The 70 Years of Captivity
The prophetic expression describing the time of Judah’s captivity as “seventy years” (Jer 25:11,12; 29:10) has prompted speculation throughout the history of interpretation.
- The numeric systems of the ancient Near East were predominantly hexagesimal (based upon ascending groups of six), and the maximum number that could be easily calculated was 60. The number 70 may have been used to symbolically represent a numeric value of staggering proportions or perhaps the number of years representing a generation (Psalm 90:10; Isaiah 23:15). The number 70 may have been used in the same way in Jeremiah 25, as in Isaiah’s announcement that Tyre would be desolate for 70 years (Isaiah 23:15,17), and a similar usage may be reflected in the Black Stone of Esarhaddon, in which Marduk decreed displeasure against Babylon for 70 years.
- The original context of the prophetic word was the fourth year of Jehoiakim of Judah and the first of Nebuchadnezzar (605 BCE.). “Until this very day” (Jeremiah 25:3) Jeremiah anticipated a period of devastation and judgment during which Judah would serve Babylon. Upon the completion of this interval, the prophet expected that divine judgment would be visited upon Babylon (vv. 12-13) and Judah and that Jerusalem would be restored (Jeremiah 29:10-14).
King Jehoiakim began to serve the Babylonians by politically consigning Judah as a vassal state in 605 B.C. (2 Kings 24:1). Almost 70 years later Babylon was captured by the Persians, bringing about the end of Babylonian sovereignty over Judah and initiating the process of exilic return under Cyrus the Great (539/538 BCE.). The return was finished by 537/536 BCE.
The interpretation of Jeremiah’s 70 years of captivity as the approximate period between 605-539/538 B.C. is more explicitly stated in later Biblical texts. According to 2 Chronicles 36:20-21, divine judgment was executed against Judah by the Babylonian king in that “they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power… until the seventy years were completed.” Both the Chronicler (2 Chronicles 36:22) and Ezra (Ezra 1:1) interpreted the edict of Cyrus, which authorized the return of the exiles and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:2-4; 6:1 -12), as the fulfillment of the prophetic word of Jeremiah.
A different calculation of the “seventy years of captivity” appears to underlie Zechariah 1:12 and Zechariah 7:5. There it denotes the interval between the physical destruction of the temple (586 B.C.) and its rededication (515 B.C.).
MAIN SOURCE: NIV Archaeological Study Bible