THE ANGEL’S DATE OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS

We have seen that the seventy weeks are cut off from the 2300 days. Hence, when the date of the seventy weeks is established, the key to unlock and understand the reckoning of the days is in our hand. The date for the commencement of the weeks is thus given by Gabriel: “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.” Daniel 9:25.S23D 19.2

We present the following important testimony from the Advent Herald. It is a calm, dispassionate vindication of the original dates, which establishes them beyond dispute. It was written in the years 1850 and 1851; and, consequently, cannot be supposed to be given with a desire to prove that the days ended in 1844, as the Herald is not willing to admit that fact. Therefore it must be regarded as candid and honorable testimony to important facts. That it demolishes every view which has been put forth to re-adjust the 2300 days, no one, who can appreciate the force of the arguments presented, will fail to perceive. For further testimony the reader is cited to a very valuable work by S. Bliss, entitled, “Analysis of Sacred Chronology”. The Herald speaks as follows:S23D 19.3

“The Bible gives the data for a complete system of chronology, extending from the creation to the birth of Cyrus, a clearly ascertained date. From this period downward we have the undisputed Canon of Ptolemy, and the undoubted era of Nabonassar, extending below our vulgar era. At the point where inspired chronology leaves us, this Canon of undoubted accuracy commences. And thus the whole arch is spanned. It is by the Canon of Ptolemy that the great prophetical period of seventy weeks is fixed. This Canon places the seventh year of Artaxerxes in the year B.C. 457; and the accuracy of the Canon is demonstrated by the concurrent agreement of more than twenty eclipses. The seventy weeks date from the going forth of a decree respecting the restoration of Jerusalem. There were no decrees between the seventh and twentieth years of Artaxerxes. Four hundred and ninety years, beginning with the seventh, must commence in B.C. 457, and end in A.D. 34. Commencing in the twentieth, they must commence in B.C. 444, and end in A.D. 47. As no event occurred in A.D. 47 to mark their termination, we cannot reckon from the twentieth; we must, therefore, look to the seventh of Artaxerxes. This date we cannot change from B.C. 457 without first demonstrating the inaccuracy of Ptolemy’s Canon. To do this, it would be necessary to show that the large number of eclipses by which its accuracy has been repeatedly demonstrated, have not been correctly computed; and such a result would unsettle every chronological date, and leave the settlement of epochs and the adjustment of eras entirely at the mercy of every dreamer, so that chronology would be of no more value than mere guess work. As the seventy weeks must terminate in A.D. 34, unless the seventh of Artaxerxes is wrongly fixed, and as that cannot be changed without some evidence to that effect, we inquire, What evidence marked that termination? The time when the apostles turned to the Gentiles harmonizes with that better than any other which has been named. And the crucifixion, in A.D. 31, in the midst of the last week, is sustained by a mass of testimony which cannot be easily invalidated.”-Advent Herald, March 2, 1850.S23D 20.1

“The Saviour attended but four passovers, at the last of which he was crucified. This could not bring the crucifixion later than A.D. 31, as is recorded by Aurelius Cassiodorus, a respectable Roman Senator, about A.D. 514: ‘In the consulate of Tiberius Caesar Aug. V. and Aelius Sejanus [U.C. 784, A.D. 31], our Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the eighth of the Calends of April.’ In this year, and in this day, says Dr. Hales, agree also the Council of Caesarea, A.D. 196, or 198, the Alexandrian Chronicle, Maximus Monachus, Nicephorus Constantinus, Cedrenus; and in this year, but on different days, concur Eusebius and Epiphanius, followed by Kebler, Bucher, Patinus, and Petavius.”—Advent Herald, August 24, 1850.S23D 21.1

“There are certain chronological points which have been settled as fixed; and before the seventy weeks can be made to terminate at a later period, those must be unsettled, by being shown to have been fixed on wrong principles; and a new date must be assigned for their commencement based on better principles. Now that the commencement of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus was B.C. 464-3, is demonstrated by the agreement of above twenty eclipses, which have been repeatedly calculated, and have invariably been found to fall in the times specified. Before it can be shown that the commencement of his reign is wrongly fixed, it must first be shown that those eclipses have all been wrongly calculated. This no one has done, or ever will venture to do. Consequently, the commencement of his reign cannot be removed from that point.S23D 21.2

“The seventy weeks must date from some decree for the restoration of Jerusalem. Only two events are named in the reign of Artaxerxes for the commencement of those weeks. The one is the decree of the seventh year of his reign, and the other, that of the twentieth. From one of these, those four hundred and ninety years must reckon. As his reign began B.C. 464-3, his seventh year must have been B.C. 458-7; and his twentieth, B.C. 445-4. If the seventy weeks date from the former, they cannot terminate later than A.D. 34; and if from the latter, they cannot have terminated earlier than A.D. 46-7.S23D 22.1

“In addition to the above, sixty-nine of the seventy were to extend to the Messiah the Prince. It does not read that they are to terminate when he is called the Prince, or that he is to begin to be the Prince when they terminate. They were to extend to the MESSIAH-the words, the Prince, being added to show who was signified by the Messiah. Sixty-nine weeks of years are four hundred and eighty-three years. Beginning these with the seventh of Artaxerxes, they extend to A.D. 26-7; dating from the twentieth, they terminate in A.D. 39-40. Was there anything in either of those years which would make the words, ‘unto the Messiah the Prince’ appropriate? When Jesus was baptized of John in Jordan, a voice was heard from heaven, acknowledging the Saviour as the Son of God, in whom the Father was well pleased. Consequently, he was ‘the messiah the Prince’, whose coming had been predicted. With that baptism, the Saviour commenced the work of his public ministry-the Messiah the Prince had then come, as it was predicted he should at the end of the sixty-nine weeks. When he was acknowledged as the Son of God-the Messiah-he went into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled’. The time then fulfilled, must have been some predicted period. There was no predicted period which could then terminate but the sixty-nine or seventy weeks. Did either of these then terminate? We have seen that the former, reckoned from the seventh of Artaxerxes, as it is fixed by astronomical calculations, would end in A.D. 26-7; and A.D. 27 we find is the precise point of time when the Saviour must have been about thirty years of age, when he was baptized of John, and declared the time fulfilled. At the first passover the Saviour attended, which could not have been later than the spring of his second year, the Jews told him that the temple had been forty-six years in building: reckoning back forty-six years from A.D. 28, they began B.C. 19, which is the precise year when Herod began the work of rebuilding the temple. From the eclipse which marked the death of Herod, before which the Saviour had been born, his birth could not have been later than B.C. 4, which would make him about thirty at the very time of his baptism of John. Such a concurrence of chronological, astronomical, and historical testimony, can only be set aside by testimony still more conclusive.S23D 22.2

“Your argument that he was not called a prince till after his crucifixion is of no weight; for the Jews could not have crucified ‘the Prince of life,’ as Peter accused them, if he was not the Prince of life till after his crucifixion. Nor is your argument respecting the midst of the week any more to the point. Your criticism has respect only to the English word midst. If you wish to show that it does not mean middle in the present case, you must first show that the Hebrew word chatzi, which is here translated midst, from the verb chatzah, has no such meaning; and that its verb has not ‘a special signification of dividing into two parts, or to halve’; and that it has not ‘a general sense of dividing into any number of equal parts’, as Hebraists tell us it has. Till you show this, you make no progress whatever toward proving that it does not mean ‘middle’. But what was to occur in the midst of the week? The ‘sacrifice and oblation’ were then to cease. Those Jewish ordinances could only cease actually or virtually. They did not actually cease till A.D. 70. They ceased virtually only at the crucifixion; they then ceased to foreshadow the sacrifice then offered. Was that in the midst of the week? 3 1/2 years from A.D. 27 bring us to the spring of A.D. 31, where Dr. Hales has demonstrated the crucifixion took place. The week during which the covenant was confirmed was that in the ‘midst’ of which the sacrifice and oblation virtually ceased. Consequently it could not extend beyond A.D. 34-the latest time to which seventy weeks from the seventh of Artaxerxes Longimanus could reach.”-Advent Herald, Feb. 15, 1851.S23D 23.1

“Eusebius dates the first half of the Passion Week of years as beginning with our Lord’s baptism, and ending with his crucifixion. The same period precisely is recorded by Peter, as including our Lord’s personal ministry: ‘all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of [or by] John, until the day that he was taken up from us,’ at his ascension, which was only forty-three days after the crucifixion. Acts 1:21, 22. And the remaining half of the Passion Week ended with the martyrdom of Stephen, in the seventh, or last, year of the week. For it is remarkable, that the year after, A.D. 35, began a new era in the church; namely, the conversion of Saul, or Paul, the apostle, by the personal appearance of Christ to him on the road to Damascus, when he received his mission to the Gentiles, after the Jewish Sanhedrin had formally rejected Christ by persecuting his disciples. Acts 9:1-18. And the remainder of the Acts principally records the circumstances of his mission to the Gentiles, and the churches he founded among them.”-DR. HALES, as quoted in the Advent Herald, March 2, 1850.S23D 24.1

The foregoing testimony from the Herald establishes the following points: 1. The decree referred to in Daniel 9, from which the 70 weeks are dated, is the decree of the seventh of Artaxerxes, and not that of his twentieth year. Ezra 7. And to this point we deem it duty to append an extract from Prof. Whiting:S23D 24.2

“We are informed in Ezra 7:11: ‘Now this is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave unto Ezra the priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord, and of his statutes to Israel.’ The letter then follows, written not in Hebrew, but in Chaldaic [or the Eastern Aramaic], the language then used at Babylon. At the 27th verse, the narrative proceeds in Hebrew. We are thus furnished with the original document, by virtue of which Ezra was authorized to ‘restore and build Jerusalem;’ or, in other words, by which he was clothed with power, not merely to erect walls or houses, but to regulate the affairs of his countrymen in general, to ‘set magistrates and judges which may judge all the people beyond the river.’ He was commissioned to enforce the observance of the laws of his God, and to punish those who transgressed, with death, banishment, confiscation or imprisonment. See verses 23-27. No grant of powers thus ample, can be found in the case of Nehemiah, or in any other instance after the captivity. That the commission given to Ezra authorized him to proceed in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, is evident from the fact that in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah, who was then in the Persian court, received information that ‘the remnant who were left of the captivity, then in the province, were in great affliction and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem was broken down, and the gates thereof burned with fire.’ See Nehemiah 1:1-3. The fact is, that Ezra and his associates met with continued opposition from the Samaritans, so that during the whole of the seven weeks, or forty-nine years, from the time that Ezra went up, to the last act of Nehemiah in obliging the Jews to put away their strange wives, the prediction of the prophet was verified—‘the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.’ After Nehemiah reached Jerusalem, he examined the city by night. The result of his examination is thus stated, Nehemiah 2:13: ‘And I went out by night, by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon-well, and to the dung-port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire.’ It is evident that ‘the walls and gates’ which had been destroyed, were the works of Ezra. The impropriety of referring the language of Nehemiah to the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar will be seen at once, if we recollect that he reduced it to ruins on the capture of Zedekiah, B.C. 588, one hundred and forty-four years previous to the time when Nehemiah went up to Jerusalem.”—Advent Shield, No. 1, Article, Prophetic Chronology, pages 105-6.S23D 25.1

That Ezra understood that power was conferred upon himself, and upon the people of Israel, to rebuild the street of Jerusalem and the wall, is certain from his own testimony recorded in chapter 9:9. 2. The second point in the evidence which the Herald has adduced, is this: the seventh year of Artaxerxes, from which the decree is dated, is fixed beyond dispute in B.C. 457. 3. The commencement of Christ’s ministry in A.D. 27, is clearly established, being just 69 weeks, or 483 prophetic days from the decree in B.C. 457. 4. The crucifixion in the midst of the week is proved to have occurred in the spring of A.D. 31, just three and a half years from the commencement of Christ’s ministry. 5. And it further demonstrates that the remaining three and a half years of the seventieth week ended in the autumn of A.D. 34. Here the seventy weeks, which had been cut off upon the Jews, in which they were “to finish the transgression,” close with the Jewish Sanhedrin’s act of formally rejecting Christ by persecuting his disciples, and God gives the great apostle to the Gentiles his commission to them. Acts 9.S23D 26.1

These important dates are clearly and unequivocally established by historical, chronological, and astronomical testimony. Sixty-nine of the 70 weeks from the decree in B.C. 457 ended in A.D. 27, when our Lord was baptized, and began to preach, saying, “The time is fulfilled.” Mark 1. Three and a half years from this brings us to the midst of the week in A.D. 31, the period of 70 weeks terminates in the autumn of A.D. 34. Or, to be more definite, the first three and a half years of the seventieth week ended in the first Jewish month (April) in the spring of A.D. 31. The remaining three and a half years would therefore end in the seventh month, autumn of A.D. 34.S23D 27.1

Here then we stand at the end of the great period which Gabriel, in explaining the 2300 days to Daniel, tells him was cut off upon Jerusalem and the Jews. Its commencement, intermediate dates, and final termination, are unequivocally established. It remains then to notice this one grand fact: the first 490 years of the 2300 ended in the seventh month, autumn of A.D. 34. This period of 490 years being cut off from the 2300, a period 1810 years remains. This period of 1810 years being added to the seventh month, autumn of A.D. 34, brings us to the seventh month, autumn of 1844. And here, after every effort which has been made to remove the dates, all are compelled to let them stand. For a moment let us recur to the events of 1843 and 1844. Previous to the year 1843, the evidence on the going forth of the decree in B.C. 457 had been clearly and faithfully set forth. And as the period of 457 years before Christ, subtracted from the 2300, would leave but 1843 years after Christ, the end of the 2300 years was confidently expected in 1843. But if the 2300 years began with the commencement of B.C. 457, they would not end till the last day of A.D. 1843, as it would require all of 457, and all of 1843, to make 2300 full years.S23D 27.2

But at the close of 1843, it was clearly seen that as the crucifixion occurred in the midst of the week, in the spring of A.D. 31, the remainder of the seventieth week, viz.: three and a half years, would end in the autumn of A.D. 34. And as the seventy weeks, or 490 years, ended in the seventh month, autumn of A.D. 34, it is a settled point that the days began, not in the spring, with Ezra’s starting from Babylon, but in the autumn, with the commencement of the work at Jerusalem. Ezra 7. And this view, that the days begin with the actual commencement of the work, is much strengthened by the fact that the first seven weeks, or 49 years, are manifestly allotted to the work of restoration in “troublous times.” And that period could only begin with the actual commencement of the work. Daniel 9:25.S23D 28.1

When it was seen that only 456 years and a fraction had expired before Christ, it was at once understood that 1843 years and a portion of 1844, sufficient to make up a full year when joined to that fraction, was required in order to make 2300 full years. In other words, the 2300 days in full time would expire in the seventh month, 1844.S23D 28.2

And if we take into the account the fact that the midst of the seventieth week was the fourteenth day of the first month, and consequently the end of the seventy weeks must have been at a corresponding point in the seventh month, A.D. 34, we perceive at once that the remainder of the 2300 days would end about that point in the seventh month 1844.S23D 29.1

It was with this great fact before us, that the 2300 days of Daniel, which reached to the cleansing of the sanctuary, would terminate at that time, and also with the light of the types, that the high priest in “the example and shadow of of heavenly things,” on the tenth day of the seventh month, entered within the second vail to cleanse the sanctuary, that we confidently expected the advent of our Redeemer in the seventh month, 1844. The prophecy said, “Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” The type said that at that season in the year the high priest should pass from the holy place of the earthly tabernacle to the most holy, to cleanse the sanctuary. Leviticus 16.S23D 29.2

With these facts before us we reasoned as follows: 1. The sanctuary is the earth, or the land of Palestine. 2. The cleansing of the sanctuary is the burning of the earth, or the purification of Palestine, at the coming of Christ. 3. And hence, we concluded that our great High Priest would leave the tabernacle of God in Heaven and descend in flaming fire, on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the autumn of 1844.S23D 29.3

It is needless to say that we were painfully disappointed. And, though the man does not live who can overthrow the chronological argument, which terminates the 2300 days at that time, or meet the mighty array of evidence by which it is fortified and sustained, yet multitudes, without stopping to inquire whether our conceptions of the sanctuary and of its cleansing were correct or not, have openly denied the agency of Jehovah in the Advent movement, and have pronounced it the work of man.S23D 29.4