Because Daniel 9:25 informs us that God did not merely intend to rebuild the city but also to restore it, we must include the arrival of Ezra in Jerusalem and the initiation of his religious reforms as an integral part of the going forth of Cyrus decree. 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. The gracious commission of Artaxerxes to Ezra 27. 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). Join us in our mission! 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. In Israel, the sowing of the winter crops (barley and wheat) takes place in approximately November and reaping takes place in the spring. 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. Nothing is said about rebuilding the city of Jerusalem, only the Temple. 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. 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. The passage in Isaiah 1:26 is a prophecy of what Ezra would do. 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. 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? Together they represent a continuous period of sixty-nine weeks, spanning 483 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. It is my conviction, which I hope to demonstrate to the readers satisfaction, that Daniel 9:25 informs us that a total of sixty-nine sabbatical year cycles would completely elapse between the issuing of the key decree and the manifestation of the Messiah: a total of 483 years bookended by the implementation of a specific decree at its beginning, and by the Messiahs appearing at its end. They were waiting to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. We see this event recorded in Matthew 21:1-11. 202203 of the above work he states: The ancient Jewish exegesis of Dan. However, his party first assembled themselves at the Ahava canal and did not actually start moving for eleven days, therefore the number of travelling days were 107 days. 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. Ezra goes up to Jerusalem 11. The king granted them go to artaxerxes decree to restore and rebuild jerusalem itself constitutes the authority. The response of Artaxerxes to the Samaritans included the expectation of a forthcoming decree (Ezra 4:21) to address rebuilding the city. Although for reasons discussed below it is quite problematic as a source of reliable history, an observation it makes is nevertheless pertinent to what we are discussing. 13 I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee. Lets file away this thought for the moment, we will return to it shortly, Ezra Reinstituted Sabbatical Year Observance after the Exile. 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. Artaxerxes was the second son of Xerxes, who was murdered in the summer of 465 by his all-powerful vizir Artaban. Sets of seven is readily seen as a synonym for sabbatical year cycles. Verses 24 through 26 inform us that it is God who says (Heb. Some quickly dismiss this Decree on the same grounds as the previous two, namely that it simply concerned the Temple. Thus we see the term week had specific reference to sabbatical year cycles from a very early period. Artaxerxes, but this would be just a supposition. 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 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. Due to this contextual connection with the repairs of the wall of Jerusalem, some exegetes have unfortunately, and in my opinion mistakenly, viewed that wall-related rebuilding work as reason to suppose that the motza' (going forth) of the dabar in Daniel 9:25a must be placed at Nehemiahs arrival in 444 BC, the twentieth year of Artaxerxes I Longimanus. 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. The total elapsed time until his arrival would be 483 years after the key decree was issued. King Cyrus and the Temple. (Ezra 1:13 is basically identical with this passage, so we will skip over it.). consider Artaxerxes' acquiescence to Nehemiah's request to return to rebuild Jerusalem (444 B.C., Neh. 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). It amounted to God dropping us a hint as to how to interpret the prophecy. 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. 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. This is an old section of the wall of. Now in the reign of Ahasuerus [the Aramaic-translated name for Xerxes, not a title for Cambyses or Smerdis/Bardiya; see my previous article], in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. 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. Given how clear Cyrus permission had been to rebuild the Temple, this complaint must have focused on something other than Temple construction. 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. 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). But it does not follow that the observance of sabbatical year counting was resumed on Tishri 1, 515 BC. But this part of the total project was not implemented until the gutsy, shrewd administrator Nehemiah arrived years later, spurring the apathetic Jews into actually doing what they had been allowed to do since the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus. Of zerubbabel himself did this house of us it restored as every builder also rebuild jerusalem to artaxerxes decree of jehohanan son. Now I, King Artaxerxes, decree that all the treasurers of Trans-Euphrates are to provide with diligence whatever Ezra the priest, the teacher of the Law of the God of heaven, may ask of you . Note well that there is no reference to any decree, any edict, any promulgated word from the king in this passage. 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! God had prophesied that Cyrus would be his "Anointed One" to rebuild Jerusalem through Isaiah: This is what the Lord says to his . In Notions of Exile, Subjugation and Return in Rabbinic Literature, in James M. Scott, ed., Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 265296 (online at https://www.academia.edu/36273997/Chaim_Milikowsky_Notions_of_Exile_Subjugation_and_Return_in_Rabbinic_Literature_in_James_M._Scott_ed._Exile_Old_Testament_Jewish_and_Christian_Conceptions_Leiden_Brill_1997_265-296), the above translation is quoted with this comment: The main thrust of the passage is to compare the second entry into the Land, in the time of Ezra, to the first entry into the Land, in the time of Joshua. 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. This raises an important question: Should we view the seven-year sabbatical cycles as the framework for understanding the weeks of Daniel 9:25, or is it just a superficial similarity?

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