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was issued, it appears, in reply to an application to the king from certain individuals, described as Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shethar-boznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, which were on that side the river; and it was directed to these persons in reply. This application too seems to have been produced not by any wish on the part of those who made it, vexatiously and wantonly to impede the work on which the Jews were engaged, but simply by the fact of the resumption of that work, which was the building of the temple, after a cessation of seven years more or less; and a doubt on the part of the authorities beyond the river, whether the renewal and continuance of an undertaking so long suspended, and for which the Jews had to plead only a permission said to have been given them by Cyrus fifteen years before, would be agreeable to the will of the king then reigning, whose pleasure, at least, upon that subject, had never yet been consulted". The decree of Darius was issued to set them right, and to intimate what he wished to be done. Its just description therefore is that of a rescript of the emperor for the time being, founded upon the case; or a special answer to a special inquiry, to know the royal will and pleasure in a case of difficulty and doubt: but not that of an edict or decree, in devising or promulgating which the king acted mainly of his own accord and as such it would no more deserve the name of that going forth of the word, which is implied in the prophecy, than one of the rescripts of Trajan to the letters of Pliny, would do so to the title of an imperial edict or constitution.

Independent, however, of this objection, independent also of the chronological objection before adverted to—

q Ezra v. 3—6. vi. 6. 13. 11, 12, 13.

r See Ezra v. 7—17.

s See vi. 6, 7, 8.

still we may contend that, as the decree of Darius was merely the reinforcement of the decree of Cyrus, and even a repetition of it in terms1, and confined precisely to the same objects with that; the decree of Darius could never be first and properly intended by the prophecy, unless we should suppose it capable of the singular anomaly, οι ὕστερον πρότερον, of leaving entirely out of the scope of its comprehension the original enactment of a certain public measure, and confining its attention solely to the reinforcement or repetition of it. For the purpose of the prophecy, the decree of Darius must be considered as virtually anticipated in the decree of Cyrus. The decree of Cyrus was the principal, the decree of Darius the subordinate, event of that description, which it can be supposed to have in view. Let us, therefore, proceed to consider the decree of Cyrus, the date of which we have assumed to be B. C. 536.

The decree of Cyrus is liable to no such objection, as that it was not strictly and properly a public act. We may admit to the fullest extent, that it was a royal edict and proclamation, emanating, for aught which appears to the contrary, from the freewill and pleasure of the reigning prince, and promulgated in all parts of his dominions, or wheresoever the parties concerned in the purposes contemplated by it were to be found. We may concede, therefore, that the promulgation of such a decree would strictly answer to the idea of that going forth of some word or commandment, specified at the outset of the prophecy; and considered as a going forth, however public, and as a word or commandment, however authoritative-but as nothing more.

If so, what remains, it may be asked, but that we fix upon the edict of Cyrus, as the point of departure

t Ezra vi. 3-5.

intended by the prophecy? First and properly, we may reply, because the merely going forth of a word or commandment, that is, the mere issuing of a royal proclamation, does not all at once identify it with the going forth of the word in the prophecy; nor unless the royal proclamation is issued, and the word goes forth in the prophecy, for one and the same purpose in each case. But does not the word, it may be demanded, in the prophecy go forth, that the dispersed and captive Jews should return? And does not the proclamation of Cyrus give them permission to return? It gives them permission to return-but notwithstanding, if we are not to be wise beyond what is written, if we are not to assign ends and purposes either for the going forth of the word or for the edict of Cyrus, beyond what they have each assigned for themselves; the edict of Cyrus is not necessarily the same with the word that goes forth in the prophecy, because the one gives permission to return, as well as the other. The mere fact of the return of the dispersed and captive Jews to their own country, is not the whole of the object contemplated in either case. The return is supposed to have an end or an effect ulterior to itself, or distinct from itself, in either case; and this end or this effect is not the same in each. This end or this effect is specified or implied in each case to be to rebuild, as well as to return; but with respect to the subject of this rebuilding-if it will only be granted that the temple might be one subject of that description, and the city of Jerusalem might be another; then a permission to rebuild the temple will never be necessarily a permission to rebuild the city; and permission to rebuild the temple, both in the design and in the effect, might be one thing, and permission to rebuild the city another.

Now this distinction, which in the nature of things

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was a possible one, is in reality matter of fact. is no mention of the city in the edict of Cyrus, and none of the temple in the supposed going forth of the word in the prophecy. Permission to build again, so far as it is accorded by the edict of Cyrus, is permission to rebuild the temple; and permission to build again, so far as it is implied in the word that goes forth in the prophecy, is permission to rebuild the city. It seems a just inference from this distinction, that the building of the temple was the most prominent thing contemplated beforehand in the decree of Cyrus, but the building of the city the most prominent object in the word that goes forth in the prophecy. And these two things being neither the same in themselves, nor necessarily combined in the event; it is equally gratuitous, without warrant from scripture to that effect, to assume that the one was intended in the other, as that the one was effected in the other.

The greater prominency of the latter of these two effects, the building of the city in particular, at least in the eye of the prophecy, and in the final end assigned to the going forth of the word, which it had in view, appears further from that declaration of the effect to ensue, in conformity to the object supposed to be contemplated; "The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times," or, " even in strait of times." Neither here is there any mention of the temple, notwithstanding the plain mention of the street and the wall. If this omission is not purely accidental, (which no one, surely, will maintain,) then it will follow, either that the temple was a minor object in the estimation of the prophecy compared with the street and the wall-or, if that never can be supposed, then that the building of the temple being one thing, and the restoration of the street and the wall being an

other, the building of the temple was over, and consequently could no longer be alluded to as an event to come, at the very point of time at which the restoration of the street and the wall was still to begin.

The object of the return in the decree of Cyrus, in like manner, is so plainly set forth as the rebuilding of the temple, and so clearly restricted to that one effect; that in each of the three accounts of that decree, which are on record in scripture, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23: Ezra i. 2-4: vi. 3-5: nothing else is ever hinted at, much less expressed in terminis: and in every allusion to the powers or privileges, conceded by that decree, in general terms, as Ezra ii. 68: iii. 7: iv. 3: iv. 24: v. 13-17: vi. 14; they are supposed to extend to nothing but the reviving of the temple service, the rebuilding of the house of God, or the like. And though we cannot but suppose, that the re-erection of the temple upon its ancient site, or the revival of the Levitical service in its former seat, would necessarily lead to the re-occupation of the parts about the temple, the construction of houses and dwellings on a more or less general scale, in and about Jerusalem, and so far to a rebuilding of the city on its ancient foundations, which would justify the coupling of that event also with the rebuilding of the temple, in the well known prophecy of Isaiah—and both, as the effect of one and the same act or permission of Cyrus; yet this is no objection to the matter of fact for which we are here contending; that the one thing intended by the permission of Cyrus to the Jews to return, was the rebuilding of the temple, and the restoration of the temple service. If this led to the rebuilding of Jerusalem to any extent, which under the circumstances of the case it could not fail to do; yet pro tanto, and so far as the proper object contem

u Isaiah xliv. 28.

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