The Destruction Of

The City And Temple

Of

Jerusalem

By

The Man Who Saw God Face To Face

Raphael Okechukwu Nweze

Declarations Of Jesus Christ

Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying,” If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her. For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

The Warning Signs

For a while, General Titus of the roman army arrived with soldiers, to destroy the city and temple of Jerusalem. He surrounded the city with soldiers. A report came to him, that he was very much needed at a battlefield, where war was very severe. He left with his soldiers to wage the war.

That was when those Israelites, who remembered the prophecy of Jesus Christ and valued His words left the city, in order to save their lives, according to the sign and warning given by Jesus Christ – “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her.”

Later, General Titus arrived again with his soldiers, surrounded the city, and eventually utterly destroyed both city and temple, in the fulfilments and manifestations of the word of God.

According To By Rabbi Irving Greenberg

On the ninth and 10th of the month of Av in the year 70, the Roman legions in Jerusalem smashed through the fortress tower of Antonia into the Holy Temple and set it afire. In the blackened remains of the sanctuary lay more than the ruins of the great Jewish revolt for political independence. To many Israelites, it appeared that Judaism itself was shattered beyond repair.

Out of approximately four to five million Israelites in the world, over a million died in that abortive war for independence. Many died of starvation, others by fire and crucifixion. So many Israelites were sold into slavery and given over to the gladiatorial arenas and circuses that the price of slaves dropped quickly, fulfilling the ancient curse: “There you will be offered for sale as slaves, and there will be no one willing to buy”. The destruction was preceded by events so devastating that they read like scenes out of the Holocaust.

According To Josephus

Carnage

On the ninth day of Av: “One would have thought that the hill itself, on which the Temple stood, was seething hot from its base, it was so full of fire on every side; and yet the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain were more in number than those that slew them. For the ground was nowhere visible for the dead bodies that lay on it.”

Civil War Between Israelites

“The shouts of those [Israelites] who were fighting [one another] were incessant both by day and night, but the continual lamentations of those who mourned were even more dreadful. Nor was any regard paid by relatives for those who were still alive. Nor was any care taken for the burial of those who were dead. The reason was that everyone despaired about himself.”

The exhaustion from all-out sacrifice of lives and fighting in vain was in itself debilitating, but the religious crisis was even worse. God’s own sanctuary, restored after the return to Zion in the sixth century BCE, the symbol of the unbroken covenant of Israel and God, was destroyed. This cast doubt on the very relationship of the people and their Lord. Had God rejected the covenant with Israel?

The Focal Point Of Jewish Worship

The Temple was central to Jewish religious life in a way that is hard to recapture today. Many Israelites believed that sin itself could be overcome only by bringing a sin offering in the Temple. Without such forgiveness, the sinner was condemned to alienation from God, which is equivalent to estrangement from valid existence. But the channel of sacrifice was now cut off.

For many Israelites, the whole experience of Judaism was sacramental. The Priests served; the ignorant masses watched; their religious lives were illuminated only by those extraordinary moments when multitudes gathered in Jerusalem. There, in the awe of a Paschal sacrifice or at the Yom Kippur atonement ritual, they felt an emanation of divine force that showered grace and blessing on the people and made the Lord’s power a stunning presence. For these people, after the destruction there was only emptiness.

Responses To The Destruction

The majority of the Israelites refused to quit. One element in this community reacted with overwhelming despair. The Talmud speaks of “Mourners of Zion” who would neither eat meat nor drink wine. They rejected any possibility of normal life and chose not to marry or have children. Simple human activities–having a child, getting married, doing acts of kindness in a community–are sustained only by enormous levels of faith and life affirmation, and trust in ultimate meaning. Considering the tragedy and the threat that still hung over the Israelite community, these people felt they simply could not go on with life as usual. Yet by refusing to live normally, they harnessed despair into a force for action: to make an all-out effort to restore the Temple. Only rebuilding the sanctuary could reduce the terrible anguish and restore life to normal.

The two major remaining sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, shared a common conviction that the Temple must be rebuilt, although the Sadducees, who included the court nobility and priests, were particularly unable to envision Judaism without a Temple. This consensus drove people to drastic action. In the years 115 to 117 CE, there were widespread rebellions by Israelites in Diaspora, which were bloodily suppressed.

In 132 CE, the remaining population of Judea revolted, led by Simon Bar Kochba. But again, the overwhelming might of Rome was brought to bear. Bar Kochba and his troops were destroyed, and the remaining population of Judea was deported. With this defeat, hopes for an immediate restoration of the Temple were set back indefinitely.

Reprinted with permission of the author from The Jewish Way: Living The Holidays.