The Wars of the Jews [254]
but Pharaoh king of Egypt, prayed towards a temple at Jerusalem, or towards Jerusalem itself, in which were Mount Sion and Mount Moriah, on which the tabernacle and temple did afterwards stand; and this long before either the Jewish tabernacle or temple were built. Nor is the famous command given by God to Abraham, to go two or three days' journey, on purpose to offer up his son Isaac there, unfavorable to such a notion.
(17) Note here, that Josephus, in this his same admirable speech, calls the Syrians, nay, even the Philistines, on the most south part of Syria, Assyrians; which Reland observes as what was common among the ancient writers. Note also, that Josephus might well put the Jews in mind, as he does here more than once, of their wonderful and truly miraculous deliverance from Sennacherib, king of Assyria, while the Roman army, and himself with them, were now encamped upon and beyond that very spot of ground where the Assyrian army lay seven hundred and eighty years before, and which retained the very name of the Camp of the Assyrians to that very day. See chap. 7. sect. 3, and chap. 12. sect. 2.
(18) This drying up of the Jerusalem fountain of Siloam when the Jews wanted it, and its flowing abundantly when the enemies of the Jews wanted it, and these both in the days of Zedekiah and of Titus, (and this last as a certain event well known by the Jews at that time, as Josephus here tells them openly to their faces,) are very remarkable instances of a Divine Providence for the punishment of the Jewish nation, when they were grown very wicked, at both those times of the destruction of Jerusalem.
(19) Reland very properly takes notice here, how justly this judgment came upon the Jews, when they were crucified in such multitudes together, that the Romans wanted room for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies of these Jews, since they had brought this judgment on themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah.
(20) Josephus, both here and before, B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 4, esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of the lake Asphaltiris, or under its waters, but near it only, as Tacitus also took the same notion from him, Hist. V. ch. 6. 7, which the great Reland takes to be the very truth, both in his note on this place, and in his Palestina, tom. I. p. 254-258; though I rather suppose part of that region of Pentapolis to be now under the waters of the south part of that sea, but perhaps not the whole country.
BOOK VI. Containing The Interval Of About One Month. From The Great Extremity To Which The Jews Were Reduced To The Taking Of Jerusalem By Titus. CHAPTER 1. THAT THE MISERIES STILL GREW WORSE; AND HOW THE ROMANS MADE AN ASSAULT UPON THE TOWER OF ANTONIA. 1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every day, and the seditious were still more irritated by the calamities they were under, even while the famine preyed upon themselves, after it had preyed upon the people. And indeed the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench, which was a hinderance to those that would make sallies out of the city, and fight the enemy: but as those were to go in battle-array, who had been already used to ten thousand murders, and must tread upon those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they deem this affront offered to the deceased to be any ill omen to themselves; but as they had their right hands already polluted with the murders of their own countrymen, and in that condition ran out to fight with foreigners, they seem to me to have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were too slow in punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if they had any hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner in that despair of deliverance they were already in. And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting together their materials, raised their banks in one and twenty days, after they had
(17) Note here, that Josephus, in this his same admirable speech, calls the Syrians, nay, even the Philistines, on the most south part of Syria, Assyrians; which Reland observes as what was common among the ancient writers. Note also, that Josephus might well put the Jews in mind, as he does here more than once, of their wonderful and truly miraculous deliverance from Sennacherib, king of Assyria, while the Roman army, and himself with them, were now encamped upon and beyond that very spot of ground where the Assyrian army lay seven hundred and eighty years before, and which retained the very name of the Camp of the Assyrians to that very day. See chap. 7. sect. 3, and chap. 12. sect. 2.
(18) This drying up of the Jerusalem fountain of Siloam when the Jews wanted it, and its flowing abundantly when the enemies of the Jews wanted it, and these both in the days of Zedekiah and of Titus, (and this last as a certain event well known by the Jews at that time, as Josephus here tells them openly to their faces,) are very remarkable instances of a Divine Providence for the punishment of the Jewish nation, when they were grown very wicked, at both those times of the destruction of Jerusalem.
(19) Reland very properly takes notice here, how justly this judgment came upon the Jews, when they were crucified in such multitudes together, that the Romans wanted room for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies of these Jews, since they had brought this judgment on themselves by the crucifixion of their Messiah.
(20) Josephus, both here and before, B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 4, esteems the land of Sodom, not as part of the lake Asphaltiris, or under its waters, but near it only, as Tacitus also took the same notion from him, Hist. V. ch. 6. 7, which the great Reland takes to be the very truth, both in his note on this place, and in his Palestina, tom. I. p. 254-258; though I rather suppose part of that region of Pentapolis to be now under the waters of the south part of that sea, but perhaps not the whole country.
BOOK VI. Containing The Interval Of About One Month. From The Great Extremity To Which The Jews Were Reduced To The Taking Of Jerusalem By Titus. CHAPTER 1. THAT THE MISERIES STILL GREW WORSE; AND HOW THE ROMANS MADE AN ASSAULT UPON THE TOWER OF ANTONIA. 1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every day, and the seditious were still more irritated by the calamities they were under, even while the famine preyed upon themselves, after it had preyed upon the people. And indeed the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench, which was a hinderance to those that would make sallies out of the city, and fight the enemy: but as those were to go in battle-array, who had been already used to ten thousand murders, and must tread upon those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they deem this affront offered to the deceased to be any ill omen to themselves; but as they had their right hands already polluted with the murders of their own countrymen, and in that condition ran out to fight with foreigners, they seem to me to have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were too slow in punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if they had any hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner in that despair of deliverance they were already in. And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting together their materials, raised their banks in one and twenty days, after they had