WARS OF THE JEWS

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WARS OF THE JEWS

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AN EVERLASTING COVENANT

THE JEWISH NATION LIVES FOREVER

THIS SONG WILL TESTIFY

ISHMAEL`S POWER

PROPHECIES ABOUT THE REDEMPTION

WARS OF THE JEWS

The words of the predictions of Deuteronomy were completely fulfilled.

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When compared to the ravaging Roman beast, life under the Babylonian conquest and exile now seemed only a relatively mild irritation. The prediction that the native Jews would be forced into slavery was fulfilled in the cruelest terms: "And you shall serve your enemy whom G-d will send against you in hunger and in thirst and stripped of everything and lacking all." In the Holy Land, the Roman procurator and his government ruled with an iron fist that made life unbearable. How painfully were the words of the predictions of Deuteronomy fulfilled: You shall build a home, and you shall not dwell in it; You shall plant a vineyard, and not harvest from it. Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen before your eyes, and will not come back to you. Your flock is given over to your enemy, and you have no rescuer. Your sons and your daughters are handed over to another people, and your eyes witness and long for them all the day, and you can do nothing. The fruit of your land and all your efforts will be consumed by a people you knew not, and you will be only oppressed and crushed all the days. Deuteronomy 28:30-33 The Roman authorities stationed in Judea acted as free agents, entitled to take and plunder and dispose of property and souls however they saw fit. They systematically gave preference to the needs of the Hellenist population over the Jews. The first Roman governor in Rabat Ammon intervened in a controversy between the local Jewish community and the Hellenists and had a prominent Jewish leader executed. He endeavored to gain possession of the vestments of the High Priest of the Holy Temple. It took a message sent by the Roman emperor himself to thwart his designs on the sacred garments. This first governor was replaced by a Jew who had betrayed his heritage and converted. To prove his loyalty to Rome, he had two members of the family of Hizkiya the Galliellean executed by hanging. His replacement was even more vicious. Under his direction, Roman soldiers provoked the crowds that flooded Jerusalem three times a year to pray at the Holy Temple, as prescribed by the Torah. A group of Roman troops defied the Jewish pilgrims by tearing up a Torah scroll before their eyes, and then publicly burning it. On another occasion, a group of Jews from the Galilee were attacked by Samaritans. Although the Roman forces were witness to the attack, they watched, passively, as innocent Jewish pilgrims were murdered. The Roman authorities were not moved to take any action against the attackers. The next procurator to appear on the scene was Albinus, who succeeded Festus. As Josephus describes him: …nor was there any sort of wickedness that could be named but he (Albinus) had a hand in it. Accordingly, he did not only, in his political capacity, steal and plunder every one's substance, nor did he only burden the whole nation with taxes, but he permitted the relatives of such as were in prison for robbery... to redeem them for money... War of the Jews, Book II, Chapter 14 The procurators who followed Albinus were progressively worse. Mere words fail to describe the brutality with which they fulfilled the predictions of the Scriptures: You shall build a home, and you shall not dwell in it; You shall plant a vineyard, and not harvest from it. ... The fruit of your land and all your efforts will be consumed by a people you knew not, and you will be only oppressed and crushed all the days. Deuteronomy 28:30-33 This appalling situation characterized the last one hundred thirty years before the fall of the Second Temple, just as the Torah foretold it would happen. In comparison, during the years immediately preceding the destruction of the First Temple the local Jewish population was never subjected to such tyranny and brutality. There was never a situation in which the fruits of their labors and of their land were consumed by foreigners. Indeed, we see that in the first passage of rebuke, in Leviticus, there is no mention of such suffering and persecution, since it appertains to the fall of the First Temple, but not of the Second. There is an additional curse which we find only in the second passage of rebuke, that in Deuteronomy, but not in the earlier passage, in Leviticus: The stranger who is your midst will rise higher and higher, and you shall descend lower and lower. He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail. (Deuteronomy 28:43-44) To whom does the Scripture refer in these verses? And why do we not find a similar curse in the passage in Leviticus? We can easily understand how these dire predictions were fulfilled at the time that the Romans held sway over the Holy Land, during the reigns of Antipater II the Idumaean and his son, Herod the Great. They both had converted to Judaism, and both maintained control over the people with an iron fist that knew no mercy. They rose to the throne through shrewd political tactics, currying favor with whichever Roman ruler held sway at the moment. No murder or crime was too great for them. Such a phenomenon was unknown during the period directly preceding the fall of the First Temple. The last remnants of the Hasmonean dynasty were murdered by Herod's men, as were many prominent Torah scholars and public figures. Herod cleared away any potential opposition to his rule, and then assumed the throne. His reign was marked by unprecedented cruelty and bloodshed. As the Torah had predicted, "the stranger who is your midst will rise higher and higher, and you shall descend lower and lower. He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail." (Deuteronomy 28:43-44) The Jewish people suffered from the rule of this "stranger in their midst" – Herod the Idumaean, and his successors – until the destruction of the Second Temple, when they were slain or taken into exiles as slaves.

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