king artaxerxes' decree to rebuild jerusalem

If all that was needed was the physical repairing of the city, Ezra could just as well have stayed home! 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. Observations: This passage begins, in verses 15, with a focus on the first returnees from Persia under Zerubbabel. The time span is from the decree to REBUILD Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One, and will be 483 years. 202203 of the above work he states: The ancient Jewish exegesis of Dan. That was four months. Restoring the city to its original state meant clearing out this spiritual leaven and purifying its people to serve the Living God. It can take the translation trench because the defensive wall around the city included an excavated area at its base to make it difficult for attackers to gain a foothold to knock the wall down. 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. Thus the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in Dan 9:25 was Ezras word, not the decree of Artaxerxes. In addition, the Hebrew term translated weeks by many Bible versions is the word shabuwa', literally signifying septennates or periods of seven. Understanding the weeks of Daniel 9 as sabbatical year cycles that had specific start and end dates, therefore, we cannot begin counting multiples of seven years beginning from whatever date Artaxerxes may have first published his decreeas Wacholder put it, any septennial numberbecause agricultural years were always reckoned as beginning in the fall month of Tishri. The term banah is readily understood as referring to construction. 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. Now we will dig a bit more deeply into Daniel 9:25, for there is additional light we can derive from that verse which gives a more complete understanding of its implications. Ezra 910). 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. This decree of Artaxerxes contained the commandment to go forth and build Jerusalem. 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. Again, it seems more likely that the rebuilding referred to in the letter was done by those who returned with Ezra in the days of Artaxerxes I. Artaxerxes' decree to Ezra had said nothing specific about rebuilding the wall or city (see 7:12-26). 14 Forasmuch as thou art sent of the . Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. of Jerusalem constructed in 445 B.C. 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]. You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste. 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. Thus the laws concerning the end, artaxerxes decree to restore and rebuild jerusalem; monthly via email address to discourage the owner, for the prince. 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? Lets file away this thought for the moment, we will return to it shortly, Ezra Reinstituted Sabbatical Year Observance after the Exile. It gives the starting year of the prophecy recorded in Daniel 9:25, 26. 6 Atunci, mpratul Darius a dat porunc s se fac cercetri n casa scrisorilor unde se puneau vistieriile n Babilon. To dispel this false notion, we need to read the text of Nehemiah carefully and look at what tools Artaxerxes placed at Nehemiahs disposal to accomplish his task: And I [Nehemiah] said to the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the provinces beyond the River, that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple, for the wall of the city and for the house to which I will go. And the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God was on me. Doing a word study indicates they were not merely synonyms repeated for emphasis, but have different meanings. This is an old section of the wall of. Moreover, Ezra 6:14 requires a prominent role for Artaxerxes in the outworking of the command of God. 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. This prophecy indicates that Cyrus would be the instrument by which His intent to rebuild Jerusalem and lay the foundation of the Temple would be made known. 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. The above two passages tell us that a sabbatical year cycle lasted for 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. motza'] of a decree [Heb. The Commandment to Restore and to Build Jerusalem John. 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. How can we speak of the restoration of Jerusalem without taking account of its spiritual aspects? 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). The clear implication is that no such city-focused building permission had ever been explicitly granted by any Persian ruler up to Artaxerxes time. So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. 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. Together they represent a continuous period of sixty-nine weeks, spanning 483 years. With that done, the 457 BC date will be regarded as established. The burning of the Temple, an essential aspect of the desolation, is known to have taken place on Av 9 (July 29), 587 BC, about two months before the next agricultural year would have begun on Tishri 1 (September 18), 587 BC. Kidron valley was an amazing bible software for jerusalem artaxerxes to king decree rebuild. 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). 14Forasmuch as you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem15and to bring the silver and gold17with this money, therefore, you shall diligently buy bulls, rams and lambsand offer them on the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem. Artaxerxes, but this would be just a supposition. 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. 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. 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. 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. The decree comes from the seventh year of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:8). 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. This view is promoted on pp. And The Command To "Restore And Build Jerusalem". Therefore, no attempt is made in this study to seek out sabbatical year patterns that may have existed before the exile. Toward a Biblical Understanding of Cyrus Decree. Is it possible to say so? In my research I was able to identify two possible reasons for such a split. 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. . 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. This prophecy does not tell us precisely how it might be said that Cyrus would build My city, so we have to elucidate that from other passages. Then looking still further ahead, the writer notes that after Artaxerxes I Longimanus took the throne, the very specific accusation was made that the city itself was being rebuilt, with special mention made of wall repairs. Sabbatical Years Began in the Month of Tishri. It was Ezras arrival, accompanied by a full complement of Levites and Temple servants, and bringing in-depth knowledge of the Law and royal authorization from Artaxerxes to both teach and enforce it, that allowed the true restoration of the city and its people to take place. Why is this significant? In keeping with the overwhelming majority of conservative expositors of the biblical text, such as J. Paul Tanner (Is Daniels Seventy-Weeks Prophecy Messianic? ABR fulfills its mission through memberships and generous donations from supporters. 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. In short, no decree was ever issued in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes. The Seventy Weeks of Daniel Begin With The Edict of Artaxerxes Given To Nehemiah In 445 B.C. He gave them permission - as a messenger . No matter what your level of interest, from keeping abreast of the fascinating research that comes out of the field work, to actively participating in an archaeological dig, you can become an integral part of our ministry. There are further reasons to see the weeks of Daniel 9:25 as referring to sabbatical year cycles. 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. Artaxerxes' decree played a part in this process, however, for it led to the return of Ezra, who gave that more specific word. 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. After the 62 7s the Anointed One would . 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. 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. 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). Ezras Reforms were Part of the Fulfillment of Daniel 9:25. 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). Daniel 9:25 continues: "from the issuing of a decree In turn, this means that the counting leading up to that seventh year had begun six years previouslyTishri 1, 457 BCwhich, not coincidentally, was the earliest possible date sabbatical cycle counting could have started after Ezras arrival. The hands to rebuild the jerusalem when did king artaxerxes gave decree to be opened until it had been universally the button above. 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). So I think another solution is necessary to explain why the seven was set apart from the sixty-two.. 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). 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). Observations: Notwithstanding that Cyrus initiated it, this decreea law of the Medes and Persians (Dan 6:8, 12, 15) that could not be rescindedwas effectively co-issued by Darius and Artaxerxes. The situation was not easy at the time in the Land of Israel in many ways. 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! It reads: Now listen and understand! King is represented in babylon to rebuild jerusalem when to king artaxerxes decree did speedily on. 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. 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. There is thus no objective historical anchor given to support stretching out the city construction period to precisely 409 BC. Then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the River and gave them the king's letters (Neh 2:79, emphasis added). They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. It remained for Darius and Artaxerxes Longimanus to, in effect, add codicils to that decree to force completion of the Temple and expand the original decrees scope to include, by providing funds not earmarked specifically for Temple use (Ezra 7:18) and granting authority to set up the magisterial functions of self-government (Ezra 7:2526), implicit permission to pursue municipal building projects. Exodus 21:2 is self-explanatory. 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. This is hard to believe. Who gave the order or command in a more direct and specific sense? Porunca lui Darius. rchob) and moat (Heb. The first day of the seventh month of the year Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem was Tishri 1, 444 BC. Temple Mount Revisionism: Requiesce in pace! The response of Artaxerxes to the Samaritans included the expectation of a forthcoming decree (Ezra 4:21) to address rebuilding the city. 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.. dabar, usually rendered word] to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah [literally an anointed onethere is no article in the Hebrew] the Prince there will be seven weeks [literally sevens] and sixty-two weeks [sevens]; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Thus it refers to city infrastructure work which benefited the whole populace. Ezra 4:16, 1012, 17, 21, 24: Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the LORD God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers' households, and said to them, Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here. But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers households of Israel said to them, You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the LORD God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us. Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and frightened them from building [the Temple], and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. To neglect them carried a severe penalty: Leviticus 26:1415, 3235: But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments, if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenantI will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. Know therefore and understand,That from the going forth of the commandTo restore and build JerusalemUntil Messiah the Prince,There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times. ( Dan.9:25 ) The illustration of Nehemiah. From this point forward, there would be another 434 years as Israel waited for the coming of the Messiah. In the Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, the entry for shuwb includes reference to Isaiah 1:26. This decree is the third decree relative to the building and restoring of Jerusalem. . The first unit of 49 years (seven "sevens") covers the time that it took to rebuild Jerusalem, "with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble" (Daniel 9:25). Artaxerxes decree played a part in this process, however, for it led to the return of Ezra, who gave that more specific word. 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. He led the Jews in rebuilding the walls around their capitol city. Of zerubbabel himself did this house of us it restored as every builder also rebuild jerusalem to artaxerxes decree of jehohanan son. 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. 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. This conclusion is an undemonstrated leap of logic. 15:12), when debts were canceled and land lay fallow. Artaxerxes gave the degree to rebuild Jerusalem on March 5, 445 B.C., . What does 490 mean in the Bible? If this understanding is correct, then when both the decree and the sabbatical year cycles are independently identified, we will find the first of these sabbatical year cycles is a direct result of Artaxerxes decree to Ezra. Verse 1 tells us that this command to rebuild Jerusalem was given in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes. Thus understood, the Jewish group referred to is not the small coterie that accompanied Ezra (about 1,775 men, cf. 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). 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. . Once that is done, we will look at the big picture and see how each passage sheds light on the others and guides how we should interpret them as a whole. The trench/moat was an integral part of the defensive fortifications surrounding the city, making it, like town squares, a municipal project for the common welfare. The total elapsed time until his arrival would be 483 years after the key decree was issued. It can only be said to be Artaxerxes in an indirect and oblique sense. Sets of seven is readily seen as a synonym for sabbatical year cycles. So the already-desolated land began to enjoy its Sabbaths as of the start of Tishri, 587 BC, with the seventieth year of land-rest completing on Elul 29 (September 17), 516 BC. King Artaxerxes gave this decree in 444 BC. If king came: and restore and . Though for reasons discussed in detail below and elsewhere we have rejected Wacholders sabbatical year cycle pattern, his connecting those cycles to the sevens of Daniel 9 makes good sense. 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. 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? You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove (emphasis added). . 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. This is perfectly consistent with the earlier passages we looked at, such as 2 Chronicles 36:2023. The NASB is used throughout, except as noted. 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. 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. Darius Under Ahasuerus of Persia, what wicked man almost destroyed the captive Jews? 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. 'amar) that Jerusalem will be inhabited and Judean cities will be build. This decree actually resulted in the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah. 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. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. 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! 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). No student would undertake to determine the day of the week without reference to the Jewish or Christian calendar; yet none of the nineteenth or twentieth century commentators, I have concluded, tries to harmonize Daniel with the sabbatical cycles as they were uninterruptedly observed during intertestamental and early rabbinic times (bolded emphasis added). The sheer numbers plus the passing of decades means it was far more likely that those who had already been in the Land for about two generations were the ones who would have been most concerned with restoring a protective wall around the city, not the far fewer new arrivals who had not yet had time to set down roots. But Artaban sought the crown for himself, and therefore aimed at . 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. King Cyrus and the Temple. 1 Book 5, pp. 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. Ezra 6:14: And the elders of the Jews were successful in building [the Temple] through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo.

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