Date of the Heavenly Commandment

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Current Preparations to Rebuild the Temple

Randall Price, President of World of the Bible Ministries, has provided the following summary of recent plans to rebuild the Temple. It is evident these plans are well advanced.

      According to experts, detailed blueprints for the Third Temple have existed for the past four years. The plans were drawn according to the primary sources of information: the Bible, Josephus, and the Mishnah tractate known as Middot ("Measurements"). Other structures, including the Sanhedrin complex, have also been planned or actually built. The restored Temple complex envisioned by Ezekiel, is to be thirty times larger than that of previous Temples. The legal stipulations that the Sanhedrin will use to govern Israel's relationship to the rebuilt Temple and its services have already been researched and are in the process of being published by the Research Center for Jewish Thought under the direction of Yoel Lerner.

      Since 1987, the Temple Institute, a group of rabbinical researchers, designers, and craftsmen, has been creating in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem what they call a "Temple-in-waiting." Among the 103 Temple items that have, or are in the process of being recreated are: apparel for the High Priest, sacrificial incense spices, urns, incense pans, the golden lavar, and the stone vessel (kelal) for grinding and holding the purifying ashes of the red heifer, the golden menorah (lampstand), silver trumpets, the Golden Altar of Incense, and the Table of Shewbread. Other building projects include a full scale altar for the training of the priests. The Ark of the Covenant is believed to exist in a chamber under the Temple Mount. Another group active in the rebuilding of the Third Temple, the Temple Mount Faithful, has brought three cornerstones to Jerusalem from Mitzpe Ramon in the Negev. It is one of the few places in the Land of Israel where the character and color of the stone is similar to that from which the First and Second Temples were made.

      According to rabbinic tradition, the Tribe of Levi was forbidden to alter their names (which connoted their priestly heritage) when assimilated into foreign cultures. Thus, we continue to this day to have Levis and Cohens, and derivatives of these names. Recently, a more scientific test to verify those of priestly lineage has appeared. A computerized list of all known priestly candidates in Israel is maintained. Orthodox organizations in Israel are helping to educate this priesthood.

      In order for a Temple to be rebuilt today, those who would enter the holy areas must first be ritually pure. All Jews have become ceremonially unclean in the Diaspora and must be purified by the ashes of the red heifer (described in Numbers 19). In 2002, a red heifer was born in Israel, the first in 2,000 years. Because the Jewish sage Maimonides taught that there had been nine red heifers between the beginning of the Tabernacle and the end of the Second Temple, and, that the tenth would be prepared by the Messianic King, a special urgency is attached to the recovery of the Temple Mount (1).


      Times of the Gentiles

Many Bible students are unwilling to concede that the Jewish migration to Israel in modern times fulfills the Old Testament prophecies of a future return. Yet Isaiah (in Isa. 11:11) gives the first eschatological return of Israel a number—he counts it as the second, the first being the return from Babylonian captivity. Thus, he prohibits any idea that there could be a temporary return of Israel within the Church Age, to be followed by another dispersion and another regathering at the very end. Such a regathering would be the third.

We have therefore argued that the modern regathering of Jews in Palestine and the formation of the Israeli state in 1948 are fulfillments of prophecy. It follows that the church has been correct in viewing these events as signs that the day of Christ is approaching. But do these events also signify that we are living in the Last Days? It is conceivable, at least, that the Jews could assemble in their homeland and form a government long before the Last Days actually arrived.

The strongest argument that an emergent Jewish nation is a sign of the end times derives from Christ's most detailed warning of the holocaust in A.D. 70.

      20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
      21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
      22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
      23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.
      24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Luke 21:20-24

Here, Jesus states that the Jews will not repossess Jerusalem until "the times of the Gentiles" have been fulfilled. This expression, which occurs nowhere else in Scripture, denotes the historical era since Pentecost, the era when the church has been carrying out Christ's commission to offer the gospel of salvation to the whole world, to gentiles as well as Jews. The times of the gentiles thus correspond to the Church Age.

Jesus' deliberately imprecise wording does not require an exact concurrence between the end of the Church Age and the end of gentile domination over the Holy City. The latter might be a gradual process anticipating the former. Yet, His wording does seem to confine the whole process to a time when completion of the Church Age is near at hand. The end of the Church Age is the same period that Scripture designates the Last Days. Thus, Jesus' teaching that Jerusalem would be a gentile city until the end of the Church Age implies that the church should view the purging of gentile power from the city as a sign that the Last Days have arrived.

Gentile control of the city has been waning now for almost two centuries. Jewish reoccupation of Jerusalem began with an influx of Jewish settlers in the nineteenth century. The Jewish population grew steadily until Israel attained statehood in 1948. Then, the fledgeling nation absorbed the western sector of the city into its territory. During the 1967 war, the Israelis added the eastern sector, occupying the whole city except the Moslem holy site on Temple Mount and establishing military control of the whole city. Today, the Jews possess virtually all of Jerusalem.


    Sign/ Jewish Reoccupation of Jerusalem

Jerusalem can no longer be considered a gentile city. Nor can it be said that the city is trodden down by gentiles. The city is teeming with Jews and flourishing as never before. Yet Jesus said that Jerusalem would not escape gentile domination until the times of the gentiles had been fulfilled.

The Jewish reoccupation of Jerusalem is therefore a specific and compelling sign that we have now come to the end of the gentile era, to the Last Days. From the perspective of Bible prophecy, what happened in 1967, when Israel regained control of Jerusalem, had greater import than even the founding of Israel in 1948. Let us not fail to understand the significance of that event.

http://www.themoorings.org/prophecy/evi ... rael3.html

The Antichrist

      The idea that the Antichrist will come from Iraq is not a fanciful concoction influenced by recent events in the Middle East, but a sound deduction from Scripture. The many modern expositors who have named Syro-Iraq as his place of origin include S. P. Tregelles, George W. Davis, Arthur W. Pink, William L. Pettingill, Arthur Petrie, and Philip R. Newell. Most expositors during the early centuries of the church held the same view.

Date of the Heavenly Commandment

One of the great prophecies in the Bible is the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks in Daniel 9:25. Hundreds of years before the fulfillment, the prophecy specifies when the Messiah would come. The starting point is a commandment to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. As we showed in the previous lesson, the scholar Hengstenberg argued that the source of this commandment must be God. Someone might object: "If the commandment (dabar) of verse 25 is a divine commandment, how can we find the starting point of the sixty-nine weeks? We have no way of dating a commandment from the throne of God." But in this case we have a way. We need only take into account two principles of prayer. Daniel 9 elevates both to prominence so that the reader will not miss the key to unlocking the riddle.

   1. The dabar of verse 23 came in response to the prayer of Daniel. So, just two verses before the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks, Scripture illustrates the principle that although God may act according to no counsel but His own, He prefers to act under the urging of His children. This principle explains why so many of His great decrees and great works are answers to prayer. The first coming of Christ satisfied the fervent desire of countless believers in foregoing centuries that God would send a Redeemer. The church has long prayed for the Second Coming of Christ (Rev. 22:20).

      The Book of Daniel illustrates the same principle again in chapters 10-12. There, we read that when Daniel prayed, God answered by granting him another wonderful prophetic revelation.

   2. How soon did God answer the prayer recorded in chapter 9? Gabriel said, "At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth" (v. 23). Here, Scripture illustrates the principle that if a prayer is acceptable to God, the answer is immediate. There is no heavenly red tape. The prayer is not lost on somebody's desk or filed away for later action. God does not need to think about it. His answer comes forth from the throne as soon as a believer prays, although the believer may not see the answer implemented right away. The same truth is taught in Daniel 10.

    Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.

Daniel 10:12

The two principles of prayer highlighted in chapters 9 and 10 of Daniel allow us to date the commandment foreseen in Daniel 9:25—the commandment that in Daniel's day was still far off in the future.

   1. The first principle implies that just as the dabar of verse 23 was given in answer to Daniel's prayer, so the dabar of verse 25—the divine commandment to rebuild Jerusalem—would be given in answer to prayer. Whose prayer? No doubt this divine commandment soon led to the earthly commandment seeking the same result; specifically, to the decree of Artaxerxes recorded in Nehemiah 2. It is certainly no accident that the Book of Nehemiah treats the decree as the answer to Nehemiah's prayer recorded in chapter 1. The book starts with his prayer to underscore that it was the original cause of work on the city. Thus, the prayer prompting the divine commandment to rebuild the city must have been Nehemiah's.
   2. As Hengstenberg recognized also (1), the second principle implies that the commandment came forth as soon as Nehemiah began to pray.

Although few other prayers in Scripture bear dates, Scripture conveniently informs us that Nehemiah's prayer fell in the month of Kislev during the twentieth year of the king. It provides this detail so that wecan mark the beginning of the sixty-nine weeks.

By adding sixty-nine weeks to the starting point, we come to the appointed time of Messiah's appearing. But notice that although we know the month of the starting point, we do not know the day. Thus, on the basis of Old Testament prophecy alone, we cannot compute the actual day when Christ should come. We can narrow down the date only to the nearest month. Yet it is obvious that to predict the month of a real event hundreds of years in the future is no less miraculous than to predict the day.

Perhaps there were security reasons for withholding fuller information. Maybe the devil had to be kept in the dark to some extent. Likewise, the day and the hour of Christ's future coming as a thief must be kept secret so that the owner of the house (that is, Satan, prince of this world) cannot take defensive measures (Matt. 24:36, 43; John 12:31). But although the Old Testament does not allow us to pinpoint the exact day terminating the sixty-nine weeks, the New Testament supplies the missing information and provides ways of verifying it.

    Transferring the Date to the Julian Calendar

Several hurdles stand in the way of finding when the sixty-nine weeks came to an end. The first is the task of transferring the Persian date of Nehemiah's prayer to the calendar historians use for other events of antiquity: that is, the Julian calendar, which is the same as our modern calendar, the Gregorian, except that the Gregorian is three days shorter in each span of four centuries.

Since the Persians used the Babylonian calendar, we can find the Julian date of Nehemiah's prayer by consulting the tables in Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein's Babylonian Chronology, published in 1956. These tables furnish the exact Julian equivalent of any Babylonian date, with a possible maximum error of only one day (2). All scholars accept these tables as valid and definitive.

In compiling these tables, Parker and Dubberstein relied on two kinds of data.

   1. Babylonian months were lunar. That is, the Babylonians started a new month as soon as they sighted the crescent following a new moon (3). Modern astronomers can, by projecting the constant rhythms of the moon backward into the past, determine precisely when each lunar month in ancient times began (4).
   2. A year made up of twelve lunar months is somewhat shorter than a solar year. On the average, the difference is about 11 1/4 days. Therefore, to keep the seasons from slipping backward on the calendar, the Babylonians occasionally added an extra month to the year (5). Archaeologists have compiled a complete list of the extra months actually inserted into the Babylonian calendar over a period of many centuries (6). Clay tablets bearing dated records of business transactions or astronomical observations have been the primary source of information (7). Literally thousands upon thousands of these tablets have been found.

The astronomical and archaeological data available to Parker and Dubberstein allowed them to correlate Julian and Babylonian dates for the years 626 BC to AD 75 (. So, the Julian date of Nehemiah's prayer can be determined simply by looking in their tables for the Julian equivalent of Kislev in Artaxerxes' twentieth year.

But here a problem arises. According to the Book of Nehemiah, the king's edict in the following Nisan also fell in the king's twentieth year. But Kislev was the ninth month on the Babylonian calendar, and Nisan was the first. Thus, it seems that the prayer and the edict should be dated in successive years rather than in the same year (9). The explanation for the anomaly must be that Nehemiah used the Jewish calendar (10). The Jewish and Babylonian calendars were the same, except that the Jewish year started in Tishri, the seventh Babylonian month, rather than in Nisan (11).

When, by Jewish reckoning, was the twentieth year of Artaxerxes? The answer depends on when Artaxerxes became king. The needed information is nowhere to be found in surviving records except in a single cuneiform text preserved in the collections of the British museum. This text, still unpublished in its entirety although the stone tablet bearing it was unearthed many years ago, says that he came to the throne in the fifth month during the year of his father's assassination (12). The year was 465 (13). The day was between one and two months before Tishri. If the Jews (like the Babylonians and Persians) counted the short period preceding the new year as Artaxerxes' accession year, it follows that by Jewish reckoning, his first year began on Tishri 1, 465, and his twentieth year began on Tishri 1, 446.

Parker and Dubberstein disclose that the following Kislev began on November 17/18 of the same year (14); that is, on the day extending from the evening of the seventeenth to the evening of the eighteenth. (Babylonian days started in the evening (15)). It was during this Kislev that Nehemiah began to entreat God's favor upon the city of his fathers. We come at last to the extremely important conclusion that the clock measuring the sixty-nine weeks of Daniel began to tick sometime in the month following November 17/18, 446 BC.

    Term of Sixty-Nine Weeks

The Hebrew word "week," shabua, merely signifies a heptad, a series or group of seven (16). A literal rendering of verse 25 projects "seven sevens and sixty-two sevens." Since the seventy weeks of Daniel 9 span the whole future history of the Jewish nation, each week must be a long period of time. Virtually all scholars, both liberal and conservative, recognize that each week is a cycle of seven years (17).

The context supports this conclusion. The occasion for Gabriel's announcement of the seventy weeks was the completion of another historical period of preordained length: the seventy years of captivity. As we saw earlier, the captivity was in part a judgment on the nation for its neglect of Sabbatical years. When setting the term of exile from the land, God equated it to the nation's debt of Sabbatical years from the time David took the throne until the end of captivity, an epoch of 490 years. Since this was coming to a close when Gabriel revealed God's program of seventy future weeks, it is reasonable to suppose that these refer to another epoch of the same duration. Each week must therefore be seven years long.

A few verses later, in chapter 10, the term "weeks" reappears (Dan. 10:2), yet in this instance the author says explicitly "weeks of days," as if to signal that the meaning has changed from the prior usage in Daniel 9:25 (18).

If the sixty-nine weeks began in the month following November 17/18, 446 BC, and if the weeks lasted 483 years, we can easily compute the date of the terminal month. Since there was no year 0, adding 483 years to 446 BC brings history to AD 38, close to the time of Christ. To be precise, it brings history to a time only five years after His death. Later we will show that the Crucifixion fell in AD 33.
It would appear that prophecy slightly overshoots the mark. But it would be foolish to decide that prophecy is wrong. To come so close to a perfect prediction cannot be a mere accident. A better explanation for the discrepancy is that we have made some slight mistake in our handling of the prophecy. Indeed, when we dig deeper, the discrepancy disappears.

Throughout church history, students of the sixty-nine weeks have suspected that they consist of abbreviated years. Julius Africanus, a third-century Christian scholar and chronologist, thought that a prophetic year was equal to twelve lunar months (19). In an average year, twelve lunar months come to 354 days. Yet the actual length of the prophetic year was not discovered until the nineteenth century, when many Bible students came to a dispensational view of prophecy. As have noted before, dispensationalists find a gap in each prophecy of Daniel. Within that gap lies the whole Church Age, separating events in antiquity from the time of the end. In the vision of Daniel 9, the gap falls between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks. Therefore, the sixty-ninth week happened long ago, but the seventieth week is still future. Dispensationalists place the seventieth week within the brief historical period at the end of the Church Age known as the Tribulation—the period when many events foretold in the Book of Revelation will take place.

More than a century ago Sir Robert Anderson published a famous book on the sixty-nine weeks called The Coming Prince. His great contribution to solving the riddle was to point out that Revelation tells us the length of the seventieth week (20). The first half is 1260 days (Rev. 11:3). The second half has the same length. It is variously called 1260 days (Rev. 12:6), forty-two months (Rev. 13:5), and a time, times, and half a time (Rev. 12:14). The sum of a time, (two) times, and half a time is 3 1/2 times. The whole week is therefore seven times. If forty-two months make up 3 1/2 times, then each time contains twelve months. If 1260 days make up forty-two months, then each month contains thirty days, and each time of twelve months contains 360 days.

Anderson argued that all of the first sixty-nine weeks must have the same measure as the seventieth (21). Therefore, every week is seven times of 360 days, making a total of 2520 days.

Why prophecy uses the strange formula "time, times, and half a time" is now evident. The wording suggests "3 1/2 years," but avoids the slight inaccuracy. Prophecy is well aware that a period of 360 days is not exactly a year. Therefore, it declines to call this period a year and instead calls it a time. It is also now evident why prophecy defines the coming period not as 490 years, but as seventy weeks. The former quantity could only be understood as 490 solar years, whereas the seventy weeks are a sum of times, each time being slightly shorter than a solar year.
Why does prophecy use such a strange calendar? We must remember that Daniel 9 looks at earthly events from a heavenly perspective. From such a perspective, 360 days may be the true measure of a year. There is evidence that the intriguingly useful and divisible number 360 was the yearly sum of days at the beginning of earth history, when everything was still in a state of God-ordained perfection (22).Expansion of the year to its present length may have been the result of catastrophic processes at the time of the global Flood. Support for the hypothesis that 360 days was the original year comes from abundant evidence that such reckoning was universal among ancient peoples (23). The prophecy of the seventy weeks assumes years of 360 days because heaven remembers what the year was designed to be. The counsels of heaven still reckon time on a perfect scale.


    Date of the Terminal Month

To compute the exact terminus of the sixty-nine weeks, we need to know the exact starting point. But we know only that the starting point fell in the month after November 17/18, 446 BC. The best we can do is to start at this date and move forward sixty-nine weeks. We then arrive at a date no more than a month earlier than the coming of the Messiah. Many have supposed this calculation to be much harder than it is. Anyone with a mathematical turn of mind can obtain the right answer in less than five minutes. The following hints will make the calculation easier.

   1. There was no year 0.
   2. Just as AD 4, AD 8, AD 12, etc. are leap years on the Julian calendar, so also are 1 BC, 5 BC, 9 BC, etc.
   3. The full length of sixty-nine weeks is 69 weeks x 7 times per week x 360 days per time = 173,880 days.

Many people have verified that sixty-nine weeks measured from any time of day during November 17/18, 446 BC, came to an end at the same time of day during December 8/9, AD 31. Anyone timid of arithmetic can obtain the same result if he uses a date calculator on the internet (24).

Here is an amazing result! This end date falls within the years of Jesus' active ministry as teacher and healer. As we noted earlier, Jesus died in AD 33. So, without going any farther, we have already shown that the prophecy of the sixty-nine weeks was fulfilled, for indeed, sixty-nine weeks measured from the commandment to build Jerusalem brought history to the time when Messiah the Prince appeared on the earth.

But the prophecy is far more precise. "Unto the Messiah the Prince" refers not just to Christ's ministry in general, but also to a particular event that occurred at the end of the sixty-nine weeks. So, as we peruse the Gospel record, we should find an event in the month following December 8/9, AD 31, that we can identify as the official coming of Christ.
Study Questions

   1. What is the first principle of prayer illustrated in Daniel 9?
   2. What is the second?
   3. Whose prayer led to Artaxerxes' edict?
   4. When did this prayer begin?
   5. What calendar is used for ancient events?
   6. What authoritative source converts Babylonian dates to Julian dates?
   7. When did a Babylonian month begin?
   8. Why did Nehemiah place both his prayer and the edict in the same year?
   9. When did the sixty-nine weeks begin?
  10. What does the term "week" signify?
  11. According to the Book of Revelation, what is the length of a prophetic year?
  12. Who first identified the length of a prophetic year?
  13. Why does Scripture use such a curious calendar?
  14. What were the leap years BC?
  15. What year followed 1 BC?
  16. When did the sixty-nine weeks come to an end?

Footnotes

   1. Hengstenberg, 3:186.
   2. Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 BC-AD 75 (Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1956), v, 25.
   3. Ibid., 25.
   4. Ibid.
   5. Ibid., 1.
   6. Ibid.
   7. Ibid., 4-9.
   8. Ibid., 2-3.
   9. Like the Babylonians, the Persians treated the month Nisan, in the spring, as the beginning of the regnal year: that is, as the beginning of the next year in the numbered years of a king's reign. If, for example, a king ascended the throne in the fall or winter, his first year did not start until the following Nisan. The remaining time until Nisan was called his accession year. Thus, the first Nisan during his reign marked the beginning of his first year, the second Nisan marked the beginning of his second year, and so on.
  10. Julian Morgenstern, "The New Year for Kings," in Occident and Orient: Gaster Anniversary Volume, ed. Bruno Schindler and A. Marmorstein (London: Taylor's Foreign Press, 1936), 441-443; Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, new revised ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1983), 53; Judah J. Slotki, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah: Hebrew Text and English Translation with Introductions and Commentary (London: Soncino Press, 1951); S. H. Horn and L. H. Wood, "The Fifth-Century Jewish Calendar at Elephantine," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 13 (1954): 14; J. Carl Laney, Ezra/Nehemiah (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982), 74; F. Charles Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), 150.
  11. Josephus Antiquities 1.3.3; Thiele, 51-53; A. Malamat, "The Twilight of Judah: In the Egyptian-Babylonian Maelstrom," in Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 28, Congress Volume: Edinburgh, 1974 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 124; K. S. Reedy and D. B. Redford, "The Dates in Ezekiel in Relation to Biblical, Babylonian and Egyptian Sources," Journal of the American Oriental Society 90 (1970): 464-465.
  12. Parker and Dubberstein, 17.
  13. Ibid.
  14. Ibid., 26, 32.
  15. Ibid., 26.
  16. Brown et al., 988.
  17. For example, the authoritative lexicon by Brown, Driver, and Briggs states dogmatically that "week" in Daniel 9:24-27 means "heptad or seven of years." See Brown et al., 989.
  18. Green, 3:2066.
  19. Africanus Chronography 16.2-3.
  20. Anderson, 72-75.
  21. Ibid., 75.
  22. In the story of the Flood, the great deluge that destroyed all life on earth except righteous Noah and his family, the writer, perhaps Noah himself, says that the waters did not abate until 150 days (Gen. 7:24; 8:3), or exactly five months (compare Gen. 7:11 with Gen. 8:4), after the cataclysm began. The months on his calendar must therefore have contained thirty days each, making a total of 360 days in a year.
  23. Immanuel Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1950; repr., New York: Simon & Schuster, Pocket Books, 1977), 330-342; Giovanni Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1981), 153.
  24. Try, for example, the date calculator at http://www.abdicate.net/cal.aspx.

http://www.themoorings.org/apologetics/ ... eeks2.html

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These books are related as well:

http://www.caeno.org/_Nabonassar/pdf/Pa ... lendar.pdf

WHEN DID NEBUCHADREZZAR CONQUER JERUSALEM? 1

Herman L. Hoeh

IN 1956, EXACTLY TWENTY YEARS AGO, THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
published Chroniclers of Chaldaean Kings (626-556).2 No single volume is more important in
establishing the historical relationship between ancient Israel and her imperial neighbors. Though
incomplete,3 the chronicles provide accounts so specific that it is possible to date not only the year, but the
season of the year for the battles of Megiddo (2 Ki 23:29-30; 2 Chr 35:20-24) and Carchemish (Jer 46).
And to pinpoint the exact day of the month that king Jehoiachin surrendered Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar.
Today, twenty years later, controversy still surrounds the dating of the fall of Jerusalem to the
Babylonians.4 Not fundamentally because the chronicles of Babylon are incomplete, but because
disagreement exists in the scholarly world over the meaning and/or text of the parallel biblical records. The
cause may be simply stated — we human beings too often approach issues with preconceived notions as to
what the solutions ought to be, rather than with the open mindedness, humility, clarity of thinking and
respect for the Biblical text so imperative for resolving knotty problems. And if these very human traits
exist among learned men and women trained to be disciplined thinkers, how much more will human
weaknesses affect the conclusions of those not so disciplined?

So now we ask: When did Nebuchadrezzar overthrow Jerusalem and precipitate the destruction of the
temple of Solomon? The world of scholarship has narrowed the possibilities to either of two dates: 587 B.C.
or 586 B.C.5 The weight of evidence, prior to the publication of the Chronicles in 1956, was inclined
toward the latter date. A shift in thinking has since occurred, but no consensus. In the nonscholarly world
the proposed answers are as wide apart as the theories which underlie them. One group has adopted the
year 607 B.C. for the fall of Jerusalem in Zedekiah's eleventh year.6 Another school of thought proposes
585 B.C. for the capture of Jerusalem in Zedekiah's last year (38:259).7 Biblical history, a third assures us,
pinpoints the end of the final siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple to 477 B.C.8 This
reminds us of the traditional rabbinic view of world chronology which placed the destruction of the First
Temple in 422 B.C.9 These diverse proposals involve rejection in part or in entirety of the evidence
undergirding Babylonian and Persian history. And in place of that evidence one finds substituted
interpretations of history and biblical prophecies unique to that particular school of thought.
Scholarly papers normally do not address these exotic proposals for dating the fall of Jerusalem and the
First Temple. But since this Symposium is examining the very basis of human knowledge and
understanding, we at least ought to remind ourselves of the nature of the evidence for Babylonian and
Persian historical chronology. That evidence is solidly founded. It is rooted in the very movements of the
solar system itself. Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic chronology is fixed by cuneiform evidence of the
saros, an interval in astronomy of l8 years 11 1/3 days after which Earth, Sun and Moon return to nearly
the same relative positions and a cycle of solar and lunar eclipses begins to repeat. Records of the saros are
dated by the regnal years of kings from the Neo-Babylonian through the Persian to the late Hellenistic
period.10

Further, thousands of business and other documents dated in regnal years provide, for this period, an
unassailable sequence of intercalary months in the Babylonian calendar.11 These documents are not the
work of late historians of the Greek and Roman period. They constitute contemporary evidence by which
the chronology and calendar of Babylonia may be reconstructed from 626 B.C. to A.D. 75.
Most important of all, for our study, is the astronomical tablet for the thirty-seventh year of
Nebuchadrezzar II (568-567 B.C.). The text was made known to the scholarly world in 1915 and is
translated into German.12 It contains observations of planetary positions of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn throughout the year, the durations of first visibility of the new moons, the calendar dates and

heights of the floodwaters of the Euphrates, the date of the summer solstice, and fluctuations in weather
patterns. Modern astronomical science and computer technology confirm planetary and lunar observations
for the thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadrezzar II and for no other year. The state of astronomical knowledge
in antiquity was sufficiently limited to absolutely preclude the invention by Hellenistic astronomers of these
planetary and lunar observations by extrapolation into the past.13 The 43-year reign of Nebuchadrezzar II
(also spelled Nebuchadnezzar) is firmly dated and not subject to doubt. Equally firmly dated is the 2-year
reign of his son Amel-Marduk14 (spelled Evil-merodach in most Bibles) in whose brief reign king Jehoiachin
was released from captivity (Jer 52:31-34).

The Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings, when first published, caused significant scholarly rethinking of specific
events, but in no way altered the chronology of the Babylonian kings known from antiquity (Josephus, C.
Ap. 1:35).15 The Chronicles reveal that after the fall of Niniveh to the Babylonians and their allies in the
month Ab (July/Aug.) 612 B.C., the Chaldean army marched west as far as Nisibin in northern
Mesopotamia on the upper Habur river in the month of Elul (Aug./Sept.).16 The Assyrian king Assuruballit
set up a new temporary capital at the city of Harran. Not until November of 610 did the Babylonians
and their Median allies move west to Harran. The Assyrians and an Egyptian army abandoned the city and
retreated across the Euphrates, abandoning the whole of Mesopotamia. In the seventeenth year of
Nabopolassar, in the early summer of 609, Assur-uballit and "a great Egyptian army" crossed the Euphrates
and besieged Harran.17 The effort failed. Assyrians and Egyptians retired from the siege in Elul (Aug./
Sept.) and retreated across the Euphrates to Carchemish.18

The Biblical background to the Egyptian show of strength on the Euphrates is the recorded march of
Necho through Judah in the thirty-first year of Josiah's reign. The King James Version inaccurately
translates the Hebrew as if Necho were marching against the king of Assyria and against the city Carchemish
(2 Ki. 23:29; 2 Chr. 35:20). The correct rendering of the Hebrew is "Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt was on
his way to the king of Assyria at the river Euphrates when King Josiah intercepted him" and "Necho king of
Egypt came up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates."19 The date of the encounter between Necho and
Josiah is indisputable: late spring of 609 B.C. in the thirty-first year of Josiah.

The events of 609 B.C. were of major significance for the entire Biblical world. The Assyrian Empire,
which once ruled from the highlands of Persia to the southern borders of Egypt, lay prostrate before the
king of Akkad and his Median allies. The Egyptian armies found further hostilities in 609 futile. No
encounter between Egyptians and the king of Akkad is recorded in the Chronicle from August 609 to
August 607. And with the retreat of Assur-uballit across the Euphrates after the unsuccessful siege of
Harran, all reference to the Assyrian king ceases. The fact that the armies of Akkad were free to march
northward against south-western Armenia in 609 and, in the years 608 and 607, continue the conquest of
the mountainous country north of northwestern Mesopotamia indicates an agreement was reached with
Necho at the expense of Assur-uballit. The nature of this agreement between Nabopolassar, king of Akkad,
and the Egyptian Necho, former client-king of Assyria, is clarified by a quotation from Berossos, cited in
Josephus (26:217). Necho is recognized as satrap of the newly born neo-Babylonian empire in charge of
Egypt, Coele-Syria and Phoenicia. Necho had no intention of remaining in this subordinate position.
We now read of the king's eldest son Nebuchadrezzar in the year 607. He musters his own army for the
first time and subdues the entire mountainous region fringing northern Mesopotamia. In the month of Elul
(Aug.) in 607, Nabopolassar marches to the Euphrates while his son remains at Babylon with his army. The
next year (606 B.C.) the Chronicle is silent about the movements of Nebuchadrezzar. We shall notice later
the unrecorded movements of the crown-prince when we turn to the Bible again. Meanwhile, Necho moves
his troops eastward and crosses the Euphrates at Carchemish. As spring came round in the twenty-first year
of Nabopolassar, the aging king remains at home. Nebuchadrezzar takes command of his troops, marches to
Carchemish, brilliantly attacks the Egyptians in the spring of 605 B.C. and utterly defeats them. Those who
had momentarily escaped defeat were trapped in the district of Hamath -- not a single man escaped to his
own country.20

The Biblical reference to this defeat of Necho at Carchemish is found in Jeremiah 46.
The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations.
About Egypt. Concerning the army of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, which was by
the river Euphrates at Carchemish and which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon
defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (Jer 46:1-2,
RSV) .

The date of this prophecy is of major importance. The Babylonian Chronicle assigns it to 605 B.C. the
last year of Nabopolassar. The Bible assigns it to the fourth year of Jehoiakim. We are now prepared to
begin a construction of the interrelated chronology for this period. Necho's army slew Josiah in the spring
of 609, enroute to the Euphrates. This event is in the seventeenth year (609-608) of Nabopolassar. It is the
thirty-first year of Josiah. The crushing defeat of Necho at Carchemish in the spring of 605 occurred, in the
twenty-first year (605-604) of Nabopolassar and the fourth of Jehoiakim. The Babylonian years, all agree,
begin with Nisan (Mar./Apr.). Scholars are divided, as to whether the years of the kings of Judah begin with
Nisan or with Tishri (Sept./Oct.). It is this problem that is at the root of the controversy over the dating of
the fall of Judah and the burning of the First Temple. If Tishri is the month with which regnal years in Judah
commence, they could be either a half year earlier or later than the Chaldean regnal years. If Nisan is the
month with which regnal years in Judah commence, there will be correspondence. Before we can arrive at
an answer, we must quickly skim the account of the Chronicle.

Immediately following the victory at Carchemish in the spring of 605, the Chronicle notes: "At that
time Nebuchadrezzar conquered the whole area of the Hatti-country."21 The term Hatti refers to the

western lands beyond Euphrates and bordering on the eastern Mediterranean. On the eighth of Ab (Aug.
15) Nabopolassar died.22 Nebuchadrezzar rushed back to Babylon and ascended the throne. Year 605-604,
heretofore designated the twenty-first year of Nabopolassar, is now referred to in business documents and
in the Chronicle as the "accession year" of Nebuchadrezzar.23 The new king immediately marched west,
obtained heavy tribute from Hatti and returned to Babylon.24 The following year, 604-603 B.C., the first
official year of Nebuchadrezzar's rule at Babylon, the king ordered all the kings of the western lands to
appear before him in Hatti in the month Kislev (Nov./Dec.) with tribute.25 The second year a major city
(the name is broken from the document) in the land of Hatti is besieged and punished.26 Tribute is again
collected in the third year.27 In the fourth year in Kislev (Nov./Dec.) Nebuchadrezzar leads an army to
Egypt. The armies "inflicted great havoc on each other."28 No tribute is reported taken, and
Nebuchadrezzar is required to spend the next year regrouping his forces.29 The sixth year (599-598),
Nebuchadrezzar marches to Hatti and sends out "companies" to scour the desert and plunder the Arabs.30
We have now reached the critical seventh year of Nebuchadrezzar.

In the seventh year, the month of Kislev, the king of Akkad mustered his troops,
marched to the Hatti-land, and encamped against (i.e. besieged) the city of Judah and
on the second day of the month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king. He
appointed there a king of his own choice (li t. heart), received its heavy tribute and
sent (them) to Babylon.31

There can be no mistaking this event. The city of Judah is Jerusalem. The besieged king is Jehoiachin.
He is captured on Adar 2 (March l6, 597) and sent to Babylon. The king appointed by Nebuchadrezzar is
Zedekiah. The Biblical parallels are found in 2 Kings 24:8-l6 and 2 Chronicles 36:9-10. Of special
importance is verse 10. The Hebrew designates the time when the king was sent off to Babylon as "at the
turn of the year."32 The Hebrew expression "turn of the year" refers to a seasonal change. The capture of
Jehoiachin was eleven days before the spring equinox (March 27 in 597 B.C.). This important account of
the capture of Jehoiachin and the appointment of Zedekiah as king is the critical piece of evidence needed to
resolve the question of the dating of the regnal years of the kings of Judah. Jehoiakim reigned eleven years.
He died three months prior to the capture of his son Jehoiachin (2 Ki 24:. The death of Jehoiakim is not
referred to in the Babylonian record. But Jeremiah and Josephus combine to give a gruesome account (Jer
22:18-19; 27:209-211). If the reigns of the kings of Judah for this period are reckoned commencing with
Tishri, then the eleventh year of Jehoiakim, in which he died, would be Sept. to Sept. 598 to 597. And his
first year, following his accession, would begin in September 608. Is this a viable solution? It is proposed by

leading scholars in the field, such as Morgenstern,33 Thiele,34 Malamat,35 Horn36 and Freedy and
Redford.37 But let us see where the evidence leads us and review their assumptions necessary to make such
a conclusion.
First, we must consider the fact that the last year of Josiah's reign, in which he died, included the date
of the battle of Megiddo, probably sometime in the late spring of 609 B.C.— and not, as Gadd suggested,
in 608 (17). Josiah's last regnal year, therefore, would end with Elul (Sept.) 609 B.C. An entire year is
unaccounted for — 609-608 B.C. It is not necessary to involve ourselves with the intricate solutions
proposed. None explain the statement of Jeremiah:

The word that came to Jeremiah... in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Jos iah...
From the thirteenth year of Josiah... even unto this day, these three and twenty
years, the word of the Lord hath come unto me (Jer 25:2,3, NRSV) .

The ministry of Jeremiah began with year thirteen of Josiah's reign and continued through year thirtyone
of the reign of Josiah — that is nineteen years — and continued (at the time of this account) into the
fourth year of Jehoiakim — twenty-three years in all. But if an extra year is inserted between Josiah and his
son Jehoiakim, then Jeremiah would have said "these four and twenty years." But he did not. Jeremiah 25:1-
2 is conclusive evidence (despite comments to the contrary (31:l47) that no additional 12-month accession
year elapsed between the end of the reign of Josiah and the first year of Jehoiakim. The conclusion we are
forced to come to is inevitable. The regnal years for the kings of Judah during this period must commence
with Nisan (8:38). Josiah's thirteenth year is 627-626. His thirty-first year is 609-608. During this year the
battle of Megiddo occurred: the king died and was succeeded by his son Jehoahaz (2 Chr 36:1-3) for three
months, then deposed; and finally Jehoiakim ascended to the throne. The following spring, Nisan 608, his
official first year began.

Again, let us suppose a Tishri reckoning is in vogue in Judah during the eleven-year reign of Jehoiakim.
His official first year, if we reckon from Tishri, would have to begin in 608 because the eleventh year would
be none other than 598-597. This date we have already established from the Babylonian Chronicle. Supposing
his first year to be Tishri 608-607, his fourth year during which the battle of Carchemish occurred, would
begin 605 in September and extend to September 604. But this again is impossible, because the battle of
Carchemish occurred, in the early spring of 605. To obviate this problem, here's what Siegfried Horn
suggests. By accepting a Tishri-to-Tishri calendar year for the kings of Judah at this time, Horn is thus
forced to say that it is not the battle of Carcemish that the fourth year refers to, but to just the prophecy.38

.......

Some have queried, whether the seventh and. eighteenth years of Nebuchadrezzar (Jer 52:28-29) are
Babylonian equivalents of the Biblical eighth and nineteenth years of the king elsewhere mentioned. This is
highly unlikely as the nineteenth year is also mentioned, in Jeremiah 52:12. The Biblical seventh year is the
Babylonian sixth year. It is the year the king of Babylon sent out bands or companies to ravage the desert
countryside. The eighteenth is the tenth year of Zedekiah, during which the Babylonians captured a few
hundred who sought to escape from Jerusalem during the brief period the siege was lifted at the approach of
the Egyptian army (Jer 37:11-12).

An enigma in the chronology for this period is Daniel 1:1:50
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king
of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged i t .

This is the only Biblical account that tells of the initial attack on the city. The date is 606-605 B.C., the
twentieth year of the reign of Nabopolassar. In that year the whereabouts of the crown-prince
Nebuchadrezzar is missing from the Babylonian Chronicle.51 The previous year he is mustering his army, and
the following year he takes command of the Babylonian army in place of his father. The account in Daniel
1:1 is illustrative of a secondary campaign that occurred in the year immediately preceding the onslaught on
Carchemish. While Nabopolassar covered the front along the Euphrates in Northern Syria, the crownprince
cut southward into the hill country along the Egyptian lifeline. He picked the weakest link in the
Egyptian chain — it was, after all, Judah that at first stood up against Necho in the last year of Josiah! From
a strategic view it was a brilliant move. It is further corroborated by Josephus who writes that in 605 B.C.,
after the battle at Carchemish, "the Babylonian king crossed Euphrates and occupied all Syria, with the
exception of Judea, as far as Pelusium" (27:205). It would have been military folly to have occupied the
whole of the Hatti-territory to the border of Egypt except Judea — unless, that is, it had been occupied on
a previous campaign and its king had now become a Babylonian ally.

A criticism of the Nisan reckoning of regnal years at the close of Judaean history has been based on
Ezekiel 33:21. The proper reading of this verse is "twelfth year," not "eleventh."52 With this the Septuagint
agrees53 despite its sometimes variable text.54 It is soundly argued, and it is more logical that only six
months — not eighteen months — elapsed between the fall of Jerusalem and the arrival of an escapee in
Mesopotamia to bring word to Ezekiel. It has been proposed that a new year with Tishri began two months
after the collapse of Jerusalem in July and that this new year is the twelfth of the captivity. If, on the other
hand, a Nisan dating were used, a year and six months would have elapsed between the fall of Jerusalem in
the fourth month of the eleventh year and the arrival of an escapee in the twelfth year, the tenth month.
The criticism is valid, and that is the very reason some who hold to a Nisan reckoning propose altering the
text. But the answer is in the text itself. Up to this point in time Ezekiel reckons by the captivity of
Jehoiachin. Here and in Ezekiel 40:1 however, he uses a different expression: "our captivity." Now Ezekiel
was taken captive three months earlier than Jehoiachin, at the time of the death of Jehoiakim (Josephus
27:211). Kislev 3 is a traditional date commemorating this event on the Hebrew calendar.55 Ezekiel chose
to date events by his captivity, rather than by king Jehoiachin's captivity, as there were now two Jewish
kings in captivity at Babylon — Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. The twelfth year of Ezekiel's captivity
commenced with the ninth month — Kislev 3. So a date in the tenth month would be in the succeeding or
twelfth year. Hence the escapee was indeed only six months in reaching Ezekiel.

http://www.sunrise-publications.com/Art ... eh_587.pdf

Redating the Hebrew Kings

Bruno Kolberg

Preface

"Above the date B.C. 763 there is no positive proof
of any Assyrian canon date"
George Smith (Pioneer Assyriologist), 1875.

Like many students of the Bible who are enamoured of mathematical challenges, I am attracted to the great puzzle that is the chronology of the divided Hebrew kings era. As is well-known, the regnal notices in the Bible for this era appear to contradict each other at several points, hence the challenge.

The divided monarchy era spans the time from the death of Solomon to the fall of Jerusalem. Until 2006, I believed that Solomon's death occurred in 931/30 B.C. This date was determined by Edwin Thiele in his paper, "The Chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel" (JNES 3 [1944]: 137–86). In 1951, he published The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, which elaborated on the earlier work. Thiele's conclusions have been influential ever since.

However, after reading the modern translation of The Annals of the World by Archbishop James Ussher along with The Old Testament: Its Claims and Its Critics by Professor Oswald T. Allis and The Chronology of the Old Testament by Dr. Floyd Nolen Jones, I had second thoughts about the reliability of the chronograph upon which Thiele based his 931/30 B.C. date, which is the Assyrian Eponym Canon.
Influenced and encouraged by Ussher, Allis, and Jones, I began to write a study in defence of the "long chronology" position for the divided monarchy era. In that scheme, the era began with the death of Solomon in the first half of the tenth century B.C. (975 B.C. by Ussher) and ended with the fall of Jerusalem around 587 B.C., giving a total duration of about 388 years. By contrast, "short chronologies" begin in the second half of the tenth century B.C. (931/30 B.C. by Thiele) and end with the fall of Jerusalem around 587 B.C. for a total of about 344 years.

For my study, the writing of which began in mid-2006, I constructed a spreadsheet for the Hebrew kings patterned after Ussher and Jones (Jones' chronology is similar to Ussher's but not identical). Two features of this chronology, however, began to trouble me:

• Long chronologies are characterized by one or more interregnal periods for the Northern Kingdom (Israel). No matter how much Biblicist authors try to defend interregna, the Scriptures do not specifically mention them for the Hebrew kings. Indeed, the plain reading of the Bible suggests that there were no significant breaks between any kings in either Judah or Israel.
• Long chronologies are further characterized by their disagreement with Assyrian history at key points of contact, especially the battle of Qarqar (853 B.C. by Thiele). Being of the firm belief that the Assyrian record is valuable but not inerrant, I was able to harmonize the Biblical record with the Assyrian, but only after admitting three gaps in the Assyrian Eponym Canon, which is unlikely.
The more I pursued this long chronology course, the more I doubted it. I then gave up the study as a lost cause (having worked on it for several months). This was disappointing because I was convinced, by the weak logic for some of Thiele's dates especially for the Israelite king Pekah, that an anomaly in the Assyrian Eponym Canon caused him to inaccurately date the division of the kingdom to 931/30 B.C.

Some weeks later, the thought occurred to shorten my chronology but only enough to eliminate interregna for Israel. As with the long chronology pattern, no adjustments were made to accommodate Assyrian dates. The result, in which all the Biblical notices were harmonized, showed that the division of the kingdom occurred in 942/41 B.C. This was encouraging because it occurred some 33 years later than Ussher, and was thus more in line with accepted Assyrian history. It also yielded an interval of 221 years between Solomon's death and the fall of Samaria, which agreed with Thiele's original relative chronology before he adjusted it (as described in his preface to The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings).

Three more features, which unfolded quickly, gave me confidence in the validity of my approach. The first was how three long-dated time spans in the Bible—Exod 12:40, 1 Kgs 6:1, and Ezek 4:5—followed consecutively, like arches of time helping to anchor the framework of dates. The second was the ease with which the Sabbath-Jubilee year calendar fitted this new chronology. The third was the discovery of a single gap in the Assyrian Eponym Canon (of eleven years) at the only point where the 19th century Assyriologist George Smith conceded one could occur. This gap happens to be located at the same juncture in history where God commis-sioned Jonah to preach to the Ninevites. It also intersects, intriguingly, with a Sabbath-Jubilee year.

I believe these three features are noteworthy, and they will be explained as we progress in the study.
Despite its many footnotes, this is not an in-depth reference work. Rather, it is an enthusiast's attempt at resolving a besetting issue in Old Testament chronology: the conflicting notices for the Hebrew kings and their relation to ancient Near Eastern texts.
Bruno Kolberg

http://www.redatedkings.com/download/Redating.pdf