דברי הימים ב, פרק ל״ו, פסוק כ׳

Following the devastating destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, along with the plundering of its sacred treasures, a bitter new reality begins for the surviving nation. While other historical accounts focus heavily on the personal tragedy of the king, detailing his blinding and the death of his children, the narrative here shifts to the collective fate of the people as a whole [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Those who managed to escape death in battle were taken away from their homeland and forced into exile in Babylon [מצודת דוד].

Upon arriving in Babylon, these survivors were forced into slavery. They served the Babylonian king, his son, and his grandson. This three-generation period of servitude was not a random historical occurrence, but rather the exact fulfillment of an earlier prophecy foretelling that the nation would be subjugated to the Babylonian king and his next two descendants [רלב״ג, רד״ק].

This harsh period of slavery continued until the Persian empire eventually conquered Babylon and took power, bringing an end to their actual servitude [מצודת דוד, רלב״ג]. The specific length of this exile was deeply connected to the land they had left behind. The nation remained in exile so that the Land of Israel could finally rest and make up for the many Sabbatical years that the people had failed to observe properly while living there [רש״י, רד״ק].

Historically, fifty-two years passed from the beginning of the exile until the land had fully recovered its missed years of rest. Even then, the entire process of redemption was not completely finished. It took until the second year of the reign of the Persian King Darius to reach completion, marking exactly seventy years since the destruction of Jerusalem [רד״ק].