Lasting from the conquest of Jerusalem in the spring of 608 BC by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and included the removal of the Jews to Babylon at that time including Daniel and his friends, to the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in the fall of 539 BC and the release of the Jews in the spring of 538 BC, exactly 70 years as stated by the prophets it would be.
From a previous writing we were given great detail there that the alignment of the years of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar from his invasion of Jerusalem in 609/608 BC fits with the length of the time of the Babylonian Empire as found in history, archeology, astronomy, the Book of Mormon and the Bible, including and all tying into Ezekiel 1:1, as well as the later invasion of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in October, 539 BC, which eventually ended the 70 years of captivity by Babylon as referred to in Daniel and by other Prophets.
Ezekiel adds to the proper time frame as it gives us in Ezekiel 1:1-3 “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 Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 “In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity, 3 “The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest….
Here we have above Ezekiel referring to the time of his vision as being first in the thirtieth year of the Babylon Empire, and in the fourth month on the fifth day, that empire beginning in March of 626 BC would make it about June of 597 BC at the time of Ezekiel’s vision. It being also the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s captivity would then place Jehoiachin’s captivity in 601 BC, which would also then put king Zedekiah on the throne at that time in 601 BC. We also read from Jeremiah 32:1 “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. For then the king of Babylon’s army besieged Jerusalem: and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah’s house.”
This is a very detailed statement. To properly understand the time frame stated here one needs to understand how the Jewish and Babylonian kings counted their regnal reigns. Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal reign began on Nisan 1 of 608 BC (first new moon after the spring equinox) to Adar 29 607 BC. Zedekiah being a Jewish king would have counted his first year of reign from the new moon in September of 601 BC to the new moon in September of 600 BC. With the eighteen year of Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal reign beginning after the spring of 591 BC, then the spring of 591 BC would be in the 10th year of the regnal reign of Zedekiah would count from the fall of 592 BC to the fall of 591 BC, putting the spring of 591 BC in the proper time frame for both kings to be the 10th and 18th years as stated in the scriptures. Yet understanding this is another verification of when those two kings reigns began.
We Read in Jeremiah 25:8-12 8 “Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Because ye have not heard my words, 9 “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 his 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. 10 “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. 11 “And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment: and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 “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 a perpetual desolations”
Jeremiah 28:10 adds “For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word towards you, in causing you to return to this place.” 33:14 “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the House of Israel and to the house of Judah.
This is backed up by Daniel 9:1-2 “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king of the realm of the Chaldeans: In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, wherefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem.”
Also this seventy years is again backed up in 2 Chronicles 36:20-23 20 “And them that escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: 21 “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.” (Again this is the 70 years that keeps being repeated.) 22 “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing saying, 23 “Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.”
This declaration by Cyrus is also found in Ezra 1-3 1 “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing saying, 2 “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 a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 “Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.”
Isaiah 44:28 also confirmed that it was Cyrus that was to end the seventy years of desolation as it states in 28 “That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundations shall be laid.” 45:1, 13 adds 1 “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him… 13 “I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price or reward, saith the Lord of hosts.”
The first calendar year of the 70 years of captivity would have been from the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s first year of regnal reign on 1 Nisan of 608 BC to the end of Adar of 607 BC, thus making the 70th year from Nisan 1 of 539 BC to the end of Adar of 538 BC and our March 16th of 538 BC when using the Israelite calendar rules, or our April 15th when using the Babylonian calendar rules. We should also see from the below writing that the beginning of the 1st year of the reign of Cyrus over Babylon which began in October of 539 BC as was discussed above, was literally in the 70th year of the captivity of the Jews with their 70th year ending a few months later in the following spring and at the actual time the Jews returned to Jerusalem with Cyrus’s permission. All the dates and years do fit perfectly when correctly counted as seen from the above and below. Those dates completely fit with the other observations and calculations that have been mentioned including what is found in Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Chronicles.
To further corroborate these dates we find on the Babylonian chronicle ABC 7, the “Chronicle of Nabonidus,” the following: “On the 16th day (Tishrei) Ugbaru, governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus, without battle they entered Babylon. Afterwards, after Nabonidus retreated, he was captured in Babylon…..On the 3rd day of the month Arahsamna, Cyrus entered Babylon. The haru-vessels were filled before him. There was peace in the city while Cyrus, his greeting to Babylon in its entirety spoke.” From this we find Cyrus entering the city on the 3rd day of the month Arahsamna, that date on our calendar being October 22nd of 539 BC.
Now let us read from “The Works of Flavius Josephus” translated by William Whiston: “How Cyrus, King Of The Persians, Delivered The Jews Out Of Babylon And Suffered Them To Return To Their Own Country And To Build Their Temple, For Which Work He Gave Them Money.”
“1. In the first year of the reign of Cyrus (1) which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they had served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitude seventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity. And these things God did afford them; for he stirred up the mind of Cyrus, and made him write this throughout all Asia: ‘Thus saith Cyrus the king: Since God Almighty hath appointed me to be king of the habitable earth, I believe that he is that God which the nation of Israelites worship; for indeed he foretold my name by the prophets, and that I should build him a house at Jerusalem, in the country of Judea.” (Memo: the spring of 608 BC, the time period being suggested that Nebuchadnezzar first became king and then ruled jointly with his father for three year before his father’s death, to the spring of 538 BC is 70 years from the spring of 608 BC, thus making October of 539 BC in the 70th year as indicated here that it was.)
“2. This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies; for this prophet said that God had spoken thus to him in secret vision: ‘My will is, that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send back my people to their own lands, and build my temple.’ This was foretold by Isaiah one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the Divine power, and earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written; so he called for the most eminent Jews that were in Babylon, and said to them, that he gave them leave to go back to their own country, and to rebuild their city Jerusalem, (21) and the temple of God, for that he would be their assistant……”
From the above we see Cyrus releasing the Jews to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. We should also see that this is in his 1st year over Babylon and that it is during the 70th year of the Jews captivity. This 70 years of Desolation that the land could enjoy her Sabbaths is mentioned in several places, one of which is in 2 Chronicles 36:21-23: “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. Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.”
This is also confirmed in Ezra 1:11. Now in order for the land to fulfill her Sabbaths as spoken of in the scriptures, the land would have to be desolate for a full 70 years, 10 weeks of 7 days, thus 10 Sabbaths. When using the year of 605 BC as the first year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar as historians and archeologists presently use, recognizing that it was in the spring of 538 BC that Cyrus sent the Jews to Jerusalem, we do not get 70 years of desolation as spoken of by Jeremiah the Prophet, but get only 67 years.
Yet if we will recognize that the 1st year of the Jews captivity had to have begun in the spring of 608 BC on the 1st of Nisan in order to get the 70 years of desolation, we should also recognize this would be the beginning of the first year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar over Jerusalem and the year the first captive Jews were brought to Babylon. We should now also see with the actual physical return of the first released Jews in the spring of 538 BC, that there is a difference of exactly 70 years, the actual time the prophecy stated it would be and is what is given from the various prophets in the Old testament. Here again we find an indication that Nebuchadnezzar’s reign began three years prior to what others have interpreted from the above “Babylonian Chronicle ABC 5”.