Page 48 - 09 The Seventy Weeks

DANIEL AND THE REVELATION-Uriah Smith

~The Response of History to the Voice of Prophecy~

Chapter 9 – The Seventy Weeks
restoration of Jerusalem, from which the

seventy weeks are to be dated? It hardly

seems that there can be any question on this

point.

1. The grant to Nehemiah cannot be called a

decree. It was necessary that a Persian decree

should be put in writing, and signed by the

king. Daniel 6:8. Such was the document given

to Ezra; but Nehemiah had nothing of the kind,

his commission being only verbal. If it be said

that the letters given him constituted the

decree, then the decree was issued, not to

Nehemiah, but to the governors beyond the

river; besides, these would constitute a series

of decrees, and not one decree, as the

prophecy contemplates.

2. The occasion of Nehemiah’s petition to the

king for permission to go up to Jerusalem was