The Reign of Darius Hystaspis over Persia, by the Canon and the consent of all Chronologers, and by several Eclipses of the Moon, began in spring in the year of Nabonassar 227:  and in the fourth year of King Darius_, in the 4th day of the ninth month, which is the month Chisleu, when the Jews had sent unto the house of God, saying, should I weep in the fifth month as I have done these so many years? the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, speak to all the people of the Land, and to the Priests, saying; when ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me?_ Zech. vii.  Count backwards those seventy years in which they fasted in the fifth month for the burning of the Temple, and in the seventh for the death of Gedaliah; and the burning of the Temple and death of Gedaliah, will fall upon the fifth and seventh Jewish months, in the year of Nabonassar 160, as above.

As the Chaldaean Astronomers counted the Reigns of their Kings by the years of Nabonassar, beginning with the month Thoth, so the Jews, as their Authors tell us, counted the Reigns of theirs by the years of Moses, beginning every year with the month Nisan:  for if any King began his Reign a few days before this month began, it was reckoned to him for a whole year, and the beginning of this month was accounted the beginning of the second year of his Reign; and according to this reckoning the first year of Jehojakim began with the month Nisan, Anno Nabonass. 139, tho’ his Reign might not really begin ’till five or six months after; and the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and first of Nebuchadnezzar, according to the reckoning of the Jews, began with the month Nisan, Anno Nabonass. 142; and the first year of Zedekiah and of Jeconiah’s captivity, and ninth year of Nebuchadnezzar, began with the month Nisan, in the year of Nabonassar 150; and the tenth year of Zedekiah, and 18th of Nebuchadnezzar, began with the month Nisan in the year of Nabonassar 159.  Now in the ninth year of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judaea and the cities thereof and in the tenth month of that year, and tenth day of the month, he and his host besieged Jerusalem, 2 Kings xxv. 1. Jer. xxxiv. 1, xxxix. 1, and lii. 4.  From this time to the tenth month in the second year of Darius are just seventy years, and accordingly, upon the 24th day of the eleventh month of the second year of Darius_, the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah,—­and the Angel of the Lord said, Oh Lord of Hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation, these threescore and ten years_,