Chronikon Hebraikon - The World's Age Scriptually Demonstrated

Seventh Period - From the Destruction of the Temple to the Decree for Building Jerusalem.

Embraces 136 Years

A.M.Names and EventsReferenceB.C.
3497
3501
3523


3547

3549


3567

3571

3601
3613
3620

3633
Temple burnt in the 19th of Nebuchadnezzar
In the 23rd of Nebuchadnezzar 745 Jews carried captive to Babylon
Jehoiachin liberated from prison in the 37th of his captivity
The captivity began in the 8th of Nebuchadnezzar; the 37th is, therefore, forty-five
  years after the 1st of Nebuchadnezzar; and after the burning of the Temple
From the 37th Jehoiachin and 1st of Evil Merodach to fall of Belshazzar, in the
  first of Darius the Mede; 70 years from first of Nebuchadnezzar
"The third year of Cyrus" the first of his sole reign. He decrees the rebuilding
  of the Temple
Daniel the Prophet dies
Darius the Persian, in the 2nd of his reign, issues a decree enforcing that of
  Cyrus, being 70 years from 19th of Nebuchadnezzar
The Temple is finished in the 6th of Darius, or 70 years from the 23rd of
  Nebuchadnezzar
Darius reigns after the Temple is finished
Xerxes, the fourth and richest of all the Medo-Persian kings
Artaxerxes issues a decree in the 7th of his reign for the restoration of the
  Temple service, magistrates and judges with power to tax and execute the law
Artaxerxes makes a second decree in the 20th of his reign for building the
  walls and gates and restoring Jerusalem, termed in Daniel "restoring and
  building Jerusalem." The 70 weeks begin here and end at the crucifixion
Jer. 52:12,13
Jer. 52:28,30
Jer. 52:31




Jer. 25:12; 27:7;
. . . 29:10; Ezra 1:1
Dan 1:21
Ezra 4:24; 6:1-12

Ezra 6:15


Dan 11:2
Ezra 7:24-26,7

Dan 9:25,26;
. . . Neh 2:1,5,17
592


566

542

540


522

518

488
476
469

456


NOTES ON THE SEVENTH PERIOD.

1.-Interesting Dates of Nebuchadnezzar's Reign.

1. The epoch of Nebuchadnezzar contains several dates of interest and importance, which may be enumerated thus:

a. The first year of his reign, A.M. 3477, and B.C. 612. This began the subjection of nations, including Israel to "him, his son, and his son's son," for 70 years (Jer. 25:12; 27:7). This period ended with the capture of Babylon by Darius the Mede, B.C. 542. The first year is also the beginning of the "SEVEN TIMES," which were to pass over "the kingdom of Men" (Dan. 4:23). This long period is the lifetime, or Æon, of the Image the King of Babylon, in the second of his reign, saw in his dream (Dan. 2:31). It ends in the A.D. 1908 - A.M. 4997.

b. The seventh of Nebuchadnezzar, 3,023 Jews taken to Babylon; and in the 8th, Jehoiachin, the royal family, and great men, with 10,000 captives of the people, and all the precious vessels of the temple.

c. The 18th of Nebuchadnezzar, "Jerusalem smitten," and 832 more Jews deported to Babylon (Jer. 52:29).

d. In the 19th of his reign, the temple is burnt, A.M. 3497 = B.C. 592. Here begin Ezekiel's prophetic 430 years; also a period of 70 years which terminated in the 2nd of Darius the Persian, when the rebuilding of the temple was resumed by the king's edict (Ezra 4:24; 6:1); A.M. 3567 = B.C. 522.

e. In the 23rd year there was another deportation of captives to Babylon (Jer. 52:30). This also became the beginning of a period of 70 years, which ended in the 6th of Darius, the year in which the rebuilding was finished (Ezra 6:15; B.C. 518).

2.-The Medo-Persian Dynasty.

2. In the first year of Darius the Mede, the Breast and Arms of silver superseded the Head of gold in the government of the kingdom of men. In that year one said to Daniel, "There shall stand up yet three kings in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer than they all" (Dan. 11: 2). The three were Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius the Persian-Smerdis the Magian not being reckoned, the few months of his usurpation merging into the first of Darius. The fourth was the renowned Xerxes, who "by his strength, through his riches, stirred up all against the realm of Griecia."

3.-Of the Third Year at Cyrus.

3. Usher's computation incorporated with the English Version, makes "the third year of Cyrus" synchronize with B.C. 536; but according to mine, this date is four years too late. It should be B.C. 540.

4. This B.C. 540 is an interesting and important epoch. It was the time of Daniel's "going his way." "He continued to the first year of King Cyrus" (Dan. 1:21); and received a revelation in "the third year of Cyrus" (ch. 10:1): which years are therefore the same; the first year of Cyrus as the sole monarch of the Medo-Persian empire being the third from the beginning of his joint rule with Darius the Mede.

4.-The Evening-Morning Period.

1. The thing revealed to Daniel in the third year of Cyrus is continued in chapters 10, 11, 12. He was told that "the time appointed" of this thing was "long," and that it extended to the latter days, or "time of the end." In these chapters the whole of the appointed time is not expressed in figures. It was not necessary that it should be, because it had already been indicated in ch. 8:14, 17. There the appointed time is declared to be an Evening-Morning, reaching to the time of the end, but not embracing it. The periods in verse 14 are two; first, the period in which the Holy and the Host are trodden under foot; and the second, the period in which the Holy is cleansed, vindicated, justified, or avenged. This second is not included in the first, but succeeds it. The duration of the interval between the end of the first period and the beginning of the second is not stated; the sequence only of the one to the other is revealed in the word "then," in the sense of afterwards -- "then shall the Holy be cleansed or vindicated. Between the end of the Evening-Morning period and the beginning of the cleansing period is the advent of the Ancient of Days. How many months or years after the end of the Evening-Morning is not declared; but this is certain, that the cleansing of the Holy cannot begin in his absence.

But here we have to encounter a great embarrassment. The majority of Hebrew manuscripts that have come down to us, inform us that the Evening-Morning is a period of 2,300. This is the number adopted by the English Version. If all copies and versions extant read 2,300 we should have no alternative but to receive it or to reject it altogether. But in this reading they are not agreed; for the Septuagint version made by the Jews learned in Greek, B.C. 265, reads 2,400; while other manuscripts, according to Jerome, read 2,200. "It is objected to this prophetic number 2,300," says Shimeall in his Bible Chronology, p. 152, "that the Vatican copy of the Septuagint reads 2,400 days; and copies translated by Jerome '2,200 days'; and that in support of the former number, the celebrated missionary, Joseph Wolff, states that the Jews of Ispahan and Bokhara possess some ancient manuscripts of the prophetic writings of Daniel in which chap 8:14 reads 2,400 instead of 2,300 days". Also, that when in Adrianople, in 1826, he saw an Armenian manuscript of the Bible in Greek supposed to be of the fifth century and translated by Mesrop in which the same number occurs; and yet this missionary tells us that "as the most number of manuscripts contain 2,300, he adopted that number in his arguments with the Mullah at Lucknow". He says also that "the authorities in favour of 2,300" are very numerous compared with the others; and the number 2,400 in the printed Septuagint is a typographical error of the Vatican edition, taken from the Vatican manuscript, which is said to read 2,300.

But we have found that the so-called "authorities" recognised by "divines" and chronologists are of little worth. We cannot, therefore, reject the 2,400 on their testimony. Should it be true that the Vatican manuscript reads 2,300, this only convicts the printed Septuagint of error. It does not affect Wolff's testimony concerning the ancient manuscripts of the Jews of Ispahan and Boichara, and the Armenian copy at Adrianople. It is evident that error exists somewhere, and that the "authorities" are unable to rectify it. "We are in a difficulty from which authority cannot deliver us. Let us then see if help cannot be obtained from another source.

What is the reed or rule by which the time of a vision should be measured? If this can be satisfactorily determined, its application to the claims of the rival numbers will show which of the three is entitled to a verdict in its behalf. The correct rule I conceive to be this, namely: that the time of a vision must be computed from the first event seen in the vision. There can be no good reason why any of the events of a vision should be excluded from its time. In this vision of Dan. 8, the first event the prophet sees is the last horn of the Ram-Power overtopping the first (ver. 3); and the last, the standing up of the Prince of princes (ver. 25). The event predicted in the third verse came to pass in the third year of Cyrus, B.C. 540. The two horns of the Medo-Persian Ram were high. The Median Horn, represented by Darius the Mede, and the Persian Horn, represented by Cyrus, were high above the Chaldean, which had been prostrated before them. For two years they ruled jointly in "the kingdom of men." But one of these horns became "higher than the other." Darius the Mede died, and left all the power of the kingdom in the hands of Cyrus, so that the Persian Horn was now higher than the Median, and retained the ascendancy henceforth. Thus, "the higher came up last;" the Median having precedency, B.C. 542, and the Persian two years after, B.C. 540.

Here then is the first event seen in the vision. Can any good reason be given why it should not be included in the time of the vision, whatever that may be? I can see none. I accept it, therefore, as the beginning of the vision's Evening-Morning time. Hence the question in Dan. 8:13: "Until when the Vision of the Daily and of the transgression making desolate, to give both the Holy and the Host for a trampling?" -- must be understood as an inquiry, "How long shall it be from the Persian Horn over-topping the Median Horn to the end of the Holy and the Host being given over for a down-treading?" The answer to the question reveals the terminal epoch. So long a time was to elapse before "THE DAY OF VENGEANCE" came. The period would not include the day of vengeance, but would conduct to that terrible epoch.

The third year of Cyrus, then, is our commencing epoch the year in which Daniel died, B.C 540; and who is to rise to his inheritance at the end of the days." Now if the 2,200 be the correct number, it will bring us to the verge of judgment -- the dawn of the day of vengeance when "the Holy and the Host in the highest sense of these terms will be avenged; in other words, when the Saints shall be prevailed against no longer, and judgment shall be given into their hands, that they may take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom under the whole heaven. By deducting the B.C. 540 from 2,200 there remains A.D. 1660 for its termination. But this cannot be its terminal, because, instead of the Holy being vindicated in the triumph of the Saints and the restoration of their people Israel, they were then themselves complaining to the British Government of their downdreading; and in twenty-five years after, A.D. 1685, they were "killed," and laid prostrate for 105 years more, in the breadth of the Great City. Then again, if the 2,300 be subjected to the same process, we have the terminal advanced a hundred years indeed; but A.D. 1760 is as devoid of the ending characteristics of the Vision of the Daily as A.D. 1660. If our reed, then, be according to the divine standard of measurement, 2,200 and 2,300 are both inadmissible. They are both of them spurious in spite of the numerous "authorities" and "competent judges," and the Pope's Vatican manuscript.

But how is it with the 2,400 years of the Ispahan and Bokhara Hebrew manuscripts -- Ispahan, in the region where Daniel dwelt when he saw the vision? Deduct the B.C. 540 from 2,400 and there remains A.D. 1860, for the time of the end of the vision -- "to the time of the end of the vision." Now 1860 is a notable year in the history of the unmeasured Court of the Gentiles. It terminated after the Hebrew method in the Spring of 1861. In this season the first gun boomed from Fort Sumter, commencing the inauguration of impending vengeance upon the worshippers of "dæmomals and idols." The end of A.D. 1860, brought upon the whole Fourth Beast Habitable the current epoch, made red with the blood, and flooded with the tears of ruined, groaning, and slaughtered myriads. It has been an epoch of woe upon the United States, Federal and Confederate; upon Mexico, Poland, Denmark, and all other countries untowardly affected by the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. These are only the "beginning of sorrows" -- the initiation of that "distress of nations with perplexity," which signalises the appearing of the Ancient of Days, The Evening-Morning of 2,400 is ended; and its ending notably signalised by Divine vengeance falling upon nations, whose religious institutions and traditions are a stereotyped "blasphemy of the Name and Tabernacle of the Deity and of them that dwell in heaven" -- a downtreading of "the Holy and the Host" (Apoc. 13:6). Its termination has brought us to a crisis signalised also by the Frog sign in the third and last stage of its development. The "unclean spirits like frogs" go forth "from the Mouth of the False Prophet" (Apoc. 16:13). The Convention of the Frog Power with the King of Italy, dated September 15, 1864, for the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome two years after date, that is, by the end of 1866, will doubtless notably develop from the Papal Government the "unclean spirit" with which it is obviously inspired. The "god of the earth," unsupported by foreign bayonets, will certainly fall into much grief. [The Temporal Power fell 1870. This was written in 1865.-G.C.W.] Let it be noted, that 1,260 years ago, the Bishop of Rome was created by the Dragon-Emperor Phocas, a god in his estate: and now the policy of the Frog-Emperor and his intimates is to destroy his deity, or godship; and to reduce him to his original insignificance as an episcopal subject of the empire. But gods generally die hard. If they cannot defend themselves by their own power, they appeal to other gods for aid. The Pope will doubtless do this. Abandoned to his own resources by the French, threatened by the Italians, and swallowed up by his own revolutionary Romans, a wail of anguish and distress will arouse his worshippers and despotic allies to a grand rally in the interest of order and legitimacy, of which he is the ecclesiastical representative -- an order imperiled even now on every side.

Thus, from all the signs of the times connected with the Eastern and Romish questions -- questions concentrating round the fate of Rome and Constantinople -- it is not to be doubted that our current epoch is a great prophetic crisis; a crisis signalised by the termination of one or more important prophetic periods, and marking the speedy or actual commencement of another. I have a strong conviction that 2,400 is, and can only be, the correct number, and that it has reached its terminus. I have "full assurance of faith" that it commenced in "the third year of Cyrus;" and if that year were, according to the computation of Usher and others, B.C. 536, even then it will have ended A.D. 1864; and the bloody epoch of 1861-5, will have been included in the 2,400 as its terminal four years. But the facts and figures of my chronology prove that "the third year of Cyrus" is not to be dated B.C. 536, but B.C. 540, which therefore causes the 2,400 to end in A.D. 1860.

Sir Isaac Newton accepted the 2,300, the beginning of which he assigned to B.C. 538. Shimeall rejects this, and begins them B.C. 480, at the invasion of Greece, by the Ram-power pushing westward under Xerxes. Miller and his disciples computed them from the initiation of Daniel's 70 weeks, B.C. 457. Of these Sir Isaac Newton came nearest to the truth concerning the commencing era; but like all the rest, was prevented from arriving at a correct solution, owing to the spuriousness of the number 2,300. Before my suspicions were aroused as to its genuineness, though always an opponent of Millerism, I accepted their commencement of the period. But, from what is before the reader, it is evident to me that the acceptance of 2,400 as the true reading is indispensable to even a probable solution of the difficulty.

5.-The Four Decrees.

Ezra informs us in ch. 1 that Cyrus, King of Persia, in the first of his reign, issued a decree, saying that the Lord God, who had given him all the kingdoms of the earth, had charged him to build for Him a house at Jerusalem; and that in obedience to this he invited all Jews so disposed to go up to that city, and to begin the work. This proclamation was made 70 years after Nebuchadnezzar saw the Image in the second year of his reign (Dan. 2). He saw that image demolished by the antitypical Cyrus in the latter days. These 70 years Jeremiah, styled "the land enjoying its sabbaths to fulfil threescore and ten years," ended with the third year of Cyrus, or the first of his sole reign, B.C. 540. So that the end of these sabbatic years was the beginning of the 2,400 of treading-down.

EIGHTEEN years after, another decree was issued by Darius the Persian in the second year of his reign, enforcing the decree of Cyrus which had been suspended by Cambyses, styled by Ezra, Artaxerxes. This was B.C. 522. Haggai and Zechariah the prophets, greatly encouraged the building of the temple under this decree: so that the work was finished in the 6th of Darius, B.C. 518.

FIFTY-THREE years after the decree of Darius, another was issued in the 7th of Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, B.C. 469. This was for the appointment of "magistrates and judges to judge all the people beyond the river, all such as knew the laws of God" (Ezra 7:7-25, 26).

THIRTEEN years after this Artaxerxes made a second decree in the month of Nisan of the 2Oth year of his reign, B.C. 456. It was issued to Nehemiah while Jerusalem was "lying waste, without a wall, or gates; and therefore a reproach for its enemies." The broad wall was in ruins with breaches in all its length (Neh. 2:13, 17; 3:8; 5:7). This unfortified state of the city caused few people to dwell there, and prevented many houses from being erected: "The city," says Nehemiah, "was large and great (or broad in space) but the people were few therein, and the houses not builded" (ch. 7:4). This condition of the Holy City caused him great grief "When I heard it," says he, "I sat down and wept, and mourned, and prayed before the God of heaven" (ch. 1:4). Being cupbearer to the king, on presenting him with wine, his sadness was observed, and the reason demanded. Having explained the cause, Artaxerxes commissioned him to go to Jerusalem, and cause the people to return and build it; that so Jerusalem might return, the broad wall be builded, and the breaches closed.

This second decree of Artaxerxes is "the commandment referred to in Dan. 9:25, from the going forth of which the Seventy Weeks were to be computed. Beginning in the month of Nisan of the 20th of Artaxerxes, and extending "to the cutting off of Messiah the Prince," this latter event, the Crucifixion, must necessarily be 490 years from the issuance of the decree; so that, if none of the dates of our Eighth Period were extant a suspension bridge would still span the interval; and reveal to us that the world would be 490 years older at the Crucifixion, than in the 20th of the king. It is more satisfactory, however, to be able to fill in the interval with authentic dates, whose sum total is exactly Seventy Weeks of Years. And this I have been enabled to do, as the reader will perceive.


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