Today is the Hebraic commemoration of the Babylonian armies of King Nebuchadnezzar breaching the walls of Jerusalem (423 BCE). King Zedekiah of Judah was captured and taken to Babylon. Three weeks later the capture of Jerusalem was finished with the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of most Jews to Babylon.
Jeremiah 25:11-12 (NKJV)
And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
‘Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the LORD; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation.’
Daniel 9:2-3 (NKJV)
in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
We thank You, Father, that amongst the prophetic warnings of exile, You spoke words of redemption. Take our brokeness and speak words of hope. Declare deliverance in the midst of our bondage.
May Your seeds of hope fall into our spirits like seeds on good ground, yielding a hundredfold crop. Amen.
