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344 Not only was Babylon a tool in the hands of Yahweh— the specific king, Nebuchadnezzar, was called by Yahweh we nee et "my servant"! The prophecy of the end of the Judean kingdom and the fall of Jerusalem, as we historically know, came true in the year 587 B.c. But even when that Oracle of Punishment was pronounced, the ensuing events were also foretold: And it shall come to pass, when seventy years shall be completed —this is the word of Yahweh— I will call to account the king of Babylon and the land and the people of Chaldea, and will put them to everlasting desolation. Foreseeing Babylon's bitter end when that nation was just beginning its ascendancy, the Prophet Isaiah put it thus: "Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory and pride of the Chaldeans, shall be overthrown as the upheavaling by Elohim af O.An 2A Babylon, as predicted, fell before the onslaught of a new power from the east, that of the Achaemenid Persians, under the leadership of their king Cyrus, in 539 B.C. Babylonian records suggest that the city's fall was made possible by the falling out between the last Babylonian king, Nabuna'id, and the god Marduk; according to the annals of Cyrus, as he captured the city and its sacred precinct and entered the inner sanctum, Marduk extended his hands to him and he, Cyrus, "grabbed the extended hands of the god." But if Cyrus thought that by that he had obtained the bless- ing of the God Most High, he was wrong, the Prophets said, for in fact he was only carrying out the grand design of "Yahweh, the one and only God." Calling Cyrus "My cho- sen shepherd" and "My anointed," Yahweh thus pronounced to Cyrus through His spokesman Isaiah (chapter 45): DIVINE ENCOUNTERS This whole land shall be desolate and in ruins, and these nations shall serve the king of Db Ce te ee Babylon for seventy years. of Sodom and Gomorrah."