Reigns of Biblical kings, non accession years and 15 years of Tiberius' reign in Luke 3.

The Anno Domini (AD) calendar is based on the birth of Jesus Christ, meaning that humanity today lives in an era where no one can truly claim ignorance of Him. Furthermore, by using our chronological calculations through the "non-accession year system," we can accurately track the passage of historical years. While the Bible provides highly detailed records regarding the regnal years of the Kings of Judah, there are some crucial nuances we must bear in mind. This post serves as a summarized memorandum on that point. The accompanying diagram was created by Yoshiya-san, inspired by this source.

How the Hebrew Calendar Works

1. Nisan - Corresponds generally to spring and is the month of Passover (Pesach), which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt.
2. Iyar - The month following Nisan, primarily associated with the spring season. It encompasses the period of the Counting of the Omer.
3. Sivan - The month in which Shavuot (Feast of Weeks / Pentecost) is celebrated, commemorating Moses receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai.
4. Tammuz - The month marking the beginning of summer, historically associated with events leading to the destruction of the Temple and themes of repentance.
5. Av - The month commemorating the destruction of the Temple, with the ninth day (Tisha B'Av) observed as a major day of mourning.
6. Elul - A month dedicated to repentance and spiritual introspection in preparation for Rosh Hashanah (the New Year).
7. Tishrei - The month featuring a high concentration of major holy days, including Rosh Hashanah (New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles).
8. Cheshvan - A month with few festivals, spanning the transition from autumn to winter.
9. Kislev - The month in which Hanukkah (the Festival of Lights) is celebrated.
10. Tevet - A cold winter month, traditionally viewed as a season for repentance and earnest prayer.
11. Shevat - A winter month celebrated for the blessing of trees and fruits, notably marked by Tu BiShvat.
12. Adar - The month in which Purim is celebrated, commemorating the deliverance of the Jewish people from their enemies. In leap years, a 13th month called Adar II is intercalated.

In biblical accounts and Hebrew calendar reckoning, the tracking of civil years begins with Tishrei, the seventh month. It is customary for the regnal years of kings to be calculated using Tishrei as the landmark new year.

Discrepancies in Regnal Chronology: Judah vs. Israel

In the Kingdom of Judah, a new king typically succeeded immediately upon the death of his predecessor (e.g., 2 Kings 14:19-21). Because of the Davidic dynasty's stability and occasional co-regencies (e.g., Azariah and Jotham, 2 Kings 15:5), gaps in governance were minimal. In contrast, the Kingdom of Israel suffered frequent coups and short-lived rulers (e.g., Zechariah reigning for only six months, 2 Kings 15:8-10), leading to frequent interregnums and chronological discrepancies. These variations between Israelite and Judean regnal records occur because years were sometimes recorded based on when a ruler was politically recognized as king, regardless of whether it was a co-regency or sole reign.

The Case of Amaziah and Azariah

As an example, King Amaziah of Judah (who reigned 29 years, 2 Kings 14:2) was assassinated during the 14th year of King Jeroboam II of Israel (2 Kings 14:19). Immediately after, 16-year-old Azariah was made king (2 Kings 14:21). However, Azariah’s official accession is recorded as the 27th year of Jeroboam (2 Kings 15:1-2). This discrepancy of 12 to 13 years exists because Azariah, due to his youth, initially ruled via a co-regency alongside advisors (such as the priests and his mother, Jecoliah), and only began his sole reign in Jeroboam's 27th year. While Azariah’s total 52-year reign (2 Kings 15:2) is counted from the death of Amaziah, the divergence from Israel's synchronisms reflects political milestones of recognized authority rather than simple, linear calendar years.

Explaining Regnal Calculation Systems

Accession Year System

• The year a king ascends the throne is designated as the "accession year" (Year 0) and is not included in the total count. Counting begins with "Year 1 of the reign" starting on the first day of the following new year.

Non-Accession Year System

• The year a king ascends the throne is immediately counted as "Year 1," meaning even a partial year of reign is registered as a full year.

As an official record, the reign of a king who ruled for only a few months is rounded down because their influence failed to extend into the following year, and those months are instead absorbed into the first year of the succeeding king. On the other hand, for kings who are recorded for over a year, the fractional months are sometimes rounded up. Because these two systems are strategically alternated, the actual elapsed time within a single dynasty remains perfectly accurate without any overlap. Therefore, the short reigns of Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin shown in the chart are excluded from the calculation. Consequently, the actual elapsed time from King Solomon to King Zedekiah comes out to exactly 429 years in total.

Assuming the Completion of Zedekiah’s 11th Year of Reign(Feel free to skip this)

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In chapter 39 verse 2 of בְּעַשְׁתֵּי־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה לְצִדְקִיָּהוּ, if you do a search here, it is accurately translated as In the twelfth year of Zedekiah. Many Japanese translations make the mistake of adding words that are not in the original language, such as “in the middle of the eleventh year” or “after two years,” which is an intentional mistake. בְּ is the preposition meaning many nuance “in, at, with, for” different from the one of verse 1 is translated as "in the" form like verse 1 to emphasize the nuance of "in the middle of the 11th year" which is not in the original language, without consideration for the change of the meaning. The English translation of verse 1 differs from verse 2 in its proto-linguistic structure. The structure "in the year + ninth," with the Hebrew word for year at the beginning, implying "in the ninth year."

Verse 2 in the original text uses the original word and expression "After the entire eleven years of Zedekiah reigns have completed. in the fourth month," and the structure "at the point 11th completed+ year " emphasizes the completion of whole 11 years. The original word structure has the word year after 11 like "numbers + year" is the same one as in other passages of Scripture where a person's life span is listed, and the emphasis is on the fact that the 11 years have been exceeded.

For example, Genesis 5:5, which says, “Adam lived 930 years." Adam have lived 930 years and a few months, but the fraction of a year that never exceeded a year is rounded down, and the nuance of original language 930+year is that he exceeded 930 years but can be counted as the time exactly 930 years passed. (2024/10/29 I got an email back from a Jew saying that I may be right.)

Furthermore, unlike the feminine without a preposition “eleven years” of 2 Kings 24:18, the “eleven years” of 2 Kings 25:2 and Jeremiah 39:2 is the masculine form of 11 years, which is infinitely similar to the Hebrew form meaning 12. While it is a Hebrew rule to always assign masculine numerals to months, days, etc., since they are masculine nouns. It appears that there are some numbers like 10 multiples 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and so on where there is no masculine or feminine type, except for 10, but when a number has a gender both masculine and feminine forms as in 1 through 19 are used interchangeably in Scripture for feminine noun year. In particular, masculine numbers are assumed to mean “emphasis on completion” in ancient times.  (Ezekiel 31:1 uses prepositions and feminine type 11)

Blueletterbible is unaware that in ancient Hebrew numerals, the combination of the masculine number and feminine types noun can create different nuances, so there are cases where other numerals, including 11, are written as feminine or both/masculine and feminine. However, if there are two different forms of a feminine or masculine numeral, one used for the feminine noun year, and the other used for the masculine noun month, day, etc., then even if sometimes combines with oposite gender words each other, one is feminine and the other is masculine in the ancient Hebrew language, even though it is written as both. On the other hand, there are cases where the gender distinction is not actually made, even though the type is described as feminine. The use of different types of numbers in ancient times is an area of mystery and deep ignorance even for Jews today.

For example, in Genesis 5:3-5, it is stated that Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old, but both 100 and 30 are used. However, the Hebrew word “וֹ” used in verse 5 for multiples of 100 does not indicate gender, and those two of both have exactly the same form as the 100 in Genesis 11:10, which is written in the feminine form. Therefore, Blueletterbible’s distinction between feminine and both based on the gender of the noun is a complete mistake, and it should be written as “both” for all instances. It is impossible to formulate hypotheses based on new insights by asking ChatGPT, Grok, or other similar services.

There is a clear distinction for numbers from 1 to 19 that are clearly marked as masculine and feminine, this is probably because only feminine numerals are used for feminine nouns such as year, while only masculine numerals are used for month, day, etc. in the bible, making them easier to identify. Jeremiah 39:2's 11, which we are discussing here, is described as both, but it clearly differs from the feminine in form and is a masculine number used for masculine noun months and days, and in most cases it is not used for years. The notation of Zedekiah's reign, including Ezekiel 26:1, which combines the same preposition with the masculine numeral 11 and the feminine noun year, is the only case with a clear gender distinction.

A simple sentence structure without a preposition indicating at what point in the number also suggests that the number is completed in a Hebrew sentence, whether or not there is a verb, regardless of masculine or feminine type. If the sentence structure that follows forms the same pattern as the previous sentence, it can be interpreted as an expiration in the feminine numeral.  However, it is often the case, especially when feminine numerals are combined with a specific preposition, that the effect of number completion is suppressed. This can lead to the interpretation that the event is not “completed,” but rather expresses an event in progress or at a specific point in time. In short, the “completed” meaning of a number may be adjusted by a particular preposition, changing the meaning of the entire sentence. This subtle role is closely related to the unique grammatical structure of Hebrew.

In Genesis 7:6, the sentence reads as if Noah was over 600 years old, but there is no preposition with the feminine numeral used for 6. When there is no preposition, it is customary to use a feminine numeral because year is a feminine noun, and there is no distinction between masculine and feminine, just meaning completeness. However, to avoid misunderstanding, in verse 11 once more, it adds a preposition with multiple meanings, such as “in or at,” and uses feminine numerals as well as the previous sentence, implying that the number is “strictly speaking, the 600th year”. In 2 Kings 24:18, which says that Zedekiah ruled for 11 feminine years, but Jeremiah 39:2, with the preposition “at + masculine numeral 11 years,” flexibly conveys the nuance of “11 years have expired” by supplementing it with other words. When the specific preposition like בְּ in Jeremiah 39:2 is attached that the gender meaning of the number strongly differs. 

*In the Bible, ancient Hebrew numerals use thousands as the highest digit, with ten thousand, hundred thousand, million, and ten million represented by combinations of thousands, tens, and hundreds. 

When it comes to multiples of ten from 20 to 90, it is often said that the plural form is based on the masculine form, but the tens place is unified in the feminine form, and the same applies to multiples of ten from 100 to 900 in terms of the hundreds place. Then, for multiples of ten from 20 to 900, there is no distinction and only the feminine form is used. In ancient Hebrew from the biblical era, it seems that 1,000 was the highest digit, and the thousands place is uniformly masculine (Numbers 31:43), so 1,000 is also exclusively masculine with no distinction.

In other words, unlike small numbers like 1 to 19 that easily reach their expiration, numbers like thousand emphasize the collective nature of the masculine base, and even if only masculine numbers are used for digits above the thousand place, they are interpreted as intermediate steps due to the large scale when a preposition is attached. This is similar to cases where the plural form of Elohim is used to emphasize the existence of a single person depending on the context. However, modern Hebrew no longer distinguishes between genders, and there are now more types of notation for numbers above the thousands place where there may be patterns where large numbers are uniformly written using the feminine form only as no gender distinction.

To sum up for now, there is a gender distinction from 1 to 19, and no gender distinction in multiples of 10 from 20. Originally, both number of masculine and feminine types meant completion without a specific preposition, but when that is added to indicate at which point in the numeral, the feminine numeral becomes an intermediate step and there are cases where masculine figures suggest expiration without being affected.

All 11 masculine forms are listed here. An interesting point is that in Zechariah 1:7, the preposition לְ, which means the twelfth letter of the alphabet, is added before the 11 masculine forms. If we assume that 11 is a number indicating completion, we might be tempted to translate it as “the eleventh month of Shevat has been completed,” but as mentioned above, months and days are masculine nouns, so it is customary to assign masculine numbers to them, and the preposition in that passage is different from the one we are discussing here, so it probably simply refers to the eleventh month.

In conclusion, when a number has two patterns like 1〜19, masculine and feminine, if the conditions for the order of specific preposition + masculine numeral + feminine noun year, are met, it is considered to imply completion. The masculine meaning would take precedence in the strength/weakness relationship of feminine nouns = feminine numerals, masculine nouns = masculine numerals, masculine nouns > feminine numerals, and masculine numerals > feminine nouns.

• Without a specific prepositions, masculine and feminine numerals indicate completion or expiration as they are. 
• When a year (feminine noun) is combined with a feminine numeral and a specific preposition is added, the effect of the completion of the numeral is suppressed, indicating a process in progress, while the masculine numeral is unaffected, indicating completion.
• When a month or day (masculine noun) is combined with a masculine numeral and a specific preposition is added, the effect of the completion of the numeral is suppressed, implying an intermediate step.
• Although not confirmed so far in the Bible, if there is a case where a feminine numeral is used for a month or day that is a masculine noun, it will follow the nuance specified by the specific preposition due to the rule masculine noun = masculine numeral > feminine numeral.

It shows that this is in the 480th year and in the fourth year of King Solomon's reign, because it is a mixture of the feminine numeral 4, the gender-neutral 80 and 100, and the prepositions in 1Kings 6:1, etc. Furthermore, in Jeremiah 1:3, the sentence that emphasizes the completion of the eleventh year in “until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign” is punctuated with the Hebrew word “until,” and then once again with “until the Babylonian captivity in the fifth month,” which seems to suggest that the twelfth year is reached. And of course, that 11th year is a masculine expiration form, as in chapter 39:2. 

It is even possible that the presence or absence or position of the preposition no longer matters, and that the mere combination of a feminine noun like year and a masculine numeral can always be the completion of the attribute that the numeral inherently retains!

In light of Jeremiah 1:3, the similarity of the masculine type in 11 and the feminine type in 12 suggests that there may have been a manuscript transcription error, just as in Kings 8:26: Ahaziah “became king at the age of 22” and Chronicles 22:2: Ahaziah “became king at the age of 42.”

Even us Japanese sometimes use Japanese incorrectly; the expression “It is convenient after 11:00 a.m.” has a meaning that passing 11:00 a.m. In other words, from 11:01 is also convenient. However, many times Japanese people think “after 11:00” but tend to use different word expression as the one including 11:00, not from 11:01, and the nuance is not strong enough for ambiguity. However, the precise meaning of the word “after 11:00” not includes 11:00. In Japanese, “after 11:00” and “ on or after（以降 after but including 11:00) 11:00” have different meanings. Very similar expression and most of us don't know what means each words though and very common amomg us using 以降 at every time. The same can be seen in the expression “the eleventh year” in Jeremiah 39:2, where the eleventh year means precisely the eleventh year that has passed, according to the structure of the original language, and a Jew who does not perceive any significant meaning in it may recognize it as the eleventh year without much concern.

The possibility of correct paraphrase is, in the original language, “in the fourth month in the twelfth year,” at which time Zedekiah would be deposed in the Babylonian captivity. In other words, since he abdicated in the 12th year and failed to enter the 13th year, i.e., failed to pass over Tishri, his reign was definitely the 11 years.

*Same result here. Furthermore, the same in this one, in turn, is pasted as evidence images above and below. Maybe the Hebrew translation tool is making a decoding error because the ancient masculine type 11 is similar to the modern Hebrew 12.

Therefore, it may actually mean 'at the point when 11 years had fully elapsed in the fourth month,' which calculated from Tishrei (the civil calendar that marks autumn as the beginning of the year) would mean 11 years and nine months had passed. Then, since Jeremiah 41:1 shifts to the New Year in the month of Tishrei, three months would have elapsed since Zedekiah's abdication at that point. By adding that one year to the 11 years, the total comes to 430 years. There may be a translation error not only in Jeremiah 39 but also in other passages where a king's reign is indicated using a masculine numeral accompanied by a preposition.

Now, from the next section onward, we will read the text based on the standard interpretation that implicitly points to the 11th year—meaning 10 full years and approximately four months have elapsed. It's a busy process, but let us switch gears and put the above point aside for a moment. After all, the reality brought to light is that, regardless of the timeline, it is physically impossible to harvest summer fruits just two or three months after the king's abdication.

The Harvest in Judah After King Zedekiah's Dethronement

First, let us examine instances where the Bible layout naturally spans across gaps of elapsed time without explicitly stating the number of years passed.

Pattern 1: King David’s Sin and the Confrontation by Nathan the Prophet (2 Samuel 11–12)
The narrative structure here mirrors the style found in the Book of Jeremiah.

• Chapter 11: King David commits adultery with Bathsheba, and she becomes pregnant. To cover up his actions, David arranges for her husband to be killed in battle, then takes her as his wife.
• Chapter 12 (immediately following): Nathan the Prophet confronts David, declaring, "You are the man!" and rebuking his severe sin.

Read literally, it appears Nathan stormed in the moment David brought Bathsheba into his house. However, the end of Chapter 11 quietly notes, "She bore a son. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David." Naturally, about a year must have passed for the child to be carried to term and born, yet the prose reads as a seamless, continuous event.

Pattern 2: Saul's Search for the Donkeys and His Anointing as King (1 Samuel 9–13)
This details the account of Saul being chosen as Israel's first king.

• Chapters 9–10: While searching for his father’s lost donkeys, Saul encounters the prophet Samuel and is unexpectedly anointed king.
• Chapter 11: An enemy attacks; Saul rallies the people, achieves victory, and is publicly confirmed as king.
• Chapter 13: Saul's war against the Philistines begins.

A casual reading makes it look like everything from the lost donkeys to the war happened within a few months. However, a close examination of the original Hebrew text of Chapter 13:1 reveals that a few years—or at least over a full year—had elapsed before the war in Chapter 13 commenced. Because the Bible aims to present "Saul's journey from a donkey hunter to a king" as a single thematic narrative arc, it completely skips the uneventful intervening year.

Pattern 3: In the New Testament! The Birth of Jesus and the Magi (Matthew 2)
The same narrative phenomenon occurs in the Christmas story.

• Jesus is born in a manger in Bethlehem (Chapter 2:1).
• Subsequently, the Magi from the East follow a star to worship the "child" (Chapter 2:11).

While children's books often depict this happening on the very same night, by the time the Magi arrived, Jesus was no longer in the manger but in a "house." Furthermore, King Herod’s furious decree to slaughter "all the boys two years old and under" (Chapter 2:16) indicates that one to two years had passed between Jesus' birth and the Magi's arrival. Once again, the text does not explicitly write out "one year later."

The Missing Full Year After the Fall of Jerusalem

This brings us to the most critical "missing year." Jeremiah Chapters 40 through 43 show that during the period after Zedekiah was taken to Babylon and removed from the throne, a remnant of Jews remained in the land of Judah, gathered harvests, and lived out regular lives. 

The regnal years of the Davidic dynasty record the real passage of time, driven by successors who took over the baton and kept the nation functioning even after a king's death. The reason Jeremiah 52:1 explicitly states that Zedekiah reigned for "11 years"—despite his deportation in the 4th month of his 11th year—is because it serves as a "validation stamp." It proves that a successor (the Gedaliah administration and their restoration work) was already ahead, completing that fiscal year and pushing history to function into the "12th year." Conversely, because Gedaliah had no successor to hand the clock over to, there is no official record stamping his administration as having "reigned for 1 year," nor was there any need to specify a "7th month after 1 year had passed." The very presence or absence of these numbers is the unspoken code that dictates whether history continues or comes to an end.

Jeremiah 52:6 points out that this was the time of the fourth month—from mid-June onward—a season when a bountiful harvest of barley, and especially wheat and summer fruits, would normally be expected. However, due to the Babylonians' nearly two-year siege of Jerusalem, the text explains the circumstances under which 'the food was exhausted,' leading to the collapse of the nation's defensive capabilities. Let's dive deeper into this."

1. Mass Deforestation for Weaponry and Siege Works

During the siege, the Babylonian army constructed siege ramps (earthwork mounds) equal in height to Jerusalem’s formidable walls to breach them, and built massive siege engines, such as catapults and battering rams (logs used to break walls), right on the spot. To secure materials for these weapons and the army’s infrastructure, trees from the surrounding forests and orchards were cut down and plundered indiscriminately based on the military needs. Jeremiah 6:6 directly reflects the harsh reality of ancient warfare, where God commands the Babylonian army to "Cut down her trees and build a siege ramp against Jerusalem." Specifically, a brutal struggle for resources unfolded over the course of the 18-month siege:

• Massive Olive and Pomegranate Trees (Materials for Large Weapons and Foundations):
  The exceptionally hard and heavy trunks of olive trees, along with other straight-growing, sturdy timbers, were cut down by their roots. They were used as massive logs for battering rams to crush the city walls, strong frames for catapults, and enormous stakes to support the siege ramps.

• Grapevines and Wooden Supports (Reinforcements for Earthworks and Defensive Shields):
  While grapevines themselves are thin and gnarled, making them unsuitable for large weapons, their flexible branches, vines, and the sturdy wooden stakes that supported the vineyards were consumed in vast quantities as "weaving materials" to prevent the siege ramps from collapsing. Furthermore, to protect workers from the rain of arrows and stones launched from atop the walls, these resilient grapevine branches were tightly woven onto the surfaces of "mantlets" (large, movable wooden shields).

• All Fruit Trees (Fuel for an Army of Hundreds of Thousands):
  Even more than weapon construction, what devastated the surrounding orchards was the need for firewood. With tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand Babylonian soldiers and their horses camping for a year and a half (more than 540 days), survival through the freezing Palestinian winter nights required an immense amount of fuel. Grapevines and fig trees—which were readily available and easily broken by hand or hatchet—became prime targets and were tossed into daily campfires until they were entirely consumed.

• Fruits that Bore Fruit Around June (Food for the Soldiers):
  Needless to say, before the trees were cut down, unripe grapes that had started to color from around June, as well as fruits such as figs and dates, were plucked away by the starving Babylonian soldiers as a perfect source of vitamins (food). This was done to such an extent that it became impossible to store any of them for the remainder of the year. (Jeremiah 5:17)

In this way, the lush orchards that once spread outside the city walls were largely depleted by the Babylonian army—serving as materials for siege engines, firewood for cooking daily meals, and provisions to fill the soldiers' stomachs. By the time the city fell, the land had been reduced to a heavily stripped and barren landscape of charcoal and stumps. Even inside the city walls, the citizens and defending forces of the Kingdom of Judah would likely have consumed whatever fruit remained in the orchards for their own survival, making it virtually impossible to gather and preserve a sufficient harvest to survive the coming winter.

2. Trampling and Consumption by an Army of Hundreds of Thousands

During a prolonged siege, tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand Babylonian soldiers, along with their horses and livestock, relied entirely on foraging to survive.

• Grain and Vegetables: Crops were harvested by enemy soldiers as soon as they sprouted to feed the troops.
• Livestock Grazing: The massive movement of troops and cavalry trampled the fields, compacting the soil and destroying the root systems of the vegetation.

3. Disruption and Diversion of Water Sources

To deprive the besieged Judeans of water and secure supplies for themselves, the Babylonians dammed or rerouted local springs and aqueducts. Deprived of water, surrounding agricultural fields and orchards withered and died during the siege. 2 Kings 25:8–11 and Jeremiah 52:12 indicate that Nebuzaradan’s relentless pursuit continued into the month following the fall of the city, during which houses and various buildings were burned down. Furthermore, it can be inferred that plundering spoils from the temple including the bronze pomegranates and registering captives for exile took several months to complete. Looking at the fall in Lamentations 2:12, we see a factual lamentation stating, 'Where is wine?' Therefore, under the ongoing presence of the pursuing forces a few months later that same year, it must be said that Gedaliah would have had no room or luxury to take command, harvest grapes, and produce wine.

In other words, within that same year immediately following the fall of Jerusalem, Judah's harvests were already in a state where crops were scarce due to a famine severe enough to cause the city's collapse, and the orchards had been chopped down and set on fire. Therefore, the historical and realistic process of agriculture—where, as recorded in Jeremiah 40:12, they managed to reap an abundant harvest of fruits a year later only through the clearing of fields and orchards, sowing seeds, and repairing water sources under Gedaliah's leadership—is left on record as circumstantial evidence. Given that no maintenance had been performed on the fields, achieving a 'large volume' in the Hebrew text of storage within that same year was impossible; people could do no more than live hand-to-mouth just to survive the immediate hunger.

Jeremiah 40 reveals that Babylon had no intention of withdrawing from Jerusalem after just two months of that same year. Instead, they aimed for a long-term reconstruction to keep the region under their control. As seen in verse 5, they managed food rations while appointing Gedaliah to direct the people to cultivate the land for a future massive harvest. As the Judean refugees gradually returned from their places of exile, the pruning of orchards, harvesting, and winemaking finally got back on track. Over the course of a relatively long period of about a year, complacency began to set in, causing Gedaliah to lose his vigilance and blind himself to Ishmael’s malicious intent.

Chapter 41 notes that after gathering this year-long harvest, in the seventh month at fall—which marks the beginning of the Hebrew civil year—Ishmael launched a treacherous assassination and raid. Also, Jeremiah 52:30 provides the historical background where Nebuzaradan led the Babylonian army on an expedition against Ammon and Moab—the powers behind Gedaliah’s assassination—five years after the fall of Jerusalem, further deporting the Jews who had taken refuge there; at that point, the land of Judah was already completely empty. 

Even after the abdication of King Zedekiah, there was a full year of harvest in the land of Judah. However, following a subsequent series of turmoils, the people fled, making human restoration impossible. As a result, the land was left desolate, bringing seventy years of sabbath rest to it, just as it is written in 2 Chronicles 36:21.

15th Year of Tiberius by Luke

To understand the "15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar" in Luke 3:1, we must look past modern archaeological conventions or political alignment dates (like those used in the Northern Kingdom of Israel). Instead, we must apply the non-accession year system to uncover the true elapsed time. To do this, we must consider who Luke was writing to. In Luke Chapter 1, he addresses "Theophilus." This name is purely Greek, meaning "lover of God," signifying that the recipient belonged not to the strict, insular culture of Jerusalem, but to the broader Greek-speaking Gentile world—such as Antioch in Syria, Alexandria, or Greece.

Furthermore, Luke writes, "It seemed good to me also, most excellent Theophilus, to write an orderly account for you." The title "most excellent" (Kratistos) was not empty flattery; it was an official honorific in the Roman Empire used strictly for high-ranking officials, such as members of the equestrian order, provincial governors, or magistrates. Therefore, we can deduce that Theophilus was highly likely a prominent, Hellenized non-Jewish figure of official standing in Rome's eastern provinces (such as Syria) who acted as Luke's patron.

According to early Christian writings, the author Luke is a Greek physician from Antioch(Syria) and addressed his work to His Excellency Theophilus—a Roman official of the eastern provinces—it stands to reason that he computed dates using the official solarized Syrian calendar for both of them, which strictly used the non-accession-year system and fixed the New Year to October 1st rather than traditional Judean methodology. 

Let's review this. Suppose within a single 12-month calendar year, three successive kings rule for four months, four months, and three months respectively due to unexpected tragedies, leaving one month remaining in the year. If a fourth king ascends the throne and rules for that final single month before the new calendar year begins, the Syrian non-accession system credits that fourth king with a full year of rule ("Year 1") despite him only reigning for a fraction of it. When the new year rolls over, it immediately becomes his "Year 2." By discarding the fractional months of the short-lived predecessors and starting the new king's count in the final month, this system prevented years from overlapping and ensured an accurate tracking of historical eras.

In Luke 3:1, the Greek preposition "en" is used, meaning "during" or "in the course of" the 15th year of Tiberius. His predecessor, Augustus, died on August 19, AD 14. According to biblical reckoning, Tiberius's active rule began from that event. Thus, Augustus’s regnal years concluded by autumn of AD 13. For Tiberius, the period from autumn of AD 13 to around the autumn New Year (Tishrei) on September 11, AD 14, constituted his 15th year under Syrian reckoning. Similarly, in the Roman calendar, the months leading up to December of AD 13 marked the transition, making the period from January to December of AD 14 the official Year 1 of Tiberius.

Following this sequence, the interval from Year 1 to Year 2 spans AD 13 to AD 14; Year 2 to Year 3 spans AD 14 to AD 15; and Year 3 to Year 4 spans AD 15 to AD 16. Because biblical chronology does not operate with a "Year 0," adding 14 years to the timeline places the 15th year of Tiberius between the autumn of AD 27 and the autumn of AD 28 on the Syrian calendar. On the Roman calendar, it spans from January to December of AD 28. Consequently, John the Baptist began proclaiming the arrival of the Messiah around the spring of AD 28. Six months later, around autumn, Jesus was baptized by John, marking the precise moment the true Temple of God was consecrated.

The widely circulated secular view positioning the 15th year of Tiberius between the autumn of AD 28 and the autumn of AD 29 is a modern chronological reconstruction; it does not align with the non-accession system or how people of that era calculated dates. The autumn of AD 28—when Jesus emerged from the waters of baptism and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove—marks the exact, uncompromised completion of 4,000 years of human history. As Scripture indicates, the Second Coming is destined to take place exactly 2,000 years after that event.

Chronological Basis According to Luke

*Note: The chart's creator, Yoshiya-san, identifies the spring of 2028 as the conclusion of the 6,000th year, whereas my study concludes it occurs in the autumn; this remains a point of variance between our views.