king artaxerxes' decree to rebuild jerusalem
It makes sense that this was when he mandated its resumption, rather than delaying a whole year until Tishri 1, 456 BC, or even later. Restoring the spiritual aspects was more important in the LORDs eyes than merely repairing stone and mortar structures; God is always portrayed in the Word as primarily concerned with the spiritual life of His people, having them relate to Him by following His precepts faithfully, and in Daniel 9:25 the restoring is mentioned before the rebuilding, implying it was the more important consideration. 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. 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. In view are not literal weeks of seven days, but periods of seven years. 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). Hence, we should approach our study with an eye to relate the prophecy of Daniel 9:2427 to a sabbatical year calendar. Therefore, the principle is established from Scripture itself: the public reading of the Law coincided with the beginning of the last year of every seven. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times (emphasis added). Toward a Biblical Understanding of Cyrus Decree. , 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. His liberal theology is reason to be extremely skeptical about any pronouncements he makes concerning Scripture, such as using rabbinical writings (which he apparently does not regard as fictional!) The Persian king, Artaxerxes, gave Nehemiah permission to return and rebuild the city of Jerusalem that lay in ruins. Sabbatical and Jubilee years therefore started in Tishri, the month in which the Jewish Rosh HaShanah or New Years Day was celebrated in the past and is celebrated in our own day. 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 fact emphasizes that the sabbatical years significance was fundamentally a spiritual matter, a sign of the people keeping covenant with their God, rather than simply giving the land a break. We find the people promising in Nehemiah 10:31 to forego the crops the seventh year and the exaction of every debt. (The NIV is clearer: Every seventh year we will forgo working the land and will cancel all debts.) This shows that by Nehemiahs arrival in 444 BC the people had been made quite aware of these sabbatical year requirements, and strongly implies that Ezra and his Levites had made their faithful observance a live issue from the time they arrived in 457. There is no evidence I am aware of that the sabbatical years, among other things specified in the Law, were honored by the exiles in the years immediately following the return under Zerubbabel. King Cyrus and the Temple. shuwb) and build (banah). Thus the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in Dan 9:25 was Ezras word, not the decree of Artaxerxes. Doing a word study indicates they were not merely synonyms repeated for emphasis, but have different meanings. 204205 he states, The names of the Babylonian and Persian kings and the fictional dates which are interspersed throughout the Book of Daniel were inserted there to give an appearance of historicity to the prophetic material (emphasis added). 9:24-27 differs from modern scholarship in two significant ways. 2 Chronicles 36:2023: Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persiain order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiahthe LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation [Heb. Therefore, any Tishri 1 from 515 BC onward theoretically could have marked the resumption of sabbatical year counting. charuwts), even in times of distress. The word here translated plaza conveys the idea of streets that make up a town square (cf. The time span is from the decree to REBUILD Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One, and will be 483 years. A chronological chart is presented at https://archive.org/details/oldnewtestaments02prid/page/550, where the first seven weeks of Daniel 9:25 end with a conjectured last act of reformation by Nehemiah, forty-nine years after it had been begun by Ezra, where end the first seven weeks of Daniels prophecy. In Tanners article, p. 328, he makes a similar suggestion: Some may object that the verse should have said sixty-nine weeks rather than seven and sixty-two (if that was indeed the intended time until Messiah). 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 . However, starting from the date of this incident throws the 70-weeks prophecy way off We begin by examining all of the applicable Scriptures, deriving a straightforward understanding of each in its immediate context. For instance, on pp. As Jacob Myers points out in the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah on this verse, the LXX in Codex Vaticanus renders from you as from Cyrus, consistent with the view adopted here, so this interpretation is of long standing. King Artaxerxes gave this decree in 444 BC. All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it [emphasis added]. Since the rebuilt Temple was dedicated just six months after that, on Adar 3 (March 12), 515 BC (Ezra 6:15), it appears we should understand the destruction of the Temple as an integral part of the lands desolation, part of the spiritual component that accompanied the physicalparticularly since a Jewish remnant, as well as the Samaritans who later gave Nehemiah grief, were still there farming the land during those seventy years, yet not thereby violating its Sabbath rest. Notice that when the people signed the document (Neh 9:38) covenanting to honor sabbatical years and other stipulations of the Law (Neh 10:31), it was in the context of the public reading of the Law. On pp. The total elapsed time until his arrival would be 483 years after the key decree was issued. 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. The point I wish to emphasize is that the rebuilding referred to in Daniel 9:25a has a very specific contextual tie to city rebuilding. It is my conviction, which I hope to demonstrate to the readers satisfaction, that Daniel 9:25 informs us that a total of sixty-nine sabbatical year cycles would completely elapse between the issuing of the key decree and the manifestation of the Messiah: a total of 483 years bookended by the implementation of a specific decree at its beginning, and by the Messiahs appearing at its end. One was that the initial seven weeks signified forty-nine years spent rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. Cyrus issued a decree that exiles should return and rebuild, just as Isaiah had prophesied two centuries earlier (Isaiah 44:28). Nothing is said about rebuilding the city of Jerusalem, only the Temple. motza'] of a decree [Heb. 18Whatever seems good to you and to your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do according to the will of your God. 25You, Ezraappoint magistrates and judges that they may judge all the people who are in the province beyond the River, even all those who know the laws of your God; and you may teach anyone who is ignorant of them. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. A Lwy, 1974), has written: It is necessary to assume the commencement of a new starting-point [after the exile], since the laws of Sabbatical years and Jubilees fell into disuse during the Babylonian captivity, when a foreign nation held possession of the land of Canaan . . Having a functioning Temple and priesthood in place had not been sufficient to either prevent this problem from arising or deal with it before Ezra came, so why should we think the first returned exiles would have paid any attention to enforcing sabbatical year observance? He gave them permission - as a messenger . (Ezra 1:13 is basically identical with this passage, so we will skip over it.). Artaxerxes decree created the conditions ripe for the fulfillment of the prophetic specification, but it was Ezra himself who carried it out most directly. 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. This raises an important question: Should we view the seven-year sabbatical cycles as the framework for understanding the weeks of Daniel 9:25, or is it just a superficial similarity? This is an old section of the wall of. 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. 13 I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee. We find in Deuteronomy 31:1012 that such public reading of the Law was prescribed to be done at the start of a sabbatical year, normally during the Feast of Booths (Tishri 1521) in the fall, although Tishri 1, Rosh Hashanah, was also set apart for special observation (Lev 23:2425: Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation). As Nehemiah 8:12, 8 records: And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. Ezra 7:1126, condensed: 11Now this is the copy of the decree which King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe13I have issued a decree that any of the people of Israel and their priests and the Levites in my kingdom who are willing to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. 201218 (online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/23506873), Ben Zion Wacholder discussed evidence that the sevens of Daniel 9:25 must be understood as referring to sabbatical year cycles. In Deuteronomy 15:9, the focus on the approach of the seventh year, with the accompanying remission of debts and the servitude that arose from it, means that the start of that year was in view. It reads: Now listen and understand! Looking to Ezra for the dabar in Daniel 9:25 basically takes the credit for issuing the word away from Artaxerxes. 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