Tebbyson, Lady Of Shalott

8 Pages 2049 Words

e. It is therefore necessary to calculate the duration of the exile from this announcement made by Jeremiah before the exile and not from the moment when the exile effectively began; or even less from the instant of the announcement of the seventy weeks made by Gabriel, since at this moment the exile had already begun. So the exile had to end effectively about eight years earlier than Daniel believed1, which certainly consoled him, since he had prayed to God to divert his anger.

Jeremiah made his announcement in 605 BC (Jer 25:1). The return of the Jews from Babylon took place in the first year of the reign of the Persian king Cyrus – to whom refers: "...to the coming of an anointed one, a prince..." (Daniel 9:25) – over the Babylonian Empire, which corresponds to the year 538 BC. This makes a difference of 67 to 68 years, depending on from what month of the first year to what month of the last year one counts, which is however not possible to determine.

To this number, it is still necessary to add the time passed until the entire return of the Jews and the beginning of the construction of the second temple, for given that the sixty-two weeks represent the reconstruction of Jerusalem, it is necessary to calculate the time of the seven preceding weeks until the beginning of this reconstruction. However, the beginning of these works only took place two years after the return (Ez 3:8). The time of the exile, calculated from the prediction of Jeremiah, must therefore have lasted exactly seventy years.



The prophecy of the seventy weeks

Concerning the prophecy of the seventy weeks, there is not only one reference to the real history. We therefore again find the multi-reference alread...