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Forecast of the World’s Destiny
25
Events were so overruled that neither Jews nor Romans should
hinder the flight of the Christians. Upon the retreat of Cestius,
the Jews pursued, and while both forces were thus fully engaged,
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the Christians throughout the land were able to make their escape
unmolested to a place of safety, the city of Pella.
The Jewish forces, pursuing after Cestius and his army, fell
upon their rear. With great difficulty the Romans succeeded in
making their retreat. The Jews with their spoils returned in triumph
to Jerusalem. Yet this apparent success brought them only evil.
It inspired that spirit of stubborn resistance to the Romans which
brought unutterable woe upon the doomed city.
Terrible were the calamities that fell upon Jerusalem when the
siege was resumed by Titus. The city was invested at the time
of the Passover, when millions of Jews were assembled within its
walls. Stores of provision had previously been destroyed through the
revenge of the contending factions. Now all the horrors of starvation
were experienced. Men gnawed the leather of their belts and sandals
and the covering of their shields. Great numbers stole out at night
to gather wild plants growing outside the city walls, though many
were put to death with cruel torture. Often those who returned in
safety were robbed of what they had gleaned. Husbands robbed their
wives, and wives their husbands. Children snatched the food from
the mouths of their aged parents.
The Roman leaders endeavored to strike terror to the Jews and
thus cause them to surrender. Prisoners were scourged, tortured, and
crucified before the wall of the city. Along the Valley of Jehoshaphat
and at Calvary, crosses were erected in great numbers. There was
scarcely room to move among them. So was visited that awful
imprecation uttered before the judgment seat of Pilate: “His blood
be on us, and on our children.”
Matthew 27:25
.
Titus was filled with horror as he saw bodies lying in heaps in
the valleys. Like one entranced, he looked upon the magnificent
temple and gave command that not one stone of it be touched. He
made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to force him to
defile the sacred place with blood. If they would fight in any other
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place, no Roman should violate the sanctity of the temple! Josephus
himself entreated them to surrender, to save themselves, their city,
and their place of worship. But with bitter curses, darts were hurled