Jeffro
Jeremiah does not say a lot of things and one thing he does not say is that the seventy years was a period of Babylonian domination, he says only that Judah would serve Babylon for seventy years and in that same context he describes the desolation of the land. This can only mean that the exile and servitude to Babylon was commensurate with the seventy years. His statement that the land would be a desolation with total silence can only mean that along with all of his other curses that the land would be without an inhabitant.
You argue that because in his 52nd chapter he refers to the captivity of Jews in verse 30 numbering 745 souls but this does not prove that the Judah was inhabited during the seventy years. Jeremiah does not say where the exiles came from but only describes their nationality so they could have come from territories or surrounding nations outside of Judah. Your argument therefore fails.
All that happened in 539 was that the Babylonian World Power ceased but the punishement as described by Jeremiah was not a fall from grace or a city conquered but a desolation of Babylon and the land of Chaldee which began after the seventy years was fulfilled in 537.The calling to account of the king of Babylon and that nation ...land of the Chaldees is a composite oracle which Jeremiah described as becoming a desolation to times indefinite. These are not my words but the direct statement of Scripture which you choose to ignore in order to support your illusory domination hypothesis and to uphold your flawed chronology which has been rejected by celebrated WT scholars for decades.
Your interpretation is a subversion of clear biblical texts and secular history which only serves the interests of people who reject the fulfillment of prophecy.
Yes chorbah does mean a desolation and I am not saying that it means a 'depopulation' but the use of the word 'desolation' or 'devastation' can easily suggest a depopulation. Further, because the word chorbah has a limited range of meaning, Jeremiah expanded the term by describing chorbah as without an inhabitant. Therefore, the context of Jeremiah's use of chorbah can only mean total depopulation of the land. Further, it is only in very recent times that scholars are having a new look at this period having to revise their opinions about the state of Judah during the exile. It would s come as no surprise that scholars will admit to the biblical fact that the land was devastated and depopulated as Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezra describe.
The judgement oracle as set forth in the remainder of Jeremiah was varaiably fulfilled and does not mean that each of those nations experienced both a desolation and depoulation for seventy years because this specific judgement was only applicable to Judah. Those other nations did receive in full their respective judgements as was the case of the conqueror Babylon.
Whether you choose to reply to my postings either now or in the future is of little consequence because I have won the debate on chronology because it is firmly based on the truthful Word of God and not the lies, deceit and false stories of the higher critics and the apostates.
scholar JW