The Commencement of the 70 Weeks and of the 2300 Days
[A reader of the REVIEW asks: “Why do the 2300 days begin B. C. 457 and not B. C. 536 or 519? Did not the commandment go forth at these other dates as really as in 457?” The following extracts will serve as an answer to this inquirer, and may prove helpful to many others.—ED.] THE prophecy of the 70 weeks defined much more closely the period of the coming of the Messiah, of which the two visions of the four empires had already given an outline. . . . The date, whence those 490 years began, is described, not absolutely laid down. But it is described in words which leave no large or uncertain margin, “from the going forth of a commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince.” Above three thousand years had flowed by before; above two thousand years have flowed away since. The event, which was to change and regenerate millions upon millions, was fixed beforehand, within some surplus upon 490 years. The choice of the form of prophecy was itself prophetic. Greek and Latin philosophers too (probably from some real mysterious connection of the numbers with the development of man’s frame), have known of “weeks of years.” To the Hebrews, the seven times seven spoke of the recurring jubilee year, when all debts were released, slavery was ended, every one was restored to all the inheritance which had, during the half century, been forfeited; slight, joyous, ever-recurring picture of the restoration, for which all creation yearned and groaned. There could not be any ambiguity to the people’s mind. The period could not be “70 weeks of days,” that is, a year and about four months. The events are too full for it. Seven weeks (to go no farther) was no period in which to rebuild the city. It remained then to understand it, according to a key which God had given [Eze. 4: 5, 6], of a sevenfold period of years. The decree spoken of was doubtless meant of a decree of God, but to be made known through his instrument, man, who was to effectuate it. The commandment went forth from God, like that, at which, Gabriel had just said, using the same idiom, he himself came forth to Daniel. But as the one was fulfilled through Gabriel, so the other remained to be fulfilled through the Persian monarch, in whose hands God had left, for the time, the outward disposal of his people. In themselves, the will and decrees of God are in all eternity; but his immutable decree seems then to go forth, when he, in whose hands are all things, so disposes men’s wills that it comes into effect. But, since there was no decree at all in favor of the Jews before Cyrus, B. C. 536, it might be startling enough to one who does not yet believe in prophecy, that, even from Cyrus, the 490 years come within forty-six years of our Lord’s birth; and that, although there were four different edicts, from which the 490 years might begin, these, too, admit of no vague coincidence. They do but yield four definite dates. There is a distance of 90 years from the first of Cyrus to the twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus, but the dates within those 90 years, from which the prophecy could seem to be fulfilled, are only four. Those dates are (1) the first year of Cyrus, B. C. 536; (2) the third year of Darius Hystaspes, B. C. 518, when he removed the hindrances to the rebuilding of the temple, interposed by Pseudo-Smerdis; (3) the commission to Ezra in the seventh of Artaxerxes Longimanus, B. C. 457; (4) that of Nehemiah, in the twentieth year of the same Artaxerxes, B. C. 444. . . . But further, of these four, two only are principal and leading decrees; that of Cyrus, and that in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus. For that of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes is but an enlargement and renewal of his first decree; as the decree of Darius confirmed that of Cyrus. The decrees of Cyrus and Darius relate to the rebuilding of the temple; those of Artaxerxes to the condition of Judah and Jerusalem. But the decree of Darius was no characteristic decree. It did but support them in doing what they were already doing without it. The decree of Artaxerxes was of a different character. The temple was now built. So the decree contains no grant for its building, like those of Cyrus and Darius. Ezra thanks God that “he had put it into the king’s heart to beautify [not, to build] the house of the Lord at Jerusalem.” On the other hand, the special commission of Ezra was “to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, according to the law of thy God which is in thine hand,” and to “set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river.” These magistrates had power of life and death, banishment, confiscation, imprisonment, conferred upon them. It looks as if the people were in a state of disorganization. Ezra had full power to settle it according to the law of his God, having absolute authority in ecclesiastical and civil matters. The little colony which he took with him of 1,683 males (with women and children, some 8,400 souls) was itself a considerable addition to those who had before returned, and involved a rebuilding of Jerusalem. This rebuilding of the city and reorganization of the polity, begun by Ezra and carried on and perfected by Nehemiah, corresponds with the words of Daniel, “from the going forth of a commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.” The term also corresponds. “Unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks,” that is, the first 483 years of the period, the last seven being parted off. But 483 years from the beginning of B. C. 457 were completed at the beginning of 27 A. D., which (since the nativity was four years earlier than our era) would coincide with his baptism, being “about thirty years of age,” when the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him manifested him to be the Anointed with the Holy Ghost, the Christ.—“Lectures on Daniel the Prophet,” by E. B. Pusey, D. D., London, 1869, pages 165-172.