Chapter One
The Destruction of Jerusalem
“If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”
Luke 19:42-44.
From the crest of Olivet, Jesus looked upon Jerusalem.
Fair and peaceful was the scene spread out before Him. It
was the season of the Passover, and from all lands the children
of Jacob had gathered there to celebrate the great
national festival. In the midst of gardens and vineyards, and
green slopes studded with pilgrims’ tents, rose the terraced
hills, the stately palaces, and massive bulwarks of Israel’s
capital. The daughter of Zion seemed in her pride to say, I
sit a queen and shall see no sorrow; as lovely then, and deeming
herself as secure in Heaven’s favor, as when, ages before,
the royal minstrel sang: “Beautiful for situation, the joy of
the whole earth, is Mount Zion, . . . the city of the great
King.”
Psalm 48:2. In full view were the magnificent buildings
of the temple. The rays of the setting sun lighted up the
snowy whiteness of its marble walls and gleamed from
golden gate and tower and pinnacle. “The perfection of
beauty” it stood, the pride of the Jewish nation. What child
of Israel could gaze upon the scene without a thrill of joy
and admiration! But far other thoughts occupied the mind
of Jesus. “When He was come near, He beheld the city, and
wept over it.”
Luke 19:41. Amid the universal rejoicing of
the triumphal entry, while palm branches waved, while glad
hosannas awoke the echoes of the hills, and thousands of
voices declared Him king, the world’s Redeemer was
overwhelmed with a sudden and mysterious sorrow. He, the Son
of God, the Promised One of Israel, whose power had
conquered death and called its captives from the grave, was in
tears, not of ordinary grief, but of intense, irrepressible agony.
His tears were not for Himself, though He well knew
whither His feet were tending. Before Him lay Gethsemane,
the scene of His approaching agony. The sheepgate also
was in sight, through which for centuries the victims for
sacrifice had been led, and which was to open for Him when
He should be “brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”
Isaiah
53:7. Not far distant was Calvary, the place of crucifixion.
Upon the path which Christ was soon to tread must fall the
horror of great darkness as He should make His soul an
offering for sin. Yet it was not the contemplation of these
scenes that cast the shadow upon Him in this hour of
gladness. No foreboding of His own superhuman anguish
clouded that unselfish spirit. He wept for the doomed thousands
of Jerusalem—because of the blindness and impenitence
of those whom He came to bless and to save.
The history of more than a thousand years of God’s special
favor and guardian care, manifested to the chosen people,
was open to the eye of Jesus. There was Mount Moriah,
where the son of promise, an unresisting victim, had been
bound to the altar—emblem of the offering of the Son of
God. There the covenant of blessing, the glorious Messianic
promise, had been confirmed to the father of the faithful.
Genesis 22:9, 16-18. There the flames of the sacrifice ascending
to heaven from the threshing floor of Ornan had turned
aside the sword of the destroying angel (1 Chronicles 21)—
fitting symbol of the Saviour’s sacrifice and mediation for
guilty men. Jerusalem had been honored of God above all
the earth. The Lord had “chosen Zion,” He had “desired it
for His habitation.”
Psalm 132:13. There, for ages, holy
prophets had uttered their messages of warning. There priests
had waved their censers, and the cloud of incense, with the
prayers of the worshipers, had ascended before God. There
daily the blood of slain lambs had been offered, pointing
forward to the Lamb of God. There Jehovah had revealed His
presence in the cloud of glory above the mercy seat. There
rested the base of that mystic ladder connecting earth with
heaven (Genesis 28:12;
John 1:51)—that ladder upon which
angels of God descended and ascended, and which opened
to the world the way into the holiest of all. Had Israel as a
nation preserved her allegiance to Heaven, Jerusalem would
have stood forever, the elect of God.
Jeremiah 17:21-25. But
the history of that favored people was a record of backsliding
and rebellion. They had resisted Heaven’s grace, abused their
privileges, and slighted their opportunities.
Although Israel had “mocked the messengers of God, and
despised His words, and misused His prophets” (2Chronicles
36:16), He had still manifested Himself to them, as “the
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant
in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6); notwithstanding
repeated rejections, His mercy had continued its pleadings.
With more than a father’s pitying love for the son of his care,
God had “sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes,
and sending; because He had compassion on His people, and
on His dwelling place.”
2Chronicles 36:15. When remonstrance,
entreaty, and rebuke had failed, He sent to them the
best gift of heaven; nay, He poured out all heaven in that
one Gift.
The Son of God Himself was sent to plead with the
impenitent city. It was Christ that had brought Israel as a
goodly vine out of Egypt.
Psalm 80:8. His own hand had cast
out the heathen before it. He had planted it “in a very fruitful
hill.” His guardian care had hedged it about. His servants
had been sent to nurture it. “What could have been done
more to My vineyard,” He exclaims, “that I have not done
in it?”
Isaiah 5:1-4. Though when He looked that it should
bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes, yet with a
still yearning hope of fruitfulness He came in person to His
vineyard, if haply it might be saved from destruction. He
digged about His vine; He pruned and cherished it. He was
unwearied in His efforts to save this vine of His own planting.
For three years the Lord of light and glory had gone in
and out among His people. He “went about doing good, and
healing all that were oppressed of the devil,” binding up the
brokenhearted, setting at liberty them that were bound,
restoring sight to the blind, causing the lame to walk and
the deaf to hear, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, and
preaching the gospel to the poor.
Acts 10:38;
Luke 4:18;
Matthew 11:5. To all classes alike was addressed the gracious
call: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28.
Though rewarded with evil for good, and hatred for His
love (Psalm 109:5), He had steadfastly pursued His mission
of mercy. Never were those repelled that sought His grace.
A homeless wanderer, reproach and penury His daily lot, He
lived to minister to the needs and lighten the woes of men, to
plead with them to accept the gift of life. The waves of
mercy, beaten back by those stubborn hearts, returned in a
stronger tide of pitying, inexpressible love. But Israel had
turned from her best Friend and only Helper. The pleadings
of His love had been despised, His counsels spurned, His
warnings ridiculed.
The hour of hope and pardon was fast passing; the cup of
God’s long-deferred wrath was almost full. The cloud that
had been gathering through ages of apostasy and rebellion,
now black with woe, was about to burst upon a guilty people;
and He who alone could save them from their impending
fate had been slighted, abused, rejected, and was soon to be
crucified. When Christ should hang upon the cross of
Calvary, Israel’s day as a nation favored and blessed of God
would be ended. The loss of even one soul is a calamity
infinitely outweighing the gains and treasures of a world; but
as Christ looked upon Jerusalem, the doom of a whole city, a
whole nation, was before Him—that city, that nation, which
had once been the chosen of God, His peculiar treasure.
Prophets had wept over the apostasy of Israel and the
terrible desolations by which their sins were visited. Jeremiah
wished that his eyes were a fountain of tears, that he might
weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of his
people, for the Lord’s flock that was carried away captive.
Jeremiah 9:1;
13:17. What, then, was the grief of Him whose
prophetic glance took in, not years, but ages! He beheld the
destroying angel with sword uplifted against the city which
had so long been Jehovah’s dwelling place. From the ridge
of Olivet, the very spot afterward occupied by Titus and his
army, He looked across the valley upon the sacred courts
and porticoes, and with tear-dimmed eyes He saw, in awful
perspective, the walls surrounded by alien hosts. He heard
the tread of armies marshaling for war. He heard the voice
of mothers and children crying for bread in the besieged city.
He saw her holy and beautiful house, her palaces and towers,
given to the flames, and where once they stood, only a heap
of smoldering ruins.
Looking down the ages, He saw the covenant people
scattered in every land, “like wrecks on a desert shore.” In
the temporal retribution about to fall upon her children, He
saw but the first draft from that cup of wrath which at the
final judgment she must drain to its dregs. Divine pity,
yearning love, found utterance in the mournful words: “O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” O that
thou, a nation favored above every other, hadst known the
time of thy visitation, and the things that belong unto thy
peace! I have stayed the angel of justice, I have called thee
to repentance, but in vain. It is not merely servants, delegates,
and prophets, whom thou hast refused and rejected, but the
Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer. If thou art destroyed,
thou alone art responsible. “Ye will not come to Me, that ye
might have life.”
Matthew 23:37;
John 5:40.
Christ saw in Jerusalem a symbol of the world hardened
in unbelief and rebellion, and hastening on to meet the
retributive judgments of God. The woes of a fallen race,
pressing upon His soul, forced from His lips that exceeding
bitter cry. He saw the record of sin traced in human misery,
tears, and blood; His heart was moved with infinite pity for
the afflicted and suffering ones of earth; He yearned to relieve
them all. But even His hand might not turn back the tide
of human woe; few would seek their only Source of help.
He was willing to pour out His soul unto death, to bring
salvation within their reach; but few would come to Him
that they might have life.
The Majesty of heaven in tears! the Son of the infinite
God troubled in spirit, bowed down with anguish! The
scene filled all heaven with wonder. That scene reveals to
us the exceeding sinfulness of sin; it shows how hard a task
it is, even for Infinite Power, to save the guilty from the
consequences of transgressing the law of God. Jesus, looking
down to the last generation, saw the world involved in a
deception similar to that which caused the destruction of
Jerusalem. The great sin of the Jews was their rejection of
Christ; the great sin of the Christian world would be their
rejection of the law of God, the foundation of His government
in heaven and earth. The precepts of Jehovah would
be despised and set at nought. Millions in bondage to sin,
slaves of Satan, doomed to suffer the second death, would
refuse to listen to the words of truth in their day of
visitation. Terrible blindness! strange infatuation!
Two days before the Passover, when Christ had for the
last time departed from the temple, after denouncing the
hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers, He again went out with His
disciples to the Mount of Olives and seated Himself with
them upon the grassy slope overlooking the city. Once more
He gazed upon its walls, its towers, and its palaces. Once
more He beheld the temple in its dazzling splendor, a diadem
of beauty crowning the sacred mount.
A thousand years before, the psalmist had magnified
God’s favor to Israel in making her holy house His dwelling
place: “In Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling
place in Zion.” He “chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount
Zion which He loved. And He built His sanctuary like
high palaces.”
Psalms 76:2;
78:68,69. The first temple had
been erected during the most prosperous period of Israel’s
history. Vast stores of treasure for this purpose had been
collected by King David, and the plans for its construction were
made by divine inspiration.
1Chronicles 28:12,19. Solomon,
the wisest of Israel’s monarchs, had completed the work.
This temple was the most magnificent building which the
world ever saw. Yet the Lord had declared by the prophet
Haggai, concerning the second temple: “The glory of this
latter house shall be greater than of the former.” “I will
shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come:
and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.”
Haggai 2:9,7.
After the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar it
was rebuilt about five hundred years before the birth of
Christ by a people who from a lifelong captivity had returned
to a wasted and almost deserted country. There were then
among them aged men who had seen the glory of Solomon’s
temple, and who wept at the foundation of the new building,
that it must be so inferior to the former. The feeling
that prevailed is forcibly described by the prophet: “Who is
left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and
how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison
of it as nothing?”
Haggai 2:3;
Ezra 3:12. Then was given
the promise that the glory of this latter house should be
greater than that of the former.
But the second temple had not equaled the first in
magnificence; nor was it hallowed by those visible tokens of the
divine presence which pertained to the first temple. There
was no manifestation of supernatural power to mark its
dedication. No cloud of glory was seen to fill the newly erected
sanctuary. No fire from heaven descended to consume the
sacrifice upon its altar. The Shekinah no longer abode
between the cherubim in the most holy place; the ark, the
mercy seat, and the tables of the testimony were not to be
found therein. No voice sounded from heaven to make
known to the inquiring priest the will of Jehovah.
For centuries the Jews had vainly endeavored to show
wherein the promise of God given by Haggai had been fulfilled;
yet pride and unbelief blinded their minds to the true
meaning of the prophet’s words. The second temple was
not honored with the cloud of Jehovah’s glory, but with
the living presence of One in whom dwelt the fullness of the
Godhead bodily—who was God Himself manifest in the
flesh. The “Desire of all nations” had indeed come to His
temple when the Man of Nazareth taught and healed in the
sacred courts. In the presence of Christ, and in this only, did
the second temple exceed the first in glory. But Israel had
put from her the proffered Gift of heaven. With the humble
Teacher who had that day passed out from its golden gate,
the glory had forever departed from the temple. Already
were the Saviour’s words fulfilled: “Your house is left unto
you desolate.”
Matthew 23:38.
The disciples had been filled with awe and wonder at
Christ’s prediction of the overthrow of the temple, and they
desired to understand more fully the meaning of His words.
Wealth, labor, and architectural skill had for more than forty
years been freely expended to enhance its splendors. Herod
the Great had lavished upon it both Roman wealth and Jewish
treasure, and even the emperor of the world had enriched
it with his gifts. Massive blocks of white marble, of almost
fabulous size, forwarded from Rome for this purpose, formed
a part of its structure; and to these the disciples had called
the attention of their Master, saying: “See what manner of stones
and what buildings are here!”
Mark 13:1.
To these words, Jesus made the solemn and startling
reply: “Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
Matthew 24:2.
With the overthrow of Jerusalem the disciples associated
the events of Christ’s personal coming in temporal glory to
take the throne of universal empire, to punish the impenitent
Jews, and to break from off the nation the Roman yoke. The
Lord had told them that He would come the second time.
Hence at the mention of judgments upon Jerusalem, their
minds reverted to that coming; and as they were gathered
about the Saviour upon the Mount of Olives, they asked:
“When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of
Thy coming, and of the end of the world?”
Verse 3.
The future was mercifully veiled from the disciples. Had
they at that time fully comprehend the two awful facts—
the Redeemer’s sufferings and death, and the destruction of
their city and temple—they would have been overwhelmed
with horror. Christ presented before them an outline of the
prominent events to take place before the close of time. His
words were not then fully understood; but their meaning
was to be unfolded as His people should need the instruction
therein given. The prophecy which He uttered was twofold
in its meaning; while foreshadowing the destruction of
Jerusalem, it prefigured also the terrors of the last great day.
Jesus declared to the listening disciples the judgments that
were to fall upon apostate Israel, and especially the retributive
vengeance that would come upon them for their rejection
and crucifixion of the Messiah. Unmistakable signs would
precede the awful climax. The dreaded hour would come
suddenly and swiftly. And the Saviour warned His followers:
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation,
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place,
(whoso readeth, let him understand:) then let them which
be in Judea flee into the mountains.”
Matthew 24:15, 16;
Luke 21:20, 21. When the idolatrous standards of the
Romans should be set up in the holy ground, which extended
some furlongs outside the city walls, then the followers of
Christ were to find safety in flight. When the warning sign
should be seen, those who would escape must make no delay.
Throughout the land of Judea, as well as in Jerusalem itself,
the signal for flight must be immediately obeyed. He who
chanced to be upon the housetop must not go down into his
house, even to save his most valued treasures. Those who
were working in the fields or vineyards must not take time
to return for the outer garment laid aside while they should
be toiling in the heat of the day. They must not hesitate a
moment, lest they be involved in the general destruction.
In the reign of Herod, Jerusalem had not only been greatly
beautified, but by the erection of towers, walls, and fortresses,
adding to the natural strength of its situation, it had been
rendered apparently impregnable. He who would at this
time have foretold publicly its destruction, would, like Noah
in his day, have been called a crazed alarmist. But Christ had
said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall
not pass away.”
Matthew 24:35. Because of her sins, wrath
had been denounced against Jerusalem, and her stubborn
unbelief rendered her doom certain.
The Lord had declared by the prophet Micah: “Hear this,
I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the
house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof
teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet
will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among
us? none evil can come upon us.”
Micah 3:9-11.
These words faithfully described the corrupt and
self-righteous inhabitants of Jerusalem. While claiming to
observe rigidly the precepts of God’s law, they were
transgressing all its principles. They hated Christ because His
purity and holiness revealed their iniquity; and they accused
Him of being the cause of all the troubles which had come
upon them in consequence of their sins. Though they knew
Him to be sinless, they had declared that His death was
necessary to their safety as a nation. “If we let Him thus
alone,” said the Jewish leaders, “all men will believe on Him:
and the Romans shall come and take away both our place
and nation.”
John 11:48. If Christ were sacrificed, they
might once more become a strong, united people. Thus they
reasoned, and they concurred in the decision of their high
priest, that it would be better for one man to die than for the
whole nation to perish.
Thus the Jewish leaders had built up “Zion with blood,
and Jerusalem with iniquity.”
Micah 3:10. And yet, while
they slew their Saviour because He reproved their sins, such
was their self-righteousness that they regarded themselves as
God’s favored people and expected the Lord to deliver them
from their enemies. “Therefore,” continued the prophet,
“shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem
shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the
high places of the forest.”
Verse 12.
For nearly forty years after the doom of Jerusalem had
been pronounced by Christ Himself, the Lord delayed His
judgments upon the city and the nation. Wonderful was the
long-suffering of God toward the rejectors of His gospel and
the murderers of His Son. The parable of the unfruitful tree
represented God’s dealings with the Jewish nation. The
command had gone forth, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it
the ground?” (Luke 13:7) but divine mercy had spared it
yet a little longer. There were still many among the Jews
who were ignorant of the character and the work of Christ.
And the children had not enjoyed the opportunities or
received the light which their parents had spurned. Through
the preaching of the apostles and their associates, God would
cause light to shine upon them; they would be permitted to
see how prophecy had been fulfilled, not only in the birth
and life of Christ, but in His death and resurrection. The
children were not condemned for the sins of the parents; but
when, with a knowledge of all the light given to their
parents, the children rejected the additional light granted to
themselves, they became partakers of the parents’ sins, and
filled up the measure of their iniquity.
The long-suffering of God toward Jerusalem only
confirmed the Jews in their stubborn impenitence. In their
hatred and cruelty toward the disciples of Jesus they rejected
the last offer of mercy. Then God withdrew His protection
from them and removed His restraining power from Satan
and his angels, and the nation was left to the control of the
leader she had chosen. Her children had spurned the grace
of Christ, which would have enabled them to subdue their
evil impulses, and now these became the conquerors. Satan
aroused the fiercest and most debased passions of the soul.
Men did not reason; they were beyond reason—controlled
by impulse and blind rage. They became satanic in their
cruelty. In the family and in the nation, among the highest
and the lowest classes alike, there was suspicion, envy, hatred,
strife, rebellion, murder. There was no safety anywhere.
Friends and kindred betrayed one another. Parents slew
their children, and children their parents. The rulers of the
people had no power to rule themselves. Uncontrolled
passions made them tyrants. The Jews had accepted false
testimony to condemn the innocent Son of God. Now false
accusations made their own lives uncertain. By their actions
they had long been saying: “Cause the Holy One of Israel to
cease from before us.”
Isaiah 30:11. Now their desire was
granted. The fear of God no longer disturbed them. Satan
was at the head of the nation, and the highest civil and
religious authorities were under his sway.
The leaders of the opposing factions at times united to
plunder and torture their wretched victims, and again they
fell upon each other’s forces and slaughtered without mercy.
Even the sanctity of the temple could not restrain their
horrible ferocity. The worshipers were stricken down before the
altar, and the sanctuary was polluted with the bodies of
the slain. Yet in their blind and blasphemous presumption
the instigators of this hellish work publicly declared that they
had no fear that Jerusalem would be destroyed, for it was
God’s own city. To establish their power more firmly, they
bribed false prophets to proclaim, even while Roman legions
were besieging the temple, that the people were to wait for
deliverance from God. To the last, multitudes held fast to
the belief that the Most High would interpose for the defeat
of their adversaries. But Israel had spurned the divine
protection, and now she had no defense. Unhappy Jerusalem!
rent by internal dissensions, the blood of her children slain
by one another’s hands crimsoning her streets, while alien
armies beat down her fortifications and slew her men of war!
All the predictions given by Christ concerning the
destruction of Jerusalem were fulfilled to the letter. The Jews
experienced the truth of His words of warning: “With what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
Matthew 7:2.
Signs and wonders appeared, foreboding disaster and
doom. In the midst of the night an unnatural light shone
over the temple and the altar. Upon the clouds at sunset
were pictured chariots and men of war gathering for battle.
The priests ministering by night in the sanctuary were
terrified by mysterious sounds; the earth trembled, and a
multitude of voices were heard crying: “Let us depart hence.”
The great eastern gate, which was so heavy that it could
hardly be shut by a score of men, and which was secured by
immense bars of iron fastened deep in the pavement of solid
stone, opened at midnight, without visible agency. —Milman,
The History of the Jews, book 13.
For seven years a man continued to go up and down the
streets of Jerusalem, declaring the woes that were to come
upon the city. By day and by night he chanted the wild
dirge: “A voice from the east! a voice from the west! a voice
from the four winds! a voice against Jerusalem and against
the temple! a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides!
a voice against the whole people!” —Ibid. This strange being
was imprisoned and scourged, but no complaint escaped his
lips. To insult and abuse he answered only: “Woe, woe to
Jerusalem!” “woe, woe to the inhabitants thereof!” His
warning cry ceased not until he was slain in the siege he had foretold.
Not one Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Christ had given His disciples warning, and all who
believed His words watched for the promised sign. “When
ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies,” said Jesus,
“then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let
them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them
which are in the midst of it depart out.”
Luke 21:20, 21.
After the Romans under Cestius had surrounded the city,
they unexpectedly abandoned the siege when everything
seemed favorable for an immediate attack. The besieged,
despairing of successful resistance, were on the point of
surrender, when the Roman general withdrew his forces
without the least apparent reason. But God’s merciful providence
was directing events for the good of His own people.
The promised sign had been given to the waiting Christians,
and now an opportunity was offered for all who would, to
obey the Saviour’s warning. Events were so overruled that
neither Jews nor Romans should hinder the flight of the
Christians. Upon the retreat of Cestius, the Jews, sallying
from Jerusalem, pursued after his retiring army; and while
both forces were thus fully engaged, the Christians had an
opportunity to leave the city. At this time the country also
had been cleared of enemies who might have endeavored to
intercept them. At the time of the siege, the Jews were
assembled at Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and
thus the Christians throughout the land were able to make
their escape unmolested. Without delay they fled to a place
of safety—the city of Pella, in the land of Perea, beyond
Jordan.
The Jewish forces, pursuing after Cestius and his army,
fell upon their rear with such fierceness as to threaten them
with total destruction. It was with great difficulty that the
Romans succeeded in making their retreat. The Jews escaped
almost without loss, and with their spoils returned in
triumph to Jerusalem. Yet this apparent success brought them
only evil. It inspired them with that spirit of stubborn
resistance to the Romans which speedily brought unutterable
woe upon the doomed city.
Terrible were the calamities that fell upon Jerusalem
when the siege was resumed by Titus. The city was invested
at the time of the Passover, when millions of Jews were
assembled within its walls. Their stores of provision, which
if carefully preserved would have supplied the inhabitants
for years, had previously been destroyed through the jealousy
and revenge of the contending factions, and now all the
horrors of starvation were experienced. A measure of wheat
was sold for a talent. So fierce were the pangs of hunger that
men would gnaw the leather of their belts and sandals and
the covering of their shields. Great numbers of the people
would steal out at night to gather wild plants growing
outside the city walls, though many were seized and put to
death with cruel torture, and often those who returned in
safety were robbed of what they had gleaned at so great peril.
The most inhuman tortures were inflicted by those in power,
to force from the want-stricken people the last scanty supplies
which they might have concealed. And these cruelties were
not infrequently practiced by men who were themselves well
fed, and who were merely desirous of laying up a store of
provision for the future.
Thousands perished from famine and pestilence. Natural
affection seemed to have been destroyed. Husbands robbed
their wives, and wives their husbands. Children would be
seen snatching the food from the mouths of their aged
parents. The question of the prophet, “Can a woman forget
her sucking child?” received the answer within the walls of
that doomed city: “The hands of the pitiful women have
sodden their own children: they were their meat in the
destruction of the daughter of my people.”
Isaiah 49:15;
Lamentations 4:10. Again was fulfilled the warning prophecy
given fourteen centuries before: “The tender and delicate
woman among you, which would not adventure to set the
sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness,
her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom,
and toward her son, and toward her daughter, . . . and
toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat
them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness,
wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.”
Deuteronomy 28:56, 57.
The Roman leaders endeavored to strike terror to the
Jews and thus cause them to surrender. Those prisoners who
resisted when taken, were scourged, tortured, and crucified
before the wall of the city. Hundreds were daily put to
death in this manner, and the dreadful work continued until,
along the Valley of Jehoshaphat and at Calvary, crosses were
erected in so great numbers that there was scarcely room to
move among them. So terribly was visited that awful
imprecation uttered before the judgment seat of Pilate: “His blood
be on us, and on our children.”
Matthew 27:25.
Titus would willingly have put an end to the fearful
scene, and thus have spared Jerusalem the full measure of
her doom. He was filled with horror as he saw the bodies
of the dead lying in heaps in the valleys. Like one entranced,
he looked from the crest of Olivet upon the magnificent
temple and gave command that not one stone of it be
touched. Before attempting to gain possession of this stronghold,
he made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to
force him to defile the sacred place with blood. If they would
come forth and fight in any other place, no Roman should
violate the sanctity of the temple. Josephus himself, in a
most eloquent appeal, entreated them to surrender, to save
themselves, their city, and their place of worship. But his
words were answered with bitter curses. Darts were hurled
at him, their last human mediator, as he stood pleading with
them. The Jews had rejected the entreaties of the Son of
God, and now expostulation and entreaty only made them
more determined to resist to the last. In vain were the efforts
of Titus to save the temple; One greater than he had declared
that not one stone was to be left upon another.
The blind obstinacy of the Jewish leaders, and the
detestable crimes perpetrated within the besieged city, excited
the horror and indignation of the Romans, and Titus at last
decided to take the temple by storm. He determined,
however, that if possible it should be saved from destruction.
But his commands were disregarded. After he had retired
to his tent at night, the Jews, sallying from the temple,
attacked the soldiers without. In the struggle, a firebrand was
flung by a soldier through an opening in the porch, and
immediately the cedar-lined chambers about the holy house
were in a blaze. Titus rushed
to the place, followed by his
generals and legionaries, and commanded the soldiers to
quench the flames. His words were unheeded. In their fury
the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the chambers adjoining
the temple, and then with their swords they slaughtered
in great numbers those who had found shelter there. Blood
flowed down the temple steps like water. Thousands upon
thousands of Jews perished. Above the sound of battle, voices
were heard shouting: “Ichabod!” —the glory is departed.
“Titus found it impossible to check the rage of the
soldiery; he entered with his officers, and surveyed the interior
of the sacred edifice. The splendor filled them with wonder;
and as the flames had not yet penetrated to the holy place,
he made a last effort to save it, and springing forth, again
exhorted the soldiers to stay the progress of the conflagration.
The centurion Liberalis endeavored to force obedience
with his staff of office; but even respect for the emperor
gave way to the furious animosity against the Jews, to the
fierce excitement of battle, and to the insatiable hope of
plunder. The soldiers saw everything around them radiant
with gold, which shone dazzlingly in the wild light of
the flames; they supposed that incalculable treasures were
laid up in the sanctuary. A soldier, unperceived, thrust a
lighted torch between the hinges of the door: the whole
building was in flames in an instant. The blinding smoke
and fire forced the officers to retreat, and the noble edifice
was left to its fate.
“It was an appalling spectacle to the Roman—what was
it to the Jew? The whole summit of the hill which
commanded the city, blazed like a volcano. One after another
the buildings fell in, with a tremendous crash, and were
swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The roofs of cedar were
like sheets of flame; the gilded pinnacles shone like spikes
of red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame
and smoke. The neighboring hills were lighted up; and
dark groups of people were seen watching in horrible anxiety
the progress of the destruction: the walls and heights of
the upper city were crowded with faces, some pale with the
agony of despair, others scowling unavailing vengeance.
The shouts of the Roman soldiery as they ran to and fro,
and the howlings of the insurgents who were perishing in
the flames, mingled with the roaring of the conflagration
and the thundering sound of falling timbers. The echoes
of the mountains replied or brought back the shrieks of
the people on the heights; all along the walls resounded
screams and wailings; men who were expiring with famine
rallied their remaining strength to utter a cry of anguish and
desolation.
“The slaughter within was even more dreadful than the
spectacle from without. Men and women, old and young,
insurgents and priests, those who fought and those who
entreated mercy, were hewn down in indiscriminate carnage.
The number of the slain exceeded that of the slayers. The
legionaries had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the
work of extermination.” —Milman, The History of the Jews,
book 16.
After the destruction of the temple, the whole city soon
fell into the hands of the Romans. The leaders of the Jews
forsook their impregnable towers, and Titus found them
solitary. He gazed upon them with amazement, and
declared that God had given them into his hands; for no
engines, however powerful, could have prevailed against
those stupendous battlements. Both the city and the temple
were razed to their foundations, and the ground upon which
the holy house had stood was “plowed like a field.”
Jeremiah
26:18. In the siege and the slaughter that followed, more
than a million of the people perished; the survivors were
carried away as captives, sold as slaves, dragged to Rome to
grace the conqueror’s triumph, thrown to wild beasts in the
amphitheaters, or scattered as homeless wanderers throughout
the earth.
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for
themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction
that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed
them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest
which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: “O
Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;” “for thou hast fallen by
thine iniquity.”
Hosea 13:9;
14:1. Their sufferings are often
represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct
decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to
conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love
and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be
withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them
according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the
destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan’s
vindictive power over those who yield to his control.
We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the
peace and protection which we enjoy. It is the restraining
power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully
under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful
have great reason for gratitude for God’s mercy and
long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power
of the evil one. But when men pass the limits of divine
forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand
toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against
transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to
themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of
light rejected, every warning despised or unheeded, every
passion indulged, every transgression of the law of God, is
a seed sown which yields its unfailing harvest. The Spirit
of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the
sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil
passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and
enmity of Satan. The destruction of Jerusalem is a fearful
and solemn warning to all who are trifling with the offers
of divine grace and resisting the pleadings of divine mercy.
Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God’s
hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall
upon the guilty.
The Saviour’s prophecy concerning the visitation of
judgments upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment, of
which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow. In the
fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world
that has rejected God’s mercy and trampled upon His law.
Dark are the records of human misery that earth has
witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart sickens,
and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have
been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. But a
scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future.
The records of the past, —the long procession of tumults,
conflicts, and revolutions, the “battle of the warrior . . . with
confused noise, and garments rolled in blood” (Isaiah 9:5), —
what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that day when
the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn
from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst
of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then
behold, as never before, the results of Satan’s rule.
But in that day, as in the time of Jerusalem’s destruction,
God’s people will be delivered, everyone that shall be found
written among the living.
Isaiah 4:3. Christ has declared
that He will come the second time to gather His faithful ones
to Himself: “Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and
they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels
with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather
together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven
to the other.”
Matthew 24:30, 31. Then shall they that obey
not the gospel be consumed with the spirit of His mouth and
be destroyed with the brightness of His coming.
2 Thessalonians 2:8. Like Israel of old the wicked destroy themselves;
they fall by their iniquity. By a life of sin, they have placed
themselves so out of harmony with God, their natures have
become so debased with evil, that the manifestation of His
glory is to them a consuming fire.
Let men beware lest they neglect the lesson conveyed to
them in the words of Christ. As He warned His disciples of
Jerusalem’s destruction, giving them a sign of the approaching
ruin, that they might make their escape; so He has
warned the world of the day of final destruction and has
given them tokens of its approach, that all who will may flee
from the wrath to come. Jesus declares: “There shall be
signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon
the earth distress of nations.”
Luke 21:25;
Matthew 24:29;
Mark 13:24-26;
Revelation 6:12-17. Those who behold these
harbingers of His coming are to “know that it is near, even
at the doors.”
Matthew 24:33. “Watch ye therefore,” are
His words of admonition.
Mark 13:35. They that heed the
warning shall not be left in darkness, that that day should
overtake them unawares. But to them that will not watch,
“the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.”
1 Thessalonians 5:2-5.
The world is no more ready to credit the message for this
time than were the Jews to receive the Saviour’s warning
concerning Jerusalem. Come when it may, the day of God
will come unawares to the ungodly. When life is going on
in its unvarying round; when men are absorbed in pleasure,
in business, in traffic, in money-making; when religious
leaders are magnifying the world’s progress and enlightenment,
and the people are lulled in a false security—then, as
the midnight thief steals within the unguarded dwelling, so
shall sudden destruction come upon the careless and
ungodly, “and they shall not escape.”
Verse 3.
Introduction
|
Index
|
Next Chapter
|