Jeremiah 25:11

25:11 This whole area ¹  will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’ ² 

Jeremiah 27:11

27:11 Things will go better for the nation that submits to the yoke of servitude to ³  the king of Babylon and is subject to him. I will leave that nation ⁴  in its native land. Its people can continue to farm it and live in it. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ⁵ 

[25:11]  ¹ tn Heb “All this land.”

[25:11]  ² 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.)

[27:11]  ³ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:11]  ⁴ tn The words “Things will go better for” are not in the text. They are supplied contextually as a means of breaking up the awkward syntax of the original which reads “The nation which brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and subjects itself to him, I will leave it…”

[27:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”