For this reason Jehovah decreed that the Jews represented by their capital city Jerusalem would be dominated by Gentile nations and ruled over by their Satan-empowered governments from 607 B.C. forward.

Long ago the word “Christ” or “Messiah” used to apply to kings who reigned in Jerusalem down to the year 607 Before Our Common Era.

In keeping with its title Chapter 4 has presented “foregleams of God’s kingdom,” calling attention to how King-Priest Melchizedek of Salem and Kings David and Solomon of Jerusalem were prophetic prefigurements of Jehovah’s anointed Ruler of the coming Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ.

Their attention has focused on Jerusalem of the Middle East, under Turkish control for centuries, then passing under British control in 1917, and now being under Israeli control.

They fail to take note that God’s interest has shifted from earthly Jerusalem of the days of Jesus Christ and his apostles to the “heavenly Jerusalem,” which is the city that the Holy Bible now calls the “city of the living God.” (Heb. 12:22)

Jews only look back to when they had a line of kings ruling in Jerusalem, a line running from King David and sitting upon the throne till Jerusalem was destroyed for the first time in the year 607 before our Common Era.

Among such typical happenings were the events that befell the nation in 607 B.C. and A.D. 70.

It was Babylon that desolated Jerusalem and Judah in 607 B.C., yet after Jerusalem had ceased to exist and when Babylon’s ruins lay buried under mounds of accumulated dust and dirt the Bible speaks of future activities of Jerusalem and Babylon, which shows these places were typical.

12. As a student of the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus knew that the Gentile Times began when and with what event, and so now what question arises as to those “times”?

¹² As a student of the inspired Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus the Messiah knew that the Gentile Times had begun before the Romans occupied Jerusalem and installed governors there.

He knew that they had begun when Jerusalem was razed to the ground for the first time in the year 607 before our Common Era.

After that, on the 10th day of the 10th lunar month (Tebeth) of that same year, Emperor Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian military forces opened up their siege of Jerusalem. (2 Ki. 25:1, 2)

Eighteen months dragged on till Jerusalem fell, that is, on the 9th day of the 4th lunar month (Tammuz), in 607 B.C.E.

The smaller part continued as a kingdom, with capital at Jerusalem, under the dynasty of King David’s family, more than a century longer, until 607 B.C.E.

13. For how long did God let the Israelites experiment with their human king, and what now about the “throne of Jehovah” at Jerusalem?

¹³ God mercifully allowed them a little more than five hundred years to experiment with their human king, who sat on the so-called “throne of Jehovah,” at Jerusalem.

Finally God himself, who had yielded to their asking for a human king, became so provoked with the nation and their royal government that he overturned the government in the year 607 B.C. by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

Their last human king was taken away in divine wrath when Babylon’s armies destroyed Jerusalem in 607 B.C.

Cemeteries from the First Temple period, that is, before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E., have been another source of information.

 6. (a) What did Jerusalem come to symbolize? (b) What judgment was executed on Jerusalem, and why?

⁶ Appropriately, Jerusalem and Mount Zion came to symbolize the nation of Israel and its people.

That complete desolation of the land of Judah and Jerusalem for seven decades began in the autumn month of Tishri of 607 B.C.E.

16. From what former experience of Jerusalem could those disciples reason that her coming destruction meant the end of an era?

¹⁶ Total destruction to the holy city of Jerusalem and her temple!

That would be the second time that Jerusalem and her temple were destroyed by pagan armies.

The “fast of the fourth month” apparently commemorated the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls by the Babylonians.

This occurred on Tammuz 9, 607 B.C.E.

King Jehoiachin, the nineteenth ruler in the direct line from King David, became king but reigned only three months and ten days in Jerusalem.

His uncle, Zedekiah, was put on the throne of Jerusalem and reigned eleven years.

It began with the downfall of Jerusalem in the year 607 B.C.E.

This meant that Jeremiah’s seventy years of desolation for Jerusalem ran back from 536 B.C. to 606 B.C., instead of more correctly as now known from 537 B.C. to 607 B.C. (2 Chron. 36:21; Jer. 25:12; Zec. 1:12)

 9. In what way did Jehovah fulfill his warning against Jerusalem?

⁹ In 607 B.C.E., Jehovah fulfilled his warning.

Having permitted the Babylonian armies to come against Jerusalem, he allowed them to destroy both the city and the temple. (Lamentations 2:7-9)

When, in 607 B.C.E., Jehovah let Jerusalem be destroyed and the surviving Jews be carried into exile in Babylonia, he did not abolish the Mosaic Law covenant by which twelve-tribe Israel had entered into marriage relationship with him as Heavenly Husband.