Jeremiah 29:10 “For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.”
The next key event that we will discuss is the return of Judah’s exiles. When the Lord warned Judah about their impending exile, at the same time, He used the prophet Jeremiah to prophesy about their eventual return. In the above-quoted passage of scripture, we have a record of Jeremiah's prophecy which took place in approximately the year 588 BC[1]. As we can see from this prophecy, God was very specific as to how long He would take the Jews into exile, i.e. seventy years. What is interesting about this prophecy is that this is one of the very few times that God gave a specific timeline of future events. So why did the Lord do that on this occasion? The reason is that over several years the Lord's prophets, both in Israel and Judah, had prophesied about the whole nation of Israel's ultimate expulsion from the land of Israel, and their eventual return that would only take place toward the end of this current age. And so on this occasion, the Lord had to be more specific about this expulsion and subsequent return of exiles, otherwise, the Jews would have become confused between the two events. As an aside, it is important to note that unlike the specific prophecy of Judah's (southern kingdom) expulsion and subsequent return, the Lord never gave a specific prophecy about Israel's (northern kingdom) expulsion and subsequent return. The reason for that was that Israel’s exiles were destined to become part of the Jewish dispersion that would only return toward the end of the age. And so the question is asked, why did the Lord make this distinction between Israel’s and Judah’s exiles? As we will see in the following sections, the answer lies in the coming of the Messiah, and the need for Judah to prepare both the city of Jerusalem and the Second Temple for that event.
Ezra 1:1-5 “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, (2) Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. (3) Who is among you of all His people? May 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 God), which is in Jerusalem. (4) And whoever is left in any place where he dwells, let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the freewill offerings for the house of God which is in Jerusalem. (5) Then the heads of the fathers' houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, with all whose spirits God had moved, arose to go up and build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.”
We have already seen that when the Lord expelled the Jews from Judah, He used His prophet Jeremiah to prophesy about their eventual return after seventy years in exile. The above-quoted passage of scripture is an account of the fulfilment of that prophecy; when in the first year of the reign of Cyrus King of Persia, he gave an edict that the Jews should be allowed to return to Judah and Jerusalem. Historical records confirm that this event took place in the year 539 BC[2]. We have seen earlier that the first exile of Judah's citizens took place in the year 609 BC. And so we see that this event in 539 BC, took place exactly seventy years after the first expulsion of the Jews in the year 609 BC. It is important to note, however, that after this edict was issued, there were a total of four migrations of exiles that returned to Judah over 95 years. The first migration took place in the year 539 BC, led by Sheshbazzar in the first year of the Persian King Cyrus (Ezra 1:7-8). The second migration took place in the year 522 BC, led by Zerubbabel in the first year of the Persian King Darius (Ezra 3:8 & Ezra 4:24). The third migration took place in the year 458 BC, led by Ezra in the seventh year of the Persian King Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:8). The fourth and final migration took place in the year 444 BC, led by Nehemiah in the twenty-first year of the Persian King Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 2:1-8). All of these dates have been verified according to historical records[3]. We have already estimated in a previous section that a total of 50,000 Jews were taken into exile from Judah; of that number 10,000 had been exiled to Egypt and 40,000 had been exiled to Babylon. And so the question is asked, how many exiles returned to Judah? There is no biblical evidence that the exiles taken into Egypt ever returned, and so it is more than likely that those Jews eventually became part of the Jewish dispersion. The prophet Ezra does tell us however, that 42,360 Jews who were exiled to Babylon eventually returned to Judah (Ezra 2:64). So how do we explain the fact that 40,000 Jews were taken into exile in Babylon, and yet 42,360 returned? The answer lies in the population growth of the Jews taken into captivity. The Lord had encouraged the Jews taken into captivity to continue to marry so that their number would be increased and not diminished (Jeremiah 29:6). And so if we were to assume an average annual population growth of 0.85%, bearing in mind that there were a total of four exiles to Babylon over 70 years and a further 95 years elapsed before all the exiles returned, then the total number of Jews available to return to Judah at the end of their exile would have been approximately more than double the number that had originally gone into exile. The problem is that only 42,360 Jews returned, so what happened to the balance of approximately 40,000? It is more than likely that those Jews decided not to return to Judah, and they too eventually became part of the Jewish dispersion. We know that not all the exiled Jews chose to return to Judah because we have the account of Ezra compelling some of the reluctant Levites to return with him (Ezra 8:15-20).
Michael E.B. Maher
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