THE START OF THE “SEVEN TIMES”

Knowing the length of the “seven times,” we are now in position to investigate when they began. Again we direct our attention to what happened to Nebuchadnezzar in fulfillment of the prophetic dream about the chopped-down tree. Consider his situation:

At the time that Nebuchadnezzar lost his sanity he was exercising world domination, for Babylon was then the number one power on earth. In Nebuchadnezzar’s case the cutting down of the symbolic tree meant a temporary break in his rule as a world sovereign.

The whole intent of what God did in Nebuchadnezzar’s case involved rule by the king of God’s own choice. Nebuchadnezzar’s losing his throne for “seven times” must therefore have been symbolic. Of what? Of a temporary break in rulership or sovereignty by God’s arrangement, since, in Nebuchadnezzar’s case, Jehovah God was the one who had permitted him to attain the position of world ruler and thereafter took that position away from him temporarily, as the king himself acknowledged. (Daniel 4:34-37) So what befell Nebuchadnezzar must have been symbolic of the removal of sovereignty from a kingdom of God. Hence, the tree itself represented world domination as regards the earth.

At one time the government that had its seat in Jerusalem was a kingdom of God. The rulers of the royal line of David were said to sit upon “Jehovah’s throne” and were under command to reign according to his law. (1 Chronicles 29:23) Jerusalem was therefore the seat of God’s government in a representative sense.

So when the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, and the land of its dominion was completely desolated, world rulership passed into Gentile hands without any interference from a kingdom representing Jehovah’s sovereignty. The Supreme Sovereign restrained himself from exercising his rulership in this way. This restraining of himself from wielding sovereignty over the earth by a kingdom of his is likened to the banding of the remaining tree stump. At the time of its destruction and total desolation Jerusalem, as the capital city representing the governmental expression of Jehovah’s sovereignty, began to be “trampled on.” That means, therefore, that the “seven times” had their start at the time that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the land of Judah was completely desolated. When did that event occur?

The Bible and secular history can be used to establish 607 B.C.E. as the date for this event.a The evidence is as follows:

Secular historians are in agreement that Babylon fell to Cyrus the Persian in the year 539 B.C.E. This date is substantiated by all available historical records of ancient times. The Bible reveals that in his first year of rule, Cyrus issued a decree permitting the exiled Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. There being first the brief rule of Darius the Mede over Babylon, Cyrus’ first year of rule toward Babylon evidently extended from 538 to 537 B.C.E. (Daniel 5:30, 31) As considerable distance in traveling was involved, it must have been by the “seventh month” of 537 B.C.E. (rather than 538 B.C.E.) that the Israelites were back in their cities, ending the desolation of Jerusalem and the land of Judah. (Ezra 3:1, 6) Nevertheless, they remained under Gentile domination, and therefore spoke of themselves as ‘slaves upon their own land.’​—Nehemiah 9:36, 37.

The Bible book of Second Chronicles (36:19-21) shows that a period of seventy years passed from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of its domain until the restoration. It says:

“He [Nebuchadnezzar] proceeded to burn the house of the true God and pull down the wall of Jerusalem; and all its dwelling towers they burned with fire and also all its desirable articles, so as to cause ruin. Furthermore, he carried off those remaining from the sword captive to Babylon, and they came to be servants to him and his sons until the royalty of Persia began to reign; to fulfill Jehovah’s word by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days of lying desolated it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.”

Counting back seventy years from the time the Israelites arrived back in their cities, that is, in 537 B.C.E., brings us to 607 B.C.E. It was in that year, therefore, that Jerusalem, the seat of God’s government in a representative sense, began to be trampled on by Gentile nations.