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34 Daniel’s “Seventy Weeks”

We read of this in the Antiquities of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus, who states –

This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his proph-
ecies; for this prophet said that God had spoken thus to him in a secret vision:-- “My will is,
that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send back my
people to their own land, and build my temple.” This was foretold by Isaiah one hundred
and forty years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and
admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what
was so written; so he called for the most eminent Jews that were in Babylon, and said to
them, that he gave them leave to go back to their own country, and to rebuild their city Jeru-
salem, and the temple of God...(Book XI, Chapter I, Section 2).

Not only that, but in the next chapter (Isaiah 45:13) YEHOVAH God speaks of Cyrus in this
way: “He shall build My city, and he shall let go My captives, not for price nor reward, saith the
Lord of hosts.” Here we clearly see that the letting go, or restoring, of the captives is coupled with
the building of the city.

We can also see that it was
Cyrus who issued the word to re-
store and to build the city. Those
who try to make the statements of
the Bible conform to the erroneous
chronology of Ptolemy inevitably
point to the fact that the building of
the city is not expressly mentioned
in Ezra 1:1-4, however Ezra does
not quote the entire decree and,
therefore, the city is not specifi-
cally mentioned in the part he
quoted. But, nonetheless, he does
make it perfectly clear that this was
the “word to restore and to build Je- The tomb of Cyrus the Great
rusalem.” Jerusalem was the focal
point of the decree and its former inhabitants were permitted (and even commanded) to return to it --
which they did. And that command -- coupled with the command to “build the house of the Lord” --
would obviously involve restoring or building homes for the inhabitants of the city.

The Building of Jerusalem

It is also recorded that in the 7th month of the first year of Cyrus, “the people gathered them-
selves together as one man to Jerusalem” (Ezra 2:1). This would naturally mean that they would
have to erect houses for themselves; and this would also explain why it was not until “the second
year of the coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month” that Zerubbabel and
Joshua, and “all they that were come out of the captivity into Jerusalem” began “to set forward the
work of the house of the Lord” (Ezra 3:8). Clearly, that interval of seven months was needed to
build homes for the people and defenses for the city.

The Berean Voice March-April 2003