SRR 94 The Danielic Imperative Part 17

I do a podcast.

I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the error and combating the error.

Polemics, Clarkian Identity, and Jesus-Style Conflict

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing. It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. As opposed to, blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.

Introducing the Danielic Imperative and the Related Diving Board Series

Welcome back to our listeners. Thanks so much for your patience. This is your host, Timothy F. Kaufman. And you're listening to our eschatological series, The Danielic Imperative. We took a bit of a break there since our last episode because I was focusing on some writing on a study of Irenaeus.

And we will let our listeners know when that is published so they can read it if they like. We have also been working on a separate podcast called The Diving Board. And the inspiration for that podcast is the vast historical ignorance displayed and the historical revisions that occur when Roman Catholic apologists try to explain the allegedly ancient apostolic roots of their religion.

And particularly, the Protestants who fall for the lie and buy into it wholesale. Our inaugural episodes on The Diving Board covered the lecture by former Anglican priest, Ray Ryland, who had converted to Roman Catholicism after, quote, discovering papal authority in the early church.

His lecture was given at the Deep in History conference many years ago. So named because Roman Catholics often think that they are very deep in history. When in fact, they are still swimming in the shallow end.

That deep in history line is from a 19th century essay by former Anglican, John Henry Newman, who said famously and inaccurately that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. As you might expect, the boastful rallying cry of the Roman apologists that they are deep in history is meant to cloak in obscurity the weakest point of their argument.

As it turns out, there is no evidence of what we would call the Roman Catholic religion prior to the second half of the 4th century. And the Roman apologist has to spend most of his time explaining why he can't find evidence of his ancient religion prior to that.

We address that point more fully in The Diving Board, so go take a listen. But back to the Danielic imperative. We are picking up where we left off in the spring. We are back with another episode and we will briefly remind our listeners about why we call it by that name.

Our series is called The Danielic Imperative because the Lord established a timeline in Daniel and it is imperative that we understand that timeline in order to understand the eschatology of Jesus and his apostles.

The immediately preceding episode, episode 16, led up to the destruction of Jerusalem and showed that in the years preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus and his apostles explained God's plan to set up a heavenly kingdom in the period of the feet of the statue of Daniel chapter 2.

In fact, Jesus couched the destruction of Jerusalem and the taking of the kingdom from the Jews and giving it to the Gentiles in terms that were resonant of and consistent with the stone-striking Nebuchadnezzar statue in that chapter of Daniel.

It was shortly after 69 AD that the period of the feet of Daniel's statue would have begun, the first seven Roman emperors comprising the period of the iron legs of Nebuchadnezzar's statue, and thus the taking away of the kingdom from the Jews and setting up a heavenly kingdom coincided with the destruction of Jerusalem.

We also relied on that Danielic timeline to show that, through Jeremiah, the Lord had warned the Jews about their sanctuary and Sabbath violations and idolatries in accordance with Leviticus 26, and that when they refused to repent, the Lord sent them away to Babylon to accomplish 70 years in the desolation of Jerusalem.

We also showed that the Jews did not adequately or properly repent of their sins during that 70 years, and in accordance with Leviticus 26, the Lord multiplied their punishment sevenfold. That is why, when Daniel was praying about the end of the 70 years in Daniel 9, the angel Gabriel responded to his inquiry with an answer about 490 years instead of 70.

He had multiplied the punishment sevenfold in accordance with Leviticus 26. Then, in the midst of his explanation of the 490 years, Gabriel divided the 490 years into three separate prophecies of 7 sevens, 62 sevens, and 1 seven, which is to say 49 years, 434 years, and 7 years.

Each prophecy with its own starting point and ending point. We will not revisit that analysis, but we will return to one aspect of it because we never really took the time to explain when the 70 years actually took place.

The Problem of Identifying Jeremiah's Seventy Years

In fact, the duration of that 70 years, the original punishment prophesied by Jeremiah, is one of the most baffling prophecies in the Bible because nobody seems to know for sure when it occurred. The Scriptures say it definitely happened, and the Scriptures even identify its beginning point and prophesy its ending point.

But even with that information, it is difficult to nail down an exact 70-year period that would qualify. That's what we're going to focus on today. We can't wrap up a study on the 70 weeks of Daniel and explain the entire prophecy in precise historical detail and not pinpoint the actual 70 years of the original prophecy that started it all.

So, before we move on with the study of Danielic eschatology, we're going to spend an entire episode today just on those 70 years. The difficulty of analyzing the 70-year prophecy of Jeremiah may be discerned simply by reading the many commentaries on the subject.

Here is just a sampling. This is from Ellicott's commentary for English readers. He said, Well, the problem with that commentary is that Nebuchadnezzar did not come to power until 605 BC, and the first deportation of the Jews to Babylon did not occur until 598 BC, and further, Cyrus's decree for the return of the exiles was issued by Cyrus, king of Persia, in 538 BC, not 536.

So, Ellicott's attempt to find the 70 years was based on inaccurate historical data. Moving on to Benson's commentary, he said, We shall find the nations to have continued all that time, nearly 70 years, in subjection, more or less, to the king of Babylon.

Note the indefinite nature of the claim, nearly 70 years, more or less. Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges says, would cause the number 70 to the ears, when used in such a connection, to stand for any number not differing by much from that amount.

Notice how indefinite the fulfillment of the prophecy is, not differing very much from 70, or approximately 70. The pulpit commentary is quite similar, no more help than the previous. It says,. The problem with all of these commentaries is either that they use incorrect dates that stretch events to make them fit 70 years, as in Ellicott's case, or they throw biblical math to the dogs and settle on an approximation.

But we've spent a great deal of time showing that Gabriel's 490-year prophecy was a 7-fold multiplication of Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy in chapters 25 and 29, in accordance with the Leviticus 26 protocol, which says that God would punish the Jews if they failed to repent under punishment, namely, that he would multiply the punishment 7-fold.

But 7 times nearly 70, or approximately 70, or more or less 70, or not differing by much from 70, or a very long time, does not really equal 70 times 7. Gabriel must have been multiplying 70 actual years by 7 to get 70 times 7.

In fact, the angel in Zechariah 1 .12 and the Lord in Zechariah 7 .5 actually refer to the 70 years as a specific historical period. So there must have been an actual 70 years. Listen to all the scriptural references to a very specific and literal 70 years.

Jeremiah 25 .11 says,. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Jeremiah 25 .12. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

Jeremiah 29 .10. For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. Daniel 9 .2 In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

Zechariah 1 .12 Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?

Zechariah 7 .5 Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?

So those are the six explicit references to the seventy years. Surely there is an actual seventy year period in history. Jeremiah prophesied that there would be, and Zechariah said that there had been.

But it will not help us to assume that the seventy years begins with Israel's captivity, or with their exile to Babylon, or with the desolation of Jerusalem, since the scripture never actually refers to it as a seventy year exile, or a seventy year captivity, or even a seventy year desolation.

What the scriptures do say is that Israel would be a desolation and an astonishment, which is true, and all these nations would serve the king of Babylon seventy years, which is also true. And Daniel said that God would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

But he did not say that Jerusalem would be a desolation for seventy years. We really ought to start our analysis with the understanding that the Lord had raised up Nebuchadnezzar as king in order to discipline the Jews.

They began to serve the king of Babylon not at the beginning of their captivity, or even at the beginning of his belligerence toward Jerusalem, but rather at the moment when Nebuchadnezzar came to power.

In Jeremiah 46 -2, the Lord calls Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon when he mustered the Babylonian army to march against the Egyptians at the Battle of Carchemish in 605 B .C. Nebuchadnezzar's father, Nebuchadnezzar, died in August of 605 B .C., but according to scripture, Nebuchadnezzar was already king by then.

Then in Jeremiah 27, verses 6 -7, God says, Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and the beasts of the field I have given him also to serve him, and all nations shall serve him and his son and his son's son.

In fact, the Jews and everyone else began to serve him the moment he came to power, and that was in the spring of 605 B .C., when Nebuchadnezzar was preparing to march on the Egyptians at the Battle of Carchemish.

The scriptures, after all, do say that springtime is the time of year the kings march out to battle. The 70 years in scripture must of necessity begin in 605 B .C., when Nebuchadnezzar came to power. That means the 70 years must have ended 70 years later, in the spring of 535 B .C.

So let's figure out what happened in the spring of 535 B .C. to bring the 70-year period to its completion. It is a complex puzzle, but the answer is in the scriptures, and with a little simple math and a little bit of detailed analysis, we'll be able to figure it out.

As our listeners will recall, it was in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar that Jeremiah received a promise from the Lord that he would rebuild Jerusalem. That's in Jeremiah chapters 30 to 33. And according to Daniel 9 .25, it was another seven sevens, that is, 49 years, to the coming of an anointed ruler, which the scriptures identify as Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord's anointed, in Isaiah 44 .28.

As Isaiah prophesied, Cyrus was the Lord's anointed and would restore Jerusalem and the temple and the foundation, according to Isaiah 44 .28 -45 .1. So we'll use some simple math here. 18 years until Jeremiah receives the promise that Jerusalem would be rebuilt, plus another 49 years until Cyrus, equals 67 years from the rise of Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC until the coming of Cyrus, king of Persia, in 538 BC.

So whatever happened to conclude the 70 years took place three years later, in the spring of 535 BC. There must be something that happened at that time to indicate the completion of the 70 years. And in fact, the scripture indicates exactly what that was.

According to Ezra 1 verses 1 to 2 and Ezra 6 verse 3, in his first year Cyrus declared that the Lord hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid.

And according to Isaiah 44 .28, Cyrus was raised up by the Lord to say to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built, and to the temple, thy foundation shall be laid. Cyrus decreed these things in his first year, having become king of Babylon on October 12 of 538 BC, two days after routing the Babylonian army at the Battle of Opus.

At this point, we will remind our listener of what we said in the preceding episodes, namely, that the whole point of the 70 year punishment, in accordance with Leviticus 26, was to cause Jerusalem to be an astonishment to the surrounding nations and to desolate the land and the sanctuary.

That's according to Leviticus 26 verses 31 to 32. So we are looking for a time when the temple began to be restored and the surrounding nations stopped being astonished at Israel's desolation. We can pinpoint that time from Ezra 3 .10, when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, and Ezra 4 .1, when the surrounding nations began to complain and worry that the Jews had begun to rebuild their temple.

In fact, the laying of the foundation of the temple was the turning point, indicating the end of the 70 years. So, when was the foundation laid? That's what we're going to find out today. The book of Zechariah deals explicitly with those 70 years and what they accomplished, if you look at chapter 1 verse 12 and chapter 7 verse 5.

Then, according to Zechariah 8 verses 9 to 13, the laying of the foundation was the indication that the Lord's promise in Jeremiah 29 .10, that is, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, had, in fact, come to pass.

Listen closely to Zechariah as he describes that the laying of the foundation was, in fact, the turning point. Now, citing Zechariah chapter 8 verses 9 to 13. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built.

For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast. Neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction. For I set all men, every one against his neighbor.

But now I will not be unto the residue of this people, as in the former days, saith the Lord of hosts. For the seed shall be prosperous, the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their due.

And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. And it shall come to pass that, as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and ye shall be a blessing.

Fear not, but let your hands be strong. Notice that in Zechariah, the laying of the foundation, that the temple might be built, is the turning point. From this we know that the laying of the foundation is the sign of the end of the desolation that fulfilled the 70 years.

What we need to do is find out when the foundation was laid. The scripture says that the first time the Jews returned from captivity was after Cyrus set them free in his first year. The scripture does not say what month Cyrus issued his decree, and it does not say what month the Jews departed from Babylon, and it does not say what month the Jews arrived in Jerusalem, but it does say that when they arrived, they came to the house of the Lord, which is at Jerusalem.

That's in Ezra 2 .68. And made offerings of gold, silver, and priestly garments, and then retired to their cities. That's in Ezra 2 .70. And Ezra 3 .1 says,. When the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem, and began they to offer burnt offerings unto the Lord.

But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. And finally, Ezra 3 .8 -10 says,. Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord.

So what we don't know is what month Cyrus made his decree, or what month the Jews left Babylon, or what month they arrived in Jerusalem. And therefore we cannot discern from this passage the exact year that the foundation was laid.

But what we do know is that they retired from Jerusalem to their cities upon their arrival, and then returned to Jerusalem again to offer sacrifices on the first day of the seventh month. We also know that they laid the foundation of the temple in the second month, in the second year of their coming to the house of the Lord, which would be the second year since their first arrival in Jerusalem.

But exactly when did they come to the house of the Lord? There simply is no fixed point of reference to a known date in the narrative, which is why the date of the laying of the foundation is a little elusive.

The text does not say they arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month of Cyrus' first year, or that they offered sacrifices in the seventh month of Cyrus' first year, or that they laid the foundation in the second month of Cyrus' second year.

And that is the crux of the issue. There is no explicit, fixed reference point for determining when the foundation was laid. But we are not without help from the Scriptures. To figure this out, we will need to analyze four different journeys between captivity and Jerusalem.

And we will need to understand how long it would have taken to travel from Babylon to the location of the house of God at Jerusalem, the timing of their return in the seventh month to offer sacrifices in Jerusalem, and what the prophet means by, in the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem.

In other words, we are going to have to reconstruct a timeline, a sequence of events. Once we do that, it will become clear what year is in view, and from that we will be able to determine when they laid the foundation of the temple.

Reconstructing the Travel Timeline from Babylon, Susa, and Jerusalem

So, let's get to work. Let's think through the Jews' travels back and forth from Jerusalem to captivity. There are four journeys that will be of interest to us, and they are depicted in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

The first journey is that of Sheshpazar and Zerubbabel, depicted in Ezra chapters 1 to 3, upon Cyrus' first decree in his first year. And we know that Cyrus made the decree in his first year, and the Jews made their journey that year, and the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem is about 900 miles.

The second journey of interest to us is that of Ezra from Babylon to Jerusalem, depicted in Ezra chapters 7 to 8. This journey took place in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, according to Ezra 7 -7. And he departed from Babylon on the first day of the first month of the Hebrew calendar, that is, the month of Nisan, which answers roughly to about March 23rd on our calendar.

It is basically the beginning of spring. And he arrived on the first day of the fifth month of Av, which answers roughly to about July 19th on our calendar. It is the middle of summer. The journey was exactly four months.

The third trip of interest to us is an obscure journey of some messengers from Jerusalem who traveled to Susa, where Nehemiah was in captivity, in Nehemiah 1 -1. The journey from Jerusalem to Susa takes you through Babylon and is about 1 ,100 miles.

The messengers arrived from Jerusalem in the ninth month of the Hebrew year, which answers to November-December on our calendar. It is almost the onset of winter. This is an important journey in our analysis, because it effectively bounds the departure and arrival times of Jewish journeys between Jerusalem and captivity.

Because of the difficulties of traveling in winter, the Jews would wait until spring, at the earliest, to depart on a journey, and they would make sure they departed at the latest in sufficient time to arrive at their destination before the onset of winter.

The Jews simply did not travel in winter if it could be avoided, as the scriptures indicate in many other places. One particularly relevant point of interest is that in Ezra 10, verses 9 -12, it is the twentieth day of the ninth month, which would be about December 7th, and it is a time of great rain, so much so that the people could not stand outside the house of God.

That is how bad winters could be, and they were certainly not going to travel if it could be avoided. As we are about to see, for small groups, this trip could take place in as little as three to four months, so the messengers would have departed Jerusalem no earlier than the fifth month, the month of Av, which, as we noted, is midsummer, in order to arrive in the ninth month before the rain.

This is an important example to show that journeys between Jerusalem and captivity would begin no earlier than spring, in order to avoid leaving in winter, but they could begin as late as midsummer to avoid arriving in winter.

That fact will become important a little later in our discussion. So, that's the third journey of interest to us. The fourth journey of interest is Nehemiah's return to Jerusalem from Susa the following spring, after the messengers arrived from Jerusalem.

Nehemiah wrote that the messengers from Jerusalem had arrived in the month of Kislev, according to Nehemiah 1, verses 2 -3. Nehemiah held on to that information through the winter and then approached King Artaxerxes in the month of Nisan to ask permission to return.

That's Nehemiah 2 -1. The king granted permission immediately, and Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem and rested three days there, according to Nehemiah 2 -11. He then spent 52 days working on the wall, and completed the wall on the 25th day of the sixth month, which is the month of Elul, according to Nehemiah 6 -15.

That date corresponds to about the second week of September. Now, if the wall took 52 days to complete, and it was completed on the 25th day of Elul, the sixth month, then construction must have begun on the third day of Av, the fifth month.

And since Nehemiah said he waited three days at Jerusalem upon arrival, Nehemiah must have arrived in Jerusalem no later than the first day of the fifth month, which, as noted previously, answers to late July in our calendar.

The significance of this to us is that if Nehemiah departed from Susa on the first of Nisan, or at least in early Nisan, in the spring, then his trip from Susa to Jerusalem was also about four months, even though he had 300 more miles to travel than Ezra did when he journeyed from Babylon to Jerusalem in roughly the same length of time.

Of course, he could have departed at any time in the month of Nisan, and the scriptures don't actually tell us, so it is conceivable that it could have been as short as three months to travel those 1 ,100 miles.

The important item of note is that it was about three to four months for Nehemiah to travel from Susa to Jerusalem. So, those are the four journeys that we have to think about. Sheshpazar's and Zerubbabel's journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, Ezra's journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, the messenger's journey from Jerusalem to Susa, and Nehemiah's journey from Susa to Jerusalem.

We do need to sort out the travel times and distances, but we also need to sort out the number of travelers and what they were carrying and whether they were traveling with an armed guard. These factors all make a difference in our analysis.

While Nehemiah's 1 ,100-mile trip took between three and four months from Susa to Jerusalem, and Ezra's 900-mile trip took four months from Babylon to Jerusalem, there were some mitigating factors that would account for Nehemiah's group traveling so much faster than Ezra's.

For example, Nehemiah was one man traveling under an armed guard, according to Nehemiah 2 .9. But Ezra was traveling without an armed guard, according to Ezra 8 .22. And Ezra had nearly 2 ,000 men with him, according to Ezra 8, not counting women and children.

So his total entourage was probably close to 8 ,000. Additionally, Ezra stopped at the River Ahava and realized that he had not brought any Levites with him and had to send some messengers back to recruit some priests, and then proceeded once the Levites joined them, departing from the River Ahava on the twelfth day of Nisan, according to Ezra 8, verses 15 -16.

So that is why Ezra's trip may have been about the same duration as Nehemiah's, or maybe slightly longer, even though Nehemiah was traveling 1 ,100 miles from Susa, and Ezra was only traveling 900 miles from Babylon.

But from these two journeys we know several important facts. Journeys begin no earlier than the spring, and one man traveling under armed guard may travel more rapidly, as shown by Nehemiah's three to four-month trip from Susa to Jerusalem, and a group of about 8 ,000 people traveling without an armed guard will be a little slower, as shown by Ezra's four-month trip from Babylon to Jerusalem.

So now let's turn our attention to the trip that really matters to us in our analysis of the 70-year punishment, and that is their very first trip back from captivity. I refer to Sheshbazar's and Zerubbabel's trip from Babylon to Jerusalem in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, as depicted in Ezra chapters 1 to 3.

Based on our analysis so far, Cyrus became king of Babylon on October 12 of 538 B .C., and the Jews certainly would not have begun a 900-mile journey that would leave them en route through winter, and so they would not have left any earlier than the month of Nisan, the first month of the following year, that is, the spring of 537 B .C.

Then the text tells us that they came to the house of God in Jerusalem, the house, of course, being completely gone, and made some donations to the work of the temple, as well as some donations of priestly garments, according to Ezra 2 .68, and then everyone left and went to their cities, that is, as the text says, all Israel in their cities, according to Ezra 2 .70.

Then they gathered together again as one man in Jerusalem on the first day of the seventh month of Tishri, which answers to about mid-September on our calendar, to build an altar unto the Lord and to offer sacrifices to Him and donate even more money toward the construction of the temple, according to Ezra 3, verses 1 to 7.

And then in the second month of the following year, which corresponds to the April-May time frame, they laid the foundation. From this we ought to be able to construct a timeline to determine what year the foundation was laid, and this is the meat of our discussion today.

The reason the different journeys matter to us is that we will need to construct a reasonable timeline to determine when the Jews would have arrived in Jerusalem and thus when they would have returned in the seventh month and thus when they would have returned the following year in order to lay the foundation.

So let's construct what we would call the baseline compressed timeline, one that assumes everything happens in rapid fashion, as quickly as reasonably possible, and we will go from there. We have provided a visual depiction of the compressed timeline in the show notes, and it goes something like this.

Cyrus comes to power, that is, he topples Babylon, on October 12, 538 BC. Sometime in his first year, he decrees that the foundation of the temple should be laid in Jerusalem. Even if he did that on his very first day, there is no way the Jews would embark on a journey that puts them halfway between Babylon and Jerusalem in the dead of winter, so let's assume they leave for Jerusalem on the first day of the first month of Nisan, which is the spring of the next year, or 537 BC.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that they travel at the same pace as Ezra and arrive in Jerusalem four months later, on the first day of the fifth month, which would be mid-July of 537 BC. They make donations of silver and gold and priestly garments, and then retire to their cities.

They return two months later, and on the first of the seventh month, which would be mid-September of 537 BC, they build an altar, and donate more money and food and drink for carpenters, masons, and for procuring timber from Tyre and Sidon for the construction of the temple.

And then they return again in the second month of the next calendar year, which would be April to May of 536 BC, to lay the foundation of the temple. In this timeline, they lay the foundation only nine months after their arrival.

Why the Compressed Timeline Fails the Ordinal-Year Test

So let's ask ourselves, is that baseline compressed timeline reasonable? The answer is no, it is not reasonable, and for a very simple reason. It actually creates a paradox in the narrative. The foundation was laid in the second month of the second year of their coming to the house of God, which would be April-May 536 BC.

Keep in mind, according to this hypothetical timeline that we proposed, the Jews would have arrived in Jerusalem in the summer of 537 BC, and then laid the foundation in the spring of 536 BC, only nine months later.

But Ezra said that they laid the foundation in the second month of the second year of their arrival at the house of God. There is no way Ezra would have written that the foundation was laid in the second year of their arrival, only nine months after their arrival.

That would place it in the first year of their arrival. The way the Old Testament describes ordinal years, that is, first, second, third, and so on, is only after each full year has elapsed since they started counting.

And remember, Ezra does not say in the second year since their departure from Babylon, or in the second year of Cyrus king of Persia. He says in the second year of their coming to the house of the Lord, which refers to their first arrival in Jerusalem, the only point in the preceding narrative when they came to the house of the Lord.

So, let's look at what the scripture says about ordinal years. The first example is in Genesis 47, when the Egyptians brought their livestock to Joseph to exchange them for bread. It says, He fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year.

When that year was ended, they came to him in the second year. That's Genesis 47, 17 -18. The significant point here is that the second year is after the first year had ended. The second year is only invoked once the first year has elapsed.

The next example is in Exodus 12 -2, when the Lord established Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month of the year. He said, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.

Then, Numbers 9, 1 -2 says,. And the Lord spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, Let the children of Israel also keep the Passover at his appointed season.

The Hebrews.

Left Egypt in the first month of the preceding year, and now it is the first month of the second year after leaving. In other words, a full year had elapsed, and it was time to celebrate Passover again.

The second year is after the first year had elapsed. In both of these examples, the first year begins with a specific event, and the second year is only after a full year had elapsed since that event.