The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

198 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
servitude first of all meant vassalage. 11 Although Judah, too, was
subdued by Babylon, it time and again revolted and attempted to
throw off the Babylonian yoke, which brought wave after wave of
devastating military ravages and deportations until the country was
at last desolated and depopulated after the destruction of Jerusalem
in 587 B.C.E. That such a fate was not the same thing as servitude,
but would come as a punishment upon any nation that refused to
serve the king of Babylon, had been clearly predicted by Jeremiah, at
chapter 27, verses 7, 8, and 11:
”And all the nations must serve even him [Nebuchadnezzar]
and his son and his grandson until the time even of his own land
comes, and many nations and great kings must exploit him as a
servant.
”And it must occur that the nation and the kingdom that will not serve
him, even Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon; and the one that
will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, with the
sword and with the famine and with the pestilence I shall turn my attention
upon that nation,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “until I have finished
them off by his hand.”
”And as for the nation that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king
of Babylon and actually serve him, I will also let it rest upon its ground,” is
the utterance of Jehovah, “and it will certainly cultivate it and dwell in
it.” (NW)
From these verses it is very clear what it meant to a nation to
serve the king of Babylon. It meant to accept the yoke of Babylon as
a vassal and by that be spared from desolation and deportation.
The servitude, therefore, was the very opposite of revolt, desolation,
deportation, and exile. 12 That is why Jeremiah warned the people
11 As brought out by any Hebrew dictionary , the Hebrew verb ‘abad, “work, serve,”
could also mean to serve as a subject or vassal, e.g. by paying tribute. The
corresponding noun ‘ebed, “slave, servant,” is often used of vassal states or
tributary nations. In fact, the technical term for “vassal” in Hebrew was precisely
‘ebed. —See Dr. Jonas C. Greenfield, “Some aspects of Treaty Terminology in the
Bible,” Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Papers, Vol. I, 1967, pp. 117–119;
also Dr. Ziony Zevit, “The Use of ‘ebed as a Diplomatic Term in Jeremiah,” Journal
of Biblical Literature, Vol. 88, 1969, pp. 74–77.
12 The difference is noted by Dr. John Hill in his analysis of Jeremiah 25:10, 11: “In
vv. 10–11 there is a twofold elaboration of the punishment announced in v. 9. The
first part of the elaboration is in vv. 10–11a, which refers to the subjugation and
devastation of Judah. The second part is in v. 11b which refers to the subjugation
of Judah’s neighbours. Vv. 10–11 then distinguishes the fate of Judah from that of
its neighbours, which is that of subjugation. Judah’s fate is to suffer the
devastation of its land.”—J. Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of
Jeremiah MT (Brill:Leiden etc., 1999, p. 110, note 42.