(Zechariah 7:1-5) 7 Furthermore, it came about that in the fourth year of Da·ri’us the king the word of Jehovah occurred to Zech·a·ri’ah, on the fourth [day] of the ninth month, [that is,] in Chis'lev. 2 And Beth'el proceeded to send Shar·e'zer and Re'gem-mel'ech and his men to soften the face of Jehovah, 3 saying to the priests who belonged to the house of Jehovah of armies, and to the prophets, even saying: “Shall I weep in the fifth month, practicing an abstinence, the way I have done these O how many years?” 4 And the word of Jehovah of armies continued to occur to me, saying: 5 “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When YOU fasted and there was a wailing in the fifth [month] and in the seventh [month], and this for seventy years, did YOU really fast to me, even me?
--This scripture shows that the fourth year of Darius (Darius the Great) was apparently 70 years after the destruction of Jerusalem. The Israelites were mourning in the fifth and seventh months of the year, for 70 years. The fifth month was when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and the seventh month was when Gedaliah, who had been appointed by the Babylonians over the people left in Judah, was assassinated. (2 Kings 25:8, 25) The phrasing of the question asked by Sharezer and Regem-melech indicates that the Israelites had been fasting (and apparently they weren't quite sure how many years they'd been fasting, as the question says "O how many years?"), and were now asking Zechariah if they should continue fasting as they had previously been doing up until this time. Zechariah’s response indicates that it had been 70 years since the Israelites had been fasting in the fifth and seventh months.
Note that Zechariah’s response does NOT mention the 70-year prophecy of Jeremiah; he merely says that they had been fasting for seventy years. Therefore, in the absence of a mention of Jeremiah’s prophecy, we find a lack of evidence to support the notion that this is the same 70 years that Jeremiah foretold. Again, remember what Jeremiah actually said:
(Jeremiah 25 :8-11) . . ., 9 here I am sending and I will take all the families of the north,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “even [sending] to Neb·u·chad·rez′zar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of astonishment and something to whistle at and places devastated to time indefinite. 10 And I will destroy out of them the sound of exultation and the sound of rejoicing, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the hand mill and the light of the lamp. 11 And all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment, and these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”’
Jeremiah mentions that they will SERVE seventy years, not be in exile 70 years. In any case, in every other instance where Jeremiah’s prophecy is mentioned, Jeremiah himself is mentioned. (2 Chron. 36:21, 22; Ezra 1:1; Dan. 9:1, 2) In this case, he is not mentioned. Therefore, this is a different 70-year period, as the Israelites have not been serving the King of Babylon since the Babylonians had been conquered in 539 B.C., which means the 70 years foretold by Jeremiah have long been over.
Furthermore, remember, in Zech. 7:1-5, men have been sent to ask Zechariah if they should CONTINUE fasting. If they have been fasting since 607 B.C., then by the time they ask Zechariah, then 90 years, not 70, will have passed by this time. Why would Zechariah then say they have been fasting for 70 years if in fact they had been fasting for 90? Or if they had in fact stopped fasting at 537 B.C., this question makes even less sense, as they would have ceased fasting for 20 years, and then asked if they should resume fasting--which is not what the question says at all anyway. The question seems to suggest that this fasting was a recent, continuing activity, not something that hadn’t happened in 20 years. This scripture makes absolutely no sense if Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 B.C. Rather than supporting that notion, this scripture actually destroys it. Unless we’re going to assert that Darius the Great reigned in 537 B.C., which even the Society doesn’t try to assert:
***it-1p.583Darius***
It is particularly with regard to the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem that Darius Hystaspis figures in the Bible record. The temple foundation was laid in 536 B.C.E., but rebuilding work came under ban in 522 B.C.E. and “continued stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius” (520 B.C.E.). (Ezr 4:4, 5, 24) During this year the prophets Haggai and Zechariah stirred up the Jews to renew the construction, and the work got under way again. (Ezr 5:1, 2; Hag 1:1, 14, 15; Zec 1:1)
Since even the Society acknowledges that the second year of Darius was 520 B.C., we can reasonably conclude that his fourth year would be about 518/517 B.C., which would be almost exactly 70 years since 587 B.C., the historically accepted dated for Jerusalem’s destruction. Starting from that date, Zechariah 7:1-5 makes a lot more sense.
--sd-7