“This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these
nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. But when the seventy
years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land
of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate
forever.” Jeremiah 25:11
Seventy
years is a long time. It’s about the age
someone lives to these days.
In the
Bible, a generation lasted about forty years.
The Israelites wandered the desert for forty years as punishment for not
having faith in God. God wanted an
entire generation to die off before the next generation rose to power.
Seventy is
almost two generations and a more severe punishment for the people in
Judah. They should have known better
than to worship other gods and invoke the anger of God. But they did it anyway.
During
that time, God put Judah under the authority of Babylon, then had to shift the
world’s power to Persians. Persian
leadership allowed the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem.
This all
takes time but seventy seems significant to make sure an entire generation of
people would be wiped out so a new generation with a new devotion to God and a
new dedication to rebuilding Israel the right way.
There were
people who lived in Jerusalem as a child and returned there after the
exile. They were very small children and
probably were not guilty of worshiping other gods. In the end, God determined the number and he is God.