Jerusalem Destroyed - Jerusalem Rebuilt

The following description of the events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian captivity and the rebuilding of Jerusalem was written by President George Albert Smith:

Then there is the instance where Jeremiah prophesied that Jerusalem would be overthrown and her people remain in bondage for seventy years. This was to be accomplished by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. In due time Jerusalem with its beautiful temple was burned. Her princes, nobles, artisans and many of her people were carried as prisoners to Babylon along with the sacred vessels from the temple.

One hundred and forty years before Cyrus the Great was born the prophet Isaiah predicted his birth and announced his name and said that he should overthrow Babylon; also that he would rebuild Jerusalem, notwithstanding the fact that he was alien to all the interests of the Jews.

When Cyrus was about fifty years of age, after subduing many peoples and small nations, he appeared with his army before Babylon, the then greatest of all cities, with its impregnable walls, 91 meters high, and its mighty gates of iron and brass. Instead of attacking the walls he diverted the Euphrates River that flowed through the city and used the channel under the walls by which to enter Babylon. He captured the city without difficulty while Belshazzar with his courtiers were drinking themselves drunk and desecrating the sacred vessels of the house of the Lord which his father Nebuchadnezzar had brought from Jerusalem.

When in the city Cyrus found the Hebrew prophet Daniel, who had already interpreted the handwriting on the wall, having informed Belshazzar that he had been “weighed in the balance and found wanting.” (See Dan. 5:27). Having access to the Jewish records Cyrus learned that the God of Israel had decreed that he was to rebuild Jerusalem. He promptly issued a proclamation to the Jews to return to Jerusalem and for the nations to assist them in rebuilding the city and the temple. This was accomplished exactly seventy years after Jerusalem was destroyed, thus fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy uttered more than one hundred years before.

The destruction of Babylon is another case in point. When Babylon was in the height of her glory Isaiah prophesied that it should be destroyed, “that it should never be inhabited, neither dwelt in from generation to generation.” It was completely destroyed and inundated by the flood waters of the river. Now after more than two thousand years the city that at that time was the greatest under heaven is still a heap of ruins.

George Albert Smith, "Origin of Man and Prophecy Fulfilled", Liahona, Jan. 1980, 39