Wasn't the return from Babylon the fulfillment?

The short answer Settled

It fulfilled Jeremiah's promise, not Amos's. Scripture says the return under Cyrus kept Jeremiah's word about seventy years. But Amos promised a planting from which Israel would never again be pulled up, and after the return Jesus foretold another captivity from Jerusalem. He also gave Jerusalem's trampling a limit: "until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."

A promise kept, and certified

Jeremiah told the exiles in Babylon, "After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place" (Jeremiah 29:10). He added, "I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations" (Jeremiah 29:14).

Scripture then reports that word kept, and names Jeremiah while doing it. Cyrus made his decree "that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled" (Ezra 1:1; 2 Chronicles 36:22), and let God's people go up to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:3). Daniel read Jeremiah and counted the same term: "seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem" (Daniel 9:2). The return is real, and Scripture itself says so.

A planting not yet reached

Amos promised something with a different endpoint: "I will plant them in their land, And no longer shall they be pulled up From the land I have given them" (Amos 9:15).

After the return under Cyrus, Jesus said, "when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near" (Luke 21:20), and that its people would "be led away captive into all nations" (Luke 21:24). A people who would again be led away captive had not yet received a planting from which they would never be pulled up. Jeremiah's promise was kept. Amos's was not yet reached.

Until the times of the Gentiles

Jesus did not describe that later judgment as permanent. "Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). The "until" limits the trampling of Jerusalem that it directly follows. The verse does not define "the times of the Gentiles" or say what comes right after them, but it gives the trampling an end rather than leaving it without one.

The usual objection

The objection says the return from Babylon was the restoration the prophets promised, so Israel's promises about the land were used up then. Nothing more is owed to Israel in the land, and Jerusalem's later ruin under Gentile rule is its final state.

The return from Babylon must stand at full strength; Scripture certifies it in Jeremiah's name. But it cannot be Amos's permanent planting, because Jesus foretold another captivity after it. And Jesus gave Jerusalem's trampling a stated limit.

The words behind it