Though the completed Jewish exile lasted only 50 years their deportation began 20 years earlier thus fulfilling the 70 years of captivity. In Jeremiah 29:10 the very familiar verses of Jeremiah 29:11-14 are first given the context “For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.”
It is after this that the Lord continues with what we all know in verses 11-14 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.”
In October of 539 BC Cyrus the Persian (who was actually an Elamite) issues a decree allowing the Jews to return to the land of promise to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:1).
Now all of this was foretold by Isaiah 200 years earlier as recorded for us in 44:28 as God even mentions his name saying, “Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd, And he shall perform all My pleasure, Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,” And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.”
With a total population of around 3 million in captivity only just under 50,000 decided to travel the 900 miles back to Jerusalem most of the nation chose rather to stay in captivity and bondage as they had become prosperous.
Let that sink in dear saint: What captivity to the Babylonians didn’t accomplish the prosperity of the Persians did. Oh dear one we often have more bondage in our seeming blessings than we do in our seeming poverty.