Forgotten Sabbaths

In those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity,  practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. 

Early and often did the Lord, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets, until the anger of the Lord against his people was so inflamed that there was no remedy. Their enemies burnt the house of God, tore down the walls of Jerusalem, set all its palaces afire, and destroyed all its precious objects. Those who escaped the sword were carried captive to Babylon, where they became servants of the king of the Chaldeans and his sons until the kingdom of the Persians came to power. All this was to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah: “Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled.”

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, both by word of mouth and in writing: “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with him!”

2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23

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Restoring the Rubble

When God is forgotten, the temples of worship, the human person, and the cosmos fall into disarray. The Book of Chronicles expounds the consequences of Israel’s infidelity to God, even to the neglect of the sabbath year seventy times (Leviticus 25:1-7). Since the sabbath year occurs every seven years, seventy omissions span five centuries. The law required the Israelites to cease plowing the land every seven years. Thus, not only the people of Israel, but their land, failed to rejoice in the Lord’s sabbath rest.

Supplanting God in the hearts of his children, idolatry resulted in the Babylonian captivity, which lasted for seventy years, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah.

This whole land shall be a ruin and a waste. Seventy years these nations shall serve the king of Babylon.  

Jeremiah 25:11

Yet the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. Once the period of reparation is fulfilled, restoration begins.

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

Jeremiah 29:10-14