02.07. FROM HEZEKIAH TO THE CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH.

CHAPTER 7. FROM HEZEKIAH TO THE CAPTIVITY OF JUDAH. THAT portion of the prophecy of Micah, which predicts that Zion shall “be plowed as a field,” Micah 3:12, we learn from Jeremiah 26:18, was given in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah. “Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.” “And the king of Assyria sent Tartan, and Rabsaris, and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem.” But when Hezekiah had prayed unto the Lord, “it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.” 2 Kings 18:13, 2 Kings 18:17; 2 Kings 19:35. f18 B.C. 712. “In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death.” And when he had prayed, the Lord sent by Isaiah, saying, “I will add unto thy days fifteen years.” 2 Kings 20:1, 2 Kings 20:6. “At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered.” Isaiah 39:1. “Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem.” 2 Chronicles 29:1. And when the fifteen years added to his days were fulfilled, he “slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David.... and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead.” 2 Chronicles 32:33 B.C. 696. “MANASSEH was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem,” to B.C. 641. “And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel.” “And the Lord spake by his servants the prophets, saying, Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols; therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down. And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies.” 2 Kings 21:1-2; 2 Kings 21:10-14. “Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.” 2 Chronicles 33:11. B.C. 675. This event occurred, says Dr. Hales, “in the twenty-second year of his reign, B.C. 675, (as the Jews in Seder Olam Rabba, and the Talmudists, date the year of his captivity and repentance. See Ganz. p. 45). This king of Assyria was Esarhaddon, or Asardine, who six years before, B.C. 680, had taken Babylon, and subdued the Babylonians, weakened by intestine divisions, and an interregnum, as we learn from Ptolemy’s Canon. He was a prosperous prince, and afterwards transplanted a colony of Babylonians, Cushites, and Syrians, into the cities of Samaria, in the room of the captive tribes, about B.C. 675, as observed before. 2 Kings 17:24; Ezra 4:2.” — New Anal. Chro., vol. ii., p. 468. This fulfilled the prophecy uttered by Isaiah sixty-five years before. Isaiah 7:7-8. “It was sixty-five years from the beginning of the reign of Ahaz, when this prophecy was delivered, to the total depopulation of the kingdom of Israel by Esarhaddon, who carried away the remains of the ten tribes which had been left by Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser, and who planted the country with new inhabitants. That the country was not wholly stripped of its inhabitants by Shalmaneser appears from many passages of the history of Josiah, where Israelites are mentioned as still remaining there. 2 Chronicles 34:6-7, 2 Chronicles 34:33, 2 Chronicles 25:18; 2 Kings 23:19-20. This seems to be the best explanation of the chronological difficulty in this place which has much embarrassed the commentators. “‘That the last deportation of Israel, by Esarhaddon, was in the sixty-fifth year after the second of Ahaz, is probable for the following reasons: The Jews,in Seder Olam Rabba, and the Talmudists, in D. Kimchi on Ezekiel 4:1-17, say that Manasseh king of Judah, was carried to Babylon by the king of Assyria’s captains (2 Chronicles 33:11) in the twenty-second year of his reign; that is, before Christ 676, according to Dr. Blair’s tables. and they are probably right in this. It could not be much earlier; as the king of Assyria was not king of Babylon till 680. Ibid. As Esarhaddon was then in the neighborhood of Samaria, it is highly probable that he did then carry away the last remains of Israel, and brought those strangers thither who mention him as their founder. Ezra 4:2. But this year is just the sixty-fifth from the second of Ahaz, which was 740 before Christ. Now, the carrying away the remains of Israel, who, till then, though their kingdom was destroyed forty-five years before, and though small in number, might yet keep up some form of being a people, by living according to their own laws, entirely put an end to the people of Israel, as a people separate from all others; for, from this time, they never returned to their own country in a body, but were confounded with the people of Judah in the captivity; and the whole people, the ten tribes included, were called Jews (Dr. Jubb).

Two MSS. have twenty-five instead of sixty-five; and two others omit the word five, reading only sixty.” — Dr. Clarke. “And when he [Manasseh] was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him; and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom.” 2 Chronicles 33:12-13. He was in captivity, Dr. Hales supposes, about twelve years, to the death of Esarhaddon. — B.C. 663 . “Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 33:1); and he “slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house; and Amon his son reigned in his stead.” Verse 20. — B.C. “AMON was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned two years in Jerusalem.” “And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house.” 2 Chronicles 33:21; 2 Chronicles 33:24. JOSIAH. “But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired against King Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah their king in his stead.” 2 Chronicles 33:25. B. c. 640. “Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years [to B.C. 609]. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.... for in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images....

Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.” 2 Chronicles 34:1-8. — B.C. 623 . In the same year the passover was kept with great splendor: “Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem.” 2 Kings 23:22-23. ZEPHANIAH prophesied “in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.” Zephaniah 1:1. JEREMIAH began to prophesy “in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.” The word of the Lord came to him “also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.” Jeremiah 1:2-3. — B.C. 628 . NAHUM predicted the destruction of Nineveh. His precise time is not known; but it was after the destruction of “populous No” (Nahum 3:8), which fixes it about — B.C. 613 . In the days of Josiah, “Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and King Josiah went against him: and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him. And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulcher.” 2 Kings 23:29-30. — B.C. 609 .

JEHOAHAZ. “And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead. Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.” 2 Kings 23:30-31.

Pharaoh-nechoh returning from his expedition against the Assyrians, took Jerusalem. “And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his [Jehoahaz’] brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. And Necho took Jehoahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.” 2 Chronicles 36:4. “And he died there.” 2 Kings 23:34.

Jehoahaz was called “Shallum” before he was made king. 1 Chronicles 3:15. His death was thus predicted by Jeremiah: “Weep not for the dead [Josiah], neither bemoan him; but weep sore for him that goeth away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. For thus saith the Lord touching Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place: He shall not return thither any more; but he shall die in the place whither they have led him captive.” Jeremiah 22:10-12. JEHOIAKIM. “Pharaoh-nechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name from Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away; and he came to Egypt, and died there.” 2 Kings 23:34. “Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem” (2 Kings 23:36) from — B.C. 609 . “In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word from the Lord, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord’s house, all the words that I command thee.”

Jeremiah 26:1-2. This proves that his reign commenced at one of the great feasts, in the beginning of the Jewish year. The words he was commanded to speak to the people were words of pardon if they would turn from their evil ways, and of threatening if they refused to hear. NEBUCHADNEZZAR. The twenty-fifth of Jeremiah contains “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, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.” Verse 1. — B.C. 606 . The word of the Lord first came to Jeremiah in the days of Josiah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. Jeremiah 1:2. Jeremiah testifies that “from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, even unto this day” — Jehoiakim’s fourth, and Nebuchadrezzar’s first — “is the three and twentieth year” that he had spoken to the Jews, “rising early and speaking,” and they had “not hearkened.” Jeremiah 25:3. Josiah reigned thirty-one years from his thirteenth, reckoning that as the first, his thirty- first would be the nineteenth; the first of Jehoiakim, the twentieth; and his fourth, the twenty-third. This was before Nebuchadrezzar came up against Judea; for at this time the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Behold, I will send and take all the families of the North, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment and a hissing, and perpetual desolations. 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 candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations. Jeremiah 25:9-12. “In the fourth year of Jehoiakim,” the word came to Jeremiah (which is recorded in the forty-fifth and forty-sixth chapters of his prophecy, Jeremiah 45:1), “Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.” Jeremiah 46:2. — B.C. 606 . “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God; which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and the king spoke to Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king’s seed, and of the princes: children in whom was no blemish,... whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans,” during “three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king. Now among these were...

Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.” Daniel 1:1-6. “On this occasion Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years.” Dr. Hales. Being subject to Egypt, the subjection of Egypt would make him subject to Babylon, as we read, “In his days, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years; then he turned and rebelled against him.” 2 Kings 24:1. After three years of service, the rebellion of Jehoiakim would date — B.C. 603 . “Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.” 2 Chronicles 36:6. Yet Nebuchadnezzar did not carry him to Babylon, but unbound him and re-instated him as king, and he reigned about seven years longer. HABAKKUK predicted the Chaldean invasion and must, therefore, have lived before B.C. 605. His precise time is uncertain. Habakkuk 1:6.

According to Ptolemy’s Canon, Nabopolassar dying, Nebuchadnezzar succeeded to the throne of Babylon, B.C. 604, and reigned forty-three years. But Berosus dates his expedition against Egypt in the year before his father’s death and his actual reign. We afterwards find that the eleventh year of Jehoiakim synchronizes with the seventh of Nebuchadnezzar, which makes the first year of his actual reign synchronize with Jehoiakim’s fifth. — B.C. 604 . “In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar” he had the vision of the great image of which Daniel gave him the explanation and interpretation. Daniel 2:1-45. — B.C. 603 . “In the fourth year of Jehoiakim,” came the word of the Lord that is contained in Jeremiah 36:1. “And it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim... in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord,” and Jeremiah wrote on a roll the words of the Lord, and sent them to the king, who burned them in the fire. “Therefore thus saith the Lord of jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.” Jeremiah 36:9, Jeremiah 36:30. “He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” Jeremiah 22:19. JEHOIACHIN. “So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers; and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.” “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months [2 Kings 24:6; 2 Kings 24:8] and ten days.” 2 Chronicles 36:9. — B.C. 598 . “And when the year was expired [2 Chronicles 36:10], Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it. And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers; and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king’s mother, and the king’s wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon. And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father’s brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.” 2 Kings 24:11-17.

Mordecai’s ancestor was carried to Babylon at this time. Esther 2:6.

Ezekiel reckons from it. Ezekiel 1:2. And “these are the words of the letter than Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem” to the captives, “after that Jeconiah the king, and the queen, and the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the carpenters, and the smiths, were departed from Jerusalem.” Jeremiah 29:1-2. “Thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.” Verse 10. “ZEDEKIAH was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.” 2 Kings 24:18.

Jeremiah sent a message “by the hand of the messengers which came to Jerusalem, unto Zedekiah king of Judah,” to say unto their masters, from “the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:” “Now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come; and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him.” Jeremiah 27:6-7. “And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah” prophesied falsely, saying, “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon.” Jeremiah 28:1-3. As Zedekiah reigned but eleven years, his fourth year could not be called the beginning of his reign. Scaliger supposes it was the fourth year in course, reckoning from the preceding seventh year Sabbath. The Duke of Manchester thinks this is a just inference, and sustains it by the “two years” of Hananiah, which seem to point to the coming Sabbath, in the third of Zedekiah. The tenth of Zedekiah was a Sabbath. See Jeremiah 34:8-11. With this explanation of the “fourth year,” we learn that “the reign of Zedekiah commenced in the fifth month.” — B.C. 597 . In Jeremiah 51:59, is written “the word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah,... when he went with [on the behalf of, margin] Zedekiah the king of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign.” This marks an epoch in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, of sufficient importance to induce Zedekiah to send to Babylon, to do fealty to his king. — B.C. 594 . EZEKIEL began to prophesy, the next year: “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, the word of the Lord came,” etc. Ezekiel 1:1-3. — B.C. 593. The thirtieth year,” harmonizing with the fifth of Jehoiachin’s captivity, would date from the eighteenth of Josiah, — the year when “there was holden such a passover” as had not before been observed, “from the days of the judges.” 2 Kings 23:23. The year of the observance of that passover was, doubtless, a jubilee, and the “thirtieth year” of Ezekiel 1:1 is evidently the thirtieth from that jubilee. The visions recorded in the eight chapter of Ezekiel and onward, were seen “in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month.” Ezekiel 8:1. — B.C. 592 . “And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month,” that occurred the events of the twentieth chapter and onward. Ezekiel 20:1. — B.C. 591 . “Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day; the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day.” Ezekiel 24:1-2. — B.C. 589 . This proves that the years of the captivity of Jehoiachin, and the years of Zedekiah, were the same; for we read that “it came to pass in the ninth year of his [Zedekiah’s] reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it.” 2 Kings 25:1; Jeremiah 39:1; Jeremiah 52:4. “In the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar,” the word recorded in the thirty-second of Jeremiah came to him from the Lord. Jeremiah 32:1. — B.C. 588 . “In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month,” Ezekiel prophesied against Egypt, that it should be desolate, and not “inhabited forty years;” and that “at the end of forty years,” it should be restored, and “be the basest of the kingdoms,” and “no more rule over the nations.” Ezekiel 29:1-15. “Then Pharaoh’s army was come forth out of Egypt; and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard the tidings of them, they departed from Jerusalem.” Jeremiah 37:5. As this was after the siege of Jerusalem, and before the capture of the city, it must be “the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar,” in which “he carried away captive from Jerusalem, eight hundred thirty and two persons.” Jeremiah 52:29. — B.C. 588 . “When the king of Babylon’s army fought against Jerusalem,” Zedekiah “made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them.” Jeremiah 34:7-8. for some reason “they turned and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free, to return.” Jeremiah 34:11. This was probably because the army of the Chaldeans had departed from Jerusalem. Therefore Jeremiah said, “Behold, Pharaoh’s army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire.” Jeremiah 37:7-8. “So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled.... But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho.... Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem, and burned the house of the Lord, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire; and all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about. Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive certain of the poor of the people, and the residue of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude. But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left certain of the poor of the land for vinedressers and for husbandmen.” Jeremiah 52:5-16. “In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up.” Jeremiah 39:2. “And as for the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, even over them he made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ruler.” 2 Kings 25:22. — B.C. 587 . OBADIAH uses several expressions, in foretelling the destruction of Edom, similar to those in Jeremiah (compare Obad. vs. 1, 8, with Jeremiah 49:9; Jeremiah 49:14-16). Lowth supposes he lived just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem.

Dr. Clarke supposes he lived as late as — B.C. 587 . “In the eleventh year” of Jehoiachin’s captivity, the prophecies in Ezekiel, twenty-sixth and thirty-first chapters, were uttered against Egypt. “And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city is smitten.” Ezekiel 33:21. In this year also were uttered the prophecies in Ezekiel 32:1, Ezekiel 32:17. — B.C. 586 . “In the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty and five persons.” Jeremiah 52:30. “And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years.” 2 Chronicles 36:20-21.