The Destruction of the First Holy Temple
Two Temples stood in succession on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The First Temple was constructed by King Solomon, based on detailed plans that G‑d had given to his father, King David through the prophet Nathan. King David had wanted to build it himself, but was told that his son would be the one to do it.
In the fourth year of his reign, 833 BCE, King Solomon found himself at peace with his neighbors and began the construction of the Temple. The site chosen by King David was the top of Mount Moriah, where Abraham had once proved his readiness to offer up his dearly beloved son in obedience to G‑d's command.
It was the archetype of the "dwelling for G‑d in the physical world" that is the purpose of creation.Tens of thousands of men were needed to perform the many tasks required for the gigantic undertaking. Men were sent to Lebanon to cut down cedar trees. Stones were hewn near the quarries, and then brought up to Moriah, there to be fitted together. In the valley of the Jordan the bronze was cast. Craftsmen were brought in from Tyre to help perfect the work. Ships set sail eastward and westward to bring the choicest materials for the adornment of the House of G‑d.
It took seven years to complete the Temple. In the twelfth year of his reign, in 827 BCE, King Solomon dedicated the Temple and all its contents. The Ark of the Covenant was brought into the Temple amidst inaugural celebrations that lasted for seven days.
For the next 410 years, the Jewish people would bring daily offerings in this magnificent edifice, and here the nation would gather three times a year to "see and to be seen by the face of G‑d." Here the Divine Presence was manifest. Ten daily miracles – such as the wind never extinguishing the fire on the altar – attested to G‑d's presence in the Temple. This was the archetype of the "dwelling for G‑d in the physical world" that is the purpose of creation.
Solomon's reign was a golden era. His capital became the center of wisdom, riches, and splendor. Monarchs as well as ordinary people came to gaze on all the marvels to be seen there, and left wide-eyed with amazement and awe. The Land of Israeldeveloped into a great center of commerce. The Jews lived in peace and happiness, "every man under his vine and under his fig tree."
The Beginning of the End
At the end of King Solomon's life, he was guilty of indiscretions unbefitting his great stature. G‑d told him he would be punished. After his death, the kingdom would be torn in two.
Indeed, after Solomon's death, the ten northern tribes refused to accept his son Rehoboam as their king. In 796 BCE, the country was divided into two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the south.
The kings of the Kingdom of Israel practiced idolatry, but so did many of the kings of the Kingdom of Judah. G‑d sent prophets repeatedly to admonish the Jews, but they refused to change their ways, choosing instead to deride these prophets as false messengers coming to discourage them with predictions of destruction.
G‑d sent prophets repeatedly to admonish the Jews, but they refused to change their waysIn one egregious example, in 661 BCE, the prophet Zechariah ben Jehoiada chastised the nation for their sins, warning them of the grave punishments that would befall them if they would not change their ways. Rather than accept his rebuke, the nation stoned Zechariah to death in the Temple courtyard. Incredibly, this occurred on Yom Kippur.
Rather than allowing Zechariah's blood to settle into the earth, G‑d caused it to bubble up. The people tried to cover it with earth, but it continued to seethe for the next 252 years, until the Destruction of the Temple (more on this later on).
As a result of the disobedient and corrupt behavior of the Jews, G‑d did not provide either kingdom with the peace and security that the united kingdom had enjoyed under Solomon's reign. Their common enemy was the Assyrian empire to the north.
In 555 BCE, Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, fell to the Assyrians, and the Kingdom of Israel came to an end. Scores of thousands of the conquered people were led into captivity. They were transported to distant provinces of the Assyrian empire, and they disappeared completely. The Assyrians repopulated the land with exiles that had been uprooted from other countries, whose descendants came to be called the Samaritans or Kuttim. No trace has been found of the Ten Tribes.
The Kingdom of Judah miraculously survived the Assyrian threat and lasted another 150 years. Their kings were not uniformly evil as the kings of the Kingdom of Israel had been; they had several truly righteous monarchs – notably among them Hezekiah andJosiah – and enjoyed occasional bouts of resurgent spiritual health. But eventually, they would fall victim to the Babylonians.
The Book of Lamentations
Beginning in 463 BCE, Jeremiah prophesized about the Babylonian threat and warned the Jews of the terrible devastation they would incur if they did not stop worshipping idols and mistreating each other. But his melancholic prophecies, recorded in the Book of Jeremiah, went largely unheeded by the Jews, who mocked and persecuted him.
Some eighteen years before the destruction of the Temple, Jeremiah was imprisoned by King Jehoiakim (apparently due to his persistent prophecies foretelling the fall of Jerusalem). G‑d then spoke to Jeremiah (Jeremiah ch. 36):
Children starving; cannibalism on the part of hunger-crazed mothers, the city abandoned..."Take for yourself a scroll and write upon it all the words that I have spoken to you concerning Israel and concerning Judah. . . . Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I plan to do to them, in order that they should repent, each man of his evil way, and I will forgive their iniquity and their sin."
Jeremiah summoned his devoted disciple, Baruch ben Neriah, and dictated to him a heart-rending and graphic warning of the coming doom; this prophecy eventually became known as the Book of Lamentations ("Eichah").
In this scroll, Jeremiah described and mourned the devastation that G‑d would wreak upon Jerusalem and the Holy Land: children starving; cannibalism on the part of hunger-crazed mothers, the city abandoned.
Baruch ben Neriah followed Jeremiah's instructions. He publicly read the scroll in the Holy Temple.
When the king was informed of this event, he asked that the scroll be read to him. After hearing but a few verses, the king grabbed the scroll and callously threw it into the fireplace.
When Jeremiah was informed of the king's actions, he sat and composed another chapter that he added to the book. This Book of Lamentations is read in the synagogue every year on the eve of the Ninth of Av.
The Babylonians Are Coming
The Assyrians had long dominated the Middle East, but their power was waning. Even with the help of the Egyptians, who were getting stronger, they were not able to fight off the Babylonians. These three empires were engaged in a power struggle, and the Kingdom of Judah was caught in the middle.
In 434 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah tried to form an alliance with Egypt. The Jews thought, despite Jeremiah's prophecies, that this would keep them safe. But instead, the Babylonian king,Nebuchadnezzar, marched on Judah. He pillaged Jerusalem and deported tens of thousands of Jews to his capital in Babylon; all the deportees were drawn from the upper classes, the wealthy, and craftsmen. Ordinary people were allowed to stay in Judah, and Nebuchadnezzar appointed a puppet king over Judah,Zedekiah.
But Zedekiah, though G‑d fearing and righteous, was foolishly courageous, and (despite Jeremiah's repeated admonitions not to) he tried to break free from the Babylonians. So Nebuchadnezzar marched on Jerusalem again. This time he would not be content with making Judah into a vassal state. On the tenth of Tevet, 425 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar began the siege of Jerusalem.
The Destruction
"Zechariah, Zechariah! I have slain the best of them; do you want all of them destroyed?"Thirty months later, in the month of Tammuz, after a long siege during which hunger and epidemics ravaged the city, the city walls were breached. King Zedekiah tried to escape through an eighteen-mile long tunnel, but he was captured in the plains of Jericho by enemy soldiers who, while chasing a deer, saw him emerging. He was brought before Nebuchadnezzar in Riblah. There Zedekiah's sons and many other Jewish personages were slain before his eyes; then his eyes were put out, and he was led in chains to Babylon.
On the seventh day of Av, the chief of Nebuchadnezzar's army, Nebuzaradan, began the destruction of Jerusalem. The walls of the city were torn down, and the royal palace and other structures in the city were set on fire.
Our Sages say that when Nebuzaradan entered the Temple he found the blood of Zechariah seething. He asked the Jews what this phenomenon meant, and they attempted to conceal the scandal, but he threatened to comb their flesh with iron combs. So they told him the truth: "There was a prophet among us who chastised us, and we killed him. For many years now his blood has not rested."
Nebuzaradan said, "I will appease him." He then killed the members of the Great and Small Sanhedrins, then he killed youths and maidens, and then school-children. Altogether, he killed 940,000 people. Still the blood continued to boil, whereupon Nebuzaradan cried: "Zechariah, Zechariah! I have slain the best of them; do you want all of them destroyed?" At last the blood sank into the ground (Talmud, Gittin 57b).1
On the ninth day of Av, toward evening, the Holy Temple was set on fire and destroyed. The fire burned for 24 hours.
Our Sages taught: When the first Holy Temple was destroyed, groups of young priests gathered with the keys to the Sanctuary in their hands. They ascended the roof and declared: "Master of the World! Since we have not merited to be trustworthy custodians, let the keys be given back to You." They then threw the keys toward Heaven. A hand emerged and received them, and the priests threw themselves into the fire (Talmud, Ta'anit 29b).
Everything of gold and silver that still remained was carried off as loot by the Babylonian soldiers. All the beautiful works of art with which King Solomon had once decorated and ornamented the holy edifice were destroyed or taken away. The holy vessels of the Temple that could be found were brought to Babylon. Thehigh priest Seraiah and many other high officials and priests were executed. In addition to the 940,000 people killed in the aforementioned incident, millions more were killed inside and outside of the city. Many thousands of the people that had escaped the sword were taken prisoner and led into captivity in Babylon, where some of their best had already preceded them. Only the poorest of the residents of Jerusalem were permitted to stay on to plant the vineyards and work in the fields.
All this had been predicted in the Torah, and it came to pass with all the horror of whichMoses had warnedThus ended the empire of David and Solomon; thus the magnificent city and Holy Temple were destroyed. Thus G‑d punished His people for deserting Him and His laws. All this had been predicted in the Torah, and it truly came to pass with all the horror of which Moses had warned.
Jeremiah also promised that the Jewish people would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. That would come to pass seventy years later.
For this our heart has become faint, for these things our eyes have grown dim.
For Mount Zion, which has become desolate; foxes prowl over it.
But You, O G‑d, remain forever; Your throne endures throughout the generations.
Why do You forget us forever, forsake us so long?
Restore us to You, O G‑d, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old.
| FOOTNOTES | |
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Alternatively, according to the Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah 3:16), the blood of the young priests and the members of the Great and Small Sanhedrin poured until it reached the grave of Zechariah. Nebuzaradan cried to Zechariah's blood: "Is your blood better than theirs?" At that point G‑d was filled with compassion. He signaled to the blood and it settled into the ground.
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Destruction of The First Temple
The destruction of the First Temple was the watershed of Jewish history. Despite their shortcomings, the Jewish people took the lessons of the destruction to heart and rebuilt their lives physically and spiritually.
The facts of the destruction are simple enough. The prophet Jeremiah had warned of impending doom for years. Judea was living with a false sense of security. They somehow felt that they would be able to rebel against the power of Babylon and sustain the rebellion. They deluded themselves that Egypt would protect them, thinking that their southern neighbor preferred to confront Babylon north of Jerusalem rather fighting them on their own borders. However, Egypt was not willing to spill one drop of Egyptian blood on behalf of Judea.
Another delusion was that somehow the Babylonians would forget about them. However, the king of Babylon was not about to let Judea slip out of his orbit. He came with his whole army to put down the rebellion – and he came with a cruelty, a vengeance and a finality. He not only wanted to teach the Jews a lesson, but knock out of the minds of anyone else that somehow you could cross the Babylonian Empire and suffer no consequences.
Nebuchadnezzar came from the north and invaded the outskirts of Judea. By the early part of the summer his army had encamped around Jerusalem. He cut off the city and systematically tightened the noose around Jerusalem. On the ninth day of the month of Tammuz the walls of the city were breached and the Babylonian army poured through.
Within a month they had destroyed all pockets of Judean resistance. Tens of thousands died in the siege, which brought on famine and pestilence, and then by sword and fire. Those who could do so fled. However, the Babylonians had anticipated that and herded escapees into giant slave camps, from where they were transported into exile in Babylon.
The Ninth of Av
At sunset at the beginning of the ninth day of the month of Av the Babylonians set fire to the Temple. The Talmud (Taanis 29a) reports that the fire began at night just after the conclusion of the Sabbath. In other words, that year the day of the ninth of Av itself took place on a Sunday. By Sunday night it was completely destroyed.
The ninth of Av became a fast day on the Jewish calendar. The Second Temple, too, would be destroyed four centuries later on the very same date, the ninth of Av. If the Jewish people did not behave like a people meant to represent God – to be a kingdom of spiritual leaders, and a holy people (Exodus 19:6) – what value was the Temple? It was only stone, bricks and mortar.
God’s protective Hand, which guides everything in history, was removed. When it was removed the Temple was but an empty shell. “If the owner of the house is no longer there then the robbers can plunder.” That is what Jews mourn over.
Authors of History, Not Just Players in History
That is the story, the history. However, to stop there is to not understand what happened.
It was not a hard and fast rule of history that the Babylonians had to triumph over Judea. Karl Marx sold Western civilization the idea that there are inflexible and inexorable rules of history, and that the individual under no circumstance could change those rules. Human beings are just pawns.
When one takes that to its logical conclusion one can justify sending 20 million people to the Gulag, as happened under the Marxists of the Soviet Union, and causing the deaths of 50-70 million Chinese, as happened in Communist China. Communism was the wave of the future; what were a few hundred million lives in the cause of progress? Is has to happen. If it has to happen, then a person can say, “I am just helping it happen; I am not doing it.”
The idea that there are historic forces that create these cataclysms and holocausts acquits one of all responsibility. It is not my fault. I am only taking orders. I am only doing what history says. That is what allows people to be such murderers. There is no individual guilt or responsibility. Everyone is acting under a force. The big have to devour the small. The weak have to fall before the strong. The fittest have to survive. Civilizations have to rise and fall. In effect, if we follow the logic to its illogical conclusion Western civilization is doomed.
The Torah has a very different view of history. It can be altered – and it can be changed by one person… by one act… by one people. Just as we are the ones who caused it to happen, we can be the ones to cause it to happen in the opposite direction. We are not guiltless observers caught up in irresistible forces that go by the name “history.” We are the participants. We are the players. We are the authors.
The Cardinal Sins
The Talmud lists the three behaviors the Jewish people of the time were guilty of that led to the destruction: the cardinal sins of paganism, murder and adultery.
Paganism is the lack of any allegiance to the Higher Authority. However, it need not necessarily be translated only in terms of literal idols. It is not just about Zeus and Apollo. It takes on many different forms in society: wealth, greed and all sorts of injustice. All these are the results of having no responsibility to God.
Paganism created gods in man’s image. In all the pagan mythologies the gods behaved like spoiled, rich, rotten people. They fought among themselves. They killed each other. They stole each other’s property and wives. They did terrible things because the mythology portrayed the god as man.
The Torah came to say that we are made in God’s image; man has to imitate God. “And you shall walk in His ways” (Deuteronomy 28:9). “Just as He is merciful, so must you be merciful. Just as God visits the sick, you must visit the sick.”[1]
When large segments of the Jewish people succumbed to paganism they entered the long, slippery slope to all the vices of the pagan gods, which were nothing but the vices of human beings living without responsibility to the Higher Authority.
The second sin that caused the destruction of the Temple, the Talmud says, was murder. They placed little value on human life. In our time, too, life is cheap. We become immune to it. Just listen to the news. You are driving in your car and you want to hear the traffic report, but if you do not time it right the newscaster will tell you about three murders, an arson and a brutal beating in the Bronx. We have become desensitized to it.
In the Torah, human life reigns supreme. The instances when human life can be taken are extremely limited. They have to meet certain very exacting standards. In a society where human life is taken very easily it reflects just how far humanity has strayed from its purpose.
The third sin was sexual immorality. This, too, is the loss of understanding of the role of people in the world. It also demonstrates the loss of understanding of the role of the human body and of the necessity to appreciate the grandeur of inner person, not just the animalistic outer garment of who we are.
When one adds those three ills of society together, which the prophets railed against for a long time, the destruction was a natural outcome. However, it was not abstract historic forces that drove the event, but rather the behavior that drove the history. The Jewish people could have done something about it. Indeed, they did do something about it later on, and although there were other reasons ascribed to the destruction of the Second Temple it was not because of the cardinal sins.
The Torah idea is that human beings can – indeed, must – do something to improve. The lesson of the destruction of the Temple made that concept real.
Miniature Sanctuaries
Despite everything, even in the land of their enemies the Jewish people were able to realize that the Temple could be rebuilt — if not in brick and stone, then in a spiritual sense through spiritual work.
Even though the Temple was destroyed, God could find a place in their synagogues, houses of study, behavior — in their very hearts. They would be able to build a Temple of the spirit… until the time would come when God, in His own fashion, would rebuild a physical Temple.
Building a Temple of the spirit is much harder to do and a much greater accomplishment. It is much easier to build a building than what is inside the building. The modern world has some of the finest school buildings ever to exist, with all the modern accoutrements to educate the masses, but it is very hard to produce one human being. There are beautiful houses of worship all over the world that are glorious to behold, but it is hard to build a place where God is really welcomed and would want to be found, so to speak.
The Jewish people have been able to build miniature sanctuaries (Ezekiel 11:16) in different communities over the centuries in different continents. Although the physical Temple was destroyed the central idea behind it remained and took on greater meaning. It gave the Jewish people strength, courage and purpose. It spelled the difference between general history and Jewish history. No other people have sustained such a blow and not only survived to tell about it but have been able to carry on with their mission.
That is why the destruction of the First Temple has to be seen as the watershed in Jewish history. Nothing was the same afterwards. On the other hand, it created new opportunities to work on the inner dimension that had been neglected. They took the lessons to heart, rolled up their sleeves and got down to the business of self-improvement and rebuilding from the inside out.
In the final analysis, the way the Jewish people ultimately reacted to the tragedy represented a triumph of the spirit. The outer loss created inner opportunities that they took advantage of to guarantee not only their survival and continuity, but their eternity.
[1] Sifrei to Deuteronomy 11:22; see also Sotah 14a.
The Destruction of the First Holy Temple
The Destruction of the First Temple
The 9th of Av, 586 B.C.E.
O God, the heathen have come into thy inheritance;
they have defiled thy holy temple;
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
They have given the bodies of thy servants to the birds of the air for food,
the flesh of thy saints to the beasts of the earth.
They have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem,
and there was none to bury them.
We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
mocked and derided by those round about us.
How long, O LORD?
Wilt thou be angry for ever?
Will thy jealous wrath burn like fire?
Pour out thy anger on the nations that do not know thee,
and on the kingdoms that do not call on thy name!
For they have devoured Jacob,
and laid waste his habitation.
Do not remember against us the iniquities of our forefathers;
let thy compassion come speedily to meet us,
for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name;
deliver us, and forgive our sins, for thy name's sake!
Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?"
Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of thy servants be known
among the nations before our eyes!
Let the groans of the prisoners come before thee;
according to thy great power preserve those doomed to die!
Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors the taunts
with which they have taunted thee, O Lord!
Then we thy people, the flock of thy pasture,
will give thanks to thee for ever;
from generation to generation we will recount thy praise.
(Psalm 79. A Psalm of Asaph)
God of Love, God of Judgment
A common charge leveled by critics of the Bible is that the Jewish Scriptures teaches a God of wrath and judgment and the Christian Writings teaches that God is love. Such claims are naive: God is Love, but He is also Holy and Just and can not act in a manner that is inconsistent with His character. At the time of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai the LORD passed before Moses:...and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." (Exodus 34:6, 7)The Psalmist declares,
For thy steadfast love is great above the heavens, thy faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let thy glory be over all the earth! (Psalm 108:4, 5)Because judgment from God is delayed, often for very long periods of time, some suppose that it will never happen. Yet individuals who have experienced the judgment of God for the failure to correct sinful failings in their lives will testify that when God does judge sin He is both relentless and thorough.
Isaiah reveals God's reluctance to judge his people - his longsuffering and patience. But when He acts God is thorough in "his stange work" of judgment:
For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed - strange is his deed! and to work his work - alien is his work! Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts upon the whole land. Give ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? does he continually open and harrow his ground? When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cummin, and put in wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and spelt as the border? For he is instructed aright; his God teaches him. Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cart wheel rolled over cummin; but dill is beaten out with a stick, and cummin with a rod. Does one crush bread grain? No, he does not thresh it for ever; when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it. This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom." (Isaiah 28:21-29)The Lamentations of Jeremiah describes God's judgment as accompanied by mercy and compassion,
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust - there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults.A little reflection will show that God must intervene in human affairs as Judge of all the earth:
For the Lord will not cast off for ever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.
To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth, to turn aside the right of a man in the presence of the Most High, to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord does not approve.
Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?
Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? (Lamentations 3:21-39)
"All through the Bible we see God's love is manifest to men and women everywhere in urging them to escape this judgment. God in love pleads with people, 'Do not go on to this end!' But ultimately he must judge those who refuse his offer of grace. He says, in effect, 'I love you and I can provide all you need. Therefore love me, and you will find the fulfillment your heart is looking for.' But many men and women say, 'No, I do not want that. I will take your gifts, I will take all the good things you provide, but I do not want you! Let me run my own life. Let me serve my own ends. Let me have my own kingdom.' To such, God ultimately says, 'All right, have it your way!'What is more difficult for us to accept is that God also judges His own covenant peoples, not just His enemies. These temporal judgments are disciplinary and corrective rather than punitive. In fact before God judges the unbelieving world He first judges His own people:
"God has three choices: first, he can let rebellion go on forever and never judge it. In that case the terrible things that are happening on earth, all these distressing injustices, the cruelty, the anger, the hate, the malice, the sorrow, the hurt, the pain, the death that now prevails, must go on forever. God does not want that, and neither does man. Second, God can force men to obey him and control them as robots. But he will never do that because that means they cannot truly love him. Love cannot be forced. Therefore, third, the only choice God really has is that he must withdraw ultimately from those who refuse his love. He must let them have their own way forever. That results in the terrible torment of godlessness. If God is necessary to us, then to take him out of our lives is to plunge us into the most terrible sense of loneliness and abandonment that mankind can know. We have all experienced it to some small degree when we get what we want and then discover we do not want what we got! For that sense of bored emptiness to go on forever, is unspeakable torment." (Ref. 1)
For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And "If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where will the impious and sinner appear?" (1 Peter 4:17, 18)It is not as though the Lord had never warned His people Israel. The blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 27-28 Moses gave to the people as they were preparing to enter the land under Joshua were later to be read from Mt. Gerazim and Mt. Ebal at Shechem. The list is clear, and it is black and white.
Sadly, all manner of persons who know God, not just His special people the Jews, show a propensity for ignoring God, for not taking Him seriously, and for running off to follow their own ways and the ways of the world. Israel is a model nation, put on public display as "Exhibit A" to show us what any people is like when they ignore or rebel against their Creator--the One true God, Holy One of Israel.
The Hebrew Bible is a sad record of the gradual downhill course of Israel and Judah after the death of Solomon. Occasional good kings in Jerusalem brought about temporary reforms and revivals but these were soon forgotten after the death of the reformer. Repentance on the part of God's people delays judgment, so the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple occurred almost a century and a half after the fall of Samaria and the captivity of the ten northern tribes.
Prophets from God were sent both to Israel and to Judah, beginning with Elijah (about 875-850 B.C.) and extending to well after the return from exile (ie., to Malachi, 500-450 B.C.). The prophets revealed God's great displeasure at the course of events and they warned of impending judgment. This judgment on Israel was to eventually come, the prophets announced, by foreign invasion. Ruthless gentile kings and great armies were to sweep into Israel in waves of destruction in order to awaken the people - and to save a remnant. (Ref. 2)
In the days of Elijah only a small fraction of the nation was faithful to the Lord. But in answer to Elijah's complaint - he thought he was the only one left who was faithful - the Lord told him,
...I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. (1 Kings 19:18)Typically what the prophets had to say regarding impending judgments soon came to pass in accurate detail (the test of a true prophet is that his predictions must come true - 100% - otherwise he is a false prophet and under sentence of death). Many of the prophecies of the Bible have both an immediate and also a long term fulfillment. Sometimes there were more than two fulfillments intended.
In fact, many Old Testament prophecies have their greatest fulfillments in the future - which stretches out immediately before us in our own time. What these great men of God of old had to say is highly relevant for our understanding of the events that must unfold in the Middle East as the kingdom of God comes down upon us. There is good reason to believe that the human race is now being plunge into a time of history about which the Bible has more to say that any other period of history.
Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Destruction of Jerusalem
As the time of Judah's captivity and the destruction of the First Temple drew near Daniel, Ezekiel and Jeremiah were particularly key figures.Nebuchadnezzar ascended to the throne of Babylon on the death of his father Nabopolassor in September 605 after defeating the Egyptian armies under Pharaoh Neco at the famous battle of Carchemish in May and June of that year. (Mighty Egypt was permanently weakened at that battle and Babylon moved into ascendancy as the greatest gentile power in the ancient world). Daniel, and others were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in the same year (2 Kings 24:1). King Jehoiakim was made a vassal at that time, but soon proved rebellious.
And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD which he spoke by his servants the prophets. Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD would not pardon. (2 Kings 24:2-4)The second invasion of Nebuchadnezzar came in 597. Jerusalem was captured, King Jehoichin was deported to Babylon, and Zedekiah was placed on the throne. (2 Kings 24:17) The final end is described in 2 Kings:
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. For because of the anger of the LORD it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.Second Chronicles, which emphasizes issues closer to the temple and God's point of view, gives this account:
And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it; and they built siegeworks against it round about. So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city; the king with all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king's garden, though the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they captured the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence upon him. They slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and took him to Babylon.
In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month - which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon - Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. And he burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. And the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile.
But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen. And the pillars of bronze that were in the house of the LORD, and the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the bronze to Babylon. And they took away the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the dishes for incense and all the vessels of bronze used in the temple service, the firepans also, and the bowls. What was of gold the captain of the guard took away as gold, and what was of silver, as silver. As for the two pillars, the one sea, and the stands, which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weight. The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and upon it was a capital of bronze; the height of the capital was three cubits; a network and pomegranates, all of bronze, were upon the capital round about. And the second pillar had the like, with the network.
And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold; and from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the men of war, and five men of the king's council who were found in the city; and the secretary of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city. And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. And the king of Babylon smote them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken into exile out of its land. (2 Kings 24: -25:21)
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel. All the leading priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.The famous account of the destruction of Jerusalem written by the Jewish historian Josephus (who lived much later - during the Roman Period) is given in Ref. 3.
The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, till the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged; he gave them all into his hand.
And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfil seventy years. (2 Chronicles 36:11-21)
Ezekiel was a young married man who intended to enter the Temple priesthood when he reached the age of 30. He was taken captive in 597 B.C.E and appointed to care for the exiles in his company. The Book of Ezekiel opens with an awesome vision of God's chariot throne and mighty angels accompanying the remnant of His people into exile. In September 592, Ezekiel was taken to Jerusalem "in visions of God." The terrible idolatrous state of the temple was unfolded to him by The Angel of the Lord. A detailed account of this vision and the subsequent destruction of the city as outlined by the Angel are given in separate essays.
Ezekiel also witnessed the departure of the Shekinah, the divine presence, in stages from the temple, the temple courts, and finally from above the Eastern gate, (Ezek. 10-11) In 587 Ezekiel's young wife died as a sign from God that Jerusalem was about to fall, (Ezek. 24:16-18). The prophet was not allowed to mourn her passing. Daniel's' great vision of the Millennial Temple was given to him about 572 B.C.
While Daniel spent a long and productive life as a major statesmen in the successive governments of Babylon, accompanied by some 10,000 of his countrymen, and while Ezekiel accompanied another large group of later exiles to Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah was chosen to remain in Jerusalem during the final siege and destruction. Jeremiah, "the weeping prophet" took the judgments falling on Judah as if they were God's personal judgments upon himself. He was not, however, allowed by God to pray for the people (Jer. 8:16):
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked. He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding; he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow. He drove into my heart the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the burden of their songs all day long. He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, "Gone is my glory, and my expectation from the LORD." (Lamentations 3:1-18)For forty years Jeremiah continued to preach and warn the people, all without any reward or sense of accomplishment. He was told to prophesy about the coming judgment on Israel's judgment as other prophets also did, and he was given promises of the future restoration and blessing of Israel.
Jeremiah specifically predicted the destruction of the Jerusalem and a seventy year captivity of the people. He also pronounced judgment on those who destroyed her, Babylon:
And the whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,' says the Lord; 'and I will make it a perpetual desolation. (Jeremiah 25:12,13).Babylon was of course subsequently judged and leveled as predicted. In 553 B.C.E. Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians (Daniel 5). So significant were the prophecies of Jeremiah (50-51) against Babylon that major portions of his predictions await fulfillment in our own day. Tradition has it that Jeremiah was martyred about 584 after being taken captive to Egypt by his fellow countrymen who tried to flee Nebuchadnezzar.
For thus says the LORD: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." (Jer. 29:10-14)
The Lamentations of Jeremiah are read every year, to this day, by devout Jews gathering at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount on the 9th day of the month of Av. It was on the 9th of Av, 586 B.C.E. that the magnificent temple of Solomon was destroyed. It was on the 9th of Av in the year 70 C.E. that the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans.
Jerusalem During the Exile
After the First Temple was destroyed small numbers of Jews still came - when they were able - to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices:Certain men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, eighty men with beards shaved and their clothes torn, having cut themselves, with offerings and incense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the Lord (Jeremiah 41:5).
A Psalm for Times of Desolation:
O God, why dost thou cast us off for ever? Why does thy anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy congregation, which thou hast gotten of old, which thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of thy heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where thou hast dwelt. Direct thy steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! Thy foes have roared in the midst of thy holy place; they set up their own signs for signs. At the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes. And then all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. They set thy sanctuary on fire; to the ground they desecrated the dwelling place of thy name. They said to themselves, "We will utterly subdue them"; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land. We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long. How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile thy name for ever? Why dost thou hold back thy hand, why dost thou keep thy right hand in thy bosom?
Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy might; thou didst break the heads of the dragons on the waters. Thou didst crush the heads of Leviathan, thou didst give him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. Thou didst cleave open springs and brooks; thou didst dry up ever-flowing streams. Thine is the day, thine also the night; thou hast established the luminaries and the sun. Thou hast fixed all the bounds of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter. Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs, and an impious people reviles thy name. Do not deliver the soul of thy dove to the wild beasts; do not forget the life of thy poor for ever. Have regard for thy covenant; for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence. Let not the downtrodden be put to shame; let the poor and needy praise thy name. Arise, O God, plead thy cause; remember how the impious scoff at thee all the day! Do not forget the clamor of thy foes, the uproar of thy adversaries which goes up continually! (Psalm 74. A Maskil of Asaph.)
Notes:
1. Ray C. Stedman, The Time of Harvest, Commentary on the Book of the Revelation.2. The lives of the kings of Israel and Judah tell us much about ourselves. In a sense every man is king over the kingdom of his life. The extent that we subject ourselves to the inner rule of the King of kings, we shall prosper spiritually. But our waywardness will bring with it the same consequences as those ancient kings suffered. For this reason the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles should be read by believers with more than history in mind.
3. The Destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple:
The Account of Josephus:
Now the king of Babylon was very intent and earnest upon the siege of Jerusalem; and he erected towers upon great banks of earth and from them repelled those that stood upon the walls: he also made a great number of such banks round about the whole city, the height of which was equal to those walls. However, those that were within bore the siege with courage and alacrity, for they were not discouraged, either by the famine or by the pestilential distemper, but were of cheerful minds in the prosecution of the war, although those miseries within oppressed them also; and they did not suffer themselves to be terrified, either by the contrivances of the enemy, or by their engines of war, but contrived still different engines to oppose all the other withal, till indeed there seemed to be an entire struggle between the Babylonians and the people of Jerusalem, who had the greater sagacity and skill; the former party supposing they should be thereby too hard for the other, for the destruction of the city; the latter placing their hopes of deliverance in nothing else but in persevering in such inventions, in opposition to the other, as might demonstrate the enemy's engines were useless to them; and this siege they endured for eighteen months, until they were destroyed by the famine and the darts which the enemy threw at them from the towers.
Now the city was taken on the ninth day of the fourth month, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah. They were indeed only generals of the king of Babylon, to whom Nebuchadnezzar committed the care of the siege, for he abode himself in the city of Riblah. The names of these generals who ravaged and subdued Jerusalem, if any one desire to know them, were these: Nergal Sharezer, Sangar Nebo, Rabsaris, Sarsechim, and Rabmag; and when the city was taken about midnight, and the enemy's generals were entered into the temple, and when Zedekiah was sensible of it, he took his wives and his children, and his captains and friends, and with them fled out of the city, through the fortified ditch, and through the desert; and when certain of the deserters had informed the Babylonians of this, at break of day, they made haste to pursue after Zedekiah, and overtook him not far from Jericho, and encompassed him about. But for those friends and captains of Zedekiah who and fled out of the city with him, when they saw their enemies near them, they left him and dispersed themselves, some one way and some another, and every one resolved to save himself, so the enemy took Zedekiah alive, when he was deserted by all but a few, with his children and his wives, and brought him to the king. When he was come, Nebuchadnezzar began to call him a wicked wretch, and a covenant breaker, and one that had forgotten his former words, when he promised to keep the country for him. He also reproached him for his ingratitude, that when he had received the kingdom from him, who had taken it from Jehoiachin, and given it him, he had made use of the power he gave him against him that gave it: "but," said he, " God is great, who hateth that conduct of thine, and hath brought thee under us." And when he had used these words to Zedekiah, he commanded his sons and his friends to be slain, while Zedekiah and the rest of the captains looked on; after which he put out the eyes and bound him, and carried him to Babylon. And these things happened as Jeremiah and Ezekiel had foretold to him, that he should be caught and brought before the king of Babylon, and should speak to him face to face, and should see his eyes with his own eyes; and this far did Jeremiah prophesy. But he was also made blind, and brought to Babylon but did not see is according to the prediction of Ezekiel.
We have said thus much because it was sufficient to show the nature of God to such as are ignorant of it that it is various, and acts many different ways, and that all even happen after a regular manner, in their proper season, and that it foretells what must come to pass. It is also sufficient to show the ignorance and incredulity of men, whereby they are not permitted to foresee any thing that is future, and are, without any guard, exposed to calamities, so that it is impossible for them to avoid the experience of those calamities.
And after this manner have the kings of David's race ended their lives, being in number twenty-one, until, the last king, who all together reigned five hundred and fourteen years, and six months, and ten days: of whom Saul, who was their first king, retained the government twenty years, though he was not of the same tribe with the rest.
And now it was that the king of Babylon sent Nebuzaradan, the general of his army, to Jerusalem, to pillage the temple; who had it also in command to burn it and the royal palace, and to lay the city even with the ground, and to transplant the people into Babylon. Accordingly he came to Jerusalem, in the eleventh year of king Zedekiah, and pillaged the temple, and carried out the vessels of God, both gold and silver, and particularly that large laver which Solomon dedicated, as also the pillars of brass, and their chapters, with the golden tablets and the candlesticks: and when he had carried these off, he set fire to the temple in the fifth month, the first day of the month, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, and in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar; he also burnt the palace, and overthrew the city. Now the temple was burnt four hundred and seventy years, six months, and two days, after it was built it was then one thousand and sixty-two years, six months, and ten days, from the departure out of Egypt; and from the Deluge to the destruction of the temple, the whole interval was one thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven years, six months, and ten days; but from the generation of Adam, until this befell the temple, there were three thousand five hundred and thirteen years, six months. and ten days; so great was the number of years hereto belonging; and what actions were done during these years, we have particularly related. But the general of the Babylonian king now overthrew the city to the very foundations, and removed all the people, and took for prisoners the high-priest Seraiah, and Zephaniah, the priest that was next to him, and the rulers that guarded the temple, who were three in number, and he eunuch who was over the armed men, and seven friends of Zedekiah, and his scribe and sixty other rulers; all whom, together with the vessels they had pillaged, he carried to the king of Babylon to Riblah, a city of Syria So the king commanded the heads of the high-priest and of the rulers, to be cut off there; but he himself led all the captives and Zedekiah to Babylon. He also led Josedek the high-priest, away bound. He was the son of Seraiah, the high-priest, whom the king of Babylon had slain in Riblah, a city of Syria, as we just now related.
And now, because we have enumerated the succession of the kings, and who they were, and how long they reigned, I think it necessary to set down the names of the high priests, and who they were that succeeded one another in the high-priesthood under the kings. The first high-priest then at the temple which Solomon built was Zadok; after him his son Achimas received that dignity; after Achimas u as Azarias; his son was Joram, and Joram's son was Isus; after him was Axioramus; his son was Phideas, and Phideas's Soll was Sudeas, and Sudeas's son was Juelus, and Juelus's son was Jotham, and Jotham's son was Urias, and Urias's son was Nerias, and Nerias's son was Odeas, and his son w as Sallumus, and Sallumus's son was Elcias, and his son [was Azarias, and his son] was Sareas, and his son was Josedec, who was carried captive to Babylon. All these received the high-priesthood by succession, the sons from their father.
When the king was come to Babylon, he kept Zedekiah in prison until he died, and buried him magnificently, and dedicated the vessels he had pillaged out of the temple of Jerusalem to his own gods, and planted the people in the country of Babylon, but freed the high-priest from his bonds. (Antiquities of the Jews, Chapter VIII.)
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