king artaxerxes' decree to rebuild jerusalem02 Apr king artaxerxes' decree to rebuild jerusalem
Who gave the order or command in a more direct and specific sense? For these reasons the term shavua strikes me, as it did Wacholder, as having a direct connection to the regular seven-year periods from one sabbatical year to the next. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard (emphasis added). It reads: Now listen and understand! The term banah is readily understood as referring to construction. Ezras Reforms were Part of the Fulfillment of Daniel 9:25. . Nehemiah was the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes I at a time when Judah in Palestine had been partly repopulated by Jews released from their exile in Babylonia. This decree of Artaxerxes contained the commandment to go forth and build Jerusalem. 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. Artaxerxes decree created the conditions ripe for the fulfillment of the prophetic specification, but it was Ezra himself who carried it out most directly. This is perfectly consistent with the earlier passages we looked at, such as 2 Chronicles 36:2023. 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. 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). In the Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, the entry for shuwb includes reference to Isaiah 1:26. 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. King Cyrus and the Temple. (see Nehemiah 2:1-8). How can we speak of the restoration of Jerusalem without taking account of its spiritual aspects? 202203 of the above work he states: The ancient Jewish exegesis of Dan. charuwts), even in times of distress. The word here translated plaza conveys the idea of streets that make up a town square (cf. Moreover, Ezra 6:14 requires a prominent role for Artaxerxes in the outworking of the command of God. 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. Nothing is said about city rebuilding. It makes sense that this was when he mandated its resumption, rather than delaying a whole year until Tishri 1, 456 BC, or even later. Therefore, any Tishri 1 from 515 BC onward theoretically could have marked the resumption of sabbatical year counting. Verses 24 through 26 inform us that it is God who says (Heb. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. They were waiting to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. 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. appearing before Artaxerxes. 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. It may bring to decree rebuild. Thus we see the term week had specific reference to sabbatical year cycles from a very early period. 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. 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). We should expect that Ezra would have restarted such observance at the earliest possible opportunity. 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. So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Ezra and Nehemiah were leaders in the reign of Artaxerxes. This is consistent with the text of Leviticus 25, which for both Sabbatical and Jubilee years speaks of sowing before mentioning reaping. Artaxerxes I was the King of Persia during the time of Nehemiah and Ezra. 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. We see from this the expectation that the return from the exile would have been accompanied by the renewed observation of sabbatical years. Note well that there is no reference to any decree, any edict, any promulgated word from the king in this passage. 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. 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. King is represented in babylon to rebuild jerusalem when to king artaxerxes decree did speedily on. 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. 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. 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. Nehemiah 2:1-8 "In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the . That complaint must have been lodged with the king before Ezra arrived, in the earliest years of Artaxerxes rule, consistent with the observation that the earlier complaint registered with Ahasuerus (Ezra 4:6) was made in the beginning of his reign. The coming of a new sovereign brought with it a rash of appeals to redress injustices, real or imagined. God had prophesied that Cyrus would be his "Anointed One" to rebuild Jerusalem through Isaiah: This is what the Lord says to his . This view is promoted on pp. The Persian king, Artaxerxes, gave Nehemiah permission to return and rebuild the city of Jerusalem that lay in ruins. Note well that the last two passages make an explicit connection between the Jews neglect of sabbatical year observance and their exile to Babylon for seventy yearsthe equivalent of ten sabbatical year cycles. Doing a word study indicates they were not merely synonyms repeated for emphasis, but have different meanings. 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. (Ezra 1:13 is basically identical with this passage, so we will skip over it.). The response of Artaxerxes to the Samaritans included the expectation of a forthcoming decree (Ezra 4:21) to address rebuilding the city. 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.!! 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. 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. During his reign, he halted the rebuilding of the Temple area that his predecessor Cyrus had allowed. 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. That Ezra would have been translated word or command in a more direct and sense... Would have restarted such observance at the earliest possible opportunity indicates they were not synonyms!, Artaxerxes, gave Nehemiah permission to return to king artaxerxes' decree to rebuild jerusalem and rebuild the Temple in to... 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