The Babylonian Captivity - 3'1/2 years not accomplished

[Father Jim]

And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

Babylon existed between 605 -539 BC but the prophecy states that Babylon would reign for 70 years.
Notice how the 70-year prophecy is worded.

"And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished,
Jeremiah 29:10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

Jeremiah says that the Babylon captivity of Israel would last 70 years. But it lasted only 66 1/2 years. The final 3 1/2 years of Jeremiah's 70-year captivity of the Jewish nation, and the 3 1/2-year reign of the Islamic antichrist are both quoted as being done by the hands of "the king of Babylon."

In 605 B.C. Jerusalem was attacked and Daniel and other captives were taken to Babylon. Cyrus the Great gave Jews permission to return to their homeland in 538 BCE. The math.
605
538 (or 539)
66 -67 years.

Some just can't believe that God would make a mistake about a 70-year prophecy that lasted only 66-67 years. About this discrepancy. DR. David Jeremiah says, "that's close enough." So, they attributed the missing 3 1/2 years of its fulfillment to historical error, and some have changed the dates. Most scholars do agree that the Babylonian captivity/servitude of Israel didn't last 70 years.

Only 66.5 years of the Babylonian captivity has been fulfilled.
That leaves three and a half years of "unfulfilled prophecy." That's the precise length of time the Islamic anti-Christ is said to reign in the book of Revelation.

God doesn't approximate! Nebuchadnezzar's seventy years are not 'accomplished' but will be completely 'fulfilled' in the coming 3 1/2-year reign of the Islamic man of sin.

 

[rwb]

And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

Babylon existed between 605 -539 BC but the prophecy states that Babylon would reign for 70 years.
Notice how the 70-year prophecy is worded.

"And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished,
Jeremiah 29:10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

Jeremiah says that the Babylon captivity of Israel would last 70 years. But it lasted only 66 1/2 years. The final 3 1/2 years of Jeremiah's 70-year captivity of the Jewish nation, and the 3 1/2-year reign of the Islamic antichrist are both quoted as being done by the hands of "the king of Babylon."

In 605 B.C. Jerusalem was attacked and Daniel and other captives were taken to Babylon. Cyrus the Great gave Jews permission to return to their homeland in 538 BCE. The math.
605
538 (or 539)
66 -67 years.

Some just can't believe that God would make a mistake about a 70-year prophecy that lasted only 66-67 years. About this discrepancy. DR. David Jeremiah says, "that's close enough." So, they attributed the missing 3 1/2 years of its fulfillment to historical error, and some have changed the dates. Most scholars do agree that the Babylonian captivity/servitude of Israel didn't last 70 years.

Only 66.5 years of the Babylonian captivity has been fulfilled.
That leaves three and a half years of "unfulfilled prophecy." That's the precise length of time the Islamic anti-Christ is said to reign in the book of Revelation.

God doesn't approximate! Nebuchadnezzar's seventy years are not 'accomplished' but will be completely 'fulfilled' in the coming 3 1/2-year reign of the Islamic man of sin.

Below appears to be a plausible answer.

So when did the 70 years begin? Adding 70 years to 538 would take us back to 607 BC (if we reckon inclusively), but that is earlier than Jeremiah’s first prophecy, and earlier than even the first deportation. The first deportation occurred in 605 BC, which would leave us two years short. There seem to be two options for how to understand this.

• It is well-known that the years assigned to the various kings of Israel and Judah almost always included a partial year of reign on the front end. Sometimes this was calculated as “year 1” of the reign, and other times it was counted as an accession year and only the first full year was reckoned as “year 1” (for a fuller accounting of this, see Edwin Thiele’s Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings). There were two transitions of kingship in Judah during this period: Jehoiakim > Jehoiachin, and Jehoiachin > Zedekiah. If the partial years of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah were counted in addition to the partial year of their predecessor, as Thiele has demonstrated happened regularly, then this could account for the lacking two years.
• A second option is that God simply cut the time short out of graciousness. The prophet Joel commended on this. “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping, and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and relenting of evil. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him (Joel 2:12-14, NAS). In fact, Daniel’s response after reading of the 70-year prophecy was to turn to God in prayer, fasting, sack-cloth, and ashes (Dan 9:3ff).

Either way, it seems that the 70-year prophecy began in 605 BC and ended in 538 BC. Here is a timeline showing that span.


Timeline of the 70 years of Jeremiah, Dan 9:2.

Daniel and the 70 Years of Jeremiah

Daniel 9:1-3 introduces us to the prayer of Daniel for his people. It occurred in the first year of Darius the Mede, which was late 539 BC or early 538 BC. Daniel read in the writings of the Prophet Jeremiah that the exile in Babylon would last for 70 years, after which God would return his...

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[Davy]

And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.

Babylon existed between 605 -539 BC but the prophecy states that Babylon would reign for 70 years.
Notice how the 70-year prophecy is worded.

"And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished,
Jeremiah 29:10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

Jeremiah says that the Babylon captivity of Israel would last 70 years. But it lasted only 66 1/2 years. The final 3 1/2 years of Jeremiah's 70-year captivity of the Jewish nation, and the 3 1/2-year reign of the Islamic antichrist are both quoted as being done by the hands of "the king of Babylon."

In 605 B.C. Jerusalem was attacked and Daniel and other captives were taken to Babylon. Cyrus the Great gave Jews permission to return to their homeland in 538 BCE. The math.
605
538 (or 539)
66 -67 years.

....

The 19th century British scholar E.W. Bullinger's note on the 70 years having been accomplished...


Note at 2 Chronicles 36:21

SPECIAL NOTE ON 2 Chron 36:21.
THE "SERVITUDE", THE "CAPTIVITY", AND THE "DESOLATIONS".​

Three Periods of seventy years are assigned to these three respectively, and it is necessary that they should be differentiated.
i. The "servitude" began in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and the first of Nebuchadnezzar, when the "kingdom" passed under Chaldean rule for seventy years (Jer 25:1). This period closed with the capture of Babylon by Darius the Median (Astyages), and the "Decree" of Cyrus to rebuild the Temple. It lasted from 496-426 B.C.
ii. The "captivity" commenced, and is dated by Ezekiel from the carrying away to Babylon of JECHONIAH, in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24:8-16). This was in 489 B.C. Consequently, when the "servitude" ended in 426 B.C., the "captivity" had lasted for sixty-three (9 x 7) years.
Seven years later Cyrus died, in 419 B.C. That year (419) is further notable for:.
1. The appointment of Neherniah as Governor of Jerusalem by Cambysses (Neh 5:14).
2. The completion of "the wall" in fifty-two days (Neh 6:15); and.
3. The fact it marks the end of the fifth of the "seven sevens" of Dan 9:25. (See Ap. 60.) The "captivity" lasting from 489 to 419 B.C.
iii. The "desolations" commenced with the beginning of the third and last siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 479 B. C, and cover a period of "seventy years", ending in the second year of Darius Hystaspis: i.e. in 409 B.C.
This "threescore and ten years" which is referred to here (2 Chron 36:21), is the fulfillment of Lev 26:32-35, and has reference to "the land".
It is this period of which Daniel says he "understood by books", as being the number of the years that Jehovah "would accomplish in the Desolations of Jerusalem" (Dan 9:2).
The DARIUS here (Dan 9:1) is evidently Cyrus, the son of Astyages (see notes on p. 618, and Ap. 57); and as the first year of his reign was 426 B. C, it follows that seventeen years had, then, yet to run before the "Desolations" of the land were ended, in 409 B.C. Hence, Daniel's prayer, that follows, resulted in the giving to him the famous prophecy of the "seventy sevens" of years contained in Dan 9:20-27.
(from E. W. Bullinger's Companion Bible: Notes and Appendices. Biblesoft Formatted Electronic Database Copyright © 2014 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)