"In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans (or Babylonians) slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." Daniel 5:30,31.
This ended the last 70 years of the Babylonian empire. And also the seventy years of punishment of Israel for her sins was nearing completion. Then the temple rebuilding work would be successful. But some 21 years prior to this, Cyrus sent out his decree or "proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD (YHVH) God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD (YHVH) his God be with him, and let him go up." II Chronicles 36:22,23. But all their efforts at rebuilding proved futile. The reason being, is that the land had to be lain desolate for the full 70 years. These seventy years began to end around this time, at the beginning of Darius's reign when Daniel began to understand these matters. Now Jerusalem and the temple rebuilding work would be successful! And it was!
Here is how we can observe how the end of these seventy years are marked for us in the scriptures.
Nehimiah, Ezra, Haggai and Zechariah, as well as Zerubabel and Joshua, were all contemporaries in the successful rebuilding of the temple and the wall surrounding Jerusalem
Very near to the completion of the seventy years we read, "in the second year of Darius, came the word of YHVH to Zechariah.Then the angel of the LORD (YHVH)….said, O LORD (YHVH) of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem…. Which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?” Zech. 1:12.Notice he says... THESE threescore and ten years. Yes they were very near the end of the 70 years here.
Two years later, or in the forth year of Darius (as we read in Zechariah 7:1) the word of (YHVH) again comes to Zechariah. In verse 5 God speaks, saying,“When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me? Now those 70 years are past, which is why Zechartiah want to know if the people should continue to fast and mourn as that had for the past 70 years. But God gives them a rebuke for their hypocritical display of fasting and mourning. None the less God gives his blessing and the work proceeds successfully and is completed in the 6/th year of Darius. Read Ezra 6:14, 15. So if the seventy years ended sometime between the second and forth year of Darius, it would be reasonable that the seventy years ended in the third year of Darius.
Now how can we know the exact year Zechariah was dethroned,which would begin the start for the count of these Gentile times? What we need to know is the time measurement, from the first year of Cyrus,when he issued the decree for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, til the first year of Darius. We will look to both the scriptures and also look at what secular historians have recorded . We are only speaking of a short period of time, in other words not alot of room for much error. But we will go the the scriptures to seal it up, as it were.
All secular history gives 18 years from the beginning of Cyrus's reign to that of Darius.The Bible itself does not say exactly, but the bible will bear this out, as we continue. As noted above, the seventy years is actually marked as ending in the third year of Darius.This would now be Twenty-one years after the first year of Cyrus, when the decree was given for the Jews to return to their homeland. Seventy years minus Twenty-one years leaves fourty-nine years. So it was actually fourty-nine years from the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebbachanezar, to the first year of Cyrus, when he made his decree for the rebuilding of Jerusalem. This makes absolute sense in every way according to scripture. Any other Chronology ignores scripture. Measuring back seven weeks or 49 years from the date of the decree issued by Cyrus (455 B.C.), we come to the year 504 B.C. as being the year when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, Zedekiah was dethroned. The time when rule and dominion by man and his Kingdoms and governments, without interference from the God of Heaven would start. Counting forward in time 2,520 years or seven times, brings us to the year 2017 A.D.
