(21) To fulfil.--l?mal-th (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 r?c?th?h, 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.--Mikt?b (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 'immo) 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.

Verse 21. - The word of the Lord. Note marginal references (Jeremiah 25:9-12; Jeremiah 29:10). The three score and ten years of desolateness may probably best be dated from Nebuchadnezzar's first taking of Jerusalem, B.C. 606-5. Although this date does not tally exactly with the B.C. 538 of Cyrus's conquest of Babylon, yet the discrepancy is easily explained on more than one sufficiently natural supposition (e.g. that Cyrus's reign was not exactly synchronous in the beginning of it with his conquest of Babylon, etc.). Enjoyed her sabbaths (see Leviticus 26:34, 35, 43-46).

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.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.