The decree comes from the seventh year of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:8). How can we speak of the restoration of Jerusalem without taking account of its spiritual aspects? 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? Artaxerxes assistance to Nehemiah in his twentieth regnal year is limited to giving him letters (Heb. 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 principle of release at the beginning of year seven, not at its end, is also given by several Scriptures: Exodus 21:2: If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment., Deuteronomy 15:9, 12, 18: Beware that there is no base thought in your heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of remission, is near. The Jews were in exile. Nevertheless, he is able to corroborate his view that shavua signified the sabbatical cycle using certain historical documents, thus placing the equating of shavua with sabbatical year cycles on firmer ground. The answer from the above examination of the letter of the western governors is obvious. 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. to interpret them. Therefore, we are justified in saying that the decree permitting the rebuilding of the streets and walls of Jerusalem was issued in 457 BC. Thus it refers to city infrastructure work which benefited the whole populace. The time span is from the decree to REBUILD Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One, and will be 483 years. Verse 1 tells us that this command to rebuild Jerusalem was given in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. The Gesenius lexicon reproduced on the BlueLetterBible website (http://www.blbclassic.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1129&t=NASB) makes this fundamental meaning very clear: to build, to erect, as a house, a temple, a city, walls, defenses. In Daniel 9:25, the second half of the verse shows the term has particular reference to municipal projects. 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. From this point forward, there would be another 434 years as Israel waited for the coming of the Messiah. 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.!! It must be said that Wacholder is no conservative believer in the inerrancy of Scripture. 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. 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. In his 7th year this monarch issued a decree to Ezra the priest, a scribe of the Law of the God of heaven. An attempt to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem was made after Artaxerxes I of Persia became king (465-464 to 424-23 BC). 53BC King Cyrus issued a decree that the Jewish exiles were free 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. 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. Who gave the order or command in a more direct and specific sense? 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. TWO DECREES OF ARTAXERXES We have to choose between the two decrees of Artaxerxes. 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. (Ezra 1:13 is basically identical with this passage, so we will skip over it.). However, there is good reason for expressing two stages of time. This is hard to believe. 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). 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. Darius Under Ahasuerus of Persia, what wicked man almost destroyed the captive Jews? 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. In 460 BC, Inaros II revolted against the Persians with the help of his Athenian allies, and defeated the Persian army commanded by satrap Akheimenes. This decree of Artaxerxes contained the commandment to go forth and build Jerusalem. What year that shall come like all men of a mistake on the guilt for them to have given during this link to see to artaxerxes. We know from history that the command to "restore and rebuild Jerusalem" was given by King Artaxerxes of Persia c. 444 B.C. 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. We will now move on to an examination of how the sabbatical year cycles tie in with how the Seventy Weeks prophecy of Daniel 9 should be interpreted. Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.. The result was the coming of Nebuchadnezzar and the exile of the people from the Land: 2 Chronicles 36:1923: Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. 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). 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. 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. He was governor of Persian Judea under Artaxerxes I of Persia (465-424 BC). Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon Ezra 7:1,8,11-26 Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, restore and to build Jerusalem. 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. In Israel, the sowing of the winter crops (barley and wheat) takes place in approximately November and reaping takes place in the spring. 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. Since the count of years for sabbatical year observance was always incremented at the fall month of Tishri (September/October), and since Ezra arrived in Jerusalem two months prior to Tishri 1, 457 BC, that date was the earliest possible point for the resumption of sabbatical year cycle counting. 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. 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. , 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. 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. It amounted to God dropping us a hint as to how to interpret the prophecy. With that done, the 457 BC date will be regarded as established. William Shea, who has offered many valuable insights on the book of Daniel, nevertheless drew a conclusion bearing on the above discussion that I must disagree with. 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. For good measure, the New Living Translation provides a fresh perspective on Daniel 9:25 that helps us see the reasonableness of the idea that the seven and sixty-two weeks could have signified sabbatical year cycles. It may bring to decree rebuild. 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). 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. 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. 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). "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 . 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. 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. 'iggereth) allowing him to travel to Judea unhindered as he crossed borders, and to obtain timber for use in construction. For us the crucial aspect of this comparison is the reference to the renewed obligation to separate tithes and observe the sabbatical and jubilee years at the time of the second entry in the Land (emphasis added). THE TIME OF CHRIST. Artaxerxes gave the degree to rebuild Jerusalem on March 5, 445 B.C., . The issuing of the decree and the start of the sevens counting are separate matters, though closely related. 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. 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. 25:2), the equivalent of the year of shemittah or release (Deut. 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. 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. How to Sell Decree To Rebuild Jerusalem Artaxerxes to a Skeptic. 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 ( ). Gods Principle of Sabbatical Year Observance. 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. 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. 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. In the NASB it is rendered, it [Jerusalem] will be built again, with plaza (Heb. 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