We proceed to inquire,
1. Is the seventh of Artaxerxes, when Ezra received his decree concerning Jerusalem, [Ez. vii,] rightly placed in the year B. C. 457? The following extract will aid us on this point:
“Ptolemy mentions an eclipse of the moon in the seventh of Cambyses, which, according to modern astronomical calculation, took place in the night following the 16th of July, in the year of the Julian period 4191, at the beginning of the second year of the sixty-fourth Olympiad. As the vulgar era is dated from January 1st 4714 of the Julian period, it follows that this eclipse was B. C. 523. The date of this eclipse, decided by the unerring record of astronomy is undisputed. Consequently as Petavius observes, it is ‘the cardinal point and foundation, on which depend the arrangement of preceding and succeeding times and the concord of sacred and profane history.’ (De Doct. Temp. Lib. x, c. 14.)”
This was in the seventh of Cambyses. Cambyses reigned seven years and five months; or, if we include the seven months of the usurper Smerdis who followed him, according to the canon of Ptolemy, eight years. He therefore reigned one year after this eclipse. He was followed by Darius, who reigned thirty-six years; and he in turn by Xerxes who reigned twenty-one years; and this brings us to the first of Artaxerxes, B. C. 464. These are undisputed records of history, from an undisputed starting point, based on the calculations of astronomy. There can therefore be no dispute in regard to it. The first, then, of Artaxerxes being 464, his seventh would be B. C. 457. Here the canon of Ptolemy places it, which is a canon of undoubted authority, the “accuracy of which is demonstrated by the concurrent agreement of more than twenty eclipses.” And before it can be shown to be wrong, the calculation of these eclipses (and they have been repeatedly calculated) must be shown to be incorrect, which is an impossibility.
2. We come therefore to the second inquiry. Did the commission granted to Ezra, answer to the prophecy to restore and to build Jerusalem? What is the intent of that phrase? We answer, to restore the Jewish state, civil and ecclesiastical, and to re-settle it according to the law of Moses. A thing to be restored, must be brought back to its original state. The condition then of the Jewish state and church previous to the captivity, we may take as a standard for its restoration after that event. But how was it with them previous to the time of Ezra? The Scriptures were in a manner lost, the people in a profound ignorance of the law, the worship of God neglected, and everything in great disorder and confusion. This we learn from the reformation which Ezra set about on his arrival at Jerusalem.
We read in Ez. vii, 11, “Now this is the copy of the letter that king Artaxerxes gave unto Ezra the priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord and of his statutes to Israel.” “The letter then follows, written not in Hebrew, but in Chaldaic, or Eastern Aramic, the language then used at Babylon. At the 27th verse the narrative proceeds in Hebrew. We are thus furnished with the original document, by virtue of which Ezra was authorized to ‘restore and to build Jerusalem.’”
The decree commences, “Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect peace and at such a time, I make a decree,” &c.; and after granting certain favors to the house of God at Jerusalem, it closes in the following words: “And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God, and teach ye them that know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.”
What could be required more ample than this commission to establish the government, enforce the observance of the law of God, and punish those who transgressed? At any rate no other instance of a decree so comprehensive as this can be found since the captivity.
“Sir Isaac Newton justly observes that the dispersed Jews became a people and a city, when they returned into a body politic; and that was in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when Ezra by the king’s commission, elected magistrates all over the land, to govern the people according to the law of God and of the king: under Ezra they first became a polity or city by a government of their own.”
However much stress may be laid upon the expression to build the city, nothing can be urged from it as an objection against the decree in question; for that Ezra understood himself fully empowered to proceed with the building of the city and the wall is evident from his prayer, as recorded in chap. ix, 9; and that he understood further that the conditional prophecies concerning his people were then fulfilled in that restoration is evident from the closing words of that prayer, when he says, “Should we again break thy commandments and join in affinity with the people of these abominations, wouldst not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping.”
But further, seven weeks (49 years) are allotted to the building of the street and wall in troublous times. The reckoning of the time can of course only commence with the commencement of the work; and the work did not commence till the Autumn of that year in which Ezra went up; for it was not until the fifth month that he reached Jerusalem. Ez. vii, 8. And in just forty-nine years from this time the work was completed in the last act of reformation by Nehemiah, recorded in the last chapter of his book.
Says Prideaux under the year B. C. 409, “In the fifteenth year of Darius Nothus ended the first seven weeks of the seventy weeks of Daniel’s prophecy. For then the restoration of the church and state of the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea was fully finished, in that last act of reformation, which is recorded in the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah, from the twenty-third verse to the end of the chapter, just forty-nine years after it had been first begun by Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus.”
It is said that the surest way to root out error, is to plant in the truth; and as we have found a decree which in its extent, fully includes the work contemplated in the prophecy, and makes the most perfect harmony in the commencement, intermediate dates and termination of the seventy weeks which were to be dated from it, it would hardly seem necessary to dwell further on this point. But as the commission of Nehemiah in the twentieth of Artaxerxes, thirteen years after the decree to Ezra, has been by some zealously and confidently claimed as the starting point of the seventy weeks and 2300 days, it demands a passing notice. Far be it from us to say anything derogatory of Nehemiah or of his work. He was a holy man, and his work an important one; but the utter impropriety of making it the data for the commencement of the prophetic periods will be seen when we consider that it was but a continuation of the work with which Ezra had been commissioned, and which he had commenced thirteen years before. And that it was but a continuation of that work is evident from the following facts:
1. The occasion of Nehemiah’s petition to the king for permission to go up to Jerusalem was the report which certain ones, returning, had brought from thence, that those in the province were in great affliction and reproach, that the wall of Jerusalem also was broken down, and the gates thereof burned with fire. Neh. i. Whose work were these walls and gates that were broken down and burned with fire? Evidently the work of Ezra and his associates; for it cannot for a moment be supposed that the utter destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, 144 years previous to that time, would have been reported to Nehemiah as a matter of news, or that he would have considered it, as he evidently did, a fresh misfortune calling for a fresh expression of his grief. A decree therefore authorizing the building of these, had gone forth previous to the grant to Nehemiah.
2. Those who contend for this decree, lay much stress on the phrase, “to build,” as though the literal building of the city was all that was involved in the prophecy, and this Nehemiah got express permission to perform. But we have already seen that walls and gates were built and broken down previous to his going up. We have also seen that if we are confined to the literal building of the city, the decree of Cyrus has the preference to all others; and this is a sufficient refutation of the idea. But further, we find in Nehemiah, chap. vi, 15, that the work of building which he went to perform was all accomplished in fifty-two days; whereas for the building of the city in the sense of the prophecy there are allowed seven weeks or forty-nine years.
3. There is not a specification in the grant to Nehemiah which is not included in the decree to Ezra; while the latter is much more full. It is therefore utterly inadmissible to pass over the greater event, and fix upon a subsequent one of less importance, to mark the commencement of an important era in prophecy.
4. Reckoning from the commission to Nehemiah, B. C. 444, the dates throughout are entirely disarranged; for from that point the troublous times which were to attend the building of the street and wall did not last seven weeks or forty-nine years. Reckoning from that date the 67 weeks or 483 years which were to extend to the Messiah the Prince, bring us to A. D. 39-40; but Jesus was baptized of John in Jordan and the voice of his Father heard from heaven declaring him his Son, in A. D. 27, thirteen years before. According to this calculation, the midst of the week which is marked by the crucifixion is placed in A. D. 44; but the crucifixion took place in A. D. 31, thirteen years previous. And lastly the 70 weeks or 490 years, dated from the twentieth of Artaxerxes, extend to A. D. 47, with absolutely nothing to mark their termination. Hence if that be the year, and the grant to Nehemiah the event, from which to reckon, the prophecy has proved a failure.
5. We have no evidence that the permission given to Nehemiah was anything but verbal. We have no record of there being anything given to him but certain letters to the keeper of the king’s forest, the governors beyond the river, &c.; and if these constitute the decree, the prophecy should read decrees; for there were more than one. But these letters were not addressed to Nehemiah; and of so little importance were they considered by the sacred historian, that he has seen fit to preserve no copy of them, but simply to state their import. While on the other hand, the decree to Ezra was one decree, it was expressly called a decree, it was addressed directly to Ezra, and the Holy Ghost has thought proper to transmit a copy of the original document to the present time.
With these facts in view, no one can long hesitate between the respective commissions of Ezra and Nehemiah, as to which properly marks the commencement of an important prophetic period. Previous to 1844 no Advent believer thought of contending for the latter commission, but since the passing of that time, there has existed in some minds a seeming necessity for the removal of the original dates; and as “necessity is the mother of invention,” so it gives77some the power of magnifying molehills into mountains.
The application of the argument, thus far, on the 70 weeks and 2300 days remains for our next.
(To be Continued.)