This article is contributed by Ray Konig, the author of Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Prophet, Jesus the Miracle Worker, and 100 Fulfilled Bible Prophecies.
By Ray Konig
Published: December 1, 2002
Revised: January 22, 2025
This article is based on portions of the books, Jesus the Messiah and 100 Fulfilled Bible Prophecies.
The prophet Jeremiah lived during a dangerous time about 2,600 years ago, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire reigned supreme over many nations, including the Kingdom of Judah, in southern Israel.
During the time of this empire, the Jews would be subjugated, forced into exile, and taken as captives to Babylon. Their kingdom would be conquered, their capital would be destroyed, and their homeland would become desolate.
As a prophet, Jeremiah foretold that these things would happen, as punishment for turning away from God.
Among his many prophecies on this subject, Jeremiah twice mentions a seventy-year period that is a key part of this time of punishment.
This seventy-year period is widely misunderstood by many scholars and other commentators.
Some of these commentators first apply the seventy years to the exile of Jews who were taken as captives to Babylon, and then claim that the captivity did not last seventy years. They sometimes do so as part of a larger claim that Jeremiah's prophecy was not fulfilled, or that the Bible contradicted itself.
Let’s review Jeremiah’s two prophecies in which he mentions a seventy-year period, review what he actually meant, and review how these prophecies were fulfilled.
Here is the first of the two “seventy years” prophecies, using the World English Bible translation:
9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. 10 Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12 “It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says Yahweh, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever. (Jeremiah 25:9-12, WEB)
In this prophecy, Jeremiah foretells of a time of punishment, one that involves a seventy-year period. The Kingdom of Judah had become too corrupt for too long, and too many people had turned away from God. Therefore, God would use Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, as his servant for carrying out punishment.
For background, the Kingdom of Judah was the homeland for the Israelite Tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The Jews, who are from the Tribe of Judah, were far and away the dominant population.
As you can see from the text of Jeremiah 25:9-12, this prophecy is not applying the seventy-year period to a time of exile or captivity. In fact, there is no specific mention of exile or captivity. Instead, these verses are speaking of the seventy-year period as being a time in which Babylon would be powerful.
Jeremiah does address the exile and captivity in a later prophecy, where again his mention of a seventy-year period refers to the duration of Babylon’s power:
10 For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says Yahweh, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. 12 You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.” (Jeremiah 29:10-14, WEB)
With this prophecy, Jeremiah foretells that the exile and captivity will end when Babylon has exhausted its allotted seventy years of power.
So, with Jeremiah 29:10-14, we see that there would be an exile and captivity, and that it would end when the seventy-year period ends. But, again, the seventy-year period is not referring to the duration of the captivity, but to the duration of Babylon’s power.
So, for how long was Babylon powerful? A defendable answer is seventy years.
The Babylonians began their ascent to power in about 626 BC, when they fought against the then-powerful Assyrian Empire and gained independence for the city of Babylon.
Later, in 612 BC, the Babylonians greatly weakened the Assyrian Empire by conquering its capital city of Nineveh.
Then, in 609 BC, the Babylonians dealt a final blow, by defeating King Ashur-uballit II in battle, bringing an end to the Assyrian Empire.
At that point, the Babylonians reigned supreme, controlling much of the land that had been part of the Assyrian Empire, from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.
Whereas the Kingdom of Judah, and the nations around it, had been subservient to Assyria, they now would serve Babylon.
Babylon’s power came to an abrupt end in 539 BC, when Cyrus, who led a coalition of Persians and others, conquered Babylon, bringing an end to the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
These historical milestones, involving the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 609 BC, and the demise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, provide a span of seventy years, offering a plain and literal fulfillment to Jeremiah’s prophecies that Babylon would be powerful for seventy years.
The historical record offers a confirmation that the seventy years, which Jeremiah prophesied about, twice, coincides with the duration of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
As for other aspects of Jeremiah’s prophecies, they too find fulfillment within the record of history. His prophecies in Jeremiah 25:9-12 and Jeremiah 29:10-14 foretold of exile and desolation.
As for the predictive details about exile, there are four recorded fulfillments within the Bible that relate to the time of the Babylonians:
As for the actual duration of the captivity, some commentators contend that it began with the first deportation of Jews in 605 BC and ended with the first return of Jews from Babylon in 535 BC. That would add up to 70 years, but there is disagreement among commentators, involving these dates.
But again, Jeremiah’s prophecies are addressing the duration of Babylon’s power, not the duration of the exile or captivity.
The Babylonian Captivity came to an end shortly after Cyrus had conquered Babylon in 539 BC. By decree, Cyrus released the Jews from captivity, gave them permission to return to their homeland, and gave them permission to rebuild their fallen Temple. Sometime after their release from captivity, the Jews began returning to their homeland.
There also are documented fulfillments about Jeremiah’s predictions of desolation for the land of Judah.
After subjugating Judah for many years, the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem for a second time, and then destroyed the city and the Temple, and took the last King of Judah, Zedekiah, as a prisoner to Babylon.
With this conquest in 586 BC, Jerusalem would remain in ruins for more than a century, until the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and a Persian king named Artaxerxes I (Longimanus), who ruled the Persian Empire from 465-424 BC.
But, the Temple, which also had been destroyed in 586 BC, would be rebuilt and consecrated in 516 BC, providing another seventy-year period, which commentators often reflect upon in their discussions of Jeremiah's prophecies.
This Temple, which became known as the Second Temple, was rebuilt by Jews who returned to their homeland after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
For background, the Second Temple was later greatly expanded and remodeled during and after the time of King Herod the Great. This is the Temple that existed during the time of Jesus. It was destroyed later by the Romans, in AD 70, and there has not been a Temple in Jerusalem since that time.
The desolation of Judah also is recorded in the Old Testament, in a passage that addresses the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BC:
19 They burned God‘s house, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all of its valuable vessels. 20 He carried those who had escaped from the sword away to Babylon, and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill Yahweh‘s word by Jeremiah‘s mouth, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. As long as it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. (2 Chronicles 36:19-21, WEB)
This seventy years of desolation also is recorded by Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, who noted that “all Judea and Jerusalem, and the temple, continued to be a desert for seventy years,” in The Antiquities of the Jews, Book X, Chapter 9, Section 7.
And finally, as we see in verse 12 of Jeremiah 25:9-12, Babylon was to be punished with permanent desolation sometime after its punishment of Judah:
“It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says Yahweh, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever. (Jeremiah 25:12, WEB)
This, too, has found undeniable fulfillment within the record of history.
After Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon, in 539 BC, the great city never regained its former power. Instead, it waned during the centuries that followed, eventually falling into disrepair and desertion.
Babylon, which had been the most powerful city of the ancient world, became so desolate that it eventually was covered in sand, to the point that it was temporarily lost to the world, until archaeologist began unearthing the site during the 1800s.
© 2002, 2025 Ray Konig.
Ray Konig is the author of Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Prophet, Jesus the Miracle Worker, and 100 Fulfilled Bible Prophecies.
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