Page 115 - Satan in the Sanctuary

/ Will Fill This House with Glory 117

DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND TEMPLE
They should have listened to Jesus. The catastrophe of
the destruction of the second Temple is almost beyond
imagination.
At least 1.1 million Jews died in the five-month siege
of Jerusalem by the Roman legions.
Approximately 600,000 starved to death in the streets.
Their bodies were thrown over the city walls at the rate
of 4,000 per day.
Josephus records cannibalism among the panicky and
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starving 3 million people crammed within the city walls.
And the Temple was razed so thoroughly that our Lord's
prophecy was completely fulfilled—not one stone was
left upon another.
Nobody really wanted that to happen. Titus, the Roman
general who conducted the siege, was not a barbarian; he
did want to spare the magnificent Temple. The people he
annihilated with typical Roman efficiency, but the Temple
was the crown jewel of the Middle East, and he gave
orders to spare it.
But in the heat of the ferocious hand-to-hand fighting
between the maddened defenders and the Roman regulars,
a torch was thrown, reports Josephus.
The Jews were having enough trouble among them-
selves without the siege. Although the Jews held a prom-
ising military position—Jerusalem had a succession of
three mighty walls, not to mention the strategically high-
grounded Temple site—they could not organize a common
defense. Warring factions destroyed the vast stocks of
food stored in the city against just such a siege. Josephus
laments, "Almost all the corn (maize or wheat) was burnt,
which would have been sufficient for a siege of many
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years."