Prophecies of the Mount: The First Coming in Judgment to Jerusalem
“AND JESUS WENT 0X7T, AND DEPARTED FBOM THE TEMPLE: AND HIS DIS-CIPLES CAME TO HIM, FOB TO SHEW HIM THE BUILDINGS OF THE TEMPLE. AND JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, SEE YE NOT ALL THESE THINGS? YBBILY I BAT UNTO YOU, THERE SHALL NOT BE LEFT HEBE ONE BTONB UPON ANOTHEB, THAT SHALL NOT BE THROWN DOWN. AND AS HE SAT UPON THE MOUNT OP OLIVES, THE DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM PRIVATELY, SAYING, TELL US, WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE? AND WHAT SHALL BE THE SIGN OF THY COMING AND 07 THE END OF THE WORLD?” — MATT. XXIV. 1-8, &C., &C.
We now come to a new and distinct group of “Olivet Memories,” They embrace a striking series of prophecies and parables, uttered in succession on the same occasion, beginning with the prediction of the impending doom of Jerusalem, and ending with that magnificent scene of the last universal assize, — ‘the great Shepherd of mankind seated on His Judgment-throne, dividing the sheep from the goats, and apportioning to each their final and irrevocable destiny.* These impressive themes were spoken on the evening of the Tuesday — the same day which had witnessed, at early mom, the withering of the fig-tree. The tears of Jesus the previous afternoon as He beheld the fated city; the parable uttered through the pretentious leaves of that dumb monitor and their subsequent blighting, reveal the one overmastering thought, which, almost to the exclusion of His own personal impending suflferings, filled the soul of the Divine Philanthropist. We need not wonder if, in the predictions and parables which are now to occupy our attention, we have to listen to the same plaintive monotone, and the same reiterated lesson of self-scrutiny, watchfulness, and diligence.
* This latter is omitted from the present volume, having been already treated by the writer in a recent work, “The Shepherd and His Flock”
The Redeemer was on His accustomed journey to Bethany. He and His disciples had crossed the Kedron, but instead of pursuing the shorter pathway, He seems, as of purpose, to have taken the longer caravan road — the same which, the previous day, He had traversed on the occasion of His triumphal entrance, and from which, as already explained, the city appears, despite of the intervening gorge, so peculiarly near. Seated on the slope of the Mount, when the sun was going down, and the deep shadows of the Temple were cast athwart the Jehoshaphat Valley, Christ uttered the startling and significant prophecy which heads this chapter. He had just before, for the last time, bid adieu to these hallowed courts, after pronouncing, in their midst, a vehement denunciation against the prevailing hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers. He had, previous to this, thrown out a casual reference to the overthrow of the Temple; and the disciples were probably desirous of receiving more accurate information on a subject of such moment, alike to themselves and to their countrymen. With this intent, they direct the eye of their Lord to the magnificent pile of buildings, which, after the long labour of forty-six years, were now being completed. Magnificent they were. It is almost necessary, for the full appreciation of the Saviour’s utterances, and to comprehend all that was involved in His too truthful premonitions of coming woe, that we have before our mind’s eye a vivid picture of the city, which, on that memorable Easter eve, rose like some scene of fabled enchantment before the gaze of this Prince of Seers, — as after the manner of the olden prophets, and with equally graphic and thrilling detail. He forecasts and bewails “the Burden of Jerusalem,” There was trul no hyperbole — no poetical license or exaggeration in the words of the minstrel King, which we have more than once already quoted, as applied to that “perfection of beauty,” beheld at that sunset hour — “Beautiful for situation; the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion; on the sides of the north, the city of the Great King!” Who need wonder, that one of those whose eyes then gazed upon this earthly “apocalyptic vision” should afterwards, when the visioiTs of Heavenly glory were stealing over him, have made the transcendent human scene suggestive of a grander and more enduring verity — “the holy city, the new Jerusalem,” with its gates of pearl, and its streets of gold “coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,’’ (Rev. xxi. 2.) Josephus is, of course, our main authority in obtaining an impression of the greatness and grandeur of the Jewish capital at this time. It were easy to collate and condense, from his ample pages, material which has been frequently thus called into requisition. Rather than in my own words, however, I prefer to give these facts as they are at once carefully collected and graphically described by the venerable living historian of “The Decline and Fall of Jerusalem.”
The whole circuit of her walls was guarded with towers, built of the same solid masonry. They were 35 feet broad, and 35 feet high. Ninety of these towers stood in the first wall, fourteen in the second, and sixty in the third. The intervals between the towers were about 350 feet. The circuit of the city, according to Josephus, was 33 stadia — rather more than 4 miles. The most magnificent of all these towers was that of Psephina. It was 122^ feet high, and commanded a noble view of the whole territory of Judea, to the border of Arabia, and to the sea: it was an octagon. Answering to this was the tower Hippicus, and, following the old wall, stood those of Mariamne and Phasaelis, built by Herod, and named after his brother and friend, and his wife. These were stupendous, even as works of Herod; the masonry was perfect: they were built of white marble, cut in blocks, so fitted, that the towers seemed hewn out of the solid quarry. Within these towers stood the palace of the kings, of the most extraordinary size and splendour. It was surrounded by a wall 35 feet high, which was adorned by towers at equal distances, and by spacious barrack-rooms, with 100 beds in each. It was paved with every variety of rare marble; timbers of unequalled length and workmanship supported the roofs. The chambers were countless, adorned with all kinds of figures, the richest furniture, and vessels of gold and silver. There were numerous cloisters of columns of different orders, the squares within of beautiful verdure; around were groves and avenues, with fountains and tanks, and bronze statues pouring out the water. The fortress Antonia stood alone, on a precipitous rock near 90 feet high, at the north-west comer of the temple. It was likewise a work of Herod. The whole face of the rock was fronted with smooth stone for ornament, and to make the ascent so slippery as to be impracticable; round the top of the rock there was first a low wall, rather more than 5 feet high. The fortress was 70 feet in height. It had every luxury and convenience of a sumptuous palace, or even of a city; spacious halls, courts.
and baths. It appeared like a vast square tower, with four other towers at each corner; three of them between 80 and 90 feet high: that at the corner next to the Temple above 120. From this the whole Temple might be seen, and broad flights of steps led down into the northern and western, cloisters or porticoes, in which, during the Roman government, their guard was stationed. High above the whole city rose the Temple, imiting the commanding strength of a citadel, with the splendour of a sacred edifice. According to Josephus, the esplanade on which it stood had been considerably enlarged by the accumulation of fresh soil, since the days of Solomon, particularly on the north side. It now covered a square of a furlong each side. Solomon had faced the precipitous sides of the rock on the east, and perhaps the south, with huge blocks of stone; the other sides likewise had been built up with perpendicular walls to an equal height. These walls in no part were lower than 300 cubits, (525 feet;) but their whole height was not seen, excepting on the eastern and perhaps the southern sides, as the earth was heaped up to the level of the streets of the city. On this gigantic foundation ran on each front a strong and lofty wall without; within, a spacious double portico or cloister 52^ feet broad, supported by 162 columns, which supported a cedar ceiling of the most exquisite workmanship. The pillars were entire blocks hewn out of solid marble, of dazzling whiteness, 43f feet high.. •, The open courts were paved with various inlaid marbles. Between this outer court of the Gentiles, and the second court of the Israelites, ran rails of stone, but of beautiful workmanship, rather more than five feet high. Along these, at regular intervals, stood pillars with inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, — warning all strangers, and Jews who were unclean, from entering into the Holy Court beyond. An ascent of 14 steps led to a terrace 17^ feet wide, beyond which arose the wall of the Inner Court.... Around this court ran another splendid range of porticoes or cloisters; the columns were quite equal in beauty and workmanship, though not in size, to those of the outer portico. Nine of these gates, or rather gateway towers, were richly adorned with gold and silver on the doors, the door-posts, and the lintels. The doors of each of the nine gates were 52 J feet high, and half of that breadth. Within, the gateways were 52^ feet wide and deep, with rooms on each side, so that the whole looked like lofty towers; the height from the base to the summit was 70 feet. Each gateway had two lofty pillars 21 feet in circumference. But that which excited the greatest admiration was the tenth, usually called the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. It was of Corinthian brass of the finest workmanship. The height of the Beautiful Gate was 87|, its doors 70 feet. The father of Tiberius Alexander had sheeted these gates with gold and silver.... Within this quadrangle there was a further separation; a low wall which divided the priests from the Israelites; near this stood the great brazen altar. Beyond, the Temple itself reared its glittering front. The great porch or propyleon, according to the design of the last, or Herod’s Temple, extended to a much greater width than the body of the Temple; in addition to the former width of 105 feet, it had two wings of 35 each, making in the whole 175. The great gate of this last quadrangle, to which there was an ascent of
THE FIEST COMIi^G IN JUDGMENT TO JERUSALEM. 227
twelve steps, was called that of Nicanor. The gateway tower was 132^ feet high, 4y wide: it had no doors, but the frontispiece was covered with gold, and through its spacious arch was seen the golden gate of the Temple glittering with the same precious metal, with large plates of which it was sheeted all over. Above this gate hung the celebrated golden Vine. This extraordinary piece of workmanship had bunches, according to Josephus, as large as a man. The Rabbins add that * like a true natural vine, it grew greater and greater. Men would be oiSering, some gold, to make a leaf, some a grape, some a bunch: and these were hung up upon it, and so it was increasing continually.’ The Temple itself, excepting in the extension of the wings of the propyleon, was probably the same in its dimensions and distribution with that of Solomon. It contained the same holy treasures, if not of equal magnificence, yet by the zeal of successive ages the frequent plunder to which it had been exposed, was constantly replaced; and within, the golden candlestick spread out its flowering branches; the golden table supported the show-bread, and the altar of incense flamed with its costly perfume. The roof of the Temple had been set all over on the outside with sharp golden spikes, to prevent the birds from settling and defiling it; and the gates were still sheeted with plates of the same splendid metaL At a distance, the whole Temple looked literally like * a mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles.’” *
Such was Jerusalem — the Jerusalem of the days of the Incarnation — the Jerusalem whose devoted battlements
* Dean Milman’s History of the Jews, voL iL p. 39, et seq., last edition.
and glittering masses of white marble, as seen from the green sward of Olivet, were reddened, at the moment we are now to speak of, with ’ the last fires of day, It may be worthy here of passing observation, that Herod’s own taste for architectural splendour, manifested in the decoration and beautifying of the capital, was seconded and encouraged by the lavish gifts of his Imperial master, and that among these, the Emperor had forwarded for the Temple many blocks of white marble, of almost fabulous size. It was (according to St Mark) these colossal stones, to which the disciples specially called the attention of Christ. “Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” * Their remark elicits the brief and startling reply, “Verily I say unto you. There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” Jesus seems to have invited a continuation of the theme. Seating Himself on one of those grassy ridges, familiar still to every pilgrim in Palestine, opposite the sacred courts and porticoes, and where full in sight were those same ponderous stones,*!” He allows them farther to interrogate Him, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” It gives the Divine Prophet an opportunity of uttering a
* Mark xiii. 1,
+ Several gigantic masses of masonry still remain, in the substructure of the old Temple, as if to bear silent attestation to “the manner of stones.** The dimensions of these might well be designated “fabulous,” were there not several still to be seen (which the writer has witnessed,) in the Temple of Baalbec, of even vaster magnitude than those referred to by Josephus in connexion with the Temple of Jerusalem. One of the former is 69 feet in length, 13 in depth, and 18 in breadth, containing 16*146 cubic feet of stone; while those specified by Josephus are only 374 et long, 12 wide, and 8 high.
great prediction regarding the future — a prediction that would serve at once to authenticate His mission, prove a beacon and landmark to His Church for all time, and form an incentive for the cultivation of a spirit of watchfulness and prayer.
This profound and enigmatical prophecy, many of whose utterances can only be understood by their fulfilment, is made more lucid and determinate, when, like most of the Old Testament predictions, we interpret it on what is known as the double theory, — a partial and primary, interwoven with a secondary and ultimate fulfilment. This principle has been so amply expounded by theological writers, that it is unnecessary at any length to dwell upon it. The prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are intelligible and consistent, alone when viewed in accordance with this double interpretation. When these seers speak in glowing figure of the brilliant future awaiting Judah and Israel, their predictions had a primary and partial fulfilment, in the return from the Babylonish captivity and the rebuilding of the Temple, under Ezra, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel, and Joshua. But this was only the first instalment, so to speak, of a far vaster deliverance under a greater than Cyrus, or than any earthly potentate; pointing to a future which is to eclipse in splendour all the brightest epochs of their past; when in a nobler sense than has ever yet been realised, Zion shall be “a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of her God.”
Shall we take, as an example of this interpretation, one of David’s prophetical Psalms? Ps. lxxii. may doubtless, in the first instance, be regarded as an ode, (the last the aged king wrote,) celebrating the prospective glories of the Kingdom of Judah, under the reign of Solomon. The opening verses seem to indicate no more; — “Give the king thy judgments, God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son: He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.” But, as we proceed with the Psalm, there are expressions which meet us, exaggerated, extravagant, unnatural, if we restrict their application to the temporal prosperity of the Kingdom of Judah, or if we refer them to any mere human sovereign: — “His name shall endure for ever; His name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him, all nations shall call him blessed.” Who can for a moment hesitate to aver, that a greater than Solomon is here? “Daniel’s well-known prophecy regarding “the little Horn,” may have had its partial fulfilment in the invasion and persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, in the time of the Maccabees; but who can doubt it has had its full completion in a more subtle and spiritual Antichrist invading “the Holy place “? JoeFs prediction of the outpouring of the Spirit, had its primary fulfilment in the events of Pentecost; but we cannot read the entire prophecy, without inferring, that there will be a plenary fulfilment in a mightier baptism of fire yet awaiting the Church, when God will “shew wonders in the heavens, and in the earth; blood and fire and pillars of smoke.” Or to take one other example. In the opening of the sixth seal in the Book of Revelation, there is a thrilling figurative description there given, of a blackened sun and blood-red moon, falling stars and bursting rocks, the heaven rolled together as a scroll, and mountains and islands jostled and displaced in the terrific confusion, — kings and potentates fleeing affrighted from the catastrophe, screening themselves amid rocks, and mountains, and dens, and caves of the earth, addressing to inanimate nature wild apostrophes of terror. Almost all prophetical expositors of Revelation, have referred the fulfilment of this figurative scene (from its chronological position in the prophecy) to the subversion of the Pagan religion in the Roman Empire, and the national establishment of Christianity in its place. Here, again, however, the language would be utterly extravagant — a violent rhetorical exaggeration — if these political changes exhausted its meaning. Such a burst of terrific poetry would be quite out of place, if we entertain no thought of an ulterior meaning and fulfilment. But who ever has read that passage, from the child to the grown man, but feels irresistibly that he is in the midst of the drama of Judgment, and that the Great day of the wrath of the Lamb, which is there spoken of as having “come,” when sinners shall importunately call on mountains and rocks to fall upon them and crush them — is that tremendous hour, when “the Lord shall arise in the glory of His majesty to shake terribly the earth!”
Now if we apply the same canon of interpretation to this prophecy of our Lord’s, it will greatly simplify and elucidate its meaning. There is here, too, a primary and partial, and also a future and complete fulfilment. It is a specimen of what Lord Bacon calls *’ the germinating teachings “of Scripture — one event developing another — one application suggesting another. Indeed the interrogatory of the disciples furnishes, in this, a key to the whole. That interrogative address, if we examine it attentively, is composed, not of one, but of two questions. These, our blessed Lord answers consecutively, although in the reply here, as in most prophecies, the primary and the secondary, — the partial and complete fulfilment — are blended and intermingled.* The questions were, (1.) ‘* Tell us when shall these things be?” — i,e., the destruction and overthrow of the Jewish Temple and city; (2.)” and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?’* Much of the ambiguity associated with this chapter arises from treating these two questions as one, instead of keeping them distinct and separate.
Let us proceed to examine the first question,” When shall these things heV
The disciples had had previously intimated to them the approaching dissolution and overthrow of the Jewish state.
* Dr Pressens thus admirably expresses the application of this same theory to the passage under consideration in his thoughtful and philosophical Treatise on the Life and Work of Christ; —
“The main idea of the prophetical discourse of Jesus, is to make all these partial judgments of history lead on to the final and decisive judgment, but there is no marked line of distinction anywhere drawn between impending events and the issues of the last times. The destruction of the theocracy is confounded with those great final throes out of which will come forth the new earth wherein shall dwell righteousness. Prophecy gives its broad survey without perspective. All this prophetic painting of the events which accompany the destruction of Jerusalem, is set in a wider picture, which is nothing less than that of the final crisis of the human history, (Matt. xxiv. 15-31.) These wars, pestilences, and earthquakes, which are but the beginning of sorrows; this preaching of the gospel throughout the whole world, which is to be the witness to all nations, are so many signs carrying us onward to the last times, no less than the conclusion of the discourse which represents the sun and moon veiled with sudden darkness, the stars falling from heaven, the Son of Man appearing before the trembling tribes of the earth, and the elect rising at the sound of the archangel’s trumpet.” — Page 485.
But they were still unacqiiaiiited with the period at which that overthrow was to happen. They had heard also of the Lord’s” second coming ‘’; but they were all in ignorance as to its nature and character. Well it was for them, as it is for us, that the future is veiled. Two awful facts were at that moment known to their Divine Master — (known also indeed to them, but their knowledge of which, in comparison with His, was shadowy and indefinite) — the two facts were these — their Redeemer’s sufferings and death, and the total destruction of their city and Temple, along with the massacre of their countrymen. If these awful verities had stood forth as prominently before their mental vision as they did before His, the contemplation would have overwhelmed them: like brittle reeds they would have bent and quailed before the storm.
With regard to the latter, their thoughts, we know, to the last, lingered on the establishment of a temporal kingdom; and even now, when their Divine Master uttered His prediction about the overthrow of the city, they would doubtless associate that event with His personal coming, in temporal sovereignty, to assume the reins of empire, inflicting vengeance on impenitent Jews, and effecting the expulsion of Pagan Romans. They knew from their Lord’s own lips, that He was to come a second time. Might not His judgment on Jerusalem be contemporaneous with His coming in earthly pomp and splendour? In the lightning-flash which was to rend asunder these temples and towers, might not Zebedee’s children, who were now listening to Him, fancy they saw the sign and inauguration of that regal dream of glory which another had desired for them, and which they still perhaps, in their carnal blindness, entertained and clung to — the ’ thrones, and the partition of the ’ twelve tribes ‘? Possibly, from a previous statement of their Lord, when they were with Him in northern Palestine, they would not unnaturally draw a similar conclusion regarding this coincidence of the overthrow of Jerusalem with His triumphant reign, — ‘* VerQy I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom,” (Matt. xvL 28.)
As already noted, all prophecy is purposely ambiguous, — delivered, if I might so express it, in a skeleton form, afterwards to be clothed with flesh and blood, — a graphic outline or cartoon, which requires the fulfilment to give it embodiment and completion. While the Redeemer here unfolds to His disciples future events (in accordance with His wonted prophetical method) in designed shadow and mystery, — yet it is in language abundantly perspicuous too, for their guidance, and warning, and comfort. He sets before their eyes two vivid pictures, like the dissolving views in a diorama, meeting and merging into one another: or rather it is one picture, embracing two great events; — His own two advents. The first coming, of which we now speak, not in person, but in power, at the destruction of Jerusalem, occupies the foreground of the picture. His second coming, at the end of the world, fills the background. The personal pronouns, the ‘you’ and the ye’ ol this earlier part of the chapter, sufficiently indicate, that the first coming was one in which the generation of living men — the living hearers around Him, would have a direct interest. It is the prediction of awful judgment on the apostate nation; and specially of retributive vengeance for the guilt of His own rejection and death. Brief was the period of forty years that was to intervene between the utterance and the fulfilment.* The whole of the premonitory signs He here speaks of, were to be crowded into that short space. (1.) Jerusalem itself was to be rent and dislocated by internal feuds and divisions. (2.) All the arrows in the quiver of God were to be let loose. Wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes. (3.) There was to be outward persecution of the Church, — affliction, martyrdom, death itself. ‘* They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” (4) In addition to this, there would be the sad accompaniment of coldness and apostasy in the Church itself: — Iniquity would abound, and “the love of many wax cold.” Not the least remarkable of these premonitions was the final one, that the gospel would be preached as a witness throughout all the known world; and then the hour would strike for Jerusalem’s awful doom. That doom was to come with appalling suddenness, — with the speed of the lightning flash. But a special warning sign was to be given to the handful of true Christians, to ensure their safety before the thunder-cloud burst. When they were to see “the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet,” they were to betake themselves by instant flight to a refuge-city, Pella, in the land of Perea, on the other side of Jordan. But so speedily was judgment to follow the gracious monitory symbol, whatever that symbol might be, that if a man were at prayer on the flat roof of his house, he would have no time
* The siege of Titus took place in A.D. 73.
to descend by the inner staircase to the court and escape by the street: he must speed his way, as best he could, from roof to roof, till he reach the city-wall, and be saved “yet so as by fire.” Also those working in the fields or vineyards around the city, must not even take time to return for the garment they have laid aside while toiling under a vernal sun, but haste them as they are, like the manslayer of old, for the unsparing avenger would be already on their track.
We have the testimony of contemporary heathen and Jewish historians, that all the preliminaries here specified by Christ, were to the letter fulfilled. Josephus, though himself a Jewish priest, and personally antagonistic to the religion of Jesus, is, in- the present instance, the unconscious interpreter of the truth of Christianity, He records in his history the many petty tumults and insurrections which took place in Judea after our Lord’s ascension. In less than two years four Roman emperors had been assassinated, and internecine struggles were the result. In the reign of Claudius, famine raged in Palestine and the neighbouring countries. Tacitus, the Roman historian, mentions a plague which, in one month, in Rome alone, swept away thirty thousand. Earthquakes of great number occurred along all the borders of the Mediterranean, and with special violence in Judea itself. When our Lord was born, the temple of Janus was shut: not only did peace reign throughout the Roman world, but the Jews, as a portion of that colossal empire, enjoyed immunity from “the grievousness of war.” No sooner, however, had they been guilty of the foul crime of crucifying the Lord of glory, than the sword started from its scabbard; and His own saying received a terrible and truthful fulfilment — “With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again,” Moreover, before the expiry of forty years, the Gospel was preached, by the noble apostolic band, throughout every quarter of the then known earth; although in conjunction with this, Juvenal, Tacitus, and Suetonius record the frightful persecutions to which Christians were subjected, and especially in the Roman capital Nor are *’ the signs and wonders’’ that were “to deceive many,” left unnoted by the Jewish historian. Though these were, more than probably, the offspring of superstitious terror, we may mention them as alike the fulfilment of the Saviour’s words and also as indicative of the state of unquiet fretfulness in the Jewish mind, — the forebodings of guilty disaster and doom. He records the appearance of a comet, resembling a sword, which for a year hung over the city: an unnatural halo or light which hovered by night round the Temple and altar: chariots mustering for battle in the clouds: mysterious voices in the Temple-courts, uttering the warning sound, ‘* Let us depart hence.” ‘* The eastern gate,” says he, “of the Inner Court, which was of brass, and vastly heavy — being with difficulty shut by twenty men, and having bolts fastened deep into the firm pavement — was seen, at the sixth hour of the night, to be open of its own accord.” He farther narrates, that a countrjrman, calling himself “Saviour” a false Christ, continued crying out for the space of seven years and five months, “Woe to Jerusalem!” He had commenced his plaintive exclamation four years before the war broke out, during the Feast of Tabernacles. Day and night he rushed through the streets of the city, with the wild dirge — ‘’ A voice from the east; a voice from the west; a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem and the Temple; a voice against the bridegroom and the brides; and a voice against all the people.” Scourged as a madman, he yet refused to be silenced — at every fresh descent of the whip, his cry was, “Woe to Jerusalem!” till in the midst of the siege he had foretold, a stone felled him to the earth. Let us gather for a little around the true Savioue, who, ’ as He is seated, in this chapter, on the brow of Olivet — seated on the same spot which the army of Titus so soon after occupied — is crying with prophetic voice —” Woe to Jerusalem r’ Humanly speaking, that utterance seemed an idle tale. No symptom or symbol of coming disaster could be seen, in gazing on that wonderful city.
The same writer, from whom we have quoted as the historian, is also the minstrel of “The Fall of Jerusalem.” We may here appropriately insert his glowing description of that vision of loveliness on which the eye of Incarnate Glory fell — the city which seemed, with no presumptuous arrogance, to utter the words — “I sit as queen and shall see no sorrow.”
As on our Olive-crown’d hiU we stand.
Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters
Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion,
As through a valley sacred to sweet peace,
How boldly doth it front us! how majestically!
Like a luxurious vineyard, the hillside
Is hung with marble fabrics, line o’er line.
Terrace o’er terrace, nearer still, and nearer.
To the blue heavens. Here bright and sumptuous palaces.
With cool and verdant gardens interspersed;
Here towers of war that frown in massy strength,
While over all, hangs the rich purple eve.
.... Behold the Temple
In undisturVd and lone serenity.
Finding itself a solemn sanctuary
In the profound of heaven I It stands before us
A mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles!
The very sun, as though he worshipped there,
Lingers upon the gilded cedar roofs:
And down the long and branching porticoes
On every flowery scupltured capital
Glitters the homage of his parting beams.*
Yes! Jerusalem was at this time true to its name, *’ the city of peace!* Under Herod, not only as we have seen, had it been girded with new strength and beauty, but by its towers, and walls, and fortresses, “frowning in massy strength,” and its natural situation, it had, humanly speaking, been rendered impregnable. And yet, with a tear in His eye and a pang from the depths of His heart, that Divine Spectator sees, in awful perspective, its foundations swept — the plough of the conqueror dragged over its ruins, its Holy of Holies defiled, not one stone left upon another: the prophecy of Micah literally fulfilled, “Zion shall be ploughed like a field,*’ (Micah iii. 12.) He would have been considered madman and fool who, on human calculation, would, at this time, have ventured on such a prediction. But” Heaven and Earth,’’ says Christ, “shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Terribly and circumstantially was the declaration verified, “There shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be,” (ver. 21.) This was strong language. Doubtless its full meaning and truthfulness, in the secondary prophetical meaning, has yet to be unfolded. But with awful literality, too, had these words their accomplishment in the siege of Jerusalem. Indeed, the utterances of the Saviour are almost
* Milman’s FaU of Jerusalem, verbally echoed by Josephus, who says, “AH the calamities which have befallen any nation from the beginning of the world, are but small in comparison with those of the Jews.” Being the season of the Passover, when the army of Titus made its last desperate assault, upwards of three millions were gathered, as was the Hebrew wont, to celebrate the national festival. Their provision-stores had, a few years previously, been destroyed. Hence the horrors of starvation beggars all description. The tender feelings of humanity seemed for the time extinguished. The children would be seen tearing the morsels out of their parents’ .mouths the old men, grasping their food with enfeebled hands, were beaten; and the hair of the woifien torn in the struggle, till they surrendered the miserable crumbs which were avariciously clutched. A measure of wheat was sold for a talent. Thousands would steal, under cover of night, to stay the rage of hunger, by devouring the herbs and wild plants growing outside the city, although in most cases their boldness subjected them to torture and death; some would gnaw the very leather on their shields and sandals; others would rake the dunghills for any scrap of sustenance; the lanes were filled with the dead and the dying; the prisons were crowded with the sick; and the challenge of the prophet, “Can a woman forget her sucking child,” received a terrible reply within these famine-stricken walls: — “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.” If any additional details can make the harrowing tale more sad, it is the statement of Josephus, that the death of the nearest and dearest came to be witnessed with apathy.
The last sad offices of human affection were neglected. The dead lay unburied in ghastly heaps; while the survivors ha d no tears to shed. Partly from frightful familiarity with th is saddest ’ reign of terror ’ — partly from sheer physical debil ity, the loud Hebrew dirge of other days was exchanged for significant silence, and the living cast an envious glance on those whose sufferings were ended. The city was one vast necropolis; and while the living failed to bury the dead, they were themselves often seen to enter the caves and sepulchres, and lay themselves down in the last long sleep. Even Titus would (if he could) have averted the full measure of Zion’s doom. He is said in horror to have spread out his hands to heaven as his eye fell on the hecatombs of corpses in the adjacent valleys. Moreover, gazing with his warriors, (as a nobler Spirit was now doing with His disciples,) from one of the ridges of Olivet, on the magnificent fane before him; he issued a peremptory order that not a stone of it was to be touched. Before his balistas and catapults had begun their work of devastation, he made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders to save him and them the profanation of defiling their sacred place with blood — “I call on your gods,” said he; “I call upon my whole army; I call on the Jews who are with me; I call on yourselves to witness, that I do not force you to this crime. Come forth and fight in any other place, and no Roman shall violate your sacred edifice.” And for this purpose, too, Josephus himself was employed in a vain mission to induce the infatuated Jews to submit to unconditional surrender. “Cast away your arms,” said he, in an appeal of imploring eloquence; have pity on your country — regard
Q the beauty of that city you are about to sacrifice. — Who would be the first to put a torch to that Temple? Who would consent that these things should be no more?.,. You may think I plead for my family. If so, slay them. Nay; take my own blood as a reward — only spare Jerusalem! “His intervention was indignantly spurned; darts were hurled at him, as he stood — their last human mediator — on the top of the walL A Greater than Titus had uttered the counter-order — “Not one stone is to be left! “A firebrand was thrown by a Roman soldier through an aperture in one of the porticoes: the Temple was in a blaze, and thousands on thousands of hapless Jews, shouting “ICHABOD,’* perished in its ashes. That was a day (the 10th of August) of terrible memory. Titus was resting in his tent after the fatigues of the last conflict, when the tidings were borne to him that the Temple had been fired. He rushed in haste to the spot, followed by his generals and picked legionaries. With a loud voice, he called on them to desist and quench the flames. But nothing could arrest the fury of the soldiers. Each vied with the other in consummating the catastrophe, hurling blazing brands into the sacred precincts, and following, sword in hand, to complete the tragedy of blood. When he saw the attempt was vain to save the outer porticoes, he renewed his efibrts to prevent the Holy Place being involved in the conflagration. But in this, too, he was unsuccessful The soldiers, in the glare of the flames, saw the sacred walls begirt with gold and j)riceless treasure: — goaded on with the lust of plunder, combined with furious rage against the Jews, no human power could interpose. The Temple steps became a cataract of blood. “The whole summit of the hill which commanded the city blazed like a volcano; one after another the buildings fell in with a tremendous crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The roofs of cedar were like sheets of flame: the gilded pinnacles shone like spikes of red light: the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame and smoke. The neighbouring hills were lighted up; and dark groups of people were seen watching, in horrible anxiety, the progress of the destruction.” * The burning lurid tide rolled on, and the frantic cries of old men, children, and priests, mingled in the loud roar of the crackling flames, so that the very mountains around, in the words of the Jewish historian, seemed to give back the echo. And after Temple and tower had bowed before fire and sword and battering-ram, we are told by the same minute chronicler of this scene of misery, that on the hallowed slope, along the ravine of Jehoshaphat, and at Calvary (wherever its now disputed locality might be) so thickly were crosses planted, that there was scarce room to move among them. “The Jews were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of the city;” so terribly had the profane prayer, which resounded nigh that spot forty years before, been ratified and fulfilled, “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” Not only was every stone of the Temple demolished, but, as if to complete to the letter the prophetic fulfilment, Terentius Eufus — one of the generals of Titus — an Edomite by birth, dragged the ploughshare over the ruins, as if his deed had indited the prayer uttered a thousand years before —
* Milman’s History of the Jews.
‘* Remember, Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Ease it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof,” (Ps. cxxxvii. 7.)
“Wheresoever,” said our Lord, “the carcase is.” This carcase was evidently the Jewish nation — the corrupt, putrid, body politic — its life and glory gone — which God had given over to the eagles and vultures to prey upon. It may be a mere interpretation of fancy on the part of old prophetical writers, which has made the eagles here, to refer to the symbol on the imperial standards of Rome, — the eagles of Titus congregated to plunge their talons into this decaying carcase. There is at least something remarkable in the figure, even should it be no more than a coincidence. Truly never had eagle or vulture such a banquet as this: — never was there such evidence before given in the world, of Gkpd’s hatred at sin, and His determination to punish it! A million and a half were put to death in the capital and suburbs; — besides an additional hundred thousand sent into captivity; — some consigned to slavery; some reserved to grace the conquerors’ triumph — a miserable remnant sent to be torn by wild beasts in the Roman amphitheatres.* And “they shall be led captive into all nations.” Scattered through the world — a carcase among living men — the sentence of death — the curse of abandonment resting upon them;” wheresoever they were: ‘* — it mattered not in what region of the earth — these flying eagles of retribution would track their steps and perpetuate their heritage of woe! This is a dark picture. But we do not linger on the harrowing scene for its own sake. It is a
* In Cesarea Philippi alone, 2500 in this latter manner miserably perished.
mighty lesson — written indeed, like the laws of Draco, in characters of blood — telling us of the certainty of retribution overtaking the guilty. We know not what these eagles may have literally meant in this prophetic chapter; but we do know what they mean, when applied still to the impenitent and unbelieving. The eagles! — they are a man’s sins. These winged ministers of evil will be his future tormentors. Oh, the most awful picture of futurity, is that of the sinner being given over to himself as his own tyrant and torturer. His soul, the carcase: — the eagles (swift-winged) now hovering around their prey, and ready to pounce upon it, and fasten on it for ever! He has even the shadow and premonition of this, when the eagle of a guilty conscience broods over him and transfixes him with its talons: what will it be, when that conscience is roused with quickened sensibilities; and when the saying of Christ will have its awful, because eternal, verification, “Wheresoever the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together “? *
We shall reserve, till next chapter, speaking of the second topic — the solemn “coming” of which the other is the dim shadow. The ruin of Jerusalem, and the desolation, of Israel to this day, are, together, “the sign of the Son of Man “— pledges of the certainty of the final advent, — the warning-bell ringing in the ears of the Church and the world, to all time, “When ye shall see all these things,” (all that I have said come true; the terrible massacre — the
* “Under what impressions of holy awe and ardent hope, must the disciples have returned to Bethany that evening, when they left the green slope of Olivet, from which they had seen the scroll of the world’s history unfolded beneath the awful light of Divine Justice. The public ministry of Jesus is over.” — Fressensi, p. 488.
world-wide dispersion — the eagles of vengeance tracking Israel to all nations,) “know that it” (or rather, that He) “is nigh, even at the doors.” The destruction of Jerusalem was the first act in this great drama. It was the spark that fell on the mine. The low, rumbling noise is still heard. Men may scoff and doubt and disbelieve, but the spark has fallen and it is the sign and premonitory S3m!ibol of catastrophe to an unbelieving world. The Jew — that poor wanderer, with the curse on his brow, — that putrid carcase with the eagle devouring it, is the guarantee, that if Christ’s words were true to the letter regarding the first coming, they will not fail regarding the second.
Reader, have we fled to our ref uoje? Yes: we shall not leave yon with the picture of blood and ruin — the wasted carcase and the unsparing vultures of retribution! In this prophetic chapter, there is hung up, midway, another picture. A Pella is provided. There is a glorious refuge for every sinner, from the tremendous woe which awaits the impenitent. Haste thee — flee for thy life, lest thou be consumed! Remember, in that unparalleled doom of Jerusalem of old, there perished not one follower of Jesus. If you believe His word and avail yourself of His provided shelter — neither shall one hair of your head be touched. While He has left, on this Mount of Olives, ‘memories’ of awful warning; through the tears and blood which fell upon its sacred sod, nigh where His warnings were uttered, He has left, too, memories of mercy and reconciliation; He proclaims, through these deathless pledges of sympathy and tenderness and yearning love — ‘’As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, wherefore turn yourselves and live ye!”