Judah’s Babylonian Exile
Judah, the Southern Kingdom of Israel was taken captive to Babylon. 586-516 B.C.
Below is the Message Audio followed by the Typed Notes.
The Seventy Years of Captivity, also known as the Babylonian Exile, is a period in Biblical history when the people of Judah, the Southern Kingdom of Israel was taken captive to Babylon. 586-516 B.C.
Despite numerous warnings from prophets, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the nation continued to turn away from God.
The time leading up to the Babylonian exile is recorded in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, during which the Israelites lived unfaithfully to God by worshiping false idols, sometimes even sacrificing their children to these idols.
God used the prophet Jeremiah to warn His people against their idolatry and to tell them that they would be captured by Babylon if they did not repent. Jeremiah 25:6-9: And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the Lord; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, 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 an hissing, and perpetual desolations.
The prophet Jeremiah specifically foretold the duration of the exile, stating, "This whole land will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years" (Jeremiah 25:11).
2 Kings 24:20 "For because of the anger of the LORD this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, that He finally cast them out from His presence"
Judah, the Southern Kingdom of Israel were taken captive to Babylon. 586-516 B.C.
God had promised restoration. "For thus says the LORD: 'When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill My good word to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:10-11.)
The prophet Daniel, while in Babylon, recognized the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy and prayed for the restoration of Jerusalem. “In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.” Daniel 9:2-3.
The end of the seventy years came with the rise of the Persian Empire. In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and issued a decree allowing the exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. This event is recorded in the book of Ezra: "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing" Ezra 1:1.
God used a Pagan King to restore the Southern Kindom to the Land of Promise. This was part of God’s eternal plan to prepare for and fulfill the prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem sinful man.
Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
Isaiah 42:1,4: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations . . . He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth…”
The remnant of the Captivity of Judah were restored to Jerusalem including Daniel. A list of the the families that returned from the captivity to Jerusalem with Ezra is in Ezra Ch. 8. It included the man of God Daniel. Ezra 8:1-2: “These are now the chief of their fathers, and this is the genealogy of them that went up with me from Babylon, in the reign of Artaxerxes the king. Of the sons of Phinehas: Gershom. Of the sons of Ithamarm: Daniel. Of the sons of David: Hattush.
The Nation of Israel had been divided into the Northern Kingdom of 10 Tribes and Southern Kingdom of Judah which included the tribe of Benjamin shortly after the reign of King Solomon’s son Rehoboam when the 10 tribes of Israel rebelled and separated to become the Northern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom existed from 930 BC to 720 BC when it was taken into captivity be the Neo-Assyrian Empire. All it’s kings had turned away from God and worshipped Idols and they were never retuned to the Land of Promise as the southern Kingdom was after 70 years of captivity.
Below is the underlined link to the Typed Notes