precise date

December 22, 2017

Title (Hag 1:1-1:1)

“In the second year

Of King Darius,

In the sixth month,

On the first day

Of the month,

The word of Yahweh

Came by the prophet Haggai,

To Zerubbabel,

The son of Shealtiel,

Governor of Judah.

It also came

To Joshua,

The son of Jehozadak,

The high priest.”

There is a precise date to this prophetic happening, August, 520 BCE, the second year of the great King Darius of Persia (522-486 BCE).  During his reign, he ruled over nearly ½ of the known world, over 50,000,000 people.  The word of Yahweh came through the prophet Haggai, although there is no mention of his family.  Perhaps he was one of those returning from the exile in Babylon.  In the Book of Ezra, chapter 5, Haggai and Zechariah were explicitly mentioned as prophets.  There was also a eunuch servant Haggai in the Book of Esther, but there seems to be no connection to this Haggai.  This Haggai was to prophesize to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, who was the grandson of one of the last kings of Judah, King Jehoiachin (598 BCE).  Thus, he could be in the Davidic line.  He probably died sometime around 520 BCE, sometime around the events described here.  King Cyrus had appointed Zerubbabel to be the Governor of Judah in 538 BCE, when he was among the first exiles sent back to Jerusalem.  Joshua, the son of Jehozadak was the high priest in Jerusalem from 515-490 BCE.

July 1, 2017

Ezekiel is brought to a high mountain in Israel (Ezek 40:1-40:2)

“In the twenty-fifth year

Of our exile,

At the beginning

Of the year,

On the tenth day

Of the month,

In the fourteenth year

After the city

Was struck down,

On that very day,

The hand of Yahweh

Was upon me.

He brought me there.

He brought me,

In visions of God,

To the land of Israel.

He set me down

On a very high mountain.

There was a structure,

Like a city,

To the south.”

This is the last section of the Book of Ezekiel. This is sometimes called the Torah of Ezekiel, because he sets out the size and rules for the Temple, after the exile. Like Moses, many centuries earlier, Ezekiel has his own very specific descriptions about how this Second Temple should be constructed. Once again, Ezekiel has a vision on a precise date, on the 10th day of the 1st month, the 25th year since the beginning of the exile, the 14th year after the destruction of Jerusalem, 573 BCE. Continuing with his first-person singular narrative, he said that he was brought to a high mountain in Israel with a great city to the south.

June 2, 2017

The broken arm of the Pharaoh (Ezek 30:20-30:21)

“In the eleventh year,

In the first month,

On the seventh day

Of the month,

The word of Yahweh

Came to me.

‘Son of man!

I have broken

The arm of Pharaoh,

King of Egypt.

It has not been

Bound up

For healing.

It has not been

Wrapped

with a bandage.

Thus it cannot

Become strong

To wield the sword.’”

Once again there is a precise date for this oracle of Yahweh to Ezekiel, the son of man, the 7th day of the 1st month of the 11th year of King Zedekiah, in 587 BCE. Yahweh said that he had broken the arm of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Once it was broken, it was not going to heal. His broken arm was not bound up, wrapped up, or bandaged. He was not going to become strong enough to wield a sword. In other words, the Pharaoh would be useless in the face of any battle.