In Jeremiah 25:11 are the seventy years literal?

Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars

Jeremiah 25:11 KJV

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

Were the seventy years of serving Babylon a duration of time or were they literal calendar 12-13 month years (the Jewish leap year having 13 months)? Were leap years considered in those seventy years?

To explain this question a bit more, a year would not always be seen as a duration of time, such as hours and minutes, but rather a revolution of time, meaning everything repeats – like the seasons, the harvest etc. So if those seventy years prophesied in Jeremiah weren’t seen as a duration of time, then leap years or seasons would have to be considered and if that’s the case, why would God make such an fuzzy timeline for the Jews in Babylon? It would’ve been difficult to determine when the seventy years began and when they would end.