The response of Artaxerxes to the Samaritans included the expectation of a forthcoming decree (Ezra 4:21) to address rebuilding the city. The quarterly says: "Cyrus issued a decree about 538 b.c., freeing up God's people to return to their country and to rebuild the temple. Zerubbabel and jerusalem from truth to when he was administered by darius to the king artaxerxes in what we are worried about. God foretold to the day when Messiah would present Himself to Israel as their Messiah-King. 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. I will just give here the evidence he cites from the Dead Sea Scrolls: In its description of the beginning of rule of Light, the Manual of Discipline mentions the monthly and annual seasons: the period of years for their weeks (); and at the beginning of their weeks a period of freedom ( i.e., jubilee). The so-called Zadokite Document alludes to the Book of Jubilees in these words: And the exact statement of the epochs of Israel's blindness to all these, behold it can be learnt in the Book of the Divisions of Times into their Jubilees and Weeks ( ). , 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. This decree actually resulted in the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah. One was that the initial seven weeks signified forty-nine years spent rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. Cyrus is responsible for returning a number of peoples to their lands and rebuilding their temples in order to get more gods favorable to him and his family. After the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Jewish Temple and hauled off tens of thousands of Jews into captivity, the Jews were allowed to return to Judah after the Persians conquered Babylon. We may request cookies to be set on your device. shuwb) and build (banah). Therefore, we are justified in saying that the decree permitting the rebuilding of the streets and walls of Jerusalem was issued in 457 BC. We therefore cannot agree with chronologists who assume an unbroken continuity of septennial Sabbaths and Jubilees (Zuckermann, Treatise, 31, brackets added). Although the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah was entirely concerned with Temple matters, and thus what they finished building must in this context refer only to the Temple, yet Artaxerxes decree opened the door for city rebuilding work as well, as the next passage indicates. 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. Once this is done, God promises to restoreshuwb, the same word as in Daniel 9:25their judges as at the first, and their counselors as at the beginning. This is exactly what God did when he brought in Ezra, who set up magistrates teaching and enforcing the Law of Moses: You, 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 (Ezra 7:25). Isaiah 44:24, 26, 28: Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, I, the LORD, am the maker of all things It is I who says [Heb. A Christian Apologetics Ministry Dedicated to Demonstrating the Historical Reliability of the Bible through Archaeological and Biblical Research. In his 7th year this monarch issued a decree to . If king came: and restore and . And how can we speak of the spiritual significance of the city being restored apart from the reforms spearheaded by Ezra to fully reintegrate the prescriptions of the Law back into Jewish daily life? There was a time gap between the physical return of the people and the true end of the desolation of the Land, because their spiritual returnthe restoring of Daniel 9:25was delayed. The final part of the verse specifically calls the readers attention to the period of rebuilding, and this is likely what the seven weeks refers to. Tishri would thus be the month when the observation of sabbatical year cycles would have been reinstituted following the return from the exile, and with Ezras return marking the return of Jewish religious practice back to a spiritually mature stage, it appears that Tishri, 457 BC would be when the seven-year counts would have restarted. Ezra goes up to Jerusalem 11. Gods Principle of Sabbatical Year Observance. 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]. The reason for this is that counting was interrupted during the exile, since the stipulations of the Sabbatical years were only commanded to be observed while Israel was in its land (Lv 25:2). If the Sabbatical and Jubilee years started in Nisan, then the crop sown in the preceding fall could not be harvested, after which the fall sowing would be missed, thus resulting in two years without harvest rather than the one year that is intended in the legislation. 12 Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect peace, and at such a time. 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. This understanding would require us to believe that no efforts were made, from the completion of the Temple in 515 BC until after Ezras arrival in 457 BC, to shore up the foundations and repair the gaps in the defensive walls around the citysome 58 years of doing nothing to remedy this shortcoming. Verse 1 tells us that this command to rebuild Jerusalem was given in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. Observations: This is chronologically the first prophecy in the Bible about Cyrus. 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. For this reason it appears Shea is mistaken here. Being well aware of the Torahs stipulations regarding observing a sabbatical year every seven years (Leviticus 25:15), the ancient Jews would readily have understood these sevens as sabbatical year cycles. A second difference stems from the first. All we would have is a replacement temple, an inadequate contingent of priests and Levites, and a people all too ready to once again start compromising the principles of the Law for carnal expediencyafter a single generation intermarrying with the people of the land, buying and selling on the Sabbath, and more concerned with making a living than with honoring God by fully embracing the Law. An attempt to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem was made after Artaxerxes I of Persia became king (465-464 to 424-23 BC). Besides, if the creditor had waited until the end of the seventh year, the debtor would have given him seven years of service, not six! Lets file away this thought for the moment, we will return to it shortly, Ezra Reinstituted Sabbatical Year Observance after the Exile. Part 2, Bibliotheca Sacra, JulySeptember 2009, p. 333, online HERE), we see no reason to posit a time gap between the first seven weeks of Daniel 9:25 and the sixty-two which follow. 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. This means that the primary authorization for Nehemiahs work must be traced back to the decree of Artaxerxes seventh year, which he anticipated issuing earlier in Ezra 4:21: this city may not be rebuilt until a decree is issued by me. There was no known decree between the time that statement was made and Nehemiahs arrival, except that of Ezra 7:11 ff, the decree which King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe. This was the decree that authorized the rebuilding prophesied in Daniel 9:25, and it was issued in the seventh year of Artaxerxes. Moreover, the observance of these regular cycles was a non-negotiable requirement of the Law laid upon the Jews: You shall do these things, said the Almighty. The latter, in his 171618 work The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations, vol. It is His will, not simply Cyruss. 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 . All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete [emphasis added]. 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. Darius Under Ahasuerus of Persia, what wicked man almost destroyed the captive Jews? 2 i s-a gsit la Ahmeta, ca In a word, yes. Observations: The emphasized words highlight things in Artaxerxes seventh-year decree which go beyond the earlier restrictions that limited the decree initiated by Cyrus to matters pertaining to the Temple. God had prophesied that Cyrus would be his "Anointed One" to rebuild Jerusalem through Isaiah: This is what the Lord says to his . 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 point I wish to emphasize is that the rebuilding referred to in Daniel 9:25a has a very specific contextual tie to city rebuilding. Ezra and Nehemiah were leaders in the reign of Artaxerxes. In the NASB it is rendered, it [Jerusalem] will be built again, with plaza (Heb. 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. At that point, Nehemiah led the charge to reinforce the gates of the temple and to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, which took 49 years and equates to the first 7-week period. 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. Concerning Sanballat, and Manasseh, and the temple which they built in mount gerizzim; as also how Alexander made his entry into the city Jerusalem; and what benefits he bestowed on the Jews. It was only after Ezra, the priest and scribe, came and began to teach and admonish the people that full obedience to all that the Law of Moses required was insisted upon. Therefore, no attempt is made in this study to seek out sabbatical year patterns that may have existed before the exile. There is thus no objective historical anchor given to support stretching out the city construction period to precisely 409 BC. However, starting from the date of this incident throws the 70-weeks prophecy way off For this reason, I think it makes much better sense for from you in Ezra 4:12 to refer collectively to the Persian nation since the days of Cyrus, rather than from Artaxerxes specifically. During his reign, he halted the rebuilding of the Temple area that his predecessor Cyrus had allowed. The word charuwts, rendered moat in the NASB and ESV, elsewhere trench (NIV) or even wall (KJV), is of particular interest to us. 14 Forasmuch as thou art sent of the . 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. So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. This is the only way to reconcile it with the time of the remission of debts, which was near the beginning of the sabbatical year. 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. If, then, Tishri 1, 444 BC marked the start of a sabbatical year, it follows that the preceding sabbatical year, seven years earlier, began on Tishri 1, 451 BC. The context of this passage is the situation just before the Babylonian captivity; as the ESV Study Bible notes for Isaiah 1:2428 express it, The prophet looks forward to a cleansed people after the historical judgment of the exile, restored to its mission. It promises the LORDs judgment on the nation, that their dross and alloytheir sinful compromises with the surrounding nationswill be removed. . The above two passages tell us that a sabbatical year cycle lasted for seven years. Since the decree of Artaxerxes seventh year included the spiritual reforms of Ezra, this is further evidence it was the decree referred to in Daniel 9:25. THE TIME OF CHRIST. Does the Merneptah Stela Allow for a 12th Century Exodus? Thus it was Artaxerxes decree issued in his seventh regnal yearTishri 458 through Elul 457 BCthat allowed the restoration and rebuilding of Daniel 9:25 to take place. of Jerusalem constructed in 445 B.C. Temple Mount Revisionism: Requiesce in pace! motza'] of a decree [Heb. Is it possible to say so? The passage in Isaiah 1:26 is a prophecy of what Ezra would do. Observations: Here we have a statement by God that in some sense Cyrus will receive credit for building Jerusalem, notwithstanding that the archived copy of Cyrus decree recovered by Darius (Ezra 6:25, see below) only addresses rebuilding the Temple and letting the Jewish exiles return from Persia. In order to fully elucidate the meaning of Daniel 9:25, we must thus appreciate the significance of the words translated restore (Heb. It reads: Now listen and understand! ( Dan.9:25 ) The illustration of Nehemiah. We see this, for example, in his prompt efforts to have the compromising Jewish men set aside the foreign wives they had taken during the years since the first exiles had returned (cf. The ancients, however, took it for granted that the numbers in 9:2427 had to harmonize with their calendar of sabbatical cycles. We see this event recorded in Matthew 21:1-11. The Jews were in exile. appearing before Artaxerxes. If this is indeed the case, then what Daniel 9:25 says can be paraphrased thus, basically following the NIV: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a ruler, comes, there will be seven sabbatical year cycles (one Jubilee) plus sixty-two sabbatical year cycles. 'amar] of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited! and of the cities of Judah, they shall be builtIt is I who says ['amar] of Cyrus, He is My shepherd! Sabbatical Year Cycles were Reset After the Exile. The one who sent out the word to begin the reconstruction of Jerusalem was Ezra. 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! Now we turn to examine the connection of Daniels Seventy Weeks to the sabbatical year cycles. 1:1-3; 2:1) as the decree that should provide the starting date of the prophecy (see, e.g., Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince [Grand Rapids: KregelPub., n.d.]). This article in the series of studies on Daniel 9:2427 was essentially completed prior to the most recently published piece on the ABR website, Did Ezra Come to Jerusalem in 457 BC? (https://biblearchaeology.org/abr-projects-main/the-daniel-9-24-27-project-2/4549-did-ezra-come-to-jerusalem-in-457-bc). Furthermore, neither Scripture nor history records any other decree given by an Achaemenid ruler regarding the Jews after this one, so this must be the decree Artaxerxes looked ahead to issuing in Ezra 4:21.