Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and
Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as
the high places of the forest.--Micah iii. 12.
"Walk about Zion, and go round about her, tell the towers thereof,
mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces," are they still
"beautiful for situation?" Is Jerusalem yet the "joy of the whole
earth?" Within "her walls peace once reigned, and prosperity within
her palaces." But how changed the spot! desolation and dismay reign
in undisturbed possession, where elegance and art displayed their
richest and most curious productions. Jerusalem is fallen--war
destroyed her palaces, and levelled her temple--the fire which
consumed that magnificent city was kindled by the hand of civil
discord--the desolating element that blazed with awful glare,
amidst the splendid sanctuary, was first lit by Jewish hands--and
the enfuriated Roman soldiers applied the torch, which ultimately
destroyed the temple of Jehovah. The Jews having burnt the greater
part of the galleries around the temple, and the Roman soldiers set
fire to the remainder, Titus commanded his troops to extinguish
the flames; but no sooner were his orders executed than a Roman
soldier threw a fire-brand into the temple, and the interior was
instantly in a blaze; the flames spread with rapidity, and not all
the commands, threatenings, or entreaties, of the Roman general,
and his officers, were effectual to preserve the building. Whilst
some were endeavouring to check the furious element, others set
fire to several of the door-posts; the scene was dreadful; the Jews
were filled with astonishment and horror, and their conquerors with
fury. Amidst the crackling of the fire were heard the shouts of
the victors, and the cries of the vanquished; the shrieks of the
wounded, and the groans of the dying. The ground on every side was
strewed with dead; while the courts flowed with Jewish blood, the
fire raged above; the conflagration was awful, and the massacre
dreadful.[140] Jerusalem and its walls were destroyed, the temple
levelled, and the Jews conquered, in the second year of the reign
of Vespasian, on the same month and day as Nebuchadnezzar destroyed
the former city and temple. The last temple, once celebrated for its
magnificence, is now no more. That building which, by the solidity
of its construction, seemed to defy the mouldering hand of time,
soon became a heap of ruins, and "the mountain of the house as the
high places of the forest."[141] Titus, before he withdrew his
troops, commanded them to reduce the city and temple to a level
with the ground, and they left not "one stone upon another," to
mark the spot where the temple stood. So strictly was this order
executed, that the demolished city scarcely appeared to have
been the residence of human creatures. Only three strong towers
remained of the once magnificent Jerusalem, and they were left to
exhibit to future times the skill and power of the Roman troops, in
becoming possessed of a place so strongly fortified by nature and
art. Josephus and other Jews attribute the unparalleled calamities
of their country-men, and the destruction of the temple, to the
signal vengeance of heaven, inflicted to punish that deluded people
for their cruelty and injustice to James the just, the brother of
Jesus, who is called Christ: but a believer of the New Testament
_must_ consider that _they_ were punished for their rejection and
crucifixion of Jesus Christ himself, the Messiah of Israel, and
Son of God; it was for _that_ cause "Zion was plowed as a field;
Jerusalem became a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house as
the high places of the forest."
[140] Matt. xxiv. 21, 22.
[141] The walls were composed of the most durable kind of white
stone, of massive size, each stone being twelve feet high, eighteen
broad, and thirty-seven and a half in length.