13-CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 13

“Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not obey the LORD your God. It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. So your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, ’Would that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ’Would that it were morning!’ because of the dread of your heart which you dread, and for the sight of your eyes which you will see. The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I spoke to you, ’You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.” —The Predictions of Moses,Deuteronomy 28:62-68

“The Roman soldiers were now quite tired with killing, and yet there appeared a vast multitude still alive. Caesar gave orders that they should kill none but those that were in arms, and opposed them, but should take the rest alive. But, together with those whom they had orders to slay, they slew the aged and infirm; but those that were in their flourishing age, and who might be useful to them, they drove together into the temple, and shut them up within the walls of the court of the women, over which Caesar set one of his freedmen, as also Fronto, one of his own friends, which last was to determine every one’s fate, according to his merits.

“So this Fronto slew all those that had been seditious, and robbers, who were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the triumph; and as for the rest of the multitude, that were above, seventeen years old, he put them into bonds, and sent them into the

Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a great number into the provinces as a present to them, that they might be destroyed upon their theaters by the sword, and by the wild beasts; but those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves. Now, during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing these men, there perished for want of food eleven thousand, some of which did not taste any food through the hatred their guards bore to them, and others would not take in any when it was given them. The multitude also was so very great, that they were in want even of corn for their sustenance.

“Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war was considered to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the greater part of whom, indeed, were of the same nation, (with the citizens of Jerusalem,) but not belonging to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread, and were on a sudden shut up by an army, which at the very first occasioned so great a straitness among them, that there came a pestilential destruction among them, and soon afterward such a famine as destroyed them more suddenly. And that this city could contain so many people in it is manifest by that number of them which was taken under Cestius, who, being desirous of- informing Nero of the flower of the city, who otherwise was disposed to condemn that nation, entreated the high priests, if the thing were possible, to take the number of their whole multitude.” This was done by calculating the number of their sacrifices at the Passover,¹⁶(as there were at least ten persons to every sacrifice,) which, being two hundred fifty-six thousand five hundred, gives two million five hundred and sixty thousand.

“Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote places; but the entire nation was now shut up by fate, as in prison, and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants. Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world: for to speak only of what was publicly known, the Romans slew some of them, some they carried captives, and others they made a search for under ground, and when they found where they were, they broke up the ground and slew all they met with.

“There were also found slain there above two thousand persons, partly by their own hands, and partly by one another, but chiefly destroyed by the famine; but then the stench of the dead bodies was most offensive to those that lighted upon them, insomuch that some were obliged to get away immediately, while others were so greedy of gain that they would go in among the dead bodies that lay on heaps, and tread upon them; for a great deal of treasure was found in these caverns, and the hope of gain made every way of getting it to be esteemed lawful.

“Many also of those that had been put in prison by the tyrants were now brought out; for they did not leave off their barbarous cruelty at the very last; yet did God avenge himself upon them both in a manner agreeable to justice. As for John, he wanted food, together with his brethren, in these caverns, and begged that the Romans would iiow give him their right hand for his security, which he had often proudly rejected before.

“Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay, or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury, Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippious, and Mariamne, and so much of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison, as were the towers spared in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but, for all the rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.”

While Titus was at Caesarea Philippi (where he spent some considerable time in witnessing those detestable abominations common among heathen nations of destroying captives by wild beasts, and by making them kill each other) he heard of the capture of the tyrant Simon. During the siege of Jerusalem he had remained in the upper city, but when the Roman army entered within the walls he took the most faithful of his friends with him, and among them some stone-cutters, with those iron tools which belonged to their occupation, and as great a quantity of provisions as would suffice them for a long time, and let himself and all them down into a certain subterraneous cavern that was not visible above ground.

Now, so far as had been dug of old, they went long without disturbance; but where they met with solid earth they dug a mine under ground, and this in hopes that they should be able to proceed so far as to rise from under ground in a safe place, and by that means escape. But when they came to make the experiment, they were disappointed of their hope, for the miners could make but small progress, and that with difficulty also, insomuch that their provisions, though they distributed them by measure, began to fail them.

“And now Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and delude the Romans, put on a white frock, and buttoned upon him a purple cloak, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the temple had formerly. been. At first, indeed, those that saw him were greatly astonished, and stood still where they were; but afterward they came nearer to him, and asked him who he was. Simon would not tell them, but bid them call for their captain; and when they ran to call, Terentius Rufus,¹⁷who was left to command the army, came to Simon, and learned of him the whole truth, and kept him in bonds, and let Caesar know that he was taken.

“Thus did God bring this man to be punished for what bitter and savage tyranny he had exercised against his countrymen; by those who were his worst enemies; and this while he was not subdued by violence, but voluntarily delivered himself up to them to be punished, and that on the very same account that he had laid false accusations against many Jews, as if they were falling away to the Romans, and had barbarously slain them. His rise of his out of the ground did also occasion the discovery of a great number of others of the seditious at that time who had hidden themselves under ground. But for Simon, he was brought to Caesar in bonds when he was come back to that Caesarea which was on the sea-side; who gave order that he should be kept against that triumph which he was to celebrate at Rome upon this occasion.”

We have thus passed through one of the most painfully interesting passages in the whole compass of history. The heart sickens at the melancholy picture; but the lesson is replete with instruction. It not only shows us how inseparable are national crime and national suffering, but furnishes us with evidence, which it is utterly impossible to gainsay, that those men who ages before these events drew the portrait both of the sins and calamities of Jerusalem, did indeed “speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” It establishes the Bible predictions as having God for their author, and attests the character of Jesus of Nazareth as the true Messiah. The history of Jerusalem, viewed as the fulfilment of prophecy, furnishes evidence of the truth of Christianity which neither Jew nor infidel can reject without positive infatuation. At the same time, it also reveals to us the awful depravity of human nature. Here were a people favored above all others; they abused the highest mercies; they crucified their own long promised and expected Messiah, and God’s restraining grace was withdrawn from them. They were left to themselves, and thus left, they have given the world a specimen of human nature abandoned to its own deadly depravity. What they were any nation would be if the restraining grace of God were withdrawn in an equal degree. Surely here is proof positive that the disease of men requires even such a remedy as a God could bestow.

Let nations look upon Judea, let cities look upon Jerusalem, let individuals look upon the personal calamities of the Jews, and let all fear God and fly from transgression. Particularly let it be remembered that the great sin of the Jews, that which stood out alone in the horror of its aggravated features, wasthe rejection of the Messiah!If, indeed, we would escape a destruction, of which that of Jerusalem was but a faint emblem, let us embrace proffered mercy, and “know the things that belong to our peace, before they are hid” FOREVER “from our eyes.” Let us seek for an inheritance in that Jerusalem whose “walls are great and high — which cometh down from God out of heaven,” where are the spirits of just men made perfect — where is an innumerable company of angels, and where dwells the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.