Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took Jerusalem by force, and gave
it up to pillage. He placed King Joachim in chains, and afterwards
released him upon his promising to pay tribute; but that prince soon
violated his engagement. Nebuchadnezzar reappeared, Jerusalem was again
taken, and Joachim expiated his perfidy and revolt by his death.
The impious Zedekiah, one of his successors, proud of an alliance
contracted with the Egyptians, against the opinion of the prophet
Jeremiah, ventured, as Joachim had done, to endeavour to evade the yoke
of the Chaldeans. Nebuchadnezzar, upon learning this, marched against
him, ravaged Judea, made himself master of the strongest places, and
besieged Jerusalem for the third time. The king of Egypt flew to the
assistance of his ally; but Nebuchadnezzar met him in open fight,
defeated him, and compelled him to seek shelter in the centre of his
states. Jerusalem, which had given itself up to a violent, transitory
joy, became a prey to new terrors. The king of Babylon renewed the
siege, and Zedekiah determined to behave like a man who has everything
to gain and nothing to lose. The city was blockaded, the enemy stopped
all supplies, and laid waste the country round. An immense population
was shut up in the capital, which the circumvallation soon reduced to a
frightful state of famine. A single grain of wheat became of incredible
value, and water, which an extraordinary drought had rendered scarce,
was sold for its weight in gold. A pestilence likewise, no less
formidable than the famine, made terrible ravages. The streets were
blocked up with dead bodies left without sepulture, whose fetid odour
became fatal to the living. Desolation and despair stifled all the
feelings of nature; mothers were seen slaughtering their infants, to
release them from such calamities, and afterwards expiring upon their
bleeding bodies.
The enemy in the mean time pushed on the siege most warmly: the rams
never ceased to batter the walls; and vast wooden towers were erected,
from the summits of which enormous stones were launched upon the heads
of those whom famine and pestilence had spared. But even in this
extremity the Jews persisted in their defence; Zedekiah concealing
his alarm under a firm countenance, reassuring them by his words, and
animating them by his example. The more impetuous the enemy, the more
furious became the citizens. They opposed force by force, and art
quickly destroyed whatever art devised. Eighteen months passed in this
way, without any attention being paid to the voice of Jeremiah, who
continued to press the inhabitants to throw open their gates, and by
concession disarm the wrath of a power that must in the end overcome
them. At length the enemy effected a great breach, and it became
necessary to yield. Zedekiah marched out at a secret gate at the head
of the soldiery, but he was overtaken, loaded with chains, and led
away into captivity, after witnessing the massacre of his children,
and after being deprived of the light of day, which had too long shone
upon his sacrileges. The conqueror made his triumphal entrance into
Jerusalem; he bore away all the riches of the temple, immolated the
greater part of the inhabitants, and led the rest into slavery, after
reducing the temple and the principal quarters of the city to ashes.
Such was the first destruction of Jerusalem, richly merited by the
impiety and vices of its inhabitants, 1,468 years after its foundation
by Melchisedech, and nearly five hundred years after David wrested it
from the power of the Jebusites.
Many years after, Zerubbabel rebuilt it by permission of Cyrus, king
of Persia; Nehemiah reinstated the fortifications. It submitted to
Alexander the Great; and after death had carried off that conqueror,
withstood several sieges for a time; but these were of trifling
importance, though they generally terminated in the plunder of the
Temple. This was the state of the Holy City up to the time of the great
Pompey.