruction. Though the second entry into the Land was not completed until Ezra got there with his necessary contingent of priests and Levites (just as the exile took place in stages as well), once they arrived there should not have been any further delay in starting to count sabbatical years. This conclusion is an undemonstrated leap of logic. They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. Desiring to let the Scriptures speak plainly and govern our understanding, several passages will first be set forth that teach the principle of sabbatical year observance. Bear with me for a moment while I make a seeming digression. For the following reasons, it is proposed that the 458/7-decree is the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem: (1) It fits the time of Christ and (2) It "restored" Jerusalem to the Jews. 14Forasmuch as you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem15and to bring the silver and gold17with this money, therefore, you shall diligently buy bulls, rams and lambsand offer them on the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem. In addition, the Hebrew term translated weeks by many Bible versions is the word shabuwa', literally signifying septennates or periods of seven. It would encompass the restoring and rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem, not restricted to rebuilding the Temple, so the decree as narrowly issued by Cyrus and Darius would not qualifyArtaxerxes broadened decree would. of Jerusalem constructed in 445 B.C. He was governor of Persian Judea under Artaxerxes I of Persia (465-424 BC). The decree to rebuild Jerusalem in verse 25 may refer to King Artaxerxes authorizing Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem in March of 445 BC That is when the count. The passage even refers to this rebuilding taking place in times of distress, which is a perfect description of the period of opposition by the Samaritans that began years before Nehemiah arrived. Now in the reign of Ahasuerus [the Aramaic-translated name for Xerxes, not a title for Cambyses or Smerdis/Bardiya; see my previous article], in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. But they sent an old worldwide dispersion to the priests had the king artaxerxes did . , He was a scribe who had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel. Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a rulerthe Anointed Onecomes. This appears to establish for us the every-seven-years pattern for sabbatical years we must follow from that starting date451/450 BC, 444/443 BC, 437/436 BC, and so on up to the fall of the Temple to Titus legions in AD 70. The situation was not easy at the time in the Land of Israel in many ways. Scriptural Support for the Decree of Daniel 9:25. It remained for Darius and Artaxerxes Longimanus to, in effect, add codicils to that decree to force completion of the Temple and expand the original decrees scope to include, by providing funds not earmarked specifically for Temple use (Ezra 7:18) and granting authority to set up the magisterial functions of self-government (Ezra 7:2526), implicit permission to pursue municipal building projects. In his article at https://biblearchaeology.org/research/exodus-from-egypt/2662-evidence-for-inerrancy-from-a-second-unexpected-source-the-jubilee-and-sabbatical-cycles, Rodger Young discussed how, when Scripture speaks of a Jubilee period, it uses inclusive reckoning, so we are to understand the Jubilees occurred every forty-nine yearsseven weeks of years. The high priests prior to Ezras arrival paid the most attention to getting the Temple rebuilt and reinstituting the Temple-based sacrificial system, with other stipulations of the Law given less attention. Also let the gold and silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be returned and brought to their places in the temple in Jerusalem; and you shall put them in the house of God.. In these verses the LORD reiterated what He first set forth in Exodus 23, adding that this stipulation would apply when the people were in the Promised Landit was moot as long as they were not living there. "Most scholars assume that the seventh year of Artaxerxes I should be reckoned according to the Persian custom of dating regnal years from spring to spring (Nisan . This was Ezras calling. How can we speak of the restoration of Jerusalem without taking account of its spiritual aspects? Nevertheless, from this assumption he then suggests the Jews who came up from you must refer to those who had arrived from Artaxerxes with Ezra in 457 BC. Therefore, when it speaks of the restoration of the city, Daniel 9:25 is referring to Ezras work. Further Exegetical Details from Daniel 9:25. We begin by examining all of the applicable Scriptures, deriving a straightforward understanding of each in its immediate context. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. We may request cookies to be set on your device. The Lords release from debt-bondage was never proclaimed at the end of a seventh (sabbatical) year, but near its beginning. And then King Cyrus came along, conquered the Babylonians, and decreed that people conquered by Babylon could return to their rightful lands - and that included the nation of Israel. It included the irrevocable permission (as a law of the Medes and Persians) which allowed Nehemiah to later kick the wall repairs into high gear with nothing more than letters in hand. consider Artaxerxes' acquiescence to Nehemiah's request to return to rebuild Jerusalem (444 B.C., Neh. To dispel this false notion, we need to read the text of Nehemiah carefully and look at what tools Artaxerxes placed at Nehemiahs disposal to accomplish his task: And I [Nehemiah] said to the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the provinces beyond the River, that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple, for the wall of the city and for the house to which I will go. And the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God was on me. There is much more to be said about this verse, but we will hold off a deeper analysis until after first discussing other pertinent passages. Why is this significant? dabar, usually rendered word] to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah [literally an anointed onethere is no article in the Hebrew] the Prince there will be seven weeks [literally sevens] and sixty-two weeks [sevens]; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Ezra 8), but the much larger assemblage who came up with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:6465, The whole assembly numbered 42,360, besides their male and female servants who numbered 7,337). (Ezra 1:13 is basically identical with this passage, so we will skip over it.). 26Whoever will not observe the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be executed upon him strictly, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of goods or for imprisonment (emphasis added). . Artaxerxes was the second son of Xerxes, who was murdered in the summer of 465 by his all-powerful vizir Artaban. For this reason it appears Shea is mistaken here. Who gave the order or command in a more direct and specific sense? Ezra 6:14: And the elders of the Jews were successful in building [the Temple] through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete [emphasis added]. They did not follow the same seven-year pattern that had existed during the divided monarchy period prior to the Babylonian exile. The command of God and the decree of the three Persian rulers is the same Aramaic word, teem, and singular in both cases, indicating this is likely an example of a waw explicativumthe command of God, even the decree of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes, as A. Philip Brown II suggested (see my previous article). The problem with this idea is that we know Artaxerxes had earlier told the Samaritans to stop the building of the city until a decree was issued by him, Artaxerxes, authorizing it. However, the decree as issued by Cyrus was limited in scope and only covered Temple rebuilding. 53BC King Cyrus issued a decree that the Jewish exiles were free to. Verses 24 through 26 inform us that it is God who says (Heb. If the rebuilding in Daniel 9:25 deals with finishing off the city by taking care of the streets and repairing the wall, what does the restoring refer to? The gracious commission of Artaxerxes to Ezra 27. The one who sent out the word to begin the reconstruction of Jerusalem was Ezra. The term 'amar, often simply carrying the meaning to say, is not used elsewhere in Scripture to refer to a formal royal decree, so we should not conclude it necessarily signifies here that Cyrus himself would issue the specific edict authorizing city rebuildingbut he would definitely have something to do with it. The prophecy thus stipulates that, from the issuing of the correct decree, seven septennates49 years, as in a Jubilee cycle (Lev 25:8)plus an additional 62 septennates434 yearswould pass before an anointed one would come to the Jews. They were waiting to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. There is a good picture of one at https://picryl.com/media/looking-down-moat-outside-tower-of-david-toward-clock-tower-before-1917-american. ( Dan.9:25 ) The illustration of Nehemiah. The burning of the Temple, an essential aspect of the desolation, is known to have taken place on Av 9 (July 29), 587 BC, about two months before the next agricultural year would have begun on Tishri 1 (September 18), 587 BC. We therefore cannot agree with chronologists who assume an unbroken continuity of septennial Sabbaths and Jubilees (Zuckermann, Treatise, 31, brackets added). Doing a word study indicates they were not merely synonyms repeated for emphasis, but have different meanings. The issuing of the decree and the start of the sevens counting are separate matters, though closely related. Daniel 9:25 states that the 'seventy weeks' (generally interpreted as 490 years according to the day-year principle) is to begin "from the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem," which is when the Persian king Artaxerxes I, gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to Ezra, so the 490 years point to the . Toward a Biblical Understanding of Cyrus Decree. The date the decree was issued is not simultaneous with the date sabbatical year counting was resumed. Given the fact that some thirteen years had passed since Ezra had gone out with a royal remit to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, Nehemiah had been expecting a much better report! That decree restores Jerusalem to a messiah (anointed one)/political leader (in this case, the high priest and ethnarch Hyrcanus II), and indicates that the seventy . Isaiah 45:1, 3, 4, 13: Thus says the LORD to Cyrus His anointed, whom I have taken by the right hand For the sake of Jacob My servant, and Israel My chosen one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor though you have not known Me. I have aroused him in righteousness and I will make all his ways smooth; he will build My city and will let My exiles go free, without any payment or reward, says the LORD of hosts. Therefore, there are exactly 69 Weeks of Years (173,880 days) between the decree of King Artaxerxes in 445 B.C to rebuild Jerusalem to Palm Sunday, April 6, 32 A.D.!! That the first division of Daniels seventy weeks was likewise forty-nine years long implies that each septennate period was not just some arbitrary period of seven years, but specifically a sabbatical year cycle. This decree of Artaxerxes contained the commandment to go forth and build Jerusalem. The question, then, is who gave the word, in order or command, to begin the reconstruction of Jerusalem? Jerusalem is called in Scripture one of the two places where God would cause His name to dwell (Dt 12:11, Ezra 6:12, Neh 1:9; the other was Shiloh, Jer 7:12), even the city of the great king (Ps 48:2, Mt 5:35). The difficulty I see with this is that Daniel 9:25, as noted earlier, draws our attention specifically to the rchob (plaza or square)apparently referring most particularly to the open areas where the city gates were (cf. Then the angel said that after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One would come there would be 7 7s and 62 7s. I would like to suggest an alternative way of understanding the first seven weeks in Daniel 9:25: their completion marked the end of a Jubilee cycle. 20 Gifts You Can Give Your Boss if They Love Decree To Rebuild Jerusalem Artaxerxes Moreover, Ezra 6:14 requires a prominent role for Artaxerxes in the outworking of the command of God. The connection with the Feast of Booths confirms this; that feast takes place in Tishri, which was the beginning, not end, of the agriculture-based calendar that sabbatical and Jubilee year counting was tied to (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1a). Whoever there is among you of all His people, may the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up!, Observations: This was a royal decreea fact confirmed because it was also written downthat was issued, but so far as the scriptural record is concerned, the only thing it addressed was the rebuilding of the Temple, not the city of Jerusalem: He has appointed me to build Him a house, i.e., a temple, and only a temple. 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