The Wars Of The Jews

1 – Jewish History – The Words of the Prophets Come True

Moses was going to die. Joshua would be the next leader of the Jews. He would lead the Jews into the land that God had promised to them. In Deuteronomy chapters 28-30, we can read something that Moses said. Moses knew what Jewish history would be in future years. God had a special covenant with the Jews. He had promised them many good things if they obeyed him. He would curse them if they did not obey him.

This is what would happen if the Jews did not obey God’s covenant. Other nations would control them. If they continued not to obey, other nations would take them away. They would put them in prison (Deuteronomy 28:36-37). If the Jews were sorry, they would have to tell God. Then God would be good to them again (Deuteronomy 30:1-5). If the Jews still did not obey God, God would scatter them to many countries (Deuteronomy 28:64-67).

Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles are the books in the Bible that tell us the history of the Jews. The things that Moses said came true. We can read about it in these books. Again and again, the Jews did not obey God. Then enemies came and ruled over them. At last, the Jews were sorry. They promised to obey the Lord again. Then God was good to them again.

The prophets warned the Jews about their behaviour. The Jews did not always listen to the prophets. At last, in 606 BC and 586 BC, the things that the Lord had promised happened. Armies from the country called Babylon marched in. They destroyed Jerusalem city. They destroyed the Temple, which Solomon had built. (Everyone in the world at that time thought that the Temple was very wonderful.) Enemies took the Jews away as slaves.

Jeremiah was a prophet. He said that the Jews would come back after 70 years. This happened in 536 BC and 516 BC. Not all the Jews came back then. Many stayed on in the lands where their enemies had taken them. Prophets had said that the Jews would build the Temple again. They did build it. Haggai was another prophet and he said this:

Part of what Haggai said came true later. Herod the Great had a plan to make many buildings. He wanted to please the people whom he ruled. In 20 BC, he started these new buildings. This was a very big task. He ordered men to make the Temple area much bigger. They filled in part of a valley to do this. They made the Temple bigger and more beautiful. It was one of the most beautiful buildings that men ever built. They did the work fairly quickly. Work continued until about the year AD 64. This was only a few years before the Roman general Titus completely destroyed the Temple. (Men had already been doing this work for about 50 years when Jesus began to teach. See John 2:20.)

One further prophecy is very important. Daniel spoke about the Jews in Daniel 9:25-27. He also spoke about Jerusalem and about the Temple. People discuss this prophecy very much. Some parts of it are easy to understand. Daniel says that men will build the Temple again. Then other people will destroy it. They will set up something that is false. At last men will destroy the Temple and the city. A king of Syria, who was called Antiochus Epiphanes, made this come true. In 167 BC, the Jews did not obey his rules. Then he forbade circumcision, *sacrifices, and other parts of the law of Moses. He set up a pagan altar in the Temple, and offered a pig on it. This made the Jews very angry. A very brave family called the Maccabees became their leaders. There were many more enemies than there were Jews, but the Jews won. They repaired the Temple and made it a holy place again. They ruled themselves for a time, until at last the Romans marched in. (Then, in AD 70, the Romans destroyed the new Temple.)

2 – The Prophecy Of Jesus

Now some of the Jews had returned to their land. They had built the Temple again. It was time for the Messiah to come. Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus showed that he had come as the Jewish Messiah. All the things that the prophets had said about the Messiah came true with Jesus. However, the Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They crucified him. God would certainly judge them for this. Jesus himself speaks about this on several occasions. On the way to the cross, he told the women of Jerusalem that they should weep. They should weep for themselves and for Jerusalem, (Luke 23:28). Luke 19 tells us how men destroyed the city and the Temple.

Luke 21 says this also.

Jesus says in these passages that enemies would surround Jerusalem. They would take it and destroy it. They would destroy the Second Temple so completely that no stone would stand on another. However, Jesus did not only say that enemies would destroy the Temple and Jerusalem. He also said that Daniel’s prophecy would come true. Men would set up something that is false in the Temple (Matthew 24:15). The Romans made some of these words come true. They destroyed the Temple in AD 70. (We should notice that many commentators believe that more will come true just before the Second Coming of Christ.)

3 – The Prophecies Come True – What Actually Happened

In AD 37 the emperor Tiberius died. The next two emperors were Gaius in AD 37, and Claudius in AD 41. They had plans that were not favourable to the Jews. Relations between the Jews and the Romans became worse and worse. They were at war with one another from AD 66-70.

Agrippa was the grandson of Herod the Great. He spent his childhood in Rome with Gaius. In AD 37, 39 and 41, he became king of the Jews. He was careful to make all the sacrifices and obey all the traditions of the Jews. The Jews were very proud of their nation, and Agrippa supported this. However, when king Agrippa died, procurators ruled. Procurators were Roman officials. They had to obey the emperor. When they had a king, the Jews thought that they had some freedom from Rome. When they had a procurator, they could not think that. Agrippa’s son became king of Galilee only. The procurators were:

There was not enough food in Israel during the AD 40’s. Groups of desperate men wandered about the country. They had to steal food to stay alive. Men seized many of these people and crucified them. Cumanus was a poor procurator. The emperor ordered him to return to Rome. Felix was foolish. He was very fierce, but not wise. The Roman historian Tacitus says, ‘Felix practised every kind of cruel act.’ We have evidence of this. Felix hoped that Paul would pay money to be free from prison (Acts 24:26).

In AD 59, Festus became king after Felix. When Festus died there was a period with no king. At that time, the High Priest ordered men to kill James (This was not legal). James had been very popular. Men protested about this to the next procurator, who was Albinus. However, Josephus, who was a Jewish historian, says that Albinus was evil. The next procurator, Florus ( AD 64-66), was also evil. They both frightened and cheated people. They used soldiers to control people.

The Jews already had a bad opinion of the Gentiles because the Gentiles did not have the Law. Paul writes about the Gentiles in Romans chapter 1. Other writers agree with what Paul says. The Jewish people had a very hard time. Because of this, they loved their nation even more. They also hated the Gentiles more. Some of the Jews had very strong feelings about all these things. But other Jews were more sensible. Those with strong feelings could easily excite the people.

The situation was now dangerous. In AD 66, Florus demanded 17 talents from the Temple. The Jews were extremely angry, and they attacked the Romans. They defeated the Roman soldiers. They no longer offered daily sacrifices to the emperor. The wars of the Jews had started. Jerusalem was attacking the strong Roman Empire.

4 – Progress of the War

At first, the Jews had some important successes. Gallus was a procurator (a Roman official) in Syria. He marched in with a legion of soldiers, but the Jews killed many of them. Gallus had to go back. Nero was now the emperor. He sent Vespasian with his son, who was called Titus. He told him to defeat the Jews. By October AD 67, they had defeated the Jews in Galilee. They took 6000 men to be slaves, and sent them off to build the canal at Corinth. One of the slaves was a commander called Josephus. He later wrote a history of the Jews.

Then the emperor Nero killed himself. There were three more emperors who were not important. They ruled for a very short time, The Romans chose Vespasian to be emperor. He left his son, Titus, to finish off the war in Jerusalem. Titus attacked Jerusalem in the spring of AD 70 with an enormous army. It was the time of Passover. There were crowds of Jews who came from many places in the city. Sadly, the Jews fought one another. They could not agree about what to do. They ended their quarrel only after the Romans attacked them. However, groups of people continued to argue.

The Romans ordered the Jews to give up. The Jews paid no attention to this. They laughed at the Romans. Titus then attacked the north part of the city – which was the weakest point. There were three walls there. Titus soon broke down two of them. He had large machines to this. Titus then marched his soldiers outside the walls of the city. He hoped that the city would accept defeat. They did not do this. Josephus was the commander whom the Romans had caught. They then sent him to talk to the Jews. He could not persuade them to give in.

The battle now began again. The Romans had a lot of trouble with the Jews. Every night, the Jews came out of passages that were under the ground. They damaged anything that the Romans were building. Titus ordered his men to catch the Jews. They had to kill them. The Romans crucified about 500 Jews every day. This only stopped when they had no more wood.

Titus did more. He built a wall of earth right round the city. No one could go in or out. There had not been very much food in Jerusalem. People had been bringing a little food into the city, in secret. The wall of earth stopped this. There was nothing to eat, and people starved. This made them desperate for food. Terrible things happened. People even ate leather belts. At one time, they killed children. They cooked them and ate them. Moses had said that this would happen (Deuteronomy 28:53). Friends attacked each other for little bits of food.

Some Jews had tried to eat valuable things in order to hide them. As a result, Roman soldiers took Jews and cut them up. They wanted to see what they could find inside them. Titus told them to stop this.

The battle was now at the Temple. Titus wanted to save it. People from all over the world knew about the Temple. However, when he called to the Jews to stop fighting, they refused. They fought on with determination. Someone started a fire, to destroy the Temple gates. Then Titus ordered men to put out the fire. He really did want to save the Temple.

The Jews had suffered very much, but so had the Roman soldiers. In the rush of battle, one soldier threw a burning torch into the Temple buildings. A fire started. Titus ordered men to put out the fire, but it was not possible. They saved and carried away some things from the Temple. They took the special gold candlestick which could hold seven candles. They took the table which held the special offering of bread. Later, they showed these things to people in Rome. We can see a picture of them on a monument in Rome. This gave honour to Titus for his defeat of the Jews. But the Temple itself burned down. Fire melted the gold which had covered the Temple. The gold was over the stones. Men separated the stones to reach the gold. The Romans then put up their flags over where the Temple had been. They sacrificed in front of the flags.

Titus then ordered them to destroy the whole city and the Temple completely. They did not leave two stones one on the other. Titus had tried very hard to save the city and especially the Temple. However, what Christ had said came true in every word. Hundreds of thousands of Jews died. If at any time the Jews had accepted defeat, they would have saved the city and the Temple. They would have saved many lives.

In AD 132, a small number of Jews remained in the city. They tried to fight against the Romans again. The Romans were very severe and strong. The Jews could not succeed. The Romans built a temple of Jupiter where the Temple had been. They sold the Jews as slaves. They did not allow the Jews to stay in Israel. From that day, the Jews wandered through the world. Often they had great fear that enemies would kill them. Moses had said that this would happen (Deuteronomy 28:64-67).

The Jews had not accepted their Messiah. Now God did not protect them, God judged them. We should note this. One day God will judge every one who did terrible things at this time. God often used nations who did not know him. He used them to punish other nations. But he will judge everyone one day, because of what they have done.

Here is one final thought. The historians, Tacitus and Josephus, inform us about most of these things. They were writing when the Romans ruled the country. It should not surprise us that they speak well about the Romans. Certainly, after the Romans caught Josephus, he saw the war from the Roman side. Another historian wrote in about AD 400. He said that Titus thought that they should destroy the Temple. Then both the Jewish and the Christian religions would end completely. After such a long time, it is difficult to know the truth. But most of this part of the story seems to be true.

We might ask about the many Christians who were in Judea at this time. There is a strong tradition that they remembered Jesus’ words (Luke 21:20-24). He warned them about difficult times. They escaped to Pella in Peraea. This is now part of Jordan. The Lord did protect his people at this terrible time. After this time, Christians could not enter a synagogue. However, there was still a church in Judea after the war of AD 66-70.

5 – Why God Destroyed The Temple

To find out the reason, we should read the letter to the Hebrews. It tells us clearly the reason. To understand the answer well, we must know a little about the Temple.

The Temple area was an oblong area, inside a wall. No one who was not a Jew could enter it. Just inside was the Altar of Sacrifice. Priests offered sacrifices for sin on the altar, one after the other. In the area was the Temple building. It had two rooms. The Jews called the outer room the Holy Place. In it was a table for consecrated bread. There were also lampstands. When priests were on duty, they went into this room every day.

Inside the outer room was another room. The Jews called it the Holy of Holies. It was the most holy part of the Temple. In this room was a box with gold all over it. They called this box the Ark of the Covenant. This helped the Jews to remember God. He had promised to be with them always. The Ark of the Covenant meant that God was with them now. There was also an altar of incense in that room. Only the High Priest went into this room. He went only once a year. First he had to offer sacrifices for himself and for the people. This showed that the way to speak to God was not yet for everyone.

The first covenant was good, but it was not perfect. It only prepared the people for the greater covenant that was to follow. This new covenant would last for ever. The blood of animals could never be a perfect sacrifice for sin. Hebrews 10:4 tells us this. There are similar references in the Old Testament. The priests were human. They could understand people who did wrong things. However, they had to offer sacrifices for their own sins, as well as for the people. Also, the first covenant had no power. It gave the law, but it did not give the power to obey it. The prophets said that there would be a new covenant. God had promised this. When Jesus died, he finished the old covenant. His death was the only perfect sacrifice for sin for all time. God would accept this perfect sacrifice for sin. God would put his laws in our minds. When we obey Jesus, he helps us to please God.

The prophets also spoke about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In the letter to the Hebrews, the Writer says that Jesus is the Son of God. He is the perfect sacrifice for sin because he did not do anything wrong. He is also our great High Priest. He gave himself on the cross. Because of that sacrifice, all who trust in Jesus can now reach God. They can be in heaven, with God, for ever. When Jesus died on the cross, something wonderful happened. In the Temple, there was a curtain which separated the outer room from the Holy of Holies. When Jesus died, the curtain tore in two, from top to bottom.

In the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross, we have one perfect offering for sin for all time. The sacrifice was perfect. Therefore, it never needs to happen again (Hebrews 7:26-28; 9:27- 28; 10:11-13). Hebrews also tells us that after this sacrifice, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:18). The first covenant and its sacrifices were like shadows of what Jesus would do. Now that Jesus has made the perfect sacrifice, the first covenant is out of date (Hebrews 8:13).

Jesus was God, and the perfect sacrifice for sin. He was also human. Temptations and tests came to him, as they do to us. For this reason, he is able to give us his grace and help (Hebrews 4:14-16).

6 – Final Thoughts

All of this is an important lesson to us all. The end of Jerusalem and the Temple shows that God does punish sin. The Bible warns us about this many times. We must pay attention. God delays his punishments, but in the end, it happens. The Jews did not accept their Messiah. They suffered for this. This should warn us. The end of Jerusalem and the Temple warns us that God’s judgement is real. It makes us think about his final judgement. It will be completely fair. God cares for us. He delays his final judgement to give people time. They need time to come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Today God offers to forgive us completely for our sins. Christ can take us right to God. The Holy Spirit can give us power to live a new life. We end with some more words from Hebrews: