Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 27, 1908

Aids for Bible Readers

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

The Starting-Point of the Seventy Weeks

I ASSUME, then, that in the first year of Darius, or about 538 B. C., Daniel was told that seventy weeks were determined upon his people and his holy city for a particular purpose afterward explained in the remainder of the verse; and I make this further assumption, which will hardly be denied me, that the seventy weeks so determined are afterward split up into seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks, and one week; but I do so merely because, if this is the case, then it becomes no longer a matter of doubt as to when the seventy weeks began, or at least only so far as it depends upon the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem. That is to say, we are apparently intended to count them, not from the time when the angel was speaking, as we might have thought most natural, but from the time of which he subsequently spoke. The first subdivision of seven weeks manifestly began from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem—if, that is, the seven weeks and threescore and two weeks and one week are identical (as being equivalent to them, none can doubt they are) with the seventy weeks. It is entirely gratuitous to suppose that these seventy weeks are to be counted from the year of Jeremiah’s prophecy; and though we might at first suppose the present moment was the one referred to, yet when a definite terminus a quo is afterward given for an equivalent period to commence from, it is at least reasonable to suppose that that is the terminus meant in both cases. But now arises a much greater difficulty. What was the commandment which went forth to restore and to build Jerusalem? and when did it go forth? We must not forget that the angel was speaking before the issue of the edict of Cyrus. If, therefore, the narrative is authentic, everything was as yet unknown and unaccomplished. Daniel himself was perplexed and anxious as to the termination of that captivity, which he believed was limited to seventy years. He thought the end of those years could not be far off. He is told that there is still a future in store for his people and city of seventy weeks of years—supposing, that is, that by the weeks were meant years. He is not told anything as to the termination of the captivity, which was his chief subject of anxiety. But we know that he lived to see the cause of that anxiety removed. Its removal came in the natural course of events. And this being so, the spirit of prophecy did not concern itself with that immediate source of anxiety, but reached on into the far-distant future, and spoke of the ultimate destiny of the people and city, which was, after all, at the bottom of the prophet’s thoughts, aspirations, and anxieties, however legitimately they were interested likewise in the immediate fortunes of his nation.

And here we may pause for a moment to notice a mark of reality in the narrative on the supposition of its genuineness and authenticity. The last date given in Daniel is the third year of Cyrus. We know that he was alive then: he could not have lived long afterward. As, therefore, he witnessed the promulgation of the edict of Cyrus, he witnessed at all events an issue and answer to his prayer which received no elucidation from the communication of the angel, however much it may have served to elucidate the prophecy of Jeremiah, and yet the record of that communication remained. It was far too precious to be cancelled. Events had made it even more obscure; but it was the message of an angel, and therefore of inestimable value. The present distress and problem of the national fortunes had been relieved and solved by the development of circumstances; but a pledge of vast magnitude and importance had been given to the future, which embraced five centuries to come. This is at all events consistent with the ordinary dealings of Providence, which leaves our perplexities to be solved by the process of events, however much it may be fraught with principles of far wider import concerning even the distant future. What was uppermost in Daniel’s mind was virtually passed over by the angel, but a communication was made to him which involved not only the solution of the immediate present, but bore the promise also of centuries to come. . . .

The angel, however, spoke of a decree to restore and to build Jerusalem. But it is to be observed that the edict of Cyrus, gladly as Daniel must have hailed it, in no degree fulfilled the conditions of this decree as here given. The terms of that edict, as it is preserved to us in Chronicles and Ezra, have reference only to the house of God at Jerusalem. It was in no sense a decree to restore and to build Jerusalem. And the same likewise applies to the decree of Darius, which confirmed in similar terms the suspended decree of Cyrus. The only decree which was capable of any wider application than the temple merely, and the text of which is preserved to us in the historic records of Scripture, is the edict which was given to Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, or B. C. 457. This decree in its express terms provided not only for the embellishment of the temple, which had been completed since the sixth year of Darius, but also for the political organization and government of the nation. It was by far the most important act of recognition performed by any foreign monarch in relation to the Jews, and the most complete and comprehensive in its nature of which we have any record in Scripture; and to it are to be referred not only all the reconstructive operations of Ezra, but those also of Nehemiah, who was furnished with subsequent authority by the same king in the spirit of his former decree. As far, therefore, as the sacred history of the Jews enables us to determine when the commandment went forth to restore and to build Jerusalem, there seems little doubt that we must refer it to the decree of the seventh year of Artaxerxes, of which the original Aramaic text is preserved to us in the book of Ezra. It is unquestionably a wider and fuller decree than that either of Darius or of Cyrus, important as those decrees, and more especially the former of them, undoubtedly were. . . .

If, therefore, the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem may fairly be referred to the decree of Artaxerxes, then it is plain that that decree becomes the starting-point of the seventy weeks, or four hundred ninety years.—“Old Testament Prophecy,” by Stanley Leathes, D. D., London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1880, pages 216-220.