Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Thory,

There were different viewpoints among ancient writers regarding the 
length of the exile. Josephus has both 70 years and 50 years, The 
Sibylline Oracles has 7 decades, the Testament of Moses has 77 years, 
and Seder Olam quotes Rabbi Judah who believed the exile lasted 52 
years. So, we cannot trust the ancient sources.

The words of Zecharia 7:5, by mentioning the fast in the seventh 
month suggest that the 70-year period started with the murder of 
Gedaljah (2 Kings 25:25). The temple was destroyed and Jerusalem was 
in ruins, and only a few poor people may have remained in the land. 
This is shown by the following quotes from Jeremiah (NIV):

Jer 4:7	He has left his place to lay waste your land. Your towns will 
lie in ruins
        without inhabitant.
Jer 4:27  "The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy 
it completely.

Jer 7:34   I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and 
to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the 
streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.

Jer 10:22 Listen! The report is coming-a great commotion from the 
land of the   	north! 	It will make the towns of Judah desolate, a 
haunt of jackals.

Jer 25:18  Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, 
to make them a ruin and an object of horror and scorn and cursing, as 
they are today;

Jer 44:22 "This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 
You saw the great disaster I brought on Jerusalem and on all the 
towns of Judah. Today they lie deserted and in ruins.

The promise was a reversal of the desolate situation, as the 
following quotes show:

Jer 32:42-43 "This is what the LORD says: As I have brought all this 
great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity 
I have promised them.
Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, 'It is 
a desolate waste, without men or animals, for it has been handed over 
to the Babylonians.'

Jer 33:10 "This is what the LORD says: 'You say about this place, "It 
is a desolate waste, without men or animals." Yet in the towns of 
Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by 
neither men nor animals, there will be heard once more.

Jer 33:12-13 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'In this place, 
desolate and without men or animals-in all its towns there will again 
be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks.
In the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the 
Negev, in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem 
and in the towns of Judah, flocks will again pass under the hand of 
the one who counts them,' says the LORD.

Isaiah 44:26 who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills 
the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall 
be inhabited,'of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be built,'and of 
their ruins, 'I will restore them,'

In 2 Chronicles 36:21 we learn that the the land was desolate for 70 
years as a sabbath rest. Then in v. 22 the decree of Cyrus is 
mentioned, and it is said that this decree came "in order to fulfill 
the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah. The book of Ezra starts with 
the same decree, and in chapter 3 we learn that in the 7th month the 
people lived in their cities and the altar was erected. Now the 
situation was reversed, and the land was no longer a desolate waste. 
Thus, the returning of the people to their land is connected with the 
end of the 70 years. The reason why all these clear words are not 
accepted, as we can see in several commentaries, is that they are at 
odds with the traditional Neo-Babylonian chronology. Two solutions 
for a harmoniztion are suggested, 1) the 70 years should not be taken 
in a literal way, and 2) the 70 years did not refer to a total 
desolation and then a restoration.

Then back to Zecharia, who two times (1:12 and 7:5) mentions the 
period of 70 years. Do these verses show that the 70 years still 
lasted in the days of Zechariah. If so, there must have been two 
different periods of 70 years, because the first mentioning of the 70 
years was uttered in Darius' 1st year, and the second was uttered in 
his 4th year. The NIV misleads the readers in 7:5 by adding the word 
"past" (for the past 70 years). The Hebrew text has the demonstrative 
pronoun before "70" in both cases, and this requires an antecedent. 
So the use of the demonstrative shows that a particular period of 70 
years, which was already mentioned or which was known was referred 
to. And this is corroborated by the two year interval between the 
mentioning of the 70 years. Therefore, Zechariah refers to the 70 
year period when the land was desolate and when they fasted and 
mourned, and in no way does he suggest that the period of 70 years 
still lasted in his days.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




> Dear Rolf,
>
> I apologize and didn't mean to suggest that your argument rests on 
> the meaning of a single word. However, more importantly than me 
> reading through Hebrew Jeremiah in its entirety, something I have 
> done many times, there is also the traditional understanding of "the 
> land as desolate waste without men and animal" for 70 years found in 
> the commentaries and Seder Olam. The Sages have also read through 
> Hebrew Jeremiah in its entirety many times but do not share your 
> conclusion about the 70 years.
>
> This of course doesn't mean you are wrong, but it does mean there is 
> no a-priori reason to accept a conclusion that 70 years of 
> desolation without men and animal is meant to be taken literally and 
> so must mean a land without a single inhabitant or animal from the 
> day the Temple was destroyed, and the exile commenced, to the 1st 
> year of Cyrus. That does not square with the archealogical record 
> anyway. Score one for the Sages.
>
> Because of the statements in Zech 1:12-21, I don't think it is 
> special pleading to say that even after the Exiles returned to 
> Jerusalem and Judea and built homes in the 1st year of Cyrus, they, 
> or at least the prophets among them, still regarded Jerusalem as a 
> desolate waste so long as the Temple remained unfinished and in 
> ruins. As the Sages would undoubtedly say, the Temple in ruins is 
> the equivalent to Jerusalem utterly desolate and without man or 
> beast.
>
> Tory Thorpe
> Modiin, Israel
>
>
>      
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