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wider, higher, deeper. It would embrace the brotherhood of man; it would reach up to
heaven; it would root in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
But over all the land would be desolateness and stillness. Yet was it a "stillness unto
God." The land was keeping long-neglected silent Sabbath unto God' ten times, "to fulfill
three-score and ten years."* It was just about seventy years** after the battle of
Carchemish, which really decided the fate of Palestine and its subjection to Babylon, that,
like the priests' silver trumpets at morn in the Temple, the voice of Cyrus announced the
dawn of morning after the long night of exile, and summoned the wanderers from all
lands to the threshold of their sanctuary (2 Chronicles 36:21-23). Again is the land
keeping Sabbath.
- The reference in 2 Chronicles 36:21 is to Jeremiah 25:11, 12, and Leviticus 26:34, 35.
But it is not necessary to suppose that this seventy years Sabbath refers to an exact
previous period of 490 years, during which the observance of Sabbatic years had been
neglected.
** The time from the deportation of the last remnant to the decree of Cyrus was about
fifty years.
And again is it "stillness unto God," till His Voice shall waken land and people, Whose
are land and people, dominion and peace: till He shall come Who is alike the goal and the
fulfillment of all past history and prophecy "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory
of Thy people Israel."
--- end of volume 7 ---
(^)