The Fall of Jerusalem to Rome O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! They
will fall by the edge of the sword and be carried off as captives among all the nations,
and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the time|s Leonard Griehs In the days preceding his arrest, Jesus likely spent more time at the temple in Jerusalem than he had during the entire preceding three years of his ministry. The temple of Jesus’ day was not the same temple that Solomon had built. That first temple was destroyed by Babylon when it invaded and ransacked Jerusalem in the early 6th century B.C. This was the second temple, rebuilt when the Israelites returned from Babylon following seventy years of captivity. The temple had been extensively modified and extended by Herod the Great just prior to the time Jesus was born. Josephus reports that the building continued until well into the middle of the first century A.D. It was this renovation of the temple that Jewish leaders referred to when they argued with Jesus early in his ministry: “This Sanctuary has been under construction for forty-six years, and you’re going to rebuild it in three days?” (John 2:20). Jesus’ Prophecy of Destruction The first temple built by Solomon stood for almost 400 years; this second one had stood for almost 600 years. The temple was the glory of Israel. Its splendor rivaled the Pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon of Greece, and the state buildings of the Roman Forum. In Egypt, Greece, Persia and even in the undiscovered New World, temples adorned the cities as the focal point for the citizenry. Archaeologists have discovered many of these temples still whole, or at least with many of the stones still intact despite so many years. The disciples must have thought it incredible that Jesus would even think that Israel could exist without a temple! It was to the devout Jew the most magnificent spot in the world. At the center of the land in which Jesus performed his ministry was the holy city of Jerusalem. At the center of city life in Jerusalem stood the temple. This was the last in a series of temples spanning ten centuries of Jewish history. It had been rebuilt by Zerubbabel with 42,000 others who returned from Babylonian captivity. Herod the Great started a further reconstruction in about 20 B.C. He expanded the temple area and extended the large courtyard. To do that Herod built retaining walls over 150 feet high and flattened the top of Mt. Zion, the hill on which it rested. The attraction of the temple was unquestionable: constructed of wood and polished limestone overlaid with gold and silver, its glory was revealed each day when the sun rose and reflected off the gold. Every devout Jew in Jerusalem looked to Mt. Zion and the temple as a constant reminder of God’s presence with them. Despite their magnificence, Jesus prophesied that both the temple and Jerusalem would be laid waste in the not too distant future. During his last visit there “as Jesus left the temple and was walking away, his disciples came up to him to point out to him the temple buildings. But he said to them, You see all these things, don’t you? Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another that will not be torn down” (Matthew 24:1,2). One authoritative source says: “When the building burned, it is reported the decorative gold on the walls melted and ran into the seams between the stones. Afterward, in an attempt to recover the gold, Roman soldiers dismantled the stone walls, resulting in the present ruined condition of the esplanade” (The World History of the Jewish People, Society and Religion in the Second Temple Period Jewish History, Jerusalem Masada Publishing Ltd., 1977, p. 123). Roman Changes Impact Israel The disciples did not realize the impact of Jesus’ words. Not only the temple would fall, but Israel as a nation would cease to exist for over 1800 years. A turn of events in Roman rule provided the impetus that shook the very foundation of Jerusalem polity and began the downward spiral that led to the fulfillment of Jesus’ predictions. After Herod the Great died, Caesar Augustus divided the territory incorporating Israel into three sections. He appointed each of Herod’s three sons to rule over a portion. Herod’s son Archelaus (Matthew 2:22) was appointed to govern Jerusalem and Judea. He proved so inept that the Romans removed him within a few years. The Emperor Tiberius then assigned a series of Roman governors, or procurators, to rule over the area instead. One of these procurators was Pontius Pilate. Pilate was a mature man when he received the appointment. He had no claims to greatness though he did have ambition. Pilate had married into Roman royalty. His wife, Claudia Procula, was said to be the granddaughter of Caesar Augustus. Claudia had the unusual enjoyment of accompanying her husband to his governorship, a further indication that her connections may have been instrumental in obtaining his appointment. Since Pilate is not noted in Roman history prior to this appointment, his marriage to Claudia was likely the reason he received this important assignment on the appeal of his friend Sejanus, an aspirant to the throne of Tiberias Caesar. Sejanus, sole Prefect of the Guard, enjoyed powerful connections to senatorial houses and had gained the position of Tiberius’ closest friend and advisor. As Sejanus’ public profile became more and more pronounced, his statues were erected in public places, and Tiberius openly praised him as “the partner of my labors.” Sejanus convinced Tiberius that Pilate should be made Governor of the Jews. Pilate despised the Jews. He traveled with a complement of some 500 men who frequently beat or even slew protesting crowds of Jews. Despite his frequent encounters with the priests and rulers, the Jews in Judea enjoyed a fairly peaceful period under Tiberius and Pilate. The peace ended abruptly when a new Emperor, Claudius, came to rule in Rome. During his tenure, Israel came to the brink of destruction. Claudius Nero Germanicus (41-54 A.D.) was the third emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. His reign produced a sea change in Roman rule. Claudius was no supporter of the ruling elite. He promoted administrators who were outside the senatorial and equestrian classes. He initiated the full-scale annexation of Britain as a province of the Roman Empire. However, it was his relationships with his wives and children that highlighted the difficulties of succession faced by all Roman Emperors. Claudius adopted his fourth wife’s son, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was to reign catastrophically as Nero and bring the Julian dynasty to an end. It was Claudius’ appointments of rulers in Judea and Jerusalem that created the springboard for the destruction of Israel. He appointed the young grandson of Herod the Great, Agrippa I, to rule over Judea and Jerusalem. Agrippa’s reign was short (he died in 44 A.D.--see Acts 25:22 to 26:32) but it stirred up Jewish nationalism which was further inflamed by a series of Roman procurator political blunders. When the procurator Florus raided the temple treasury in 66 A.D., full-scale rebellion broke out. The revolt went on for four years and ended in the destruction of Jerusalem, the death or capture of its inhabitants, and the fulfillment of Jesus’ words about the destruction of the temple. Among the captives taken by the Romans was Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian who recorded the events in The Wars of the Jews. The Siege of Jerusalem Under Titus In 70 A.D. a newly appointed Emperor, Vespasian (69-79 A.D.), commissioned his son Titus to put an end to the revolt in the Roman province of Judea. On Passover of that year, General Titus surrounded the city crowded with Jews attending the Feast according to the Jewish law. Titus gave orders for his men to construct a wall outside the city gates to prevent those inside from escaping. He then attacked from the northern part of the city, from the Antonio Fortress, and from the north wall of the temple itself. The fighting lasted 143 days. Josephus says that many thousands died --some by famine as the food resources of the city disappeared, and others by the sword in the fierce fighting that took place on the city walls. The calamities that fell on Jerusalem during the five-month siege were an eerie reminder of the prophecy of Jesus: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then understand that its devastation is near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, those inside the city must leave it, and those in the countryside must not go into it. For these are the days of vengeance when all that is written will be fulfilled. How terrible it will be for those women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath on this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be carried off as captives among all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”--Luke 21:20-24 Because of the huge number of people who were in the city to attend Passover, the stores of provisions inside the city ran out quickly. Fifteen pounds of wheat sold for the equivalent of 15 years’ wages. Josephus says that the hunger in the city was so great that men chewed the leather of their belts, sandals, and sword sheaths. At night, hordes of people snuck outside the city walls looking for wild plants. When caught, they were tortured and put to death. Those who returned were robbed of their findings. Famine and pestilence spread quickly. Starvation was the common cause of death. Brother turned against brother as natural affection vanished. Husbands turned against wives; wives turned against husbands. Children were seen grabbing the food from the mouths of their elderly relatives. The Roman soldiers sought to force the remaining inhabitants of the city to surrender. Prisoners who resisted were scourged, tortured, and crucified in plain view in front of the city walls. Josephus says that hundreds were put to death daily in this manner--so many crosses were erected there was scarcely room to move among them. Although Josephus was a Jew, he had been adopted by a Roman and was hired by the Romans to write a history of the events of the fall of Jerusalem. Undoubtedly his history was to portray the Romans in a favorable light. Although he claims that Titus would have spared the temple had the Jews surrendered, it is highly doubtful that Titus was that concerned about preserving the temple, as glorious as it was. Josephus himself claims to have made an appeal for the leaders to surrender and save the temple, but even this claim must be viewed with skepticism. Various histories exist regarding the final days of the siege, many with conflicting accounts of the battle. The most credible reports suggest that the priests had decided they would not extend the fight past the ninth of Av (equivalent to our month of August), the day that commemorated the fall of Solomon’s temple to the Babylonians. When that day came, the Jewish resistors moved to attack the Roman soldiers outside the gate in what would be their final stage of the rebellion. Histories conflict as to whether it was a Roman firebrand hurled by a soldier into the temple proper that ignited the cedar walls, or a Jewish arrow aimed at the Roman garrison that ignited the tar that covered the temple roof, which began the destroying fire that would destroy the temple. As the flames rose skyward, all Jerusalem came alive with the screams of horror at the sight of the once-sacred second temple going up in smoke on the same day in history in which the first one had fallen to the Babylonian invaders. Titus and his troops broke through the walls and the final days of the siege began. In The History of the Jews, book 16, Milman writes: “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 legionnaires had to clamber over heaps of dead to carry on the work of extermination.” Within two months, the Roman soldiers had hunted down the last holdouts. They systematically laid waste to the towers surrounding the temple mount. Only the outside wall on the western side of Mt. Zion was spared. Every sacred piece within the temple was carried away. The temple was razed and the Holy of Holies was obliterated. It is estimated that 600,000 may have died in the siege and another 90,000 taken captive. In the few years that followed, the last Jewish holdouts, camped on Masada, would take their own lives; Jerusalem’s very name would be wiped out through its conversion into a Roman outpost called Aeolina Capitolina; and the Jewish people would be scattered and temporarily erased from history. “For these are the days of vengeance when all that is written will be fulfilled” (Luke 21:22). |