After the destruction of Jerusalem and the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. The Jews were taken captive and dispersed throughout Europe and Asia; they left the Promised Land fearing further for their lives. It was a dark time in the history of the Jews. Yet, where ever they lived, they never forgot their roots or the promise that God had made to their forefathers to make them a great Nation. The land of Israel itself became a barren wasteland, not fit for humans or animals. As noted by Mark Twain, Israel became a desolate, dry and arid place, where trees were not seen for miles. The land and the people were as one, as long as they were obedient to God, they would flourish. Disobedience brought about despair and denial.

Israel did not repent of its sin at the end of the 70 years of Babylonian captivity. Some of Jews did return to the Promised Land, but the majority simply settled in the Persian Empire (Iran-Iraq). So how long until God would regather the Jews  and restore them back as the Nation of Israel? The solution to the mystery is found in Leviticus 26. "'If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over." Leviticus 26:18 In other words, if Israel did not repent, the punishment promised would be multiplied by seven times.

There was a prophet of God named Ezekiel, like Daniel, he too was captured and carried off to Babylon. He was there for about 20 years and like Daniel he also knew the prophecies of Jeremiah that the captivity in Babylon would last 70 years. The Lord appeared to Ezekiel and gave him this vision, "Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel. "Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel. "After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. Ezekiel 4:3-6

So, let's see, that's 390 years for the house of Israel and 40 years for the house of Judah. That's 430 years, but we have to subtract the 70 years that Israel had served during the Babylonian captivity. So now Israel owed God 360 years of punishment, multiplied seven times: 360 years x 7 = 2,520 biblical years of 360 days each.  So, when did the 2,520 year punishment begin? From the Bible and other historical sources, including Flavius Josephus, the end of the Babylonian captivity occurred in the spring of 536 B.C. This date will be our starting point.

2,520 biblical years x 360 = 907,200 days. Converting this figure into our calendar year of 365.25 days and dividing into 907,200 days we reach a total of 2,483.8 calendar years. (In these calculations we must keep in mind that there is only one year between 1 B.C. and A.D. 1). Therefore, the end of Israel's worldwide captivity would occur after a total of 2483.8 years had elapsed from the spring of 536 B.C.