Seventy Years or Seven Generations? Baruch 6:3 Examined

One of the supposed blaring errors in the Apocrypha Protestants bring up is how Baruch 6:3 seems to date the Babylonian captivity to a lot longer than Jeremiah's seventy years. As Christian apologist Matt Slick writes against the Apocrypha,

Baruch 6:2 says the Jews would serve in Babylon for seven generations where Jer. 25:11 says it was for 70 years.

(Slick)

Unless a generation is only ten years long (as some Catholics have weakly argued ["Baruch 6"], and a notion the Bible never elsewhere supports), this would seem to pose a severe problem for the book of Baruch. But as always, the critics of the complete 1611 Holy Bible have overlooked the facts that resolve the supposed contradiction.

Let's first look at the relevant scripture passages:

So when ye be come unto Babylon, ye shall remain there many years, and for a long season, namely, seven generations: and after that I will bring you away peaceably from thence.

Baruch 6:3 A.V. 1611 (PCE 1900)

And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

Jeremiah 25:11 A.V. 1611 (PCE 1900)

The solution to the supposed contradiction is found in the Mosaic Law about the sabbaths of the land.

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD.

3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

5 That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.

6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee,

7 And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.

Leviticus 25:1-7 A.V. 1611 (PCE 1900)

Every seven years, the Jews were to let farmland rest from tilling and working it, which is called "a sabbath of rest unto the land." If the Jews failed to keep the land sabbaths, then God promised to bring them into captivity, with each year of captivity representing each land-sabbath cycle they failed to keep.

33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

Leviticus 26:33-35 A.V. 1611 (PCE 1900)

So each year the Jews would spend in captivity would stand for each seventh year they didn't allow the land to rest according to the commandment of God. The Bible later tells us that the Babylonian captivity, in particular, was to be dated according to this law.

20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

2 Chronicles 36:20-21 A.V. 1611 (PCE 1900)

With this information in mind, if the Jews spent seventy years in captivity to the Babylonians, then they would need to have neglected seventy land-sabbath cycles (seven years each). Seventy years of captivity times seven years for a land sabbath equals four-hundred ninety years the Jews didn't keep the sabbaths of the land. To tie this back into Baruch 6:3's "seven generations," a Biblical generation, according to Psalm 90:10, is "threescore years and ten" (or seventy years). So if the Jews failed to keep the land sabbath for 490 years, and a generation is 70 years, then the Jews failed to keep the sabbath of the land for seven generations (490 divided by 70 is 7).

What did Baruch 6:3 say again? It said that the Jews would "remain" in Babylon "many years" (those are the seventy years preached by Jeremiah), "and for a long season" ("for," meaning, "because" of [e.g., Matthew 2:18]), "namely, seven generations" (the time the Jews' failed to keep the sabbath of the land, 490 years). The "seven generations" then are not the time the Jews were in captivity but the time they failed to keep the land sabbath, leading to their captivity in Babylon for seventy years. The Protestant apologists against the Apocrypha seem to have forgotten about the land sabbath, which fully resolves the alleged problem with Baruch 6:3. The King James Bible is always right, including the Apocrypha.

Works Cited

“Baruch 6.” Haydock Commentary Online, https://haydockcommentary.com/baruch-6. Accessed on 6 Nov. 2022.

Slick, Matt. “Errors in the Apocrypha.” CARM, 17 Feb. 2018, https://carm.org/roman-catholicism/errors-in-the-apocrypha. Accessed on 6 Nov. 2022.