My understanding of the "70 Years" and the "Babylonian Exile" (without chronology)

by Doug Mason 34 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Doug Mason

  In my view, there needs to be a very clear decoupling of the destruction wrought on Jerusalem/Judah from the 70 years of servitude/Babylonian domination.
  
  The destruction was the outcome of the people failing over many centuries to obey God, and it was a conditional prophecy, the outcome of which depended on the people's response.
  
  However, the servitude to Babylon, experienced by several countries, was an unconditional prophecy. It would come to pass, no matter what.
  
  At times the unconditional prophecy encountered the conditional prophecy ("Serve the king of Babylon, and you will live. Why should this city become a ruin?" Jer. 27:17 NIV).
  
  The event that started the Seventy Years is identified in the direct context of the 70-year prophecy (Jer 25:11), with the answer given at Jer 25:9: “I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the LORD, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations.”.
  
  Since the “70 years” is the duration of Babylon’s supremacy, it is only natural that the period began with the moment the Lord summoned Babylon into that role.

  The Bible writers were far more concerned at knowing when the people would return home, rather than trying to locate a moment in history when the Seventy Years commenced.
  
  The end of the Seventy Years needs to be positively decoupled from the Jews' return. The end of the 70 Years is marked as the time Babylon stopped being the regional super power. But the return of the Jews depended on people calling on the Lord, not the other way around. Then, and only then, would the Lord respond. But they had to wait until the 70 Years had been completed. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD , “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then YOU WILL CALL UPON ME and COME AND PRAY TO ME , and I WILL LISTEN TO YOU . YOU WILL SEEK ME and FIND ME when YOU SEEK ME with all Your Heart. I WILL BE FOUND BY YOU ,” declares the LORD , “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD , “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jer. 29:11-14. Hence the significance of Daniel's confessional prayer. However, since his prayer was not a national confession of sin or a national seeking of the LORD, although they were permitted to return, the initial 70 years of servitude was multiplied by a factor of 7. This time, however, instead of being a servant of another nation, they would be a servant of the Most High God.
  
  Doug
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  jonathan dough

  yes.

  http://144000.110mb.com/607/i-2.html#E
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  Alwayshere

  I agree, the 70 years is how long Babylon had world power. And Babylon fell in 539 so add 70 to 539 =609 as the start of Babylon's Supremacy.
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  jonathan dough

  I agree, the 70 years is how long Babylon had world power. And Babylon fell in 539 so add 70 to 539 =609 as the start of Babylon's Supremacy.

  Do you know what event triggered 609?
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  Alwayshere

  Yes. 609 is when the Assyian King Ashureuballit's reign ended. Babylon and the Medes divided the empire among them self. Babylon chose Judah and surrounding countries. Got my info. from Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia.
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  jonathan dough

  Yes. 609 is when the Assyian King Ashureuballit's reign ended. Babylon and the Medes divided the empire among them self. Babylon chose Judah and surrounding countries. Got my info. from Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia.

  I was fishing for the battle of Haran which you probably cover with this. It fits nicely.

  "The seventy years began in 609 B.C.E. when the king of Babylon brought to an end the Assyrian Empire at the final battle of Haran; it ended seventy years later in 539 B.C.E. when Babylon fell to the Persians and Medes. During this seventy year period the affected nations of the earth collectively served, and were dominated by, the Babylonian Empire."

  http://144000.110mb.com/607/i-2.html
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  Larsinger58

  The 70 years, historically, as the Jews apply them are noted by Josephus at Ant. 11.1.1:

  IN the first year of the reign of Cyrus which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they had served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitude seventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity.

  In other words, the people were removed out of their land at the time of the last deportation in year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar:

  28 These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·rez´zar took into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews.

  29 In the eighteenth year of Neb·u·chad·rez´zar, from Jerusalem there were eight hundred and thirty-two souls.

  30 In the twenty-third year of Neb·u·chad·rez´zar, Neb·u´zar·ad´an the chief of the bodyguard took Jews into exile, seven hundred and forty-five souls.

  So when the last people were finally removed from the land, then the land could rest and pay back its sabbaths of 70 years. So you see, it is really not that complicated at all. The 70 years are from the last deportation until the 1st of Cyrus. You can't have a desolated land paying back its sabbaths if there are still people in the land.

  Thus it is important to remember the primary reason for the 70 years is in relation to the land. The "servitude" to Babylon is incidental. That's just where the deported people were while the land lay desolate.

  Now granted, it does get confusing since more than the Jews had to be deported. But others besides the Jews were living in the land. The entire land had to be emptied. That means both the northern and southern kingdom areas and the borderline non-Isralite cities as well, like Ashkelon and Tyre. So other nations were involved in being deported, the last ones being deported in year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar also serving for 70 years.

  So if you just follow Jewish historical application of their own interpretation of when the 70 years of Jeremiah took place, then issues of Babylonian sovereignty and all that don't come up, even though all those other things work out perfectly.

  Thanks for sharing your interpretation though. Olof Jonsson got really confused over this as well for some reason. If you think about the desolation of the land rather than the servitude, then it is less easy to get mixed up regarding the 70 years. Your view of the 70 years, of course, is both non-Biblical and non-historical. Or I should say even if you could imply a 70-year Babylonian domination scenario, it would have absolutely nothing to do with Zechariah's prophecy of the 70 years.

  Zechariah's prophecy is about the land and has nothing to do with the fall of Jerusalem, the mourning for Gedaliah, or when Babylon came to power. It has to do with the last deportation that removed the people off the land so it could lie desolate for 70 years.

  This is reflected by Ezekiel where the error for the 10 tribes is 390 years and the error for Judah is 40 years. This is the agricultural error of not letting the land rest every 7 years and during the jubilee. This responsibilty is shared equally, thus.

  390 years, which is 39 years for each of the 10 tribes, and 40 years for Judah, since they ruled longer is a total of 430 years.

  Divide 430 years by the two agri-sabbaths and you get 70 years:

  430 divided by the 7-year sabbath is 61.4

  430 divided by the 50-year jubilee is 8.6

  61.4 and 8.6 = 70

  430 years of missed sabbaths is made up by 70 years of complete desolation and rest, beginning with the last deportation, just as Josephus indicates. The Jews knew when the 70-years of Jeremiah occurred. It's just a matter of checking secular Jewish history to answer this simple question. But for some reason, Josephus and the Bible are ignored in some effort to harmonize the Bible with the popular Babylonian timeline, which there can never, ever, ever be any harmonization since the Bible's NB Period is 26 years longer than the current secular NB Period. When a JW finds a conflict between the Bible and secular, they always choose the Bible, which is the correct choice.

  In summary, the Babylonian EXILE and DESOLATION are exactly the same 70 years, from year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar to the 1st of Cyrus. Simple.

  and final. But only if you need to have the facts and truth. Otherwise, I rather like your 70-year explanation, Mason. Plus I always get a big laugh when I read Olof Jonsson's explanation, especially where he tries to make it work by claiming the 70 years are not really 70 years but a rounded off 64 or 66 years or something like that. I mean, come on...

  LS
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  Doug Mason

  Lars,

  The destruction of the city and towns was the outcome of the people disobeying centuries of warning from the Lord. They would have prevented that happening, if they had mended their ways. Being an avoidable situation, the prophecies were conditional, they were warnings.

  The 70-year servitude by Judah and the nations to Babylon was unavoidable: the Lord had appointed Nebuchadnezzar as his servant for that time.

  Jeremiah is the primary source of information about the "70 years" (25:11), not Chronicles. While Jeremiah was written and mostly edited about the time of the Exile. the Chronicles were not written until some 200 years later, perhaps later, by a group whose objective was with their contemporary theology rather than historical precision. They thus reinterpreted history for their own contemporary purpose (historiography).

  I am not disturbed with the thought that 70 is not mathematically precise, given the mystical meanings applied to numbers by the ancients, such as the Hebrews. "70" had a particular spirituality, given its composition of seven and ten, and the meanings applied to those numbers.

  I am not aware that the ancient Hebrews used decimals or fractions; do you have evidence that they did? They assigned a number to each of their 22 letters, and a number was determined by adding the values of the letters, regardless of the sequence that the letters were placed in (hence they had no need for a letter to represent "0").

  It is absolutely critical to read their words through their culture, not through our eyes.

  At no stage was the land of Judah ever devoid of people or of domestic animals.

  Doug
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  Larsinger58

  Doug,

  70 is symbolic. The desolation for exactly 70 years makes it symbolic. Why would God round it off to 64 years? That's ridiculous. When God tries to fulfill PATTERNS then it is suppose to come out perfect otherwise it makes the pattern meaningless.

  For instance, the SEVENS. Seven is used significantly in various denominations such as 7, 49, 70 and 490. It makes no sense when you have the power to imply "70" with 64 or 62 or some other jive number.

  What's the purpose of Christ arriving at the 70th week if it is the64th week?

  At any rate, there may be an implied 70 year NeoBabylonian Empire that works out. I'm just saying that there were 70 years from year 23, the last deportation, until the 1st of Cyrus, which is a historical reference of note. You can take it or leave it. In other words.

  Olof Jonsson has his pet theory about the 70 years.

  You have your pet theory about the 70 years.

  But guess what? Josephus just happens to have his pet theory about the 70 years as well. So I'm just noting that as a matter of record, that a Jewish historian interpreted the 70 years of Jeremiah to have occurred between the last deportation and the 1st of Cyrus during which the land was completely desolated. Now if that is just another historical falacy, then so be it. I'm just saying there is a SECULAR SOURCE out there from the Jews regarding the 70 years that I think is relevant. That theory, though, means the NB Period is 26 years longer than the current surviving records represent it.

  Per you the Bible is an inaccurate and made up book of myths anyway, so it doesn't matter really. There is no great need to be accurate, no more than the 70 years need to be EXACTLY 70 years to make a symbolic point.

  Everybody is entitled to express their wrong opinions. It's called freedom of speech.

  Thanks for explaining this further.

  WHAT I WOULD ASK YOU IS: Why are you so concerned about the 70 years if you think the Bible is not accurate in the first place? Why should the 70 years be any more significant than anything else in the Bible?

  Thanks.

  Lars
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  Larsinger58

  Doug,

  Maybe you don't understand me totally.

  Lots of ideas about the 70 years, correct? Well we can test those against the Bible, loosely or strictly. If we're being strict, COJ's rounding off of the 70 years fails right off the bat so his wouldn't be considered Biblically accurate.

  Not sure about yours.

  But Josephus claiming the 70 years were from the last deportation to the 1st of Cyrus matches the Biblical record of Zechariah 1 since it is clear the Jews were still in exile 70 years after the destruction of Jerusalem. If the 70 years didn't begin until year 23, then that would mean the Jews had another 4 years to be in exile under Darius the Mede before Cyrus took over all of Persia. So he checks out as far as scriptural comparison goes.

  Now that is not to say that some loosely applied 70 years for Babylon isn't a good interpretation in the Bible based on other scriptures, but it would have nothing to do with these historical 70 years which the Jews, if anyone, would know when they occurred.

  At any rate, a "strict Biblicalist" does not have the flexibility of COJ or you who consider dismissing certain texts as spurious.

  I believe there is no Biblical option here but to follow Josephus, but that's just my personal view. I respect yours to differ.

  BTW, the WTS also inserts a literal 70 years of desolation for the land to pay back its sabbaths based on 2 Chronicles, only they do not start the 70 years when Josephus does. They start it in year 18 rather than year 23--but they do read 2 Chronicles as a definitive 70-year period, as I do.

  Lars