Artaxerxes' Letter

I rarely miss the opportunity to take a complicated subject and do my best to make it more confusing, and I was presented such an instance with today's reading. My NIV Study Bible has a note on Ezra 7:11, which is the beginning of Artaxerxes' letter to Ezra which gave his blessing for the return of the people of Israel to their native land.

What was that note, you ask? It reads as follows:

"Many regard the letter of Artaxerxes I [I didn't mention it yesterday, but this Artaxerxes was the first of three] as the beginning point of Daniel's first 69 'sevens' (Daniel 9:24-27). Others regard the commission of Nehemiah by the same king as the starting point of this prophecy (Nehemiah 1:1,11;, 2:1-8). By using either a solar calendar with the former date (458 BC) or a lunar calendar with the latter date (445 BC), one can arrive remarkably close to the date of Jesus' public ministry."

I'm sure after my outstanding presentation on Daniel 9:24-27 this past Sunday (the highlight of which was "Beats the heck out of me what these verses mean"), I'm sure all are clear on the meaning of these verses, but today's reading does add a little bit of context to this prophecy. If you recall, common interpretation of these verses states that these "sevens" refer to seven-year periods, and 483 years (69 * 7), as the NIV note states, comes very close to the time of Jesus' ministry. The literal nature of these seven-year periods then takes on a metaphorical one, since there will be a gap between the 69th and 70th year, when the Great Tribulation will occur in the final seven years of this world's history. I don't understand this gap, and not because it's too deep, but because I have absolutely no clue how a literal interpretation magically becomes a metaphorical one--in the normal course of textual criticism, you can't switch interpretative methods in mid-stream. But that's just me, and as I hopefully have made clear in both my writing and statements, HOW this will occur is irrelevant as long as we're prepared for it WHEN it happens.

Nonetheless, these are happy times for the people of Israel. The temple has already been rebuilt, and now Artaxerxes has set aside significant resources for the Jews to re-establish their city. For a people who have been exiled twice, in one case never to return, this shows again how God used people of this Earth to achieve his goals, and that no obstacle is too great for the Lord to overcome. All through Jeremiah, God told the people that their exile wouldn't be permanent and to prepare for their eventual return. We need to have the same attitude and always be prepared for our return from our exile, the separation from God that our sin caused. Just as in Daniel's prophecy, we don't  need to be able to explain in detail the meaning of these verses--we just need to be prepared should we find ourselves in those times. As I've stated over and over, God doesn't care that we know what to do, but demands that we do what we know. 

Be prepared.

Scott