It shall not seem hard to you when you set him free, for he has given you six years with double the service of a hired man; so the LORD your God will bless you in whatever you do.. Temple Mount Revisionism: Requiesce in pace! . of Jerusalem constructed in 445 B.C. Ezra and Nehemiah were leaders in the reign of Artaxerxes. The Persian king, Artaxerxes, gave Nehemiah permission to return and rebuild the city of Jerusalem that lay in ruins. Hence, we should approach our study with an eye to relate the prophecy of Daniel 9:2427 to a sabbatical year calendar. Nehemiah was a high official in the Persian court of King Artaxerxes I at the capital city of Susa, which lay 150 miles east of the Tigris River in what is now modern Iran. 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. Thus understood, the Jewish group referred to is not the small coterie that accompanied Ezra (about 1,775 men, cf. 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. This is consistent with the text of Leviticus 25, which for both Sabbatical and Jubilee years speaks of sowing before mentioning reaping. Join us in our mission! The Weeks of Daniel 9:25 were Sabbatical Year Cycles. It was not issued by a Persian king from Pasargadae or Persepolis, it was sent forth from Jerusalem by Ezra. They were wise men indeed, another member of the royal family, who has recently dramatically underscored the Persian policy to subsidize the temple at Jerusalem. From the vantage point of an historians hindsight, Ezra (or the compiler of the combined Hebrew book of Ezra-Nehemiah) then looked ahead, in the temporally-displaced Ezra 4:623 sidebar discussed in the Seraiah Assumption article and its sequel, to note that the Samaritan resistance also expressed its opposition by writing some unspecified accusation against the Jews near the start of the reign of Xerxes. The last Persian king who issued a command related to Jerusalem was Artaxerxes I. Does the Merneptah Stela Allow for a 12th Century Exodus? Bear with me for a moment while I make a seeming digression. 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. Shea, Supplementary Evidence in Support of 457 B.C., JATS 12.1, p. 94, online at http://archive.atsjats.org/JATS12.1-09Shea.pdf), and the passage does not reveal who issues this word. Read in the light of the other passages under discussion, however, it seems we should understand it as an official decree which goes farther than the original Temple-focused one issued by Cyrus. Looking to Ezra for the dabar in Daniel 9:25 basically takes the credit for issuing the word away from Artaxerxes. 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. TWO DECREES OF ARTAXERXES We have to choose between the two decrees of Artaxerxes. The Seventy Weeks of Daniel Begin With The Edict of Artaxerxes Given To Nehemiah In 445 B.C. 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 . Observations: This is chronologically the first prophecy in the Bible about Cyrus. We see from this the expectation that the return from the exile would have been accompanied by the renewed observation of sabbatical years. Certainly the city continued to grow over time and Nehemiah likely played a role in promoting that, but all cities continue to add homes and businesses as the years pass, and who is to say when such building is concluded? Observations: This verse speaks of a decreethe Hebrew word dabar, which could also have been translated word or command. It is not one of the usual terms for a royal edict (cf. 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. The decree comes from the seventh year of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:8). 25:2), the equivalent of the year of shemittah or release (Deut. And they finished building according to the command of the God of Israel and the [singular] decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia (brackets added). 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. The ancient exegetes, it will be shown, understood shavua to refer to the seven-year cycle, the last year of which was the year of the Lord (Lev. 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]. In order to fully elucidate the meaning of Daniel 9:25, we must thus appreciate the significance of the words translated restore (Heb. 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? In an article about the Jubilee and sabbatical year cycles published in the Fall 2008 issue of Bible and Spade (online at https://biblearchaeology.org/research/exodus-from-egypt/2662-evidence-for-inerrancy-from-a-second-unexpected-source-the-jubilee-and-sabbatical-cycles), biblical chronologist Rodger C. Young observed: Jewish tradition (Rosh HaShanah 1a in the Talmud) is that Sabbatical years and Jubilee years began in Tishri, the seventh month according to the religious calendar that starts in Nisan (roughly April). Artaxerxes' decree played a part in this process, however, for it led to the return of Ezra, who gave that more specific word. They were waiting to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. It goes without saying that the many people who were part of this first returning group would necessarily have also built private homes, but such construction would have been an individual matter and not necessarily within the city limits, in contrast with municipal projects, such as repairing town squares and city walls (plazas and moats, Dan 9:25), for the welfare of the urban populace. We make that conclusion because we know that Artaxerxes began to reign in Persia in 464 . We may request cookies to be set on your device. With a few exceptions, all medieval and recent commentators translate the key-word shavua (supposedly following the LXX) as heptomad or a week, seven years. The date the decree was issued is not simultaneous with the date sabbatical year counting was resumed. 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. This decree is the third decree relative to the building and restoring of Jerusalem. The situation was not easy at the time in the Land of Israel in many ways. 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. The passage in Isaiah 1:26 is a prophecy of what Ezra would do. 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. Who gave the order or command in a more direct and specific sense? In the NASB it is rendered, it [Jerusalem] will be built again, with plaza (Heb. There had to be both a physical and a spiritual return for the desolation to be fully lifted. This decree of Artaxerxes contained the commandment to go forth and build Jerusalem. Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem, illustration by Adolf Hult, 1919 Nehemiah is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. 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. Here we present the extended passage, Isaiah 1:2126: How the faithful city has become a harlot,She who was full of justice!Righteousness once lodged in her,But now murderers.Your silver has become dross,Your drink diluted with water.Your rulers are rebelsAnd companions of thieves;Everyone loves a bribeAnd chases after rewards.They do not defend the orphan,Nor does the widow's plea come before them.Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts,The Mighty One of Israel, declares,Ah, I will be relieved of My adversariesAnd avenge Myself on My foes.I will also turn My hand against you,And will smelt away your dross as with lyeAnd will remove all your alloy.Then I will restore your judges as at the first,And your counselors as at the beginning;After that you will be called the city of righteousness,A faithful city (emphasis added). Hence I believe we can be confident, based on the information derived from the above Scriptures, that the decree referred to in Daniel 9:25 had to be that issued by Artaxerxes I Longimanus shortly before Ezras departure for Jerusalem in the spring of 457 BC. 14 Forasmuch as thou art sent of the . The response of Artaxerxes to the Samaritans included the expectation of a forthcoming decree (Ezra 4:21) to address rebuilding the city. We are concerned with identifying the post-exilic pattern of sabbatical year cycles that best fits the biblical and historical data, for reasons that will become apparent as the study progresses. Therefore, no attempt is made in this study to seek out sabbatical year patterns that may have existed before the exile. And the verse from Nehemiah 10 ties together the start of each seventh (sabbatical) year with the remission of debts. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. Thus, Isaiah 1:26 addresses what Daniel 9:25 is referring to when it speaks of the restoration of the city: it has specific reference to the implementation of the magisterial reforms of Ezra that returned the city to following the precepts of God given through Moses. 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. 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). And in the days of Artaxerxes [the throne name for Longimanus], Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of his colleagues wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia let it be known to the king that the Jews who came up from you have come to us at Jerusalem; they are rebuilding the rebellious and evil city and are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations. Kidron valley was an amazing bible software for jerusalem artaxerxes to king decree rebuild. In view are not literal weeks of seven days, but periods of seven years. 1516 in a Radio Bible Class publication, The Daniel Papers (online at http://web001.rbc.org/pdf/discovery-series/the-daniel-papers.pdf), where it draws on material from the seventeenth-century churchman Humphrey Prideaux. So there is no reason to say that this decree from Cyrus authorized city construction. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times (emphasis added). 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. Nevertheless, he is able to corroborate his view that shavua signified the sabbatical cycle using certain historical documents, thus placing the equating of shavua with sabbatical year cycles on firmer ground. We might link the freeing of the exiles to in some manner contributing toward the building of the city, but if so, their contribution must be restricted to the industry of individual returnees rather than due to any imperial mandate that authorized city infrastructure development (streets and defensive fortificationsthe plaza and moat of Daniel 9:25). Then the king sent an answer issue a decree to make these men stop work, that this city may not be rebuilt until a decree is issued by me. 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