The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

374 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
exactly as Jeremiah had predicted at Jeremiah 25:12 and 27:7. (See
chapter 5 above, pp. 220, 221.)
(D-2) Jeremiah 25:9–12: 70 years of servitude — for
whom?
Returning to Jeremiah’s prophecy, Furuli first focuses on Jeremiah
25:11, which says:
And all this land must become a devastated place, an object of
astonishment, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
(NIV)
As was pointed out earlier, Furuli starts his discussion of the 70-
year prophecy by admitting that Jeremiah applies the 70 years to
Babylon, not to Jerusalem. Having concluded (falsely, as has been
shown above and in chapter 5) that Daniel 9:2 and 2 Chronicles
36:21 unambiguously state that Judah and Jerusalem lay desolate
for 70 years, Furuli realizes that the meaning of Jeremiah 25:11 has
to be changed to be brought into agreement with his conclusion.
The clause “these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy
years” is very clear in Hebrew:
weâbdû haggôyîm hâêlleh et-melech bâbel shivîm
shânâh
and-will-serve-they the-nations these king [of] Babel
seventy year[s]
As Furuli points out (p. 82), the particle et before melech bâbel
(”king of Babel”) is a marker indicating that melech bâbel is the
object. The word order is typical in Hebrew: verb-subject-object.
There are no grammatical problems with the clause. It simply and
unambiguously says that “these nations will serve the king of Babel
seventy years.” Furuli, too, admits that “this is the most natural
translation.” (p. 84) How, then, can Furuli force it to say something
else?
Furuli first claims that “the subject (‘these nations’) is vague and
unspecified” Actually, it is not. It simply refers back to “all these
nations round about” referred to in verse 9. Furuli goes on to state
that the subject in the clause might not be “these nations” in verse
11 but “this land” (Judah) and “its inhabitants” in verse 9. Verse
11, therefore, really says that it is only the inhabitants of Judah, not
“these nations,” that will serve the king of Babylon 70 years. How,
then, is the occurrence of “these nations” in the clause to be
explained? Furuli suggests that they might be part of the object,