What two things happened to the Jews during the 70 years in Babylon?
During the 70 years in Babylon, the Jews were cured once and for all of idolatry and discovered an acumen for business. They would no longer be idolaters, though they might be agnostic or atheistic, and they became tremendous business people, learning from Babylon, the source of banking.
Les teaches that two things happened to the Jew during those 70 years in Babylon. Number one, they were cured once and for all of idolatry. A Jew may be anything but orthodox, but he will never be in idolatry; you do not find a Jew worshiping Oriental religions. They may be agnostic or claim to be atheists, but they are not idolaters. The second thing is that they found out they had an acumen for business. That is where they learned it. In Babylon they became tremendous business people. Babylon was the beginning, the source of our whole system of banking. Les also notes that when he gets to Daniel chapter 2, the various empires in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream image are consummated with the second coming of Christ, and remnants or residues of those previous empires—Babylonian, Mede-Persian, Greek, Roman, and revived Roman—will have residues with us today.