The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The Seventy Years for Babylon 225
The last two texts to be discussed, Zechariah 1:7–12 and 7:1–5,
are sometimes thought to be two additional references to
Jeremiah’s prophecy about the seventy years, and the Watch Tower
Society holds them to be so. But the evidence for this conclusion is
totally lacking.
None of the texts contains any reference to Jeremiah (as do
Daniel 9:1–2 and 2 Chronicles 36:20–23), and the context of these
texts strongly indicates that the seventy years mentioned there must
be given a different application. This is also the conclusion of many
commentators. 39 This will also become apparent in the following
discussion.
E: ZECHARIAH 1:7–12
The first statement about a period of seventy years in the book of
Zechariah appears in a vision given to Zechariah on “the twentyfourth
[day] of the eleventh month, that is, the month Shebat, in
the second year of Darius.”—Zechariah 1:7.
Darius’ second regnal year corresponded to 520/19 B.C.E., and
the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month may be translated to
15 February 519 B.C.E. in the Julian calendar. 40 Although the Jews
had resumed the work on the temple in Jerusalem five months
earlier (Haggai 1:1, 14–15), Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were
still in a sorry condition. That is why the angel in Zechariah’s vision
brings up a question that undoubtedly troubled many of the
repatriated Jews:
Zechariah 1:12:
So the angel of Jehovah answered and said: “O Jehovah of
armies, how long will you yourself not show mercy to Jerusalem
and to the cities of Judah, whom you have denounced these
seventy years?” (NW)
39 Dr. Otto Plöger, for example, notes that “the two texts in the book of Jeremiah are
not referred to here”—O. Plöger, Aus der Spätzeit des Alten Testaments (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), p.69.
40 R. A. Parker & W. H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.—A.D. 75
(Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1956), p. 30. This presupposes
that the date is given according to the Persian accession year system. If Zechariah
applies the Jewish nonaccession year system, the date would have fallen about
one year earlier, in February, 520 B.C.E. (See E. J. Bickerman’s discussion of this
problem in Revue Biblique, Vol. 88, 1981, pp. 19–28). The Watch Tower Society
accepts the secular dating of Darius’ reign, as may be seen, for example, on page
124 of the book Paradise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy! (Brooklyn, N.Y.:
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1972).