Which decree began the 490 years of Daniel 9?

Introduction

Purpose

According to Daniel 9:25, the 70 weeks (490 years) began with “a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem.” Different creeds have been proposed, such as creeds by the Persian kings Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes. This article evaluates these decrees to identify the decree that best fits Daniel 9.

Restore does not mean Rebuild.

The decree would both ‘restore’ and ‘rebuild’ Jerusalem. To identify the right decree, it is important to distinguish between these two actions. Rebuild means physical reconstruction. The word translated as “restore” (shûb) means something else. It means to return ownership of the city to the previous owner:

For example, the Aramean king said to Ahab, king of Israel, that he would return certain cities to Israel (I Kings 20:34). These cities have not been destroyed. They were simply given back.

As another example, according to 2 Kings 14:22, Azariah, king of Judah, rebuilt the city of Elath and restored it to Judah. This verse uses both the verbs rebuild and restore. The city had been in ruins. After it was rebuilt, it was restored (returned or given back) to Judah (cf. 1 Kings 12:21).

Therefore, in Daniel 9:25, restoring Jerusalem does not merely mean rebuilding or allowing the Jews to live in the city. Restoring means that the Israelites would own the city. And since Jerusalem was the judicial and executive capital, restoring also means that Jerusalem would serve as their capital from where they would rule themselves according to their own laws.

Possible Decrees

Jeremiah’s prophecy

Liberal scholars do not accept the Book of Daniel as divinely inspired or that it refers to Jesus Christ. They propose that Daniel is history written in the form of a prophecy. Specifically, in their view, the book was written during the persecution of the Jews by the Greek king Antiochus IV (around 165 BC), and that Daniel 9 is about that crisis.

However, to fit 490 years between the decree and the time of Antiochus, they have to select the earliest possible decree. Some Liberals propose a prophecy by the prophet Jeremiah, of the coming destruction and restoration of Jerusalem, as the decree in Daniel 9. But even if they take the earliest possible such prophecy, in about 605 BC, there are still only 440 years between the decree and Antiochus, not the required 490 years. Liberals would assume that the difference was a mistake made by the uninspired writer of the Book of Daniel.

Four Persian Decrees

The books by Ezra and Nehemiah mention four different decrees by three different Persian monarchs, dealing with the return of the exiles and the rebuilding of the temple and city. One of these must be the decree mentioned in Daniel 9.

Cyrus – 538/7

In 538/7 BC, Cyrus allowed Jews to return to Judah and to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:1-4; cf. Isa 45:1). This implies the right to rebuild Jerusalem. However, Cyrus did not “restore” Jerusalem, as required by Daniel 9:25, for he did not set the Israelites free to rule themselves. Israel was not yet allowed to make their own laws, to govern itself. They were still under Persian rule.

Darius I – 520 BC

In response to Cyrus’ edict, the Jews slowly began to return to their homeland. More than 15 years later, Haggai and Zechariah tell us that, instead of rebuilding the temple, the returnees set about their own business. The rich built luxury homes, but most returnees lived in and around the ruined city, suffered crop failures and droughts, while the temple remained in ruins (Haggai 1:1-11).

Zerubbabel and Joshua, supported by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, began rebuilding the temple 17 years after Cyrus’s decree, but experienced resistance (Ezra 5). The Samaritans complained to the authorities. In response, the local governor wrote a letter to Darius to verify the rights of the Jews. An investigation was made, and the decree of Cyrus was found.

Note that the Samaritans appealed to the Persian authorities, and that a search was made in the Persian decrees to see whether the Jews had the right to rebuild the city. This confirms that Jerusalem has not yet been “restored,” as defined above.

King Darius confirmed Cyrus’ decree through an additional edict (ca. 520 BC) (Ezra 6:3-12). His edict mentioned only the rebuilding of the temple and merely confirmed Cyrus’ edict. It also did not restore Jerusalem. It did not return ownership of the city to Israel. Israel was not yet able to rule itself by their own laws.

Artaxerxes – 458/7 BC

Artaxerxes I issued two decrees in 458/7 (Ezra 7:1-26) and 445/4 BC (Neh 1-2) respectively:

The first decree in 458/7, about 60 years after the temple had been completed, granted permission to the exiles to return to Jerusalem, assigned funds for the support of the temple in Jerusalem, and exempted the temple and temple personnel from tax. These are not different from the previous decrees. But what was added is that the decree authorized Israel to rule itself based on the Torah. Of particular importance is Ezra 7:26:

“Whoever does not obey the law of your God and the law of the king must surely be punished by death, banishment, confiscation of property, or imprisonment.”

In this way, the Persian king made the Mosaic law part of his own law and granted, for the first time, Israel the authority to govern itself based on the law of God.

Artaxerxes issued this decree sometime in 458/7. In response, Ezra, with a considerable company of people, went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes’s reign (Ezra 7:6-7, 11-17).

Artaxerxes – 445/4

In the king’s twentieth year (Neh 2:1) (445/4 BC), Nehemiah heard that the wall of the city was still broken down, and its gates were still destroyed (Neh 1:3; cf. 2:3). Nehemiah then requested and obtained permission from Artaxerxes to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city (Neh 2:5). We have to choose between Artaxerxes’s two decrees:

The Right Decree

Which one fits the Time of Christ?

According to Daniel 9:25, the Messiah would appear 483 years after the decree.

The Second Decree

In the Dispensation interpretation, the second decree in 445/4 BC is the right decree. However, adding 483 years to that date takes us to about 7 years AFTER Christ’s death. Dispensationalism attempts to solve this discrepancy by interpreting the 483 years as ‘prophetic years’ consisting of 360 days each. This reduces the 483 years by about 7 years. This brings us to the year Jesus was crucified. More specifically, Dispensationalism claims that it brings us to His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a few days before His death.

However, as discussed, the prophecy of “seventy weeks” (Dan 9:24) is based on Israel’s seven-year cycle, where every seventh year is a sabbath for the land. Israel was not allowed to farm on the sabbath years. Therefore, the “seventy weeks” are literal weeks of years, not ‘prophetic years’. It follows that Artaxerxes’ second decree was too late to fit the time of Christ.

The First Decree

In the Historical-Messianic interpretation, the right decree is Artaxerxes’s first decree in 458/7 BC. It identifies the appearance of the Missiah, as predicted in verse 25, as Jesus’s anointment by the Holy Spirit at His baptism (cf. John 1:31; Mark 1:9-14; Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38).

Jesus was baptized in the 15th year of the Roman emperor Tiberius (Luke 3:1, 5, 21), which chronologists date to between 26 and 29 AD.

Adding 483 years to 458/7, we arrive at AD 26/27. (457 + 27 – 1 = 483; Remember, no year nil. From 1 BC to 1 AD is one year, not two.) In other words, Artaxerxes’ first decree aligns well with the possible dates of Jesus’ baptism. It fits the prophecy because it fits the time of Christ.

Which one ‘restored’ Jerusalem?

Artaxerxes’ second decree did not “restore” Jerusalem because Artaxerxes’ first decree already “restored” it. The first decree allowed Israel to rule itself. As stated, the first decree made the Mosaic law part of the Persian law and granted judicial autonomy to Judah to govern themselves based on the law of God (Ezra 7:26).

Which one authorized rebuilding?

Dispensationalism objects that the decree in 458/7 did not specifically authorize the rebuilding of the city. That is not true. The decrees by Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, by allowing the Jews to return to Judah, to rebuild the temple, and to govern themselves, implicitly allowed the Jews to rebuild their cities. In fact, the following proves that the construction of the walls began before Nehemiah arrived:

(1) When Nehemiah arrived, he inspected the work already done on the wall (Neh 2:15-16). Therefore, some work was already done.

(2) Nehemiah repaired the walls in only 52 days (Neh 6:15). This implies that work had been done before. It is unlikely that the damage could be reversed in less than two months.

(3) At some point, Artaxerxes stopped the work on the wall (Ezra 4:12, 23). However, no such interruption is recorded in the Book of Nehemiah. This implies that the interruption was before Nehemiah arrived, which further implies that work on the wall was done before Nehemiah.

(4) In 445/4 BC, when Nehemiah was informed that the wall and gates remained broken down, he wept for days (Neh 1:3-4). This implies that he expected the work on the walls and gates to be completed, which further implies that permission, to rebuild the city, was previously granted.

(5) Nehemiah did not ask for permission to rebuild the city. He only asked to go to Jerusalem and for wood for the walls (Neh 2:5, 8). This also implies that permission, to rebuild the walls, already existed.

Conclusion

In summary, Artaxerxes’ first decree fits the description in Daniel 9:25 better than his second because it:

(a) Fits the time of Christ,
(b) “Restored” Jerusalem as the judicial capital to the Jews, and
(c) Implicitly authorized the Jews to “rebuild” the city.