Seventy Years
1 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (this was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), 2 which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah, and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: 3 From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, these twenty-three years, Yahweh’s word has come to me, and I have spoken to you, rising up early and speaking; but you have not listened. 4 Yahweh has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear), 5 saying, “Return now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that Yahweh has given to you and to your fathers, from of old and even forever more. 6 Don’t go after other gods to serve them or worship them, and don’t provoke me to anger with the work of your hands; then I will do you no harm.” 7 “Yet you have not listened to me,” says Yahweh, “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.” 8 Therefore Yahweh of Armies says: “Because you have not heard my words, 9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. 10 Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 “It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says Yahweh, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever. 13 I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. 14 For many nations and great kings will make bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.”
The exile is given a number, and the empire that carries it out is called God's servant and sentenced in the same breath.
The chapter is dated twice over — the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar — and Jeremiah counts his own service: twenty-three years of speaking, rising up early and speaking, with nobody listening. The phrase recurs throughout the book, and it always describes God's persistence rather than Judah's. What was on offer during those years is summarized in one sentence. Return from your evil way, and dwell in the land. The alternative was never presented as a mystery.
Then the sentence, and it contains a title that would have been intolerable to hear. I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant. That term belongs in Scripture to Moses, to David, to the prophets. It is given here to a pagan conqueror who does not know the God using him. The claim is not that the man is godly. It is that God's purposes are carried out by people who have no idea they are carrying them. Judah is being told that the army at its border is on an errand.
The number attached is the other half of the sentence, and it changes the character of the whole thing: these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. A judgment with a term is a judgment with an end written into it before it starts. Later readers used the figure as a fixed date and reckoned from it Daniel 9:2. The record of the fall explains what the years were for: the land was keeping the sabbaths it had been denied 2 Chronicles 36:21. Even the duration is described as a debt being repaid rather than as an anger being exhausted.
And the servant is sentenced too. When the seventy years are accomplished, God will punish the king of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity, and make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever. Being used does not make an empire innocent. Babylon will do what it wants to do. It will be held to account for wanting it. And it will nonetheless have accomplished what it was sent to accomplish. That is the book's settled way of holding sovereignty and responsibility together without softening either.
What is taken away in the meantime is worth reading slowly, because it is not political. The voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. A wedding, a hand mill grinding at dawn, a lamp burning in a window at night. These are the sounds and lights by which anyone within earshot knows that ordinary life is continuing. The catastrophe is measured by the silence where they used to be.
settled What this mark means