The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Sham Scholarship 469
repetition from verse 10, and in the quoted part of 34:22 we are not told what
the ‘it’ is that is to be destroyed so thoroughly – that item, mentioned no less
than three times, is ‘this city’, Jerusalem, as shown in verses 18-22b. It is
extremely difficult to take the work of RF seriously!
At that time Jehovah had wisely placed three trusted and faithful prophets in
strategic positions for his purpose: the priest Jeremiah in the midst of
Jerusalem, close to the king, the leaders and the priests; Ezekiel, also a priest,
was with the exiles in faraway Babylon, and Daniel and his three friends, all of
them from the royal tribe of Judah, in the heart of the world empire, in Babylon
the capital, where they even had the ear of the king, the one called ‘my servant’
by Jehovah himself. (Jer. 25:9; 27:6) Now, if RF really had in mind to paint a
true picture of the situation for Judah and Jerusalem in those fateful days, the
historical and the prophetic books furnish enough material for that purpose.
Apparently he does not have that in mind, however, and so when he turns to
Jeremiah 25:11 and 29:10, it is seemingly in order to find some much needed
support for his views by means of a grammatical analysis. Let’s see how he goes
about this intricate task (pages 81-87).
Jeremiah 25:11
In the paragraphs leading on to RF’s transliteration-cum-translation of this
verse he is back in his cantankerous mood, questioning the renderings of NIV,
NW and other modern translations, raving about the structure of the verse,
suggesting as possible ‘solutions’ to his hypothetical ‘problems’ either a
different sense of the Hebrew or the acceptance of the rendering of the LXX;
none of these options seems feasible, though, because in spite of RF’s
imaginings the Hebrew text is clear and unambiguous, while the LXX evidently
is deficient in this case. This is clear even from RF’s slightly skewed rendering,
both his transliteration and the translation of the words and phrases; a more
precise literal translation of the Hebrew would go like this:
11 and-she-will-become all-the-land the-this to-(a)-waste to-(a)-
desolation
and-they-will-serve the-nations
seventy year(s)
the-these king-(of) Babylon
As this verse is part of a larger passage (Jer. 25:8-14), the first item is the usual
Hebrew conjunction ve- (‘and’) prefixed to the verb in the usual way. Since
Hebrew verbs can express number and person of the action described they
actually also express the subject, as seen here; however, when there is also an
overt subject they will of course be in agreement grammatically: thus the ‘she’
of the first phrase (ve - plus the Hebrew verbal) is in agreement with the overt
subject, ‘all the land the this’ (in Hebrew,‘erets, ‘land’, is feminine). The last two
phrases of the first line constitute the subjective complement, showing what
‘the land will become’, the use of two synonymous phrases expressing
emphasis. In the second line the syntax is equally natural: beginning with the
conjunction ve- (‘and’), followed by the verbal with an implied subject, fully
agreeing in its grammatical form with the overt subject, both being masculine
plural and the overt subject very emphatic with its postpositive double
determination. The direct object is ‘king of Babylon’, the time adverbial