The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

5
THE SEVENTY YEARS FOR
BABYLON
T
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.” — Jeremiah
29:10, NASB.
HE DATE 607 B.C.E. as given by Watchtower chronologists
for the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the
Babylonians is determined by adding the seventy years predicted by
Jeremiah to 537 B.C.E., the date when the Jewish remnant are
thought to have returned from exile. It is held that these seventy
years were a period of complete desolation for Judah and Jerusalem:
The Bible prophecy does not allow for the application of the
70-year period to any time other than that between the desolation
of Judah, accompanying Jerusalem’s destruction, and the return of
the Jewish exiles to their homeland as a result of Cyrus’ decree. It
clearly specifies that the 70 years would be years of devastation of the
land of Judah. 1
If no other understanding of the seventy-year period is allowed
for by Bible prophecy, then a choice has to be made between the
date determined by this application and the one established by at
least seventeen lines of historical evidence.
When a certain interpretation of a Biblical prophecy contradicts
historical fact, this indicates that either the prophecy failed or
1 Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 1 (Brooklyn. N.Y.: Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society of New York, Inc., 1988), p. 463.
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