Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT Highland.Net>]

At 10:08 AM 1/12/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Hello everyone,I am new to the list.My question is:My Bible at Jeremiah 
>29:10 says "the fulfilling of 70 years at Babylon". Someine told me this 
>erroneous and should say "for Babylon". Any thoughts?

well it seems that the central issue here is the preposition "le" (lamed).
the question then becomes, how should we translate this preposition.  the
basic meaning of the word is "to, for, at"- thus the dilemma which you
enunciate above because either translation is accurate enough on grammatical
grounds; we then are taken into the realm of interpretation.
personally i interpret the phrase as your first example does.  but honestly
i dont think there is a hair width's difference between "at babylon" and
"for babylon", because either way, the thrust of the verse is on the return
from babylon; this means that the folk AT babylon will return home to Judah-
and that Babylon's time of holding Judeans is done.

perhaps the ambiguity is intentional....

best,

Jim

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
jwest AT highland.net
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest