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  • From: Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Question: Daniel 9: 1 and 2 with Rashi
  • Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 19:38:39 -0500

I can't follow Rashi on the second verse. Does this make sense to anyone? Does it solve any of the questions we had, dating events?

Shoshanna


Daniel - Chapter 9

1. In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus of the seed of Media, who was crowned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans.

In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus This is not the Ahasuerus of the days of Haman, for he was the king of Persia, whereas this one was Darius the Mede who was crowned over the kingdom of the Chaldeans when Belshazzar was slain, as is written above (6:1): "And Darius the Mede took (sic) the kingdom."

2. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, contemplated the calculations, the number of the years that the word of the Lord had come to Jeremiah the prophet, since the destruction of Jerusalem seventy years.

Contemplated the calculations Heb. ????????? ???????????.

the number of the years, etc. I contemplated the calculation of the years, for I thought about what Jeremiah (29:10) prophesied: "For at the completion of seventy years of Babylon I will remember you," and I thought that this remembrance is the building of the Temple, and that the seventy years end in the first year of Darius the Mede, since the kingdom of Babylon stretched forth a hand upon Israel, when Nebuchadnezzar vanquished Jehoiakim to be his slave. Now that was in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, as the master said (Meg. 11b): "In the first year he conquered Nineveh; in the second year he went up and vanquished Jehoiakim." Figure from that year until now, and you will find them [the 70 years]. This calculation is found also in the Mishnah of Seder Olam (ch. 28), and we learned there that in the year of Belshazzar's death were 70 years from the day that Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne: seventy minus one since the day that he conquered Jehoiakim, and yet one more year for Babylon, which Darius completed. And when I [Daniel] saw that the redemption was not hastening to come, I contemplated and put my heart to the calculation, and I knew that I should not have counted according to the conquest of Jehoiakim but [according] to the destruction of Jerusalem, when 70 years will be complete from the exile of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was destroyed. And there are yet 18 years to come, for this exile was in the eighteenth year counting from the conquest of Jehoiakim, as we learned in Seder Olam: "They were exiled in the seventh year; they were exiled in the eighth year; they were exiled in the eighteenth year; they were exiled in the nineteenth year." Our Sages in Tractate Megillah (11b) explained that they were exiled in the exile of Jeconiah in the seventh year, counting from the conquest of Jehoiakim, which is the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. They were exiled a second time in the eighteenth year, counting from the conquest of Jehoiakim, which is the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.





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