Page 117 - Satan in the Sanctuary

/ Will Fill This House with Glory 119

This was not the pitched battle of modern warfare
with an aim-and-fire style; the soldiers, with no room to
hide, must have literally hacked each other into submission
with swords and knives. We can imagine the horror con-
fronting the civilian population of Jerusalem, infirm as it
now was, caught helpless on the battlefield.
The Jews had no place to fall back to anymore. They
feared destruction of the Temple if they surrendered. They
were surely in no shape to fight, but they had to stand
their ground.
We don't know the casualty figures of the battle for the
Temple site, but we can calculate the military losses for
the five months of the siege by subtracting the losses from
starvation from the total casualty figures as given by
Josephus.
In combat one-half million Jews were killed.
We can put this in modern terms by comparing it to the
Vietnam conflict. In eight years, over the whole of Viet-
nam, America lost 55,000 men, from all causes. In fact, to
have a casualty figure even comparable to that of the Jews
in this incredible holocaust, we would have to total up all
of America's losses in all of her wars from the Revolution-
ary War of 1776 to the present.
In five months in Jerusalem the Jews lost more than a
million.

THE SECOND TEMPLE BURNS
Josephus reports that Titus gave implicit orders that the
Temple not be touched in the final battle. He may have
pictured that the defenders, under horrible losses, might
give up the fight. He must have wanted to see an early
end to the Temple site attack because the Roman casual-
ties must also have been high.