The destruction of Jerusalem: “Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, ‘Hear the word of the LORD of Hosts: A time is coming when everything in your palace, which your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left behind.’”—Isaiah 39:5, 6, prophesied c. 732 B.C.E.; see also Isaiah 24:1-3; 47:6.
Jeremiah the prophet proclaimed: “I am going to . . . bring them [the Babylonians] against this land and its inhabitants . . . This whole land shall be a desolate ruin. And those nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”—Jeremiah 25:9, 11, prophesied b. 625 B.C.E.
Fulfillment—607 B.C.E. (586 B.C.E. according to most secular chronologies): Babylon destroyed Jerusalem after a year and a half siege. The city and temple were razed, and the Jews themselves were carried off to Babylon. (2 Chronicles 36:6, 7, 12, 13, 17-21) The entire nation remained in captivity for 70 years, as Jeremiah had foretold. Their miraculous release in 537 B.C.E. by Cyrus the Great, who conquered Babylon, fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which had mentioned him by name. (Isaiah 44:24-28) The prophet Daniel, in captivity in Babylon, calculated the exact time of the release of his people, basing his conclusion on Jeremiah’s prophecy.—Daniel 9:1, 2.