Things To Come - pt.4
Jerusalem will be judged for their leadership's rejection of Jesus Christ. KEY WORD = DESOLATION
Introduction
God’s Imminence to Jerusalem
v.20
3) [193] Meanwhile,* the victims perishing of famine throughout the city were dropping in countless numbers and enduring sufferings indescribable. [194] In every house, the appearance anywhere of but a shadow of food was a signal for war, and the dearest of relatives fell to blows, snatching from each other the pitiful supports of life. The very dying were not credited as in want; nay, even those expiring were searched by the brigands, lest any should be concealing food beneath a fold of his garment and feigning death. [195] Gaping with hunger, like mad dogs,a these ruffians went staggering and reeling along, battering upon the doors in the manner of drunken men, [196] and in their perplexity bursting into the same house twice or thrice within a single hour. Necessity drove the victims to gnaw anything, and objects which even the filthiest of brute beasts would reject they condescended to collect and eat: [197] thus in the end they abstained not from belts and shoes and stripped off and chewed the very leather of their bucklers. [198] Others devoured tufts of withered grass: indeed some collectors of stalks sold a trifling quantity for four Attic drachmas.b But why tell of the shameless resort to inanimate articles of food induced by the famine, [199] seeing that I am here about to describe an act unparalleleda in the history whether of Greeks or barbarians, [200] and as horrible to relate as it is incredible to hear? For my part, for fear that posterity might suspect meb of monstrous fabrication, I would gladly have omitted this tragedy, had I not innumerable witnesses among my contemporaries. Moreover, it would be a poor compliment that I should pay my country in suppressing the narrative of the woes which she actually endured.
1. (491) And now did Titus consult with his commanders what was to be done. Those that were of the warmest tempers, thought he should bring the whole army against the city and storm the wall; (492) for that hitherto no more than a part of their army had fought with the Jews; but that in case the entire army was to come at once, they would not be able to sustain their attacks, but would be overwhelmed by their darts: (493) but of those that were for a more cautious management, some were for raising their banks again; and others advised to let the banks alone, but to lie still before the city, to guard against the coming out of the Jews, and against their carrying provisions into the city, and so to leave the enemy to the famine, and this without direct fighting with them; (494) for that despair was not to be conquered, especially as to those who are desirous to die by the sword while a more terrible misery than that is reserved for them. (495) However, Titus did not think it fit for so great an army to lie entirely idle, and that yet it was in vain to fight with those that would be destroyed one by another; (496) he also showed them how impracticable it was to cast up any more banks, for want of materials, and to guard against the Jews’ coming out, still more impracticable; as also, that to encompass the whole city round with his army, was not very easy, by reason of its magnitude and the difficulty of the situation; (497) and on other accounts dangerous, upon the sallies the Jews might make out of the city; for although they might guard the known passages out of the place, yet would they, when they found themselves under the greatest distress, contrive secret passages out, as being well acquainted with all such places; and if any provisions were carried in by stealth, the siege would thereby be longer delayed. (498) He also owned, that he was afraid that the length of time thus to be spent, would diminish the glory of his success; for though it be true, that length of time will perfect every thing, yet, that to do what we do in a little time, is still necessary to the gaining reputation: (499) that therefore his opinion was, that if they aimed at quickness joined with security, they must build a wall round about the whole city; which was, he thought, the only way to prevent the Jews from coming out any way, and that then they would either entirely despair of saving the city, and so would surrender it up to him, or be still the more easily conquered when the famine had farther weakened them; (500) for that besides this wall, he would not lie entirely at rest afterward, but would take care then to have banks raised again, when those that would oppose them were become weaker: (501) but that if any one should think such a work to be too great, and not to be finished without much difficulty, he ought to consider that it is not fit for Romans to undertake any small work, and that none but God himself could with ease accomplish any great thing whatsoever.
2. (502) These arguments prevailed with the commanders. So Titus gave orders that the army should be distributed to their several shares of this work; and indeed there now came upon the soldiers a certain divine fury, so that they did not only part the whole that was to be built among them, nor did only one legion strive with another, but the lesser divisions of the army did the same; (503) insomuch that each soldier was ambitious to please his decurion, each decurion his centurion, each centurion his tribune, and the ambition of the tribunes was to please their superior commanders, while Caesar himself took notice of and rewarded the like contention in those commanders; for he went round about the works many times every day, and took a view of what was done.
God’s Warning To The Church -v.21
3 But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.
God’s Wrath Upon Jerusalem - vv.22-23
God’s Privilege To The Gentiles - v.24
1 AFTER Nero had held the power thirteen years, and Galba and Otho had ruled a year and six months,3 Vespasian, who had become distinguished in the campaigns against the Jews, was proclaimed sovereign in Judea and received the title of Emperor from the armies there. Setting out immediately, therefore, for Rome, he entrusted the conduct of the war against the Jews to his son Titus.5