Note H — A GREAT PROPHETIC PERIOD

These texts show that the king came to the throne in the autumn, so that the actual years of his reign would run from autumn to autumn. Neh. 1:1 begins the record: "In the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year." Neh. 2:1 continues: "It came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes." Thus it is plain that in the monthly calendar of the king's actual reign the month Chisleu came first in order, and then Nisan. Chisleu was the ninth month of the Jewish sacred year, roughly, December. Nisan is the first month, April. And these months, December, April,—in that order,—came in the first year of the king, of course, the same as in his twentieth year. And in the same year also came the fifth month, August; for Ezra 7:7-9 shows that the first and fifth months—in that order—also fell in the same year of his reign. Then we know of a certainty that his reign began somewhere between August and December, that is, in the autumn. The first year of Artaxerxes was from the latter part of 464 b.c. to the latter part of 463, and the seventh year, as readily counted off, would be from near the end of 458 to near the end of 457. Under the commission to Ezra, the people began to go up to Jerusalem in the spring of that year, 457 b.c. (in the first month, or April), and they "came to Jerusalem in the fifth month" (August). Ezra 7:8, 9. Ezra and his associates soon thereafter "delivered the kings commissions unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors on this side the river: and they furthered the people, and the house of God." Ezra 8:36. With this delivery of the commissions to the king's officers, the commandment to restore and to build had, most certainly, fully gone forth. And from this date, 457 b.c., extends the great prophetic period.