2 Chronicles 36:21

36:21 This took place to fulfill the Lord’s message delivered through Jeremiah. ¹  The land experienced ²  its sabbatical years; ³  it remained desolate for seventy years, ⁴  as prophesied. ⁵ 

Isaiah 23:15

23:15 At that time ⁶  Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, ⁷  the typical life span of a king. ⁸  At the end of seventy years Tyre will try to attract attention again, like the prostitute in the popular song: ⁹ 

Isaiah 23:17

23:17 At the end of seventy years ¹⁰  the Lord will revive ¹¹  Tyre. She will start making money again by selling her services to all the earth’s kingdoms. ¹² 

Jeremiah 25:11-12

25:11 This whole area ¹³  will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’ ¹⁴ 

25:12 “‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ¹⁵  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ¹⁶  an everlasting ruin. ¹⁷  I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 29:10

29:10 “For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule ¹⁹  are over will I again take up consideration for you. ²⁰  Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore ²¹  you to your homeland. ²² 

Daniel 9:2

9:2 in the first year of his reign ²³  I, Daniel, came to understand from the sacred books ²⁴  that, according to the word of the LORD ²⁵  disclosed to the prophet Jeremiah, the years for the fulfilling of the desolation of Jerusalem ²⁶  were seventy in number.

¹ tn Heb “to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah.”

² tn Or “accepted.”

³ sn According to Lev 25:4, the land was to remain uncultivated every seventh year. Lev 26:33-35 warns that the land would experience a succession of such sabbatical rests if the people disobeyed God, for he would send them away into exile.

⁴ sn Concerning the seventy years see Jer 25:11.

⁵ tn Heb “all the days of the desolation it rested to fulfill the seventy years.”

⁶ tn Or “in that day” (KJV). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

⁷ sn The number seventy is probably used in a stereotypical, nonliteral sense here to indicate a long period of time that satisfies completely the demands of God’s judgment.

⁸ tn Heb “like the days of a king.”

⁹ tn Heb “At the end of seventy years it will be for Tyre like the song of the prostitute.”

¹⁰ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

¹¹ tn Heb “visit [with favor]” (cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “will deal with.”

¹² tn Heb “and she will return to her [prostitute’s] wages and engage in prostitution with all the kingdoms of the earth on the face of the earth.”

¹³ tn Heb “All this land.”

¹⁴ sn It should be noted that the text says that the nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years, not that they will lie desolate for seventy years. Though several proposals have been made for dating this period, many ignore this fact. This most likely refers to the period beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605 b.c. and the beginning of his rule over Babylon. At this time Babylon became the dominant force in the area and continued to be so until the fall of Babylon in 538 b.c. More particularly Judah became a vassal state (cf. Jer 46:2; 2 Kgs 24:1) in 605 b.c. and was allowed to return to her homeland in 538 when Cyrus issued his edict allowing all the nations exiled by Babylon to return to their homelands. (See 2 Chr 36:21 and Ezra 1:2-4; the application there is made to Judah but the decree of Cyrus was broader.)

¹⁵ tn Heb “that nation.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the use of the term “Chaldeans.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, oracle of the Lord, their iniquity even upon the land of the Chaldeans and I will make it everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been restructured to avoid ambiguity and to conform the style more to contemporary English.

¹⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁹ sn See the study note on Jer 25:11 for the reckoning of the seventy years.

²⁰ tn See the translator’s note on Jer 27:22 for this term.

²¹ tn Verse 10 is all one long sentence in the Hebrew original: “According to the fullness of Babylon seventy years I will take thought of you and I will establish my gracious word to you by bringing you back to this place.” The sentence has been broken up to conform better to contemporary English style.

²² tn Heb “this place.” The text has probably been influenced by the parallel passage in 27:22. The term appears fifteen times in Jeremiah and is invariably a reference to Jerusalem or Judah.

²³ tc This phrase, repeated from v. 1, is absent in Theodotion.

²⁴ tn The Hebrew text has “books”; the word “sacred” has been added in the translation to clarify that it is Scriptures that are referred to.

²⁵ sn The tetragrammaton (the four Hebrew letters which constitute the divine Name, YHWH) appears eight times in this chapter, and nowhere else in the book of Daniel.

²⁶ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.