Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ¹  I will send for all the peoples of the north ²  and my servant, ³  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ⁴  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ⁵  and make them everlasting ruins. ⁶  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 25:12

25:12 “‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ⁸  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ⁹  an everlasting ruin. ¹⁰  I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 26:6-7

26:6 If you do not obey me, ¹²  then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. ¹³  And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

26:7 The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah say these things in the Lord’s temple.

Jeremiah 27:12-13

27:12 I told King Zedekiah of Judah the same thing. I said, ¹⁴  “Submit ¹⁵  to the yoke of servitude to ¹⁶  the king of Babylon. Be subject to him and his people. Then you will continue to live. 27:13 There is no reason why you and your people should die in war ¹⁷  or from starvation or disease! ¹⁸  That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation ¹⁹  that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah 29:10

29:10 “For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule ²⁰  are over will I again take up consideration for you. ²¹  Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore ²²  you to your homeland. ²³ 

Daniel 9:2

9:2 in the first year of his reign ²⁴  I, Daniel, came to understand from the sacred books ²⁵  that, according to the word of the LORD ²⁶  disclosed to the prophet Jeremiah, the years for the fulfilling of the desolation of Jerusalem ²⁷  were seventy in number.

Zechariah 1:4-6

1:4 “Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets called out, saying, ‘The Lord who rules over all says, “Turn now from your evil wickedness,”’ but they would by no means obey me,” says the Lord. 1:5 “As for your ancestors, where are they? And did the prophets live forever? 1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ²⁸  Then they paid attention ²⁹  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

² sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.

³ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

⁴ tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.

⁵ tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.

⁶ sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).

⁷ tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.

⁸ tn Heb “that nation.”

⁹ tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the use of the term “Chaldeans.”

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹² tn 26:4-6 are all one long sentence containing a long condition with subordinate clauses (vv. 4-5) and a compound consequence in v. 6: Heb “If you will not obey me by walking in my law…by paying attention to the words of the prophets which…and you did not pay heed, then I will make…and I will make…” The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to reflect all the subordinations in the English translation.

¹³ sn See the study note on Jer 7:13.

¹⁴ tn Heb “I spoke to Zedekiah…according to all these words, saying.”

¹⁵ sn The verbs in this verse are all plural. They are addressed to Zedekiah and his royal advisers (compare 22:2).

¹⁶ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

¹⁷ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “Why should you and your people die…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer made explicit in the translation, “There is no reason!”

¹⁹ tn Heb “…disease according to what the Lord spoke concerning the nation that…”

²⁰ sn See the study note on Jer 25:11 for the reckoning of the seventy years.

²¹ tn See the translator’s note on Jer 27:22 for this term.

²² 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.

²³ 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.

²⁴ tc This phrase, repeated from v. 1, is absent in Theodotion.

²⁵ 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.

²⁶ 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.

²⁷ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

²⁸ tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

²⁹ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”