The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Seventy Years for Babylon 217
understanding the meaning of this seventy-year period, one would
expect that the prayer he offered as a result of his reading would
contain a plea for understanding the prediction. But not once in his
lengthy prayer does Daniel mention the seventy years. Instead, the
whole emphasis of his prayer is on the Jewish exiles and the
conditions set forth in Jeremiah’s letter for their return to
Jerusalem. 30
It seems logical to conclude, therefore, that Daniel had no
problems in understanding the seventy-year prophecy. As a
Hebrew-speaking Jew, he would have no difficulties in
understanding that the Hebrew text of Jeremiah 29:10 speaks of
seventy years “for Babylon,” and that this was a reference to the
period of Babylonian supremacy. From the fact that this supremacy
had just ended, Daniel could draw only one conclusion: The
seventy years had ended!
Of greater importance for Daniel, however, was what the end of
the seventy years could mean for his own people, the Jewish exiles
at Babylon, and for the devastated city of Jerusalem and its ruined
temple. And this was the subject that Daniel brought up in his
prayer.
C-2: The purpose of Daniel’s prayer
According to Jeremiah’s letter, Jehovah had promised that, “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.
As the seventy years “for Babylon” were now completed and
“the first year” of “Darius the Mede” was well in progress, why had
Jehovah still not fulfilled his promise to bring the exiles in Babylon
back to Jerusalem (the “place” from which they had once been
deported, Jeremiah 29:1, 20), thus ending the desolate state of their
city? Would not the end of the seventy years “for Babylon” be
followed by the end of the exile and the desolation of Jerusalem? Why the delay?
Judging from Daniel’s prayer this matter appears to have been his
prime concern and the actual cause for his prayer.
In his letter to the exiles Jeremiah also had explained that
Jehovah’s fulfilling of his promise to restore them to Jerusalem
after the end of the seventy years rested on certain conditions:
If you invoke me and pray to me, I will listen to you: when you
seek me, you shall find me; if you search with all your heart, I will
let you find me, says the LORD. I will restore your fortunes and
30 Compare the discussion of Gerald H. Wilson, op. cit., pp. 94, 95.