MeanMrMustard, to me the grammar of the sentence of "This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years" allows for the interpretation that Jerusalem (and the kingdom of Judah) will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. To me it is clear that the verse is saying Judah and the listed gentile nations will serve the king of Babylon for 70 years (even if the desolation of Jerusalem was not proclaimed to last for 70 years).
MeanMrMustard, scholar, Jeffro, and others please note the following.
A number of Christian commentaries also have that interpretation. For example consider the Christian commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown (first published in 1871 - interestingly that is 2 years after the year Russell listened to a sermon by Second Adventist [Advent Christian Church] Jonas Wendell, and 5 years before the year that Russell first met Second Adventist Nelson H. Barbour). I own copy of its Revised Edition of 1961 (my copy was printed in 1967). The commentary can be read online at https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/jfb/jeremiah-25.html . The wording of it for Jeremiah 25:11 from that source says the following.
"11. seventy years— ( :-). [Note: Though the online source says "-- ( :-)" my hardcover printed book of the commentary says "--(Ch. 27;7)."] The exact number of years of Sabbaths in four hundred
ninety years, the period from Saul to the Babylonian captivity;
righteous retribution for their violation of the Sabbath (Leviticus 26:34;
Leviticus 26:35; 2 Chronicles 36:21).
The seventy years probably begin from the fourth year of Jehoiakim,
when Jerusalem was first captured, and many captives, as well as the
treasures of the temple, were carried away; they end with the first
year of Cyrus, who, on taking Babylon, issued an edict for the
restoration of the Jews (Ezra 1:1).
Daniel's seventy prophetic weeks are based on the seventy
years of the captivity (compare Daniel 9:2;
Daniel 9:24)."
Regarding verse 18 the commentary says the following.
'18. Jerusalem—put first: for
"judgment begins at the house of God"; they being most
guilty whose religious privileges are greatest ( :-).
kings—Jehoiakim,
Jeconiah, and Zedekiah.
as it is this day—The
accomplishment of the curse had already begun under Jehoiakim. This
clause, however, may have been inserted by Jeremiah at his final
revision of his prophecies in Egypt.'
Note that the commentary references Daniel 9:2;
Daniel 9:24. The commentary (as posted online at https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/jfb/daniel-9.html ) says the following about Daniel 9:1-2.
"1. first year of Darius—Cyaxares
II, in whose name Cyrus, his nephew, son-in-law, and successor, took
Babylon, 538 B.C. The date
of this chapter is therefore 537 B.C.,
a year before Cyrus permitted the Jews to return from exile, and
sixty-nine years after Daniel had been carried captive at the
beginning of the captivity, 606 B.C.
son of Ahasuerus—called
Astyages by XENOPHON.
Ahasuerus was a name common to many of the kings of Medo-Persia.
made king—The phrase
implies that Darius owed the kingdom not to his own prowess, but to
that of another, namely, Cyrus.
2. understood by books—rather,
"letters," that is, Jeremiah's letter ( :-) to the captives in Babylon; also Jeremiah 25:11;
Jeremiah 25:12; compare 2 Chronicles 36:21;
Jeremiah 30:18; Jeremiah 31:38.
God's promises are the ground on which we should, like Daniel, rest
sure hope; not so as to make our prayers needless, but rather to
encourage them."
The commentary says the following for Daniel 9:24.
'24. Seventy weeks—namely, of
years; literally, "Seventy sevens"; seventy heptads or
hebdomads; four hundred ninety years; expressed in a form of
"concealed definiteness" [HENGSTENBERG],
a usual way with the prophets. The Babylonian captivity is a turning
point in the history of the kingdom of God. It terminated the free
Old Testament theocracy. Up to that time Israel, though oppressed at
times, was; as a rule, free. From the Babylonian captivity the
theocracy never recovered its full freedom down to its entire
suspension by Rome; and this period of Israel's subjection to the
Gentiles is to continue till the millennium ( :-), when Israel shall be restored as head of the New
Testament theocracy, which will embrace the whole earth. The free
theocracy ceased in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, and the fourth
of Jehoiakim; the year of the world 3338, the point at which the
seventy years of the captivity begin. Heretofore Israel had a right,
if subjugated by a foreign king, to shake off the yoke (Judges 4:1-5;
2 Kings 18:7) as an unlawful one, at
the first opportunity. But the prophets (2 Kings 18:7- :) declared it to be God's will that they should
submit to Babylon. Hence every effort of Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and
Zedekiah to rebel was vain. The period of the world times, and of
Israel's depression, from the Babylonian captivity to the millennium,
though abounding more in afflictions (for example, the two
destructions of Jerusalem, Antiochus' persecution, and those which
Christians suffered), contains all that was good in the preceding
ones, summed up in Christ, but in a way visible only to the eye of
faith. Since He came as a servant, He chose for His appearing the
period darkest of all as to His people's temporal state. Always fresh
persecutors have been rising, whose end is destruction, and so it
shall be with the last enemy, Antichrist. As the Davidic epoch is the
point of the covenant-people's highest glory, so the captivity is
that of their lowest humiliation. Accordingly, the people's
sufferings are reflected in the picture of the suffering Messiah. He
is no longer represented as the theocratic King, the Antitype of
David, but as the Servant of God and Son of man; at the same time the
cross being the way to glory (compare Daniel 9:1-27;
Daniel 2:34; Daniel 2:35;
Daniel 2:44; Daniel 12:7).
In the second and seventh chapters, Christ's first coming is not
noticed, for Daniel's object was to prophesy to his nation as to the
whole period from the destruction to the re-establishment of Israel;
but this ninth chapter minutely predicts Christ's first coming, and
its effects on the covenant people. The seventy weeks date
thirteen years before the rebuilding of Jerusalem; for then the
re-establishment of the theocracy began, namely, at the return of
Ezra to Jerusalem, 457 B.C.
So Jeremiah's seventy years of the captivity begin 606 B.C.,
eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem, for then Judah
ceased to exist as an independent theocracy, having fallen under the
sway of Babylon. Two periods are marked in Ezra: (1) The return from
the captivity under Jeshua and Zerubbabel, and rebuilding of the
temple, which was the first anxiety of the theocratic nation.
(2) The return of Ezra (regarded by the Jews as a second Moses) from
Persia to Jerusalem, the restoration of the city, the nationality,
and the law. Artaxerxes, in the seventh year of his reign,
gave him the commission which virtually includes permission to
rebuild the city, afterwards confirmed to, and carried out by,
Nehemiah in the twentieth year (Ezra 9:9;
Ezra 7:11 Ezra 7:11- :, "from the going forth of the commandment to build
Jerusalem," proves that the second of the two periods is
referred to. The words in Daniel 9:24
are not, "are determined upon the holy city," but "upon
thy people and thy holy city"; thus the restoration of the
religious national polity and the law (the inner work
fulfilled by Ezra the priest), and the rebuilding of the houses
and walls (the outer work of Nehemiah, the governor), are both
included in Daniel 9:25, "restore
and build Jerusalem." "Jerusalem" represents both the
city, the body, and the congregation, the soul of the state. Compare
Psalms 46:1-11; Psalms 48:1-14;
Psalms 87:1-7. The
starting-point of the seventy weeks dated from eighty-one years after
Daniel received the prophecy: the object being not to fix for him
definitely the time, but for the Church: the prophecy taught him
that the Messianic redemption, which he thought near, was separated
from him by at least a half millennium. ....'
Notice that the commentary uses the date of 606 B.C. [I have also seen other commentaries use that date] - the same date that Barbour used and that initially Russell used (before changing it to 607 B.C.), but that the commentary uses it as the year of the beginning of the servitude (of Jerusalem and Judah, and its kings, and some others, including Daniel) instead of as the year of the beginning of the desolation of Jerusalem. This might give the WT a way out regarding 1914 which would allow them to accept that Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BCE (or 588 BCE or 586 BCE), for it would allow them to keep the 1914 date (or adjust it slightly, such as to 1915 [a date which in some editions of Studies of Studies in the Scriptures Russell said was a possibility] or to 1913) and also keep the 607 BCE date (or return to their earlier 606 BCE date), but redefine what the 607 (or 606) BCE date refers to.
In some of my prior posts (which I made before reading the above quoted sections of the above commentary) I wrote of my interpretation of the beginning of the servitude (instead of the desolation) of the kingdom headquartered in Jerusalem as possibly the start of the 70 years, according to Jeremiah chapter 25. That also makes sense as the beginning of the Gentile Times and the beginning of the trampling of the nations upon Judah and Jerusalem.
