In the days of ancient Israel during the reigns of king Saul, king David, and king Solomon (dated between 1047 BC and 930 BC) was the Israelite kingdom united. However, after the the death of king Solomon, Rehoboam, king Solomon’s son and successor carried out some oppressive policies which in turn led to the division of the kingdom of Israel. Ten tribes would unite under the leadership of Jeroboam I, and settled in the northern area of what would be known as Israel. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin under the rule of Rehoboam went on to possess the territories to the south, which included Jerusalem, and this kingdom would be known as Judah.
The kingdoms of Israel and Judah continued with a separate but interrelated existence for about two hundred years, until the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC. Israel was destroyed, and the ten northern tribes were led away captive never to return. These Israelite captives would be known to history as The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Though the southern kingdom of Judah remained unmolested by the Assyrian assault, they too would be conquered by the Babylonians just a few generations later in 586 BC. The Jews would live in Babylon as exiles for a span of 70 years, and this period of Jewish history is known as The Babylonian Captivity.
The holy prophet Jeremiah foretold that the Jewish nation would serve the king of Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:11). But pinpointing the exact start and end date of the Jewish exile which would match Jeremiah’s prophecy is a bit of a challenge. For example, the Persian king Cyrus the Great (who defeated the Babylonians and who also freed the Jews) allowed the first wave of Jewish refugees to return to Judah in the year 538 BC. However, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC, making the time of the main deportation of the Jews to Babylon and then the return of the Jews back to Judah to be a span of only 48 years, not the 70 years that Jeremiah predicted. But this problem may be solved when tracing back the first meeting between Babylon and Judah which took place well before the ultimate Jewish deportation in 586 BC. Also, taking into account the date of when the second temple was completed and comparing it with the later dates of Jewish deportations may also aid in solving this numerical mystery.
Now the righteous king Josiah died in the year 609 BC, exactly 70 years before Cyrus conquered Babylon. Josiah was succeeded by his youngest son Jehoahaz, but reigned for only three months, before being deposed by the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II. Necho then appointed Jehoahaz’ brother Johoiakim as king of Judah who ruled as a vassal of the Egyptians. However, after the Egyptians were defeated by the Babylonians at the Battle of Charchemish in 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, and Jehoiakim changed alliances to avoid the destruction of Jerusalem. Jehoiakim reigned for three years as a vassal to the Babylonians, until the failure of an invasion of Egypt in 601 BC undermined Babylonian control over the area. Jehoiakim then switched allegiance back to the Egyptians. In response to this betrayal, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah in 598 BC and laid siege to Jerusalem.
Nebuchadnezzar killed Jehoiakim and commanded that Jehoiakim’s body be thrown before the walls of the city, without any burial. Nebuchadnezzar then installed Zedekiah, Jehoiakim’s younger brother, as king in his place. Jehoiachin was then sent into exile in Babylon along with his family, his court, and thousands of his workers in the year 597 BC. When subtracting 70 from 597 we come to the year 527 BC, a time when Zerubbabel was leading the first wave of Jews from their captivity in Babylon back to Judah. The official date of this repatriation occurred sometime between 538 and 520 BC, which falls within 70 years from the first siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 598 BC. Another school of thought places the 70 years of captivity during the time between the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC, to the reconstruction of the Second Temple which was completed in 516 BC. Though there is a discrepancy with the official start and end dates of the Jewish exile, this does not invalidate Jeremiah’s prophecy of how the Jews would serve the king of Babylon for 70 years.
As it is written, the God of Israel allowed the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, and did not defend the Jews from being taken into captivity because the Jews had turned away from the Lord and would not heed the words of the prophets which God sent to His people in order to shepherd them away from their transgressions. However, God also promised the Jews that after the 70 years of their captivity were accomplished, God would punish the king of Babylon and visit His people, and do good unto them and bring them out of captivity and return them to their place (Jeremiah 29:10). For during their exile in Babylon the Jews lamented the loss of their homeland. As Psalms 137 says, “By the rivers of Babylon…we wept, when we remembered Zion.” Now that the Jews were in a strange land they would have to do all that they could in order to survive, and survive they did.
The Jews would go on to build a prosperous life for themselves during their exile and even thrived. Though the Jews settled comfortably in Babylon, they maintained their Jewish identity and did not assimilate into the religious practices of their non-Jewish neighbors. By remaining separate the Jews were able to cultivate their belief in God and study His laws. For it was during their sojourn in Babylon that the Jews came to realize that the presence of their Lord was not solely limited to the borders of Jerusalem, but that God’s sovereignty extended into all lands and unto all ages. It was also in Babylon that Jewish scribes compiled the religious writings they had brought with them from Judah, such as the books of the law and combined them with the books that were written during their exile, to at least partially form what we known today as the Old Testament of the Holy Bible. However, without a temple the Jews began to “assemble” in houses of prayer, and these Jewish congregations in Babylon could possibly be the origins of the synagogue and where Judaism was birthed.
Now with the rise of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, under the leadership of Cyrus the Great, was the Babylonian Empire conquered in 539 BC. Not only did Cyrus allow the Jews to return to Judah, but he even encouraged them to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. For the Bible says that, “the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom…saying, thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, the LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah” (Ezra 1:1-2). Thus the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled, the Jews returned to their homeland and in 516 BC was the Second Temple competed. Though the Second Temple contained many of the original vessels of gold that had been taken by the Babylonians and restored by king Cyrus, the Second Temple lacked the Ark of the Covenant and some other Temple furniture that were present in the original Temple.
The Second Temple stood for nearly 600 years, from 516 BC until it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. In Jewish Eschatology there is a belief that one day a Third Temple will be built, which will usher in the Messianic Age. However, in Christian Eschatology it is believed that the building of the Third Temple will usher in the reign of the Antichrist. Even after nearly 3,000 years since the First Temple was initially erected, it has continued to be at the very center of Jewish culture and worship. Now the captivity in Babylon would not be the only time the Jews found themselves in exile. For after the Second Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed in 70 AD, the Jews were scattered abroad for almost 2,000 years until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and with the Law of Return (passed in 1950) all Jews are now given the right to come and live in Israel and gain Israeli citizenship. So after 2,500 years it would seem that the Jews are being fully liberated from their captivity on foreign soil and are now firmly, and sometimes forcibly establishing themselves in the Promised Land.
References:
Brenton. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., 1851).
Holy Apostles Convent. The Lives of the Holy Prophets. (Buena Vista, CO: Holy Apostles Convent, 1998).
Zondervan. The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009).