Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>]

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.