(21) To fulfil.—lĕmalûth (an Aramaised form).

The word . . . Jeremiah.—The seventy years of Babylonian exile are predicted in Jeremiah 25:11-12. (Comp. also Jeremiah 29:10 : “Thus saith the Lord, After seventy years be accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you.”)

Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths.—“Enjoyed” is rāçĕthāh, which Gesenius renders persolvit, “made good,” “discharged,” as a debt. The meaning is that during the long years of the exile, the land would enjoy that rest of which it had been defrauded by the neglect of the law concerning the sabbatical years (Leviticus 25:1-7). The following words, “as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath” (literally, all the days of the desolation she rested) are taken from Leviticus 26:34-35.

To fulfil threescore and ten years.—i.e., in order to fulfil the seventy years of exile foretold by Jeremiah.

We have no right whatever to press the words of the sacred writer, in the sense of assuming that he means to say that when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans exactly seventy sabbatical years had been neglected—that is, that the law in this respect had not been observed for 490 years (70×7), or ever since the institution of monarchy in Israel (490 + 588 = 1,078).

The seventy years are reckoned from the 4th of Jehoiakim, when the prophecy was uttered (Jeremiah 25:1; Jeremiah 25:12), to the first year of Cyrus, and the return under Zernbbabel, 536 B.C.

THE EDICT OF CYRUS, AUTHORISING THE RETURN (2Chronicles 36:22-23). (Comp. Ezra 1:1-3; 3 Esdr. 2:1-5; Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45-47)

(22) Now in the first year of Cyrus.—This verse is the same as Ezra 1:1, save that it has “by the mouth “instead of “from the mouth.” The latter is probably correct. (Comp. 2Chronicles 36:12 supra.) So some MSS. here also.

That the word . . . Jeremiah.—Concerning the seventy years.

Stirred up the spirit.—1Chronicles 5:26;2Chronicles 21:16.

That he made a proclamation.—And he made a voice pass (2Chronicles 30:5).

Throughout all his kingdom . . . and put it also in writing.—Into all . . . and also into a writing.

Writing.—Miktāb (2Chronicles 35:4.)

The Lord.—Iahweh. Instead of this Ezra 1:3 has, Iehi, “Be;” so also 3 Esdr. 2:5. “The Lord—with him!” (Iahiveh ‘immô) is a frequent formula in the chronicle, and is probably correct here. (Some Hebrew MSS. and the Vulg. unite the readings.)

And let him go up.—Whither The sentence is abruptly broken off here, but continued in Ezra 1:3. As to the relation between the Chronicles and Ezra, see Introduction.

Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia.—Comp. the words of Darius Hystaspes on the famous Behistuu Inscription, which begins “I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of Persia;” while every paragraph opens with “Saith Darius the king.”

All the kingdoms . . . given me.—Comp. the words of Darius: “Saith Darius the king :—By the grace of Ormazd I am king; Ormazd has granted me the empire.”

The Lord God of heaven.—Jehovah, the God of heaven. “The god of heaven” was a title of Ormazd or Ahuramazda, the Supreme Being according to Persian belief, which was Zoroastrianism. It is not at all wonderful that Cyrus should have identified the God of Israel with his own deity, especially if he had heard of the prophecies Isaiah 44:28, &c. Such a politic syncretism was the settled practice of the Roman empire in a later age.

2 Chronicles 36:21. Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths — “God had commanded them to let their land rest every seventh year; and because the Jews had violated this, as well as other precepts, God gave their land a long sabbath, or rest, for no less than ten times seven years, which Jeremiah threatened, as in the margin. If it be true, that they had neglected this law for the space of four hundred and ninety years, having ploughed their ground in the seventh as well as in other years, then the judgment of God upon them was very remarkable, in causing their ground to rest, and be free from tillage, just as long as it should have been if they had observed his law. For in those four hundred and ninety years, says Procopius Gazæus, when they were under the government of kings, there were seventy years to be kept as sabbaths, which, that the land might enjoy its sabbath, were spent in the captivity of Babylon. Their punishment, too, was made more remarkable in this particular, if it be true, as some have observed, that both the kingdom of Samaria and the kingdom of Judah were destroyed in a sabbatical year; and that immediately after a jubilee, the city and temple were destroyed by Titus, according to Scaliger’s computation.” See Patrick, Calmet, and Dodd.

36:1-21 The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem came on by degrees. The methods God takes to call back sinners by his word, by ministers, by conscience, by providences, are all instances of his compassion toward them, and his unwillingness that any should perish. See here what woful havoc sin makes, and, as we value the comfort and continuance of our earthly blessings, let us keep that worm from the root of them. They had many times ploughed and sowed their land in the seventh year, when it should have rested, and now it lay unploughed and unsown for ten times seven years. God will be no loser in his glory at last, by the disobedience of men. If they refused to let the land rest, God would make it rest. What place, O God, shall thy justice spare, if Jerusalem has perished? If that delight of thine were cut off for wickedness, let us not be high-minded, but fear.See the marginal references. The 70 years of desolation prophesied by Jeremiah, commenced in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 25:1, Jeremiah 25:12; compare Daniel 1:1), or 605 B.C.; and should therefore have terminated, if they were fully complete, in 536 B.C. As, however, the historical date of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus is 538 B.C., or two years earlier, it has been usual to suppose that the Jews reckoned "the reign of the kingdom of Persia" as commencing two years after the capture of Babylon, on the death or supersession of "Darius the Mede." But the term "seventy" may be taken as a round number, and the prophecy as sufficiently fulfilled by a desolation which lasted 68 years.

Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths - Between the time of Moses and the commencement of the captivity, there had been (about) 70 occasions on which the Law of the sabbatical year Leviticus 25:4-7 had been violated.

21. until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths—The return of every seventh was to be held as a sabbatic year, a season of rest to all classes, even to the land itself, which was to be fallow. This divine institution, however, was neglected—how soon and how long, appears from the prophecy of Moses (see on [483]Le 26:34), and of Jeremiah in this passage (see Jer 25:9-12), which told that for divine retribution it was now to remain desolate seventy years. As the Assyrian conquerors usually colonized their conquered provinces, so remarkable a deviation in Palestine from their customary policy must be ascribed to the overruling providence of God. Had enjoyed her sabbaths, i.e. had rested from the labour of the husbandmen in ploughing and harrowing it, &c., the people that should have managed it being destroyed. Of the phrase, See Poole "Leviticus 25:2".

To fulfil threescore and ten years; that so the seventy years’ captivity prophesied of by Jeremiah might be accomplished.

To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah,.... That is, the Jews were so long servants in Babylon, as in the preceding verse, to accomplish Jeremiah's prophecy of it, 2 Chronicles 25:12.

until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths; the sabbatical years, or seventh year sabbaths, which, according to the law of the land, was to rest from being tilled, Leviticus 25:4, which law had been neglected by the Jews, and now, whether they would or not, the land should have rest for want of persons to till it:

for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years; as threatened in Leviticus 26:34 on which text Jarchi observes, that at the destruction of the first temple the law concerning the sabbath, or rest of the land had been neglected four hundred and thirty years, in which space were sixty nine sabbatical years; and, according to Maimonides (d), it was at the end of a sabbatic year that the city and temple were destroyed, and so just seventy years had been neglected, and the land was tilled in them as in other years, and now it had rest that exact number of years; but of this we cannot be certain, though it is probable.

(d) Hilchot Shemitah Veyobel, c. 10. sect. 3.

To fulfil the word of the LORD by the {l} mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

(l) Who threatened the vengeance of God and 70 years captivity, which he called the sabbaths or rest of the land, Jer 25:11.