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Destruction of Jerusalem
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fury the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the chambers adjoining
the temple, and then with their swords they slaughtered in great
numbers those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed down
the temple steps like water. Thousands upon thousands of Jews
perished. Above the sound of battle were heard voices shouting,
“Ichabod!”—the glory is departed.
The fire had not reached the holy house itself when Titus entered,
and, beholding its unsurpassed splendor, he was impelled to a last
effort for its preservation. But in his very presence, a soldier thrust a
lighted torch between the hinges of the door, and in an instant the
flames burst out within the sanctuary. As the red glare revealed the
walls of the holy places, glittering with gold, a frenzy seized the
soldiers. Goaded on by a desire for plunder, and filled with rage by
the resistance of the Jews, they were beyond control.
The lofty and massive structures that had crowned Mount Moriah
were in flames. The temple towers sent up columns of fire and smoke.
As the lurid tide rolled on, devouring everything before it, the whole
summit of the hill blazed like a volcano. Mingled with the roar of
the fire, the shouts of the soldiers, and the crash of falling buildings,
were heard the frantic, heart-rending cries of old and young, priests
and rulers. The very mountains seemed to give back the echo. The
awful glare of the conflagration lighted up the surrounding country,
and the people gathered upon the hills, and gazed in terror upon the
scene.
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After the destruction of the temple, the whole city soon fell into
the hands of the Romans. The leaders of the Jews forsook their
impregnable towers, and Titus found them solitary. He gazed upon
them with amazement, and declared that God had given them into
his hands; for no engines, however powerful, could have prevailed
against those stupendous battlements. Both the city and the temple
were razed to their foundations, and the ground upon which the holy
house had stood was “plowed as a field.” More than a million of
the people were slaughtered; the survivors were carried away as
captives, sold as slaves, dragged to Rome to grace the conqueror’s
triumph, thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheaters, or scattered as
homeless wanderers throughout the earth.
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had loaded for them-
selves the cloud of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell