The Work of Ezra, and the Date of the Seventy Weeks.
BEFORE his coming to Jerusalem with his commission, the Scriptures were in a manner lost, the people in profound ignorance of the law, and the worship of God neglected, and everything else, both in church and State, in great disorder and confusion. But, on his coming, he restored the Scriptures, instructed the people in the law, brought the worship of God into due order, and proceeded, as long as his commission lasted, to work a full reformation in all things else. And after his commission was at an end, he gave not over his endeavors herein, but, as a priest, as a skillful scribe in the law of God, and as president of the Sanhedrim, he still carried on the same work; and having a successor equally zealous in the same design, he did as much in it under his authority as formerly he did by his own; so that he hath been esteemed as another Moses, and deservedly reckoned as the second founder of the Jewish church and State. And, therefore, the beginning of this work is a noble epocha from whence to begin the calculation of these weeks, and doth most agreeably accord with the intent and purpose of this prophecy, in which they are predicted; for the whole intent and purpose of it is, to foreshow and set forth the age of the restored church of the Jews, how long it was to continue and when to cease, and be abolished; and from whence is it more proper to reckon this, than from the time when the thorough restoration of it began? and this was then only begun, when Ezra, by virtue of the commission granted to him by Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, in the seventh year of his reign, did set about this work; and, therefore, from hence the computation of these weeks according to the prophecy that predicts them, must begin.—Prideaux's Connection.