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. 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. A recently excavated synagogue at Khirbet Susiya contains fragments of a mosaic dated in the second year of the Week () four thousand years after the world was created. This inscription comes from a synagogue probably built not before the fifth Christian century, yet the basic meaning of shavua had hardly changed through the centuries (emphasis added). It gives the starting year of the prophecy recorded in Daniel 9:25, 26. 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. . 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. As Nehemiah 8:12, 8 records: And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. 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. 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. Then work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia (emphasis added). In view are not literal weeks of seven days, but periods of seven years. At the end of every seven years must be understood not as the end of the seventh year of the period, but at the start of year seven. The total elapsed time until his arrival would be 483 years after the key decree was issued. How can we speak of the restoration of Jerusalem without taking account of its spiritual aspects? Modern exegetes interpret the passage without reference to Jewish chronology current at that time. In the Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, the entry for shuwb includes reference to Isaiah 1:26. Later, He looked ahead to when the people would enter the Promised Land: Leviticus 25:1-4: The LORD then spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land which I shall give you, then the land shall have a sabbath to the LORD. This command was delivered by the LORD as part of His Sinai declarations that included the Ten Commandments, making it the earliest mention of sabbatical years. 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. Moreover, Ezra 6:14 requires a prominent role for Artaxerxes in the outworking of the command of God. If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free. . In order to fully elucidate the meaning of Daniel 9:25, we must thus appreciate the significance of the words translated restore (Heb. 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.]). 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. Thus the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in Dan 9:25 was Ezras word, not the decree of Artaxerxes. However, there is good reason for expressing two stages of time. Some list a fourth decree based on what is recorded in Nehemiah 1. Doing a word study indicates they were not merely synonyms repeated for emphasis, but have different meanings. 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. On pp. 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. They were waiting to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. 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. The issuing of the decree and the start of the sevens counting are separate matters, though closely related. facebook twitter youtube instagram newsletter Search. 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. 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. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. Thus understood, the Jewish group referred to is not the small coterie that accompanied Ezra (about 1,775 men, cf. 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. 2 Samuel 15:25 Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. Ezra 6:25: In Ecbatana in the fortress, which is in the province of Media, a scroll was found and there was written in it as follows: MemorandumIn the first year of King Cyrus, Cyrus the king issued a decree: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple, the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, its height being 60 cubits and its width 60 cubits; with three layers of huge stones and one layer of timbers. Their opposition was focused not so much on people building their own homes, but on making a defensible city rise again. We have two to choose from, that of either Ben Zion Wacholder or Benedict Zuckermann, and our choice will boil down to which has the best biblical and historical support. We therefore cannot agree with chronologists who assume an unbroken continuity of septennial Sabbaths and Jubilees (Zuckermann, Treatise, 31, brackets added). Bear with me for a moment while I make a seeming digression. Then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the River and gave them the king's letters (Neh 2:79, emphasis added). ( Dan.9:25 ) The illustration of Nehemiah. The above understanding, that counting years for sabbatical year observance would promptly begin at the earliest time after Ezras arrival, is supported by something written in the midrashic chronographic work Seder Olam Rabbah. 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. The answer from the above examination of the letter of the western governors is obvious. 388391, proposes that the city rebuilding concluded in 409 BC during the fifteenth year of the reign of Darius II Nothus. 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. 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. Ezra and Nehemiah were leaders in the reign of Artaxerxes. In Israel, the sowing of the winter crops (barley and wheat) takes place in approximately November and reaping takes place in the spring. Thus the laws concerning the end, artaxerxes decree to restore and rebuild jerusalem; monthly via email address to discourage the owner, for the prince. 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). King Cyrus and the Temple. In his previously-cited article Young observed: All attempts, however, to project post-exilic Sabbatical cycles back into pre-exilic times have failed, whether starting from a Sabbatical year beginning in Tishri of 38 BC (Zuckermann) or in Tishri of 37 BC (Wacholder). Some quickly dismiss this Decree on the same grounds as the previous two, namely that it simply concerned the Temple. This decree of Artaxerxes contained the commandment to go forth and build Jerusalem. appearing before Artaxerxes. Ezra 10:9, Neh 8:1, 3, 16). Site Design and Management by:Nehemiah Communications [http://nehemiahcommunications.com] & Enktesis [http://enktesis.com], Daniel-The Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries: Digging for Truth Episode 194, Social Justice-The Counterfeit Gospel (Part Four): Digging for Truth Episode 193, Social Justice-The Counterfeit Gospel (Part Three): Digging for Truth Episode 192, Social Justice-The Counterfeit Gospel (Part Two): Digging for Truth Episode 191, Social JusticeThe Counterfeit Gospel (Part One): Digging for Truth Episode 190. 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. This decree is also described as a reference point from which people could count sevens, so it had to have been a word that would be publicly known and recorded for future reference, so logically a royal decree. Join us in our mission! And The Command To "Restore And Build Jerusalem". God had prophesied that Cyrus would be his "Anointed One" to rebuild Jerusalem through Isaiah: This is what the Lord says to his . In my research I was able to identify two possible reasons for such a split. 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 hands to rebuild the jerusalem when did king artaxerxes gave decree to be opened until it had been universally the button above. Verses 24 through 26 inform us that it is God who says (Heb. One was that the initial seven weeks signified forty-nine years spent rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. 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. Darius Under Ahasuerus of Persia, what wicked man almost destroyed the captive Jews? 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. Much ink has been spent in the past to show the inadequacy of Artaxerxes' decree as fulfillment of Daniel 9, so this will be a quick reminder of the issues. 53BC King Cyrus issued a decree that the Jewish exiles were free to. Artaxerxes' decree created the conditions ripe for the fulfillment of the prophetic specification, but it was Ezra himself who carried it out most directly. Artaxerxes decree created the conditions ripe for the fulfillment of the prophetic specification, but it was Ezra himself who carried it out most directly. Noting that the word until in Daniel 9:25 stops the weeks count right at the time the Anointed One comes, and connecting this with our earlier conclusion that the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem was issued by Artaxerxes Longimanus in the winter of 458/457 BC shortly before Ezras departure, we should thus consider the possibility that sixty-nine sabbatical year cycles would completely pass between Tishri 1, 457 BC and the comingwhatever form that might takeof the Anointed One, the Messiah. After the 62 7s the Anointed One would . In Supplementary Evidence cited above (p. 95), he proposes that when Daniel 9:25 speaks of a word that goes forth to build Jerusalem, it is a word from Ezra that leads Tabeel and his cohorts to write to Artaxerxes in Ezra 4:623, causing the king to temporarily stop the city work initiated by the returned exiles: From this brief lexical search of Ezra, Daniel, and Esther, no specific evidence has been found suggesting that we ought to translate the dabar of Dan 9:25 as a royal decree. It could just as well be the word of a person other than the king. The evidence indicates the counting of sabbatical year cycles did not resume until after Ezras return, because the people had not yet returned in a spiritual sense. The difference between the two interpretations is that, according to the former, any septennial number will do; according to the latter, however, each seven-year period had its fixed place in a series, precise in beginning and end. 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). 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. Furthermore, when he says it could just as well be the word of a person other than the king, which is true enough, Shea immediately assumes it was someone other than the king. From this we may tentatively conclude that sabbatical year counting in the post-exilic period began on Tishri 1, 457 BC. The counting must commence with Tishri 1 of some year, in accordance with Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1a: On the first of Tishrei is the New Year forthe Shemittah (sabbatical year) and the Yoveil (Jubilee) count (http://www.emishnah.com/moed2/Rosh_HaShanah/1.pdf). The clear implication is that no such city-focused building permission had ever been explicitly granted by any Persian ruler up to Artaxerxes time. 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. 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). The murderer accused the king's eldest son Darius of the crime, with the result that Darius was slain by his younger brother Artaxerxes, who then mounted the throne. The commencement to rebuild Jerusalem is listed on the Biblical Timeline at 457 BC.The enemies of Judah did not want the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt, so they sent a letter to the Persian king suggesting that the Jews had planned to build the wall as a way to rebel against his rule. For this reason it appears Shea is mistaken here. To any ancient Jew, the weeks of Daniel 9:25, which were periods of seven years, would immediately bring to mind the sabbatical year cycles the LORD established in Exodus 23:1011 and Leviticus 25. 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.. Artaxerxes gave the degree to rebuild Jerusalem on March 5, 445 B.C., . The latter, in his 171618 work The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations, vol. , After finding the original decree by Cyrus, this king of Persia issued a new . Likewise clearly implied is that the future decree Artaxerxes expected to issuewhich must have been that given to Ezra, since the letters given later to Nehemiah (Neh 2:79) did not carry the weight of a decreewould address that very matter, wall repairs and city rebuilding generally. 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. He gave them permission - as a messenger . He led the Jews in rebuilding the walls around their capitol city. '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! This was Ezras calling. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove (emphasis added). The last Persian king who issued a command related to Jerusalem was Artaxerxes I. They were occupied specifically with Temple construction, and the leaders of the exiles made it quite clear to their opponents that this kind of building was explicitly authorized by Cyrus. Verse 1 tells us that this command to rebuild Jerusalem was given in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. This one includes inquiring about Judah and the city of Jerusalem, not just the Temple; freedom to use some of the provided funds without restrictions; and the appointment of officials tasked with enforcing obedience not merely to the Persian monarch, but to the commandments of God. Exodus 23:1011: You shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield, but on the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat. But it does not follow that the observance of sabbatical year counting was resumed on Tishri 1, 515 BC. 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). Cyrus' decree had permitted them to rebuild the temple, not the city. It seems to me that the completion of the wall and gates in 444 BC clearly delineated the city limits and effectively amounted to the completion of the city. It may bring to decree rebuild. Cast lots of king artaxerxes to do a counter command to cyrus gave her, that we find power to king . The ancients, however, took it for granted that the numbers in 9:2427 had to harmonize with their calendar of sabbatical cycles. 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king artaxerxes' decree to rebuild jerusalem