דברי הימים ב, פרק ל״ו, פסוק כ״א

The destruction of the Temple and the resulting exile to Babylon were not merely harsh punishments, but rather a precise historical and spiritual accounting. The period of exile was a predetermined era designed to fulfill prophetic warnings and to grant the Land of Israel a long-overdue period of rest.

For generations, the Israelites neglected the laws requiring them to let the land lie unworked during Sabbatical and Jubilee years. The primary approach among commentators is that the exile served to appease the land and allow it to recover. While the nation was banished and the land lay desolate, it ceased all agricultural production, effectively paying off the accumulated debt of missed rest.

There are different ways to calculate the exact timeline of this debt. One perspective [רש"י] explains that the seventy years of exile perfectly match seventy missed Sabbatical and Jubilee years, which accumulated over four hundred and thirty years of wrongdoing, stretching from the era of the Judges down to the destruction. Another view [רלב"ג] estimates the period of neglected land laws at about three hundred and twenty-five years, noting that the seventy years of exile align exactly with the lifespan of the Babylonian empire.

The exact starting and ending points of these seventy years also invite different explanations. Some count the seventy years beginning from the early exiles of Jehoiakim or Zedekiah, concluding with the famous declaration by Cyrus, King of Persia, which permitted the people to return home [רלב"ג, שטיינזלץ]. A more layered approach [מלבי"ם] identifies two parallel timelines at work. The promise made through the prophet Jeremiah was indeed fulfilled seventy years after the initial exile, during the reign of Cyrus. However, the specific requirement for the land to physically rest required a full seventy years of total desolation starting from the actual destruction of the Temple. This gap in time explains why the rebuilding of the Temple was halted after the time of Cyrus and only resumed later under King Darius. Only then was the land's debt of rest completely paid.

Finally, the placement of these events at the very end of the Book of Chronicles serves a specific narrative purpose. The text concludes with the declaration of Cyrus to forge a direct, continuous link to the Book of Ezra. Although the historical events recorded in the Book of Daniel occurred during the intervening years, the texts are joined together here to show exactly how the historical cycle resolved and how God fulfilled His prophecy completely at the close of the seventy years [רש"י].