Jeremiah’s SEVENTY YEARS By Tuese Ahkiong

Jeremiah’s SEVENTY YEARS

By Tuese Ahkiong

Jeremiah prophesied around 605 B.C. that Judah would fall to Babylon, Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed and that the people would go into exile.

About 70 years later after Jeremiah’s death, Daniel is studying Jeremiah’s prophecies (Dan.9:1-3).  He realizes that the time for the fulfillment of the prophesies were at hand and he claims them in prayer.

There 2 good possibilities as to when the 70 years started and ended.  

The temple of Solomon was destroyed by Babylon in 587 BC. The Second temple was completed and dedicated in 517 B.C., which is exactly 70 years. Notice that Daniel prayed in Daniel 9: Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary.

Perhaps the best view of all is to calculate the date from the first invasion of Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C. to the laying of the foundation of the Second Temple in 536 B.C. That was exactly 70 years.

Notes taken from https://www.robertjmorgan.com/uncategorized/jeremiahs-seventy-years/

The SEVENTY YEARS was the time frame YHWH’s people were sent into exiled from the land and when the land was forced to keep Sabbath because the people did not keep the Sabbath year rest.  Seventy years would be a minimum of seventy years on not keeping the Sabbath year rest.

 

Leviticus 25:4  But in the seventh year THE LAND IS TO HAVE A YEAR OF SABBATH REST, A SABBATH TO THE LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.

         

YHWH people did not keep the year of Sabbath and there were exiled for their wickedness and disobedience.

Ezekiel 20:13  “‘Yet the people of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not follow my decrees but rejected my laws—by which the person who obeys them will live—and THEY UTTERLY DESECRATED MY SABBATHS. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and destroy them in the wilderness.

Ezekiel 20:16  because THEY REJECTED MY LAWS AND DID NOT FOLLOW MY DECREES AND DESECRATED MY SABBATHS. For their hearts were devoted to their idols.

Ezekiel 20:21  “‘But the children rebelled against me: They did not follow my decrees, they were not careful to keep my laws, of which I said, “The person who obeys them will live by them,” and THEY DESECRATED MY SABBATHS. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness.

Ezekiel 20:24  because they had not obeyed my laws but had REJECTED MY DECREES AND DESECRATED MY SABBATHS, and their eyes lusted after their parents’ idols.

2 Chronicles 36:20-23  He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, ²¹ to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill SEVENTY YEARS.

Jeremiah 25:1-14  The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), ² which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ³ “For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of THE LORD HAS COME TO ME, AND I HAVE SPOKEN PERSISTENTLY TO YOU, BUT YOU HAVE NOT LISTENED. ⁴ You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets, ⁵ saying, ‘Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers from of old and forever. ⁶ Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. Then I will do you no harm.’ ⁷ YET YOU HAVE NOT LISTENED TO ME, DECLARES THE LORD, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.

⁸ “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Because YOU HAVE NOT OBEYED MY WORDS, ⁹ behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I WILL DEVOTE THEM TO DESTRUCTION, AND MAKE THEM A HORROR, A HISSING, AND AN EVERLASTING DESOLATION. ¹⁰ MOREOVER, I WILL BANISH FROM THEM THE VOICE OF MIRTH and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp. ¹¹ This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon SEVENTY YEARS. ¹² Then after SEVENTY YEARS are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. ¹³ I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. ¹⁴ For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”

Jeremiah 29:1-14 These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem TO THE SURVIVING ELDERS OF THE EXILES, AND TO THE PRIESTS, THE PROPHETS, AND ALL THE PEOPLE, WHOM NEBUCHADNEZZAR HAD TAKEN INTO EXILE FROM JERUSALEM TO BABYLON. ² This was after King Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem. ³ The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. It said: ⁴ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, TO ALL THE EXILES WHOM I HAVE SENT INTO EXILE FROM JERUSALEM TO BABYLON: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. ⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷ But seek the welfare of the city WHERE I HAVE SENT YOU INTO EXILE, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. ⁸ For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, ⁹ for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

¹⁰ “For thus says the Lord: When SEVENTY YEARS are completed for Babylon, I will visit YOU, and I will FULFILL TO YOU MY PROMISE and bring YOU back to this place. ¹¹ FOR I KNOW THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU, DECLARES THE LORD, PLANS FOR WELFARE AND NOT FOR EVIL, TO GIVE YOU A FUTURE AND A HOPE. ¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I WILL RESTORE YOUR FORTUNES AND GATHER YOU FROM ALL THE NATIONS AND ALL THE PLACES WHERE I HAVE DRIVEN YOU, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Who is the “YOU” in this passage?  

Is it “you” in the 21^st century reading it at this moment?   LOL.  

Or is it “you” who it was written to and identified in the 1^st verse of this passage?

What do the SEVENTY YEARS represent?  V10

What is the place that GOD brings the “you” in this passage back to?  V10

Why did the “you” need a future and a hope?  V11

Where was the “you” in this passage?13

Who gets gathered from all the nations and places where GOD had driven them?  V14

Where did GOD exile the people in this context?  v14

Daniel 9:1-6  In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent a Mede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— ² in the first year of his reign, 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.

³ Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.  ⁴ I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, THE GREAT AND AWESOME GOD, WHO KEEPS HIS COVENANT AND LOVING KINDNESS for those who love Him and keep His commandments, ⁵ we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. ⁶ Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.

Daniel lived after the death of Jeremiah. He is studying Jeremiah’s prophecy 25:11-12 of the seventy years that the land would be a ruin and a waste, and then restored along with the people.

 

 

Zechariah 1:12 

¹² Then the angel of the Lord said, ‘O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these SEVENTY YEARS?’

The angel of The LORD is speaking to The LORD of His mercy upon the cities of Judah and His anger for seventy years according to this verse.

Zechariah 7:4-6 

⁴ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: ⁵ “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these SEVENTY YEARS, was it for me that you fasted? ⁶ And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?

YHWH is scolding the people for being self-centered and YHWH-centered.