by which it would be taken. "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." A trench and a wall or embankment always go together in military operations. Both were certainly intended here. But it was exceedingly improbable that such a measure would be resorted to in the siege of Jerusalem. The nature of the ground, and the great extent of the city, rendered it extremely difficult. It had never been attempted in the previous sieges of the same place. It was not necessary, because, had the Roman general been content to wait a little, the famine and the contending factions within the city would soon have delivered it into his possession. After all, it was contrary to the advice of his chief men, and was adopted only because a more protracted siege would have been less glorious. The higher cause however was, that he was God's instrument unwittingly to fulfil the words of Christ. Titus must confirm the prophetic char acter of Jesus. By building a wall about Jerusalem, he was to build up the defence of the gospel. The city was therefore literally compassed round, and its inhabitants were kept in on every side by a wall and cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land which the Lord thy God hath given thee." Deut. 28: 49-52. * Luke 19:43. trench put up by the troops of Titus, and measuring about five miles in circumference. Josephus is very particular in stating precisely the direction of the wall in its whole circuit.* 10. "These be the days of vengeance," said the Lord; "for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." Days of vengeance indeed they were, when all that was written and threatened in Moses and the prophets was fulfilled. As if Josephus had written with the very words of the Saviour in view, he bears record that in his opinion "no other city ever suffered such miseries; nor was there ever a generation more fruitful in wickedness, from the beginning of the world." "It appears to me that the misfortunes of all men from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews, are not so considerable." "For in reality it was God who condemned the whole nation, and turned every course that was taken for their preservation to their destruction." It is impossible to describe the truth in this case. "The multitude of those who perished," says our historian, "exceeded all the destructions that man or God ever brought on, the world." At the commencement of the siege, iminense multitudes having come up from all parts of the country to the feast of the passover, the nation, * Wars, etc., b. 5, ch. 12, sec. 2. ↑ Luke 21:22; Matt. 24: 21. Wars, etc., b. 5, ch. 10, sec. 5; Preface to Wars, sec. 4; Wars, b. 6, ch. 13, sec. 4; b. 6, ch. 9, sec. 4. literally, was crowded into Jerusalem; so that the city was supposed to have in it upwards of two million seven hundred thousand souls. The miseries endured by this imprisoned multitude are minutely detailed in the history of the siege. Famine commenced, and numbered its thousands of unburied and loathsome victims. The destroyer raged so widely that the people devoured their shoes and girdles, the soldiers the leather on their shields. Wisps of old straw were turned into food. That which before they could not endure to see, they now consented to eat. United to these desolations were the remorseless cruelties of contending factions. The city was filled with robbers, who divided its popula tion into parties more destructive than all the soldiery of the besiegers. Filled with rage and instigated by hunger, they alike refused to be at peace with each other, or to capitulate to the common enemy. They robbed the temple, slew the priests at the altar, and defiled the sanctuary with a sea of blood. To keep each other from food, they fired storehouses containing provisions for a siege of many years. Whenever any corn appeared, bands of robbers instantly seized it. They searched every house in which they suspected there was food. Parents snatched it from their chil dren, children from the mouths of their parents. There was a lady of high birth and much wealth, who had come from the country, and was kept in Jerusalem by the siege. All her effects, and all the food she had saved for herself and children, had been taken by the prowling bands that continually ranged the streets for prey. By imprecations and reproaches she endeavored in vain to provoke them to take her life as well as bread. At last she prepared a feast. Keen hunger found out a lamb. A mother's desperation slew and served it. Having consumed a part, the rest was concealed. The smell of food soon brought in the wolves. They threatened instant death unless she discovered it. With bitter irony she assured them that a fine portion had been saved for them, and then uncovered what remained of the lamb. It was the half-eaten body of her infant son. Struck motionless with horror, they would not partake of it. Then she upbraided them as pretending to more tenderness than a woman, and more compassion than a mother. All the city, and the whole Roman camp, were filled with astonishment at this horrid evidence of the reigning wretchedness; so that the dead were envied for having escaped the sight of such miseries.* But the woe went on. The prisoners taken in endeavoring to desert the city were nailed on crosses by the Roman soldiers, "some one way, * How exactly did Moses, at least fifteen hundred years before, depict this very scene. He described even the rank, quality, and habits of the unhappy woman. "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 young one that cometh out from between her feet, 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." Deut. 28:56, 57. some another, as it were in jest," around the outside of the walls,"till so great was the number, that room was wanting for crosses, and crosses were wanting for bodies." Thus had the Jews, forty years before, crucified the Lord of glory without the walls, with cruel jesting and bitter mockery. Those who continued within the city took refuge in caverns, aqueducts, sewers, and other secret places, to escape from one another. Titus, as he beheld the dead bodies that had been thrown from the walls into the valleys, "lifted up his hands to heaven, and called God to witness that this was not his doing." The number of those who perished during these "days of vengeance," is computed by Josephus at upwards of one million three hundred thousand; and of these, one million one hundred and fifty thousand were of Jerusalem, besides ninety-seven thousand carried into slavery, and an innumerable multitude who perished uncounted in various places, through famine, banishment, and other miseries. Add to this destruction of life, the complete ruin of their holy city and magnificent temple, dearer to the Jews than life; add, moreover, the universal desolation and almost depopulation of Judea, and you will find no difficulty in interpreting the Saviour's prediction of "a tribulation such as was not from the beginning of the world." It was when our compassionate Redeemer had all this in full prospect, that "he beheld the city" from the * Wars, etc. b. 6, ch. 3, sec. 4; b. 5, ch. 11, sec. 1. Wars, etc., b. 5, ch. 12, sec. 4. Lardner, vol. 3, p. 529. |