And this whole land shall be a desolation, [and] an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
Ver. 11. And this land shall be a desolation - seventy years.] Which commenced at the deportation of Jeconiah. 2Ki 24:8 Jeremiah 29:1,3 Ezekiel 4:1 ; Eze 33:21 Avignon in France, was the residence of the Pope for seventy years, which time the Romans yet remember, till this day, by the name of the Babylonian captivity. a Luther, when he first began to stir against the Pope, wrote a book bearing title De captivitate Babylonica, which when Bugenhagius, a Pomeranian divine, first read, he pronounced it to be the most heretical piece that ever was written, but afterwards, having better considered the contents of it, he retracted his former censure; he told his colleagues that all the world besides was in deep darkness, and that Luther alone was in the light and in the right, and him he would follow. So he did, and drew many more with him. b
a Heyl. Cosm., fol. 188.
b Scult Annal.