Section 10 The Great Tribulation Conclusion.

Section 10 The Great Tribulation Conclusion.

The second duration of great tribulation took place during the days of the siege of Jerusalem in 67-70 A.D., and was a tribulation on the Jewish people who rejected the gospel and not on the Christian Church. It is pointless to try to separate the tribulation mentioned in scripture from its contemporary setting and move it out of it timeframe into our future.  It was called the great tribulation because this was the first and last time God with bring such testing or tries on Christians for purification. (1 Peter 1:7) And the calamities, suffering, and hunger, and famine and distress on his covenant people who reject the gospel. (Luke 21:23-24)

This duration of this tribulation was the entire 3 ½ years of suffering, and hunger, and famine, and murder, and death which all take place in the last several years of the history of Jerusalem. 

In 2 Thessalonians 2 we read were God was going to send Israel a strong delusion that they should believe a lie for refusing the truth of the gospel.  And for this reason God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.  2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 (NKJV)

In what sense did God “send a strong delusion? It was a particular deception as it pertained to the outworking of God's purpose. The Jews falsely believed under this delusion the time had come for them to throw off the Roman yoke and set up a kingdom where they would be the rulers.  Now the time had come for “the beast Rome” to turn on the “great harlot women” Jerusalem. (Revelation 17:15-16)

Rome did not start the war against Israel.  Israel was under the authority and control of the Roman Empire.   Headstrong men in Jerusalem itself, kept irritating the people and inciting them to rebel against Rome. The people quit paying their taxes. The Jews were officially allowed to practice their religion as long as they paid the Jewish tax. This would have been sufficient in itself to cause Rome to come against Jerusalem.

The most tragic time in the history of the nation of Israel was in 67-70 A.D., during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies.    Jesus previously said of Jerusalem.  Luke 21:20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. ²¹ Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her. ²² For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. ²³ But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. ²⁴ And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.  

  

During this time any Christians that were still inside in city of Jerusalem fled to Decapolis city of Pella. Josephus gives us an account of the Roman army pulling back from the battle at Jerusalem for no apparent reason.  It then happened that Cestius was not conscious either how the besieged despaired of success, nor how courageous the people were for him; and so he recalled his soldiers from the place, and by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he retired from the city, without any reason in the world. But when the robbers perceived this unexpected retreat of his, they resumed their courage, and ran after the hinder parts of his army, and destroyed a considerable number of both their horsemen and footmen." (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, book II, Chapter XIX, Section,7)

The Jewish revolt against Rome began in 65 F.W. Farrar “But though the Jew and the Romans felt each other a profound hatred, there was no overt redellion till the days of Gessius Florus, who was appointed Procurator in A.D 65’ (Farrar, p 415).

Agrippa made an appeal to the Jews to be mindful of the fact that such a great multitude of nation in the would already were under the authority of Rome, and living peaceably with no intention of rebellion; and should Jerusalem, just one nation, take up arms against the might Roman empire it would be suicide.   Agrippa temporarily stopped the war that was threatened, and the people started paying their taxes and began rebuilding the cloisters.   But time would provide a fulfillment of what Agrippa had warned them about.   Feeling kept building up.  And the true beginning of the war with the Roman according to Josephus p. 187 was when they refused to offer up and sacrifices of Caesar.

In February 67 A.D. Nero put Vespasian in charge of plans for war.    Vespasian’s son Titus helped.  Vespasian, in the spring of A.D. 67, advanced against a Jewish rebels. (Josephus a Jewish historian foreword).  They had 60.000 soldiers.   Gadara was the first target.  They took it.  He came into it and slew all the youth, the Romans having no mercy on any age whatsoever; and this was done our of the hatred they bore the nation” (Josephus, p 236).

Jotapata was next, the Japaha were 15, 000 Jews were destroyed and 2,130 made captives.  It took longer to take Jotapata.   Then Mt Gerizzim (the Samaritans had assembled their).   11, 600 were slain.   Taricheae was next 6,500 were slain, while 5,000 killed themselves by throwing themselves over precipices.  Then there was the small city of Gischala.   There they slew 6.000 women and children when many of the men fled and went to Jerusalem.   Titus pitched camp at Scopus neat Jerusalem.   The siege began April 14,70 ‘A.D.   

This was also a period of famines, and pestilences.  This is what Josephus had to say about the period.   One woman who had lost everything but her baby to blood-thirsty Jews, then killed her baby son, “and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.” When the seditious men smelled the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her, that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied, that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them and uncovered what was left of her son. She said this is my own son and he was killed by my own doing. Come, eat of this food; I have eaten of it myself. The men left, trembling and frightened and the all the city came under distress when they heard about it. (Josephus pp. 443-444.)   

This had be long been prophesied. Lamentations 4:6 The punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people Is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, Which was overthrown in a moment, With no hand to help her!

Vs 9-10 Those slain by the sword are better off Than those who die of hunger; For these pine away, Stricken for lack of the fruits of the field. Those slain by the sword are better off Than those who die of hunger; For these pine away, Stricken for lack of the fruits of the field. The hands of the compassionate women Have cooked their own children; They became food for them
In the destruction of the daughter of my people.  As Jesus had predicted, (Luke 23:28-29)

The Romans sat outside, and waited for their time to enter. The zealots turned to vile actions, men using men, and killing those that refused. Women turned against their own babies at the breast and wouldn't nurse them. The Jews destroyed themselves and were their own worst enemies.  They destroyed their own food supplies. Thousands died of hunger.  The hint of food bought violence.

The dogs of the city went mad with the smell of blood, and lapped it from the ground. They traveled in packs to tear apart the flesh of men who lay wounded.

The Romans tortured those who dear ventured out of the city to escape they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures before they died. The Romans soldiers out of the wrath and hatred they had for the Jews, nailed those they caught; one after another on crosses, outside of city until their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies” (Josephus p.410)

Finally, Titus turned hunger into his most powerful weapon. He had his armies surround the entire city. All supplies were completely cut off. Starvation and madness filled the city. This too was prophesied. Ezekiel 5:16 When I send against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your supply of bread.

Zealot bands roamed the streets killing whole families for even a morsel of food. The stench became unbearable. Josephus wrote that the Jews themselves did far more to destroy Jerusalem than the Romans ever did.  Whole houses were filled with unburied families of the dead.    Hunger, rage, despair, and madness seized the City.  Any deserters that was caught trying to leave the City of Jerusalem their bellies were cut open by the Roman soldiers who looked for gold.

As time went on, the miseries of the Jews grew worse, and finally the Romans made an assault on the tower of Antonia (Josephus, p.420)   This assault was made on July 17, 70 A.D.    The Romans once again urged the zealots to surrender so that their religious laws and sacrifices could continue, and ones again were ignored.   At Caesarea, in honor of his brother Domitian’s birthday Titus punished many of the captive Jews making a total of those who died fighting the beast and who were burned to be over 2,500.  The same thing was done at Berytus, in honor of his father’s birthday. (Josephus, p 477)   

After the war was over.   Of those above seventeen years of age multitudes were doom to work in chains in the Egyptian mines. Deuteronomy 28:68 “And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

The tallest and most beautiful of the young men were saved for the triumphal procession.  Others were sent as presents to various towns to be slain by wild beasts or gladiators, or by each other’s swords in the provincial amphitheaters. 

The young of both sexes were sold as slaves.   Even during the days on which these arrangements were being made, 11.000 perished for want of food.    Josephus reckon the number of captive taken during the war at 97,000 and the number of those who perished during the siege at 1,100.000.  The number who perished in the whole war are reckoned at the total of 1,337,490 and the number of prisoners at 101,700; but even these estimates do not include all the items of many skirmishes and battles, nor do they take into account the multitudes who, throughout the whole country, perished of misery, famine and disease. 

We need to realize the vast scope of this great tribulation upon the people of Israel in the first century.   It was not just Jerusalem, but all over Palestine that the whole country felt this catastrophe which happened to them. 

Who would ever believe that the Roman armies entered into the gates of Jerusalem? Lamentations 4:12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.  

 All this happened during Jesus contemporary generation.