The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

454 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
256, 260, heading 8151). At Jer. 51,2 l is a personal dative (‘and send to
Babel [as personified world power] winnowers, who will winnow it and
empty its land’ (Lamed pp. 84f., 94)). On Jer. 3,17 ‘to Jerusalem’ (local
terminative), everything necessary is in Lamed pp. 256, 270 and ZAH 1,
1988, 107-111.
On the translations: LXX has with babylôni unambiguously a dative
(‘for Babylon’). Only Vulgata has, to be sure, in Babylone, ‘in Babylon’,
thus King James Version ‘at Babylon’, and so probably also the New
World Translation. I hope to have served you with these informations
and remain with kind regards,
E. Jenni.”
[Translated from the German. Emphasis added.]
In view of this specific and authoritative information, Furuli’s arguments for
a local meaning of l e at Jeremiah 29:10 can be safely dismissed.
What about the 70 years at Zechariah 1:12 and 7:5?
That the 70-year texts at Zechariah 1:12 and 7:5 refer to a period different
from the one in Jeremiah, Daniel, and 2 Chronicles is demonstrated in detail in
GTR 4 , Ch. 5, E-F. There is no need to repeat the argumentation here; most
readers have access to this work. Furuli’s attempt to equate the 70 years in
Zechariah with the 70 years of Jeremiah, Daniel, and the Chronicler evades the
real problem.
According to Zechariah 1:12, Jerusalem and the cities of Judah had been
denounced for “these seventy years.” If this denunciation ended when the Jews
returned from the exile after the fall of Babylon, as Furuli holds, why does our
text show that the cities still were being denounced in the second year of
Darius, 520/519 BCE? Furuli has no explanation for this, and he prefers not to
comment on the problem.
The same holds true of Zechariah 7:4, 5. How can the 70 years of fasting
have ended in 537 BCE, as Furuli claims, when our text clearly shows that these
fasts were still being held in the fourth year of Darius, 518/517 BCE? Furuli
again ignores the problem. He just refers to the fact that the Hebrew verbs for
“denounce,” “fast,” and “mourn” are all in the Hebrew perfect, stating that,
“There is nothing in the verbs themselves which demands that the 70 years
were still continuing at speech time.” (p. 88) True, but they do not demand the
opposite, either. The verb forms in the passage prove nothing.
But the context does. It clearly shows that the cities were still being
denounced “at speech time,” in 519 BCE, and that the fasts were still being
held “at speech time,” in 517 BCE, about 70 years after the siege and
destruction of Jerusalem in 589-587 BCE. That is why this question was raised
in 519 BCE: Why is Jehovah still angry at Jerusalem and the cities? (Zechariah
1:7-12) And that is also why this question was raised in 517 BCE: Shall we
continue to hold these fasts? (Zechariah 7:1-12) Furuli’s interpretation (which
echoes the Watchtower Society’s) implies that the denunciation of the cities and
the keeping of the fasts had been going on for about 90—not 70—years,
directly contradicting the statements in the book of Zechariah.