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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] trying to answer Harold: Daniel 9:25
  • Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 16:49:47 -0500

Dear Shoshanna,

Gabriel is breaking down the 70 septets (490 years).



HH: And the 70 sevens go until the end of the age: making an end of sin, bringing in of everlasting righteousness and completing vision and prophecy:

Dan. 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.


Rashi explains verse 24 as follows: 70 years of exile that have passed from the Destruction of the first Temple until this vision, plus the entire 420 year period of the second Temple:




HH: The whole prophecy looks forward, not backward. It starts at the going forth of the word to return and rebuild Jerusalem. Thus it starts at the end of the captivity, not the beginning.



re your question, note it does not say "from the time that Cyrus said to return and rebuild Jerusalem".




HH: No, it does not mention Cyrus, but it is obviously talking about the return of the Israelites to their native land and the rebuilding of Jerusalem.


And it doesn't say Dibbur - word. It says Davar - thing.




HH: "Davar" also means "word" or "decree."



G-d can be the one who has decreed the thing, from the moment that the first Temple was destroyed, that Cyrus would become king 53 years later, and rebuild the Temple.




HH: The timing goes forward from an identifiable decree that Israelites can isolate. Otherwise they could not count forward. There has to be a clear, well-known starting point. The text tells us what it is, and it is not the destruction of Jerusalem but a decree concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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