the foundation. The soldiers were not then disobedient to their general. Avarice combined with duty and with resentment: the altar, the temple, the walls, and the city, were overthrown from the base, in search of the treasures which the Jews, beset on every hand by plunderers, had concealed and buried during the siege. Three towers and the remnant of a wall alone stood, the monument and memorial of Jerusalem; and the city was afterwards ploughed over by Terentius Rufus. In the siege, and in the previous and subsequent destruction of the cities and villages of Judea, according to the specified enumeration of Josephus, about one million three hundred thousand suffered death. Ninety-seven thousand were led into captivity. They were sold for slaves, and were so despised and disesteemed, that many remained unpurchased. And their conquerors were so prodigal of their lives, that, in honour of the birthday of Domitian, two thousand five hundred of them were placed, in savage sport, to contend with wild beasts, and otherwise to be put to death. * Tacitus, who flourished about thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, speaks of the strength of the fortifications of that city, the immense riches and strength of the temple, the factions that raged during the siege, as well as of the prodigies that preceded its fall. And he particularly mentions the large army brought by Vespasian to subdue Judea, “ a fact which shews the magnitude and importance of the expedition." Philostratus particularly relates that Titus declared, after the capture of Jerusalem, that he was not worthy of the crown of victory, as he had only lent his hand to the execution of a work in which God was pleased to manifest his anger. Dion Cassius records the conquest of Judea by Titus and Vespasian, the obstinate and bloody resistance of the Jews during the siege, the destruction of the temple by fire. It is recorded by Maimonides, and in the Jewish Talmud, (as cited by Basnage and Lardner,) that Terentius Rufus, an officer in the Roman army, tore up with a ploughshare the foundations of the temple. The But the miseries of their race were not then at a close. There was a curse on the land, that hath scathed it, a judgment on the people that hath scattered them throughout the world. respecting them yet remain to be much of their history is yet untold. are as clear as the facts are visible. Many prophecies considered, and The prophecies CHAPTER IV. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE JEWS. WHILE Moses, as a divine legislator, promised to the Israelites that their prosperity and happiness and peace would all keep pace with their obedience, he threatened them with a gradation of punishments, rising in proportion to their impenitence and iniquity; and neither in blessings nor in chastisements hath the Ruler among the nations dealt in like manner with any people. But their wickedness, and consequent calamities, greatly preponderated,. and are yet prolonged. The retrospect of the history of the Jews, since their dispersion, could not, at the present day, be drawn in truer terms, than in the unpropitious auguries of their prophet above three thousand two hundred years ago. In the most an triumphal arch of Titus, commemorative of the destruction of Jerusalem, and with figures of Roman soldiers, bearing on their shoulders the holy vessels of the temple, is still to be seen at Rome. and cient of all records, we read the lively representation of the present condition of the most singular people upon earth. Moses professed to look through the glass of ages; the revolution of many centuries has brought the object immediately before us we may scrutinize the features of futurity as they then appeared to his prophetic gaze; and we may determine between the probabilities whether they were conjectures of a mortal, who "knows not what a day may bring forth," or the revelation of that Being, "in whose sight a thousand years are but as yesterday." "I will scatter you among the heathen, and draw out a sword after land shall be desolate, and them that are upon left of you I will send a faintness into their hearts, in the land of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies; and ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up and they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' land; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, shall they pine away with them: and yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly. And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen whither the Lord will lead you. The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them, and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. The Lord shall smite thee with h Lev, xxvi. 33, 36-39, 44. * Deut. xxviii. 25. h i Deut. iv. 27. Be madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart and thou shalt grope at noon-day as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given to another people. There shall be no might in thine hand. The fruit of thy land and all thy labour shall a nation, which thou knowest not, eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway; so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. The Lord shall bring thee unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all the nations whither the Lord shall lead thee. cause thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things, therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. And the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues and of long continuance." All these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pur sue thee, and overtake thee; and they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever and it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it: and the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the 1 Deut. xxviii. 28, 29, 32, 33, 36, 37. m Ibid. 47, 48, 59. sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind; and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life. In the morning, thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.” The writings of all the succeeding prophets abound with similar predictions. "I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth. I will cast them out into a land that they know not, where I will shew them no favour. I will feed them with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them and I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers. I will bereave them of children: I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach, even among all the nations whither I have driven them.9 I will execute judgment in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds. I will scatter them among the nations, among the heathen, and disperse them in the countries.$ They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver " Deut. xxviii. 45, 46, 63-67. ° Jer. xv. 4; xvi. 13; ix. 15, 16. P Jer. xxiv. 9, 10. Ezek. v. 10. a Jer. xv. 7; xxix. 18. |