Rabbinical calculation methods were not capable of correctly

calculating that there were forty-nine years between Josiah’s eighteenth year and Ezekiel’s vision,[39] so this also must have been based on historical remembrance, not rabbinic calculation. By correctly dating these sixteenth and seventeenth Jubilees, it is evident that a calendar of Jubilee and Sabbatical years can be constructed that extends over all the time that Israel was in its land, starting in 1406 bc. In what follows, each reference that alludes to activities associated with a Sabbatical year will be consistent with this calendar. There is a simple explanation of the harmony of these data with such a calendar: the Scriptural chronological data are authentic, and these data show that the times for the Jubilee and Sabbatical years were known all the time that Israel was in its land. Further, they are all in harmony with the start of counting in Nisan of 1406 bc. That a Sabbatical year was due to begin in Tishri of 588 bc is implied by Zedekiah’s release of slaves in that year (Jer 34:8–10). Later Jewish practice was to associate a Sabbatical year with the release of slaves, in keeping with that year being called a year of release (shemitah) in Deut 15:9.[40] This was fourteen years (two Sabbatical cycles) before Ezekiel’s Jubilee. It is a well-documented Jewish tradition that the First Temple was burnt by the Babylonians in the “latter part” (motsae) of a Sabbatical year.[41] This provides additional evidence that the year beginning in the fall of 588 bc was a Sabbatical year, since Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians before that year was out, in the following summer. The reading of the Law in the eighteenth year of Josiah (2 Kgs 23:2) was an activity that was commanded for a Sabbatical year in Deut 31:10–13.[42] Josiah’s eighteenth year coincided with the Jubilee year and a Sabbatical year that started in Tishri of 623 bc. The second year of Isaiah’s prophecy (Isa 37:30 and 2 Kgs 19:29) was a Sabbatical year. After the crop of the current year had been destroyed or eaten by the besieging Assyrians, Isaiah nevertheless said that the people were to eat the volunteer growth (shahis) in the following year, after the Assyrians had left. This has no explanation unless that year was a Sabbatical year. The “second year” here is consistent with the calendar of Sabbatical years that can be constructed by measuring back from the Jubilees in 623 bc and 574 bc.[43] Another public reading of the Law took place in Jehoshaphat’s third year (2 Chr 17:7–9). Jehoshaphat’s third year of sole reign began in Tishri of 868 bc, which was 294 years, or forty-two Sabbatical cycles, before Ezekiel’s Jubilee. The measurement is to be done from the start of his sole reign, consistent with the synchronisms to his reign given in 1 Kgs 22:51 and 2 Kgs 3:1. It was also the eleventh Jubilee.[44] The realization that the times for the Jubilee and Sabbatical cycles were known all the time that Israel was in its land provides a deeper understanding of the several circumstances that have just been cited as pertaining to these times. We have a new appreciation for the faithfulness of the good kings Jehoshaphat and Josiah, who fostered the public proclamation and teaching of the Law in a Sabbatical year, knowing that only when there was a high respect for the Word of God would there be healing in the land. At the very end of the Assyrian siege, Isaiah’s prophecy reinforced the will of the king and people to let the ground lie fallow in the coming Sabbatical year (Isa 37:30), despite all the hardships and loss of crops occasioned by the Assyrians in the current year.[45] In the days of Ezekiel, we get a small glimpse into the psychological background for the prophet’s great eschatological vision when we realize that it was not only the time of fasting and penitence always associated with the Day of Atonement, but it was also the commencement of a Jubilee. For Ezekiel, as for Isaiah before him, the Jubilee would have had strong eschatological overtones. Our understanding of these events is therefore enriched when we have the correct chronology of the kingdom period and can relate the events to the calendar of Jubilee and Sabbatical years. Accepting Ezekiel’s Jubilee as the seventeenth Jubilee gives dates for the exodus, entry into Canaan, and Solomon’s reign that are compatible with Thiele’s date for the beginning of the divided monarchy. Since Thiele made no use of the Jubilee data in determining when the kingdom divided, the Jubilee calendar is a powerful and independent testimony to the correctness of Thiele’s methodology in arriving at that date. Those who have struggled with the Bible’s chronological data can also see the simplicity and supreme elegance of the interlocking system of Sabbatical and Jubilee years—a system that, as long as it was observed in even an apathetic fashion, was a more reliable way of keeping track of the years over a long period of time than was afforded by the Assyrian eponym lists, usually regarded as the backbone of ancient Near Eastern chronology. We can only regret that the people of Israel and their kings were not more careful in observing the stipulations of the Jubilee and Sabbatical years, so that we would have more allusions to their observance than those just listed. But these have been sufficient to demonstrate that Israel’s priests (one of whom was Ezekiel) knew the time of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years all the time that Israel was in its land. The chronological information in 1 Kgs 6:1 could not have originated in exilic or post-exilic times. No writer or editor from a period that late could have successfully synchronized Solomon’s fourth year with the 480th year of the exodus-era unless that editor’s source documents were early and authentic. We know that the synchronism is correct because of its agreement with the Jubilee and Sabbatical-year data. Also, the final redactors of Kings and Chronicles must have had access to authentic records that were contemporaneous with the events described, otherwise it could never have happened that, once the methods of counting used by the Hebrew court recorders were understood, all the precise chronological data found in these books could be incorporated in a rational and believable chronology. Therefore the premise of Wellhausen, followed by Burney and Hawkins, that the 480-year figure of 1 Kgs 6:1 dates from the exilic or post-exilic era, is false. Finally, Hawkins, and those before him, assumed that the author of 1 Kgs 6:1 would have no way to measure a long span of years, such as the 480th-year datum in that verse, and so the 480 years could not be taken in a literal and exact sense. But the cycles of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, which were being counted by the priests all the time that Israel was in its land, provide just such a long-term calendar, one by which the 479 years from the exodus to the fourth year of Solomon could be measured exactly. At the time when Temple construction began, the priests, if not the general populace, would have known that it was the fifth year of the seventh septennate of the ninth Jubilee cycle, and that the ninth Jubilee was only one-and-one-half years away. From this knowledge, a straightforward calculation would show that 439 years had elapsed since the entry into the land and 479 years since the exodus. This explains why the author of 1 Kgs 6:1 could write that it was the 480th year of the exodus-era. If the author of 1 Kgs 6:1 had lived in exilic or post-exilic times, that author would not have known this information unless it had been handed down from an authentic earlier source—in other words, this “author” was not really the author of the information. Therefore the information in 1 Kgs 6:1 could not have originated in exilic or post-exilic times, as held by Wellhausen, Burney, Hawkins, and a host of other s
cholars. Only a writer that had access to genuine chronological data could have calculated a time from the exodus to the start of Temple construction that was compatible with the Jubilee calendar as constructed from the Jubilees in the days of Josiah and Ezekiel.

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