The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

208 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
This is what Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, has said, “I
will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years
more I am bringing back to this place all the utensils of the house
of Jehovah that Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon took from
this place that he might bring them to Babylon. “—Jeremiah 28:2,
3, NW. 25
This prophecy, of course, presupposed that the Babylonian yoke
had already been put on the neck of the nations. That is why
Hananiah could take the yoke bar from the neck of Jeremiah, break
it and say: “This is what Jehovah has said, ‘Just like this I shall
break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon within two
full years more from off the neck of all the nations.’ “ (Jeremiah 28: 10,
11) So, in the fourth year of Zedekiah the Babylonian yoke lay on
“the neck of all the nations.” The servitude was a hard felt reality
for “all these nations” at that time, and had evidently been so for a
number of years.
The Babylonian invasion of Judah soon after the battle at
Carchemish is also reflected in Jeremiah chapter 35, dated in “the
days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah.” (verse 1) The Rechabites,
who normally dwelt in tents in obedience to the command of their
forefather, Jehonadab the son of Rechab, lived in Jerusalem at that
time. Why? They explained to Jeremiah:
But it came about when Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon came up
against the land that we began to say, “Come, and let us enter into
Jerusalem because of the military force of the Chaldeans and
because of the military force of the Syrians, and let us dwell in
Jerusalem.”— Jeremiah 35:11, NW.
Thus, some time earlier in the reign of Jehoiakim, the
Babylonian army had invaded the territory of Judah, forcing the
Rechabites to seek refuge inside the walls of Jerusalem. Either this
invasion was the one described in Daniel 1:1–2, or the one that
took place in the following year, when, according to the Babylonian
chronicle, “all the kings of Hattu” presented their tribute to the
Babylonian king as a sign of their vassalage.
That Judah became a vassal of Babylon early in the reign of
Jehoiakim is clearly stated in 2 Kings 24:1, which says that in the
25 The reason for the widespread revolt plans in this year could have been the
rebellion in Nebuchadnezzar’s own army in Babylonia, in the tenth year of his
reign (= 595/94 B.C.E.) according to the Babylonian Chronicle B.M. 21946.—A. K.
Grayson, ABC (see note 17 above), p. 102. Nebuchadnezzar’s tenth year partly
overlapped Zedekiah’s fourth year. See the remarks on this revolt in the last
section of the Appendix: “Chronological tables covering the seventy years.”