According to the Watchtower Society, which event marked the start of the "70 Years"?
On which day and month did that event occur?
Doug
The starting event of the Watchtower's "70 Years"?
by Doug Mason 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Doug Mason
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leaving_quietly
The 4th of Ab, 455 B.C.E.
In Nisan (March-April) of the 20th year of Artaxerxes’ rule (455 B.C.E.), Nehemiah petitioned the king: “If your servant seems good before you, . . . send me to Judah, to the city of the burial places of my forefathers, that I may rebuild it.” (Ne 2:1, 5) The king granted permission, and Nehemiah made the long journey from Shushan to Jerusalem. On about the fourth of Ab (July-August), after making a night inspection of the walls, Nehemiah gave the command to the Jews: “Come and let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer continue to be a reproach.” (Ne 2:11-18) Thus, “the going forth of the word” to rebuild Jerusalem, as authorized by Artaxerxes, was put into effect by Nehemiah in Jerusalem that same year. This clearly establishes 455 B.C.E. as the year from which the 70 weeks would begin to count. it-2 p. 900Interestingly, earlier in this same Insight volume, it mentions that the 20th year may not have started until Tishri (September/October) by Nehemiah's reckoning:
The month of Chislev (November-December) of a certain 20th year is the reference point with which the historical narrative begins. (Ne 1:1) As is evident from Nehemiah 2:1, this 20th year must be that of Artaxerxes’ reign. Obviously, the 20th year in this case is not reckoned as starting in Nisan (March-April), for Chislev of the 20th year could not then precede Nisan (mentioned at Ne 2:1) of the same 20th year. So it may be that Nehemiah used his own count of time, reckoning the lunar year as beginning with Tishri (September-October), which month Jews today recognize as the beginning of their civil year. Another possibility is that the reign of the king was reckoned from the actual date that the monarch ascended the throne. This could be so even though the Babylonian scribes continued to reckon the years of the Persian king’s reign on their customary basis of a Nisan-to-Nisan count, as their cuneiform tablets show they did. it-2 p. 487-488
But, to answer your question, Ab 4, 455 B.C.E.
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Magnum
I don't remember ever seeing reference to a specific day. As to month, see below [highlighting & underlining added by me].
************ Watchtower 2011 Oct 1 pgs 27-29 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?******************
When Did “the Seventy Years” Start?
The inspired historian Ezra, who lived after the 70 years of Jeremiah’s prophecy were fulfilled, wrote of King Nebuchadnezzar: “He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.”—2 Chronicles 36:20, 21, NIV.
Thus, the 70 years were to be a period when the land of Judah and Jerusalem would enjoy “sabbath rests.” This meant that the land would not be cultivated—there would be no sowing of seed or pruning of vineyards. (Leviticus 25:1-5, NIV) Because of the disobedience of God’s people, whose sins may have included a failure to observe all the Sabbath years, the punishment was that their land would remain unworked and deserted for 70 years.—Leviticus 26:27, 32-35, 42, 43.
When did the land of Judah become desolated and unworked? Actually, the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem twice, years apart. When did the 70 years commence? Certainly not following the first time that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. Why not? Although at that time Nebuchadnezzar took many captives from Jerusalem to Babylon, he left others behind in the land. He also left the city itself standing. For years after this initial deportation, those left remaining in Judah, “the lowly class of the people,” lived off their land. (2 Kings 24:8-17) But then things drastically changed.
A Jewish revolt brought the Babylonians back to Jerusalem. (2 Kings 24:20; 25:8-10) They razed the city, including its sacred temple, and they took many of its inhabitants captive to Babylon. Within two months, “all the people [who had been left behind in the land] from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers, fled to Egypt for fear of the Babylonians.” (2 Kings 25:25, 26, NIV) Only then, in the seventh Jewish month, Tishri (September/October), of that year could it be said that the land, now desolate and unworked, began to enjoy its Sabbath rest. To the Jewish refugees in Egypt, God said through Jeremiah: “You have seen all the disaster that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah. Behold, this day they are a desolation, and no one dwells in them.” (Jeremiah 44:1, 2, English Standard Version) So this event evidently marked the starting point of the 70 years. And what year was that? To answer, we need to see when that period ended.
When Did “the Seventy Years” End?
The prophet Daniel, who lived until “the kingdom of Persia came to power,” was on the scene in Babylon, and he calculated when the 70 years were due to end. He wrote: “I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.”—Daniel 9:1, 2, ESV.
Ezra reflected on the prophecies of Jeremiah and linked the end of “the seventy years” to the time when “the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation.” (2 Chronicles 36:21, 22, NIV) When were the Jews released? The decree ending their exile was issued in “the first year of Cyrus the king of Persia.” (See the box “A Pivotal Date in History.”) Thus, by the fall of 537 B.C.E., the Jews had returned to Jerusalem to restore true worship.—Ezra 1:1-5; 2:1; 3:1-5.
According to Bible chronology, then, the 70 years was a literal period of time that ended in 537 B.C.E. Counting back 70 years, the start date of the period would be 607 B.C.E.
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Doug Mason
Apologies for my lack of precision. The "70 Years" I am referring to is the period related to the Watchtower's "2,520 Years". In retrospect, I should have referenced the latter.
Magum,
I wish that that Watchtower reference was more clearly expressed. We can see they are referencing the departure of Jews for Egypt. From the structure of the grammar, does the period commence when the people started to set out for Egypt or when they crossed the border, thus making at that point the "land where no one dwelt?".
I have located only a few relevant statements in the Society's publications to the start of the "2,520/70 Years", with the most relevant in the 1963 "Babylon the Great Has Fallen!", but for some reason it has gone the way that "forbidden books" disappear.
Ironically, the Society's illustrations of their "2,520 years" show the removal of Zedekiah from the throne as the starting point. But they have problems with that since Jerusalem was destroyed and Zedekiah removed in the 5th month (July/August).
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Phizzy
The W.T also has problems with the end of their 70 years, they place this in 537 BCE, and for this there simply is NO Biblical, and of course, Historical evidence.
Does anyone get the feeling they are making it up as they go along ?
And that the only reason they are making these things up is for their "calculations" to end up in their Sacred Cow year of 1914 ?
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Magnum
Doug, don't you mean 7 years instead of 70?
JWs gets the 2520 years from the "seven times" or seven years mentioned in Daniel chap 4. They say that seven years times 360 days/yr equals 2520 days. They then say the "Biblical rule" of a day for a year can be applied, making the 2520 days 2520 years.
I'm going to give some more thought to your question in a little while (just got home from work).
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Doug Mason
Hi Magnum,
It is my understanding that the WTS starts its "70 Years" [of desolations] at the same moment that it starts its "2,520 Years" [of Gentile Rule]. These are the periods I meant and I apologise for my imprecision.
The question in my mind concerned the Society's starting event of that period: (1) When Jerusalem was destroyed [but that was in the 5th month]; (2) When Gedaliah was murdered; (3) When the Jews started on their trek to Egypt; (4) When Zedekiah was captured; (5) When Jews left the soil of Judah [ostensibly leaving the land depopulated.
The following is all I was able to readily locate.
Doug
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The lowly people that King Nebuchadnezzar left behind in the land of Judah had a governor appointed by him over them, namely, Gedaliah. However, he was killed in the seventh month (Tishri), and then the remaining Jews fled down to Egypt out of fear of Babylon, but only to have the hand of the king of Babylon reach them down there later on. In this way the land was left desolate in the seventh month, without man or beast, as Jeremiah had foretold. (Babylon the Great Has Fallen!, pages 166-167)
Jehovah's purpose to have Jerusalem and the land of Judah emptied, desolated of both man and domestic animal. (Babylon the Great Has Fallen!, page 121)
The beginning of the seventy years of Judah's desolation had yet eleven years to wait (Ezekiel 1:1-3) They began after the last king, Zedekiah the uncle of Jehoiachin, was dethroned and when the land of Judah was left desolate. (Babylon the Great Has Fallen!, page 138)
“The cities of Judah I shall make a desolate waste without an inhabitant."—Jeremiah 34:8-22. (Babylon the Great Has Fallen!, page 153)
By the flight of the faithless, disobedient Jews down to Egypt the land of Judah was left desolate, without human inhabitant and domestic animals. This proved Jehovah's prophecy by Jeremiah true. It occurred toward the middle of the seventh month, Tishri or Ethanim (September-October), which would be near October 1, 607 B.C. (Babylon the Great Has Fallen!, page 163)
Like the forty-ninth year of the cycle of sabbaths, the Jubilee year was to be a sabbath year for the God-given land, and so a Jubilee sabbath of the land began in the seventh month, Tishri. (Leviticus 25:8-22) During that month, as the fearful Jews needlessly fled down to Egypt and left the land of Judah utterly desolate and without human inhabitant, a place to be shunned by passersby, the land must have heaved a sigh of relief, as it were. Now it began to enjoy an uninterrupted run of sabbath years in compensation for all the Sabbath years that the disobedient Israelites had failed to keep. How many years of sabbath rest was the land to enjoy? Figuratively, a perfect number of years—seventy. (2 Chronicles 36:17-23; compare also Daniel 9:1, 2). (Babylon the Great Has Fallen!, pages 163-164)
Those Gentile Times, those "appointed times of the nations," would end 2,520 years from near the middle of the seventh lunar month (Tishri) of 607 B.C. (Babylon the Great Has Fallen!, page 180)
Jeremiah chapter 52 describes the momentous events of the siege of Jerusalem, the Babylonian breakthrough, and the capture of King Zedekiah in 607 B.C.E. Then, as verse 12 states, “in the fifth month, on the tenth day,” that is, the tenth day of Ab (corresponding to parts of July and August), the Babylonians burned the temple and the city. However, this was not yet the starting point of the “seventy years.” Some vestige of Jewish sovereignty still remained in the person of Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon had appointed as governor of the remaining Jewish settlements. “In the seventh month,” Gedaliah and some others were assassinated, so that the remaining Jews fled in fear to Egypt. Then only, from about October 1, 607 B.C.E., was the land in the complete sense “lying desolated … to fulfill seventy years.”—2 Ki. 25:22-26; 2 Chron. 36:20, 21. (All Scripture is Inspired of God and Beneficial, page 285)
The 70 years were to be a period when the land of Judah and Jerusalem would enjoy “sabbath rests.” This meant that the land would not be cultivated—there would be no sowing of seed or pruning of vineyards. (Leviticus 25:1-5, NIV) … When did the land of Judah become desolated and unworked? … When did the 70 years commence? Certainly not following the first time that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. Why not? Although at that time Nebuchadnezzar took many captives from Jerusalem to Babylon, he left others behind in the land. …
[The Babylonians] razed the city, including its sacred temple, and they took many of its inhabitants captive to Babylon. Within two months, “all the people [who had been left behind in the land (added by the WTS)] from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers, fled to Egypt for fear of the Babylonians.” (2 Kings 25:25, 26, NIV) Only then, in the seventh Jewish month, Tishri (September/October), of that year could it be said that the land, now desolate and unworked, began to enjoy its Sabbath rest. To the Jewish refugees in Egypt, God said through Jeremiah: “You have seen all the disaster that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah. Behold, this day they are a desolation, and no one dwells in them.” (Jeremiah 44:1, 2, English Standard Version) So this event evidently marked the starting point of the 70 years. (The Watchtower, October 1, 2011, pages 27-28)
Jehovah allowed the Babylonians to conquer his people, destroy Jerusalem and its temple, remove Zedekiah from “the throne of the kingship of Jehovah” and take the Jews into Babylonian exile. Events that followed “in the seventh month” led the few Jews who had remained in the land to flee to Egypt, so that Judah then lay completely desolate. (Kingdom Comes, page 136)
Historians calculate that Babylon fell in early October of the year 539 B.C.E. (Kingdom Comes, page 136)
October, 537 B.C.E., which date therefore marks the completion of the foretold 70 years of desolation. That historical information is important to us in determining the beginning of “the appointed times of the nations.” Since the 70 years of desolation for Judah and Jerusalem ended in 537 B.C.E., they began in 607 B.C.E. That would be the year when Zedekiah ceased to sit upon the “throne of the kingship of Jehovah” in Jerusalem. It therefore marks also the date for the beginning of the Gentile Times. (Kingdom Comes, page 136)
The prophet Jeremiah predicted that the Babylonians would destroy Jerusalem and make the city and land a desolation. (Jeremiah 25:8, 9) He added: “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 25:11) The 70 years expired when Cyrus the Great, in his first year, released the Jews and they returned to their homeland. (2 Chronicles 36:17-23) We believe that the most direct reading of Jeremiah 25:11 and other texts is that the 70 years would date from when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and left the land of Judah desolate.—Jeremiah 52:12-15, 24-27; 36:29-31. (Kingdom Comes, pages 187-188)
The land of Judah was to keep a “sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.” (2 Chronicles 36:21) How? By lying as a “desolate waste without man and domestic animal”. … Those seventy years of utter desolation of the land of Judah and Jerusalem without man and domestic animal. (Paradise Restored, page 132)
The seventy years of unbroken captivity to Babylon did not begin until 607 B.C.E., in the month Ethanim, when the land was left completely desolate when its remaining inhabitants went down to Egypt. Then the Jews as a nation went into exile at Babylon, without a king at Jerusalem. This exile was for an uninterrupted period of seventy years. (The Watchtower, December 1, 1964, page 735)
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cha ching
WT writes in a very specific and wily (cunning & sly)... deliberate manner. Their sentences are long, interfused with illustrations, comments, commas, interjections of scriptures all to confuse you, throw you off track, and disrupt your ability to discern their intent.
Sometimes, after reading a paragraph, and re-reading it, you realize that it really has said nothing at all.
When we read the two articles in 2 different 2011 WTs on 607, to sort thru all their loaded language, I had to cut it apart then tape it back together, because WT would say "we'll get to that later" ... that meant the next article.
WT is decevious. (New word, haha deceitful & devious rolled into one!)
cha ching!
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leaving_quietly
Ha! I was after the other 70 years.
I think you found the answer. October 1, 607 B.C.E. Repeatedly stated, including Insight vol. 1 p. 463: "Hence the count of the 70 years of desolation must have begun about October 1, 607 B.C.E., ending in 537 B.C.E."
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Doug Mason
leaving_quietly,
Firstly, the Society is working from an unproveable date of 537 BCE.
As you say, the Insight book only says about October 1, not exactly.
My question remains unanswered: What was the event, the moment that triggered the start of the Society's "70/2,520 Years"?
It was not the destruction of Jerusalem, which as the Bible records occurred during the 5th month (July/August).
It was not the death of the last Judaean king, as we know Jehoiachin was still alive some 25 years or so later.
Do we know when Zedekiah died? Is that relevant? We know when Gedaliah was murdered, but is that relevant?
The Society appears to point to the moment that the last Jew crossed the border into Egypt, but when did that take place? The Bible appears to take so little interest in the date of that supposedly momentous occasion. Some Jews, of course, did not walk south into Egypt as they went eastwards.
Who would hang the totality of their faith and obedience to an organization that relies on these events for its authority and existence?
Doug