[b-hebrew] repost of question after reasearch
Dirk Frulla
fiveacorns at yahoo.com
Thu May 8 02:56:47 EDT 2008
Harold,
Sorry for another duplicate. It is 3:00 AM where I am now, and I hit the wrong button - sending my response too early. My appologies.
Thank you for the responses! Very interesting!
HH: The NASB text still can seem to imply that the desolations of
Jerusalem will last seventy years. Now, this may not mean that the
city's inhabitants went into exile for 70 years, although at least some
of them did.
DF: Good point. Jeremiah 25:18: "Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing and a curse, as it is this day;" (NASB). This verse, dated in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, implies that some of the "ruin" and "curse" was occuring "as it is this day", 18 years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. I think later in your post you make this distinction - that if you think of desolation and ruin in this sense, not as complete ruin, but as conquered, then it makes sense. Carl Jonsson refers to the Interpreter's Bible (Vol 6. p 485), quoting professor Arthur Jeffrey: "chorbah is 'often employed to describe the state of a devasted land after the armies of an enemy have passed (Leviticus 26:31, 33; Isaiah 49:19; Jeremiah 44:22; Ezekiel 36:34; Malachi 1:3; 1 Maccabees 1:39).'"
If this is true, then one possible interpretation could be 70 years of chorbah, dating from the first deportation in the first year of Neb., (605) to the time the Jews arrived back home (about 537). 68 years - which is close - so you have to postulate a round number. I don't see the round number as a problem.
One thing I would like to say, however, is that if this sense of the word is true, then it is very near the sense of the word "servitude" that I was using - mainly that the Babylonian army had subjugated the land, took a small deportation, but left the city intact as a vassal. In this sense we are using the word "desolation", but really mean something like vassalage - servitude, but not exiled.
HH: Keil believed that the city's desolations lasted 70 years. He writes
in his commentary on Daniel 9:1-2 (p. 321): "Jeremiah in two separate
prophecies speaks of the seventy years, and not in the letter of ch. 29,
but only in ch. 25, has he spoken of the seventy years desolation of the
land."
On the page earlier (320) he writes: "The reign of Cyrus by himself over
the kingdom which he founded begins in the year 536, in which year the
seventy years of the Babylonish exile of Jews were completed."
Keil explains (p. 322) that "the desolation began with the first taking
of Jerusalem, and the deportation of Daniel and his companions and a
part of the sacred vessels of the temple, in the fourth year of
Jehoiachim (606 B.C.)"
HH: Jeremiah's prophecy in chapter 25 is dated to the fourth year of
Jehoiakim (25:1), which modern synchronisms suggest to NIV was 605 B.C.,
not 606 B.C. as Keil said. But the prophecy to Jeremiah evidently came
the same year that Keil thought the desolation of Jerusalem began. He
may have thought it ended 70 years later with the reign of Darius.
HH; I tend to think you have a point here over Keil because the word
"desolation" is almost uniformly translated by NIV as "ruins," and it
almost always refers to physical ruins. Keil is trying to give the word
a partially spiritual rather than physical meaning, and the NIV
"desolation" and NASB "desolations" in Dan 9:2 could support that. But
the word really does seem to mean a ruining of the land in the sense of
ruins being produced.
DF: I see what you mean about how he defines "desolations" with a somewhat different meaning. As I said before, if you postulate a different meaning for the word (although it sounds like you don't think this type of meaning is possible), then it can work it out - thing agree. That is, if you say "desolation" or "ruin" has a different shade of meaning, one that will allow you start the desolation of Jerusalem much earlier, then you can make it fit. However, this causes a bit of a problem with the order of events specified in Jeremiah 25:12 and 29:10 (see more comments below on this).
HH: Jer. 25:11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and
these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
HH: "Wasteland" (or "desolate") is the same Hebrew word as the word in
Dan 9:2 translated "desolation." In both places it could be translated
"ruin" (Jer 25:11) or "ruins" (Dan 9:2).
HH: The prophecy in Jeremiah concerns what is about to happen to these
nations, Israel included. We don't think that the land ceased to be a
desolation before the end of the rule of Babylon. It is insistence that
the desolation commence with 587 and end in 536 that makes the time of
desolation less than 70 years. Keil argues that the desolation began
with the conquest in 605 B.C., but that may be incorrect.
DF: Exactly. I agree with this. If we insist that the desolation started with Jerusalem's fall (587) and ended on their return (537/36), then we have 50/51 years. Which is 20 years off. I am OK with round numbers when it gets close, but it is difficult to round 50 up to 70. So if Keil takes the position that the "desolation" has a different meaning, then I can see it almost works. Although, it is not necessary. Here is why I think this:
In an earlier post, I put forth a series of events. These events are derived from Jeremiah 25:12 and Jeremiah 29:10
Jeremiah 25:12 states: "Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,' declares the LORD, 'for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation." (NASB)
This seems to indicate an order. The seventy years would be completed and THEN the king of Babylon and that nation would be punished. This puts the end of the 70 years of servitude (not necessary desolation, but servitude to Babylon) sometime before the actual fall. God had "numbered the kingdom and put and end to it" (Daniel 5:26) the night it Babylon was taken . All that is clearly implied is that the seventy years spoken of in verse 11 would end, and then Babylon would be punished.
Jeremiah 29:10 states: "For thus says the LORD, 'When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place." (NASB)
This is another example of the same order. The context of Jeremiah 25 and 29 are roughly the same: the 70 years "for Babylon." In both places they imply an order. First the 70 years would end, then Babylon would be punished. The second verse states the 70 years would end, and then the LORD would "fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place."
If the 70 years ended when Babylon was punished, then this would put the end of Jeremiah's 70 years at 539 BC. It would be impossible to "punish" the nation of Babylon anytime after 539 BC. The end of the desolation is a different event that would occur a bit later.
Because of this order, translating Daniel 9:2 and 2 Chronicles 36:21 stating that the end of the 70 years would fulfill the desolations, or put an end to them ,or pave the way for them to end, seems to make sense.
HH: Zechariah clearly shows that the Jews viewed themselves as suffering
for 70 years:
Zech. 1:12 Then the angel of the LORD said, “LORD Almighty, how long
will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah,
which you have been angry with these seventy years?”
Zech. 7:5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you
fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy
years, was it really for me that you fasted?
DF: I'm not sure if you received my last post to these two verses. I keep sending it, but it never gets sent back to me through the mailing list. I hope I'm not double/triple posting. In any case, I'll reproduce the comments below.
The scriptures in Zechariah are dated the "eighth month in the second year of Darius" and the "fourth year of King Darius ...on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev" respectively.
The historical consensus puts the reign of Darius from 522 to 486 BC (although I find some references that state 521 as the starting date for his reign). That would make the second year of Darius 522/521. By this time, it would have been 66/67 years since Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BC. The angel could talk about the LORD withholding mercy from Judah for "these 70 years" because it was very close to 70 years since the temple was destroyed. The 70 years mentioned in Zech. are not the same as Jeremiah's 70 years. The reason I am comfortable saying this is because the scripture in Zechariah do not reference Jeremiah, however, the scriptures in Daniel and 2 Chronicles do - which necessitates the need for a connection between Jeremiah, Daniel, and 2 Chronicles. The same would apply to the fourth year of Darius. By this time it would have been 70/71 years since Jerusalem's destruction. So I find no contradiction when the verse states the people of the
land had been fasting for "the past seventy years".
So these scriptures too agree with others and the historical consensus. Which is great!
HH: Just as the prophecy of 70 years was about Israel, so the prophecy
of 490 years was about Israel. Yes, Babylon would rule over them, but it
was 70 years of rule over Israel. I see the problem you are having. The
Babylonian rule began in 605 B.C. and ended in 536 B.C. That seems to be
the end of the 70 years according to Jeremiah:
Jer. 25:12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the
king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their
guilt,” declares the LORD, “and will make it desolate forever.
HH: So the 70 years of Jeremiah may be different than the 70 years of
punishment in Zechariah, and you may be right about the desolations not
lasting as long as the 70 years of Jeremiah. The ruins of Jerusalem did
not begin until 587 B.C., and its ruins could have ended with the return
of the exiles in 536 B.C. However, the divine punishment was not
completely over until perhaps the reconsecration of the temple in 516
B.C. So the ruins in some sense may have lasted longer than the endpoint
of Babylonian rule.
DF: Now that I read it again, I think you said exactly what I said above. You hit the nail on the head so-to-speak. The 70 years of Jeremiah seem to end when Babylon was punished, or in 539 B.C. Since Jeremiah also spoke of servitude of "many nations" to the king of Babylon, we can even go back farther than 605 - since Babylon was out conquering "all these nations round about." (Jer 25:9) before Neb. became king.
Thanks!
Dirk Frulla
New York
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