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A Brief Summary of the Years of Silence
by Noble Harber
The time period between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament spans a little more than 400 years. In our Bibles, the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, records a period of time which occurred approximately 100 years after the first Jewish exiles returned from Babylonian captivity. A contemporary of the prophet Malachi was Nehemiah, who led the final group of exiles back to Palestine in 444 BC. The final “dated” event of the Old Testament is recorded by Nehemiah when he returned to Babylon in the “thirty-second year of Artaxerxes” (Nehemiah 13:6). Secular historical records indicate that Artaxerxes, king of the Medo-Persian Empire, began his reign in 464 BC. Considering these two pieces of information, Nehemiah’s return back to Babylon would have occurred circa 432 BC. After spending a period of time in Babylon, Nehemiah then made a return trip to Jerusalem (Nehemiah 13:6,7). After these events, there is no more recorded biblical history until the birth of John (Luke 1:5-25; 57,58), approximately 400 years later.
The time period between Nehemiah and the birth of John is sometimes referred to as the “years of silence.” Though there were no literary prophets contemporary to this time period, a Bible student is not entirely in the dark. During the existence of an earlier world empire, namely the Babylonian Empire, king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about a great image having a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay (Daniel 2:31-45). The prophet Daniel interpreted the king’s dream, revealing that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel also revealed that the dream indicated three subsequent kingdoms would arise after the Babylonian Empire.
It was the aforementioned Medo-Persian Empire (of Nehemiah’s day) that defeated the Babylonian Empire. This is the kingdom represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as the chest and arms of silver. Later, in the book of Daniel, a vision was seen by Daniel which revealed the onset of the Medo-Persian empire and subsequent empires. Daniel had a vision of a mighty ram with two horns which pushed “westward, northward, and southward, so that no animal could withstand him” (Daniel 8:4). This ram, however, was confronted and defeated by a male goat which had a “notable horn between his eyes” (Daniel 8:5-7).
The meaning of the ram with two horns and the goat with a single horn was revealed to Daniel (Daniel 8:15-22). The ram with the two horns was the Medo-Persian Empire. This empire was overcome by the Grecian Empire, represented by the male goat with the horn between its eyes. Secular history reveals this empire thriving under the rule of Alexander the Great (circa 336-323 BC). The Grecian Empire is the kingdom represented by the thighs of bronze in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
Daniel’s vision revealed that the horn of the male goat — the Grecian Empire — was broken and “four notable ones” came forth (Daniel 8:8). Secular history indicates that the Grecian Empire was broken up into four primary regions — Greece, Thrace, Syria, and Egypt — governed by four rulers, Antipater Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolmey, respectively.[1] Daniel’s vision also revealed the emergence of a little horn from the “four notable ones”:
And out of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly grea toward the south, toward the east, and toward the Glorious Land. And it grew up to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground, and trampled them. He even exalted himself as high as the Prince of the host; and by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down. Because of transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices; and he cast truth down to the ground. He did all this and prospered.
(Daniel 8:9-12)
The “little horn which grew exceedingly great” was the Seleucid kingdom under Seleucus I. A later successor to Seleucus I, namely Antiochus IV Epiphanes, attempted to expand the Seleucid territory into Egypt (circa 168 BC). This effort, however, was thwarted by an alliance between Egypt and the burgeoning Roman Republic.
Upon his defeat and while returning to his capital city, Antiochus IV Epiphanes plundered the city of Jerusalem. A couple of years later, he returned to Jerusalem to commit even greater treachery against the Jews and to pillage the temple. He “left the temple bare, and took away the golden candlesticks, and the golden altar [of incense], and table [of shewbread], and the altar [of burnt offering] … for he forbade them to offer those daily sacrifices which they used to offer to God, according to the law.”[2]
It was the Roman Republic which protected Egypt from Antiochus IV Epiphanes that later became the great Roman Empire. This was the fourth and final kingdom represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream by the “legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay” (Daniel 2:40). This was the kingdom, the Roman Empire, which was in power at the birth of John the Baptist
[1] World Video Bible School (WVBS), The Intertestamental Period | Biblical Timeline, http://video.wvbs.org
[2] The Works of Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 12 / Chapter 5, p. 323 (Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1987)..