To fulfil the word of the LORD by the 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.
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 (Leviticus 26:34), and of Jeremiah in this passage (see also margin ref.), which told that for divine retribution it was now to remain desolate seventy years. Since 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.
For as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years. Assuming that the Jewish people had neglected to allow their land the rest of the Sabbatic year, as the Mosaic law required, during the long period of 490 years, but tilled and cropped it without intermission during the whole time of the monarchy, the judgment of God was very striking in making their national punishment correspond to the continuous duration of their sin. Far in the course of those 490 years, seventy years ought to have been kept as sabbaths, and this period of rest, of which it had been sinfully deprived, was to be compensated to it by the allotted term of their captivity in Babylon. This exact correspondence between the sin and the punishment of the Jews will appear still more remarkable from the circumstance, which, there is reason to believe, is historically true, that both the northern and the southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah were overthrown in a sabbatical year.