Our Lord now retired to the Mount of Olives, to which place the disciples followed him, in order to make more particular inquiries relative to the time when the calamitous events, foretold by him, would come to pass. We have already intimated, that, the Mount of Olives commanded a full view of Jerusalem and the temple. No situation, therefore, could have been better adapted to give energy to a prediction which related chiefly to their total ruin and demolition.; and if we suppose (and the supposition is highly probable) that our LORD, While in the act of speaking, pointed to the majestic and stupendous edifices, whose destruction he foretold, every word which he then uttered must have been clothed with inexpressible sublimity, and derived from the circumstances of the surrounding scenery a force and effect, which it is not possible adequately to conceive.
"Tell us, when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled ?" Such were the questions of the disciples, in answer to which our LORD condescended to give them a particular account of the several important events that would precede, as well as of the prognostics which would announce, the approaching desolations ; including suitable directions for the regulation of their conduct under the various trials to which they were to be exposed........
were so frequent from the death of our Lord until the destruction of Jerusalem,that whole interval might, with propriety, appealed to, in illustration of this prophecy. One hundred and fifty of the copious pages of Josephus, which contain the history of this period, are every where stained with blood. To particularize in a few instances : About three years after the death of Christ, a war broke out between Herod and Aretas, king of Arabia Petraea, in which the army of the former was cut off. This was kingdom rising against kingdom Wars are usually preceded by rumours. It may, therefore, appear absurd to attempt a distinct elucidation of this part of the prophecy ; nevertheless, it ought not to be omitted, that about this time, the emperor Caligula, having ordered his statue to be placed in the temple of Jerusalem, and the Jews having persisted to refuse him, the whole nation were so much alarmed, by the mere apprehension of war, that they neglected even to till their lands ! The storm, however, blew over.
About this period a great number, of Jews, on account of a pestilence which raged at Babylon, removed from that city to Se leucia, where the Greeks and Syrians rose against them, and destroyed of this devoted people more than five myriads ! "The extent of this slaughter (says Josephus) had no parallel in any former period of their history." Again, about five years after; this dreadful massacre, there happened a severe contest between the Jews at Perea, and the Philadelphians, respecting the limits of a city called Mia, in which many of the former were slain. This was nation rising up against nation.
Four year afterwards, under Cumanus, and indignity was offered to the Jews within the precincts of the temple, by a Roman soldier, which they violently resented ; but, upon the approach of the Romans in great force, their terror wits so excessive, and so disorderly and precipitate their flight, that not less than ten thousand Jews were trodden to death in the streets. This, again, was nation rising up against nation.
Four years more had not elapsed, before the Jews made war against the Samaritans, and ravaged their country. The people of Samaria had murdered a Galilean, who was going up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, and the Jews thus revenged it. At Caesarea, the Jews having had a sharp contention with the Syrians for the government of the city, an appeal was made to who decreed it to the Syrians. This event laid the foundation of a most cruel and sanguinary contest between the two nations.
The Jews, mortified by disappointment, and inflamed by jealousy, rose against the Syrians, who successfully repelled them. In the city of Casesarea alone upwards of twenty thousand Jews were slain. The flame, however, was not now quenched ; it spread its destructive rage wherever the Jew and Syrians dwelt together in the same place : throughout every city, town, and village, mutual animosity and slaughter prevailed. At Damascus, Tyre, Ascalon, Gadara, and Scythopolis, the carnage was dreadful. At the first of these cities, ten thousand Jews were slain in one hour, and at Scythopolis thirteen, thousand treacherously in one night. At Alexandria the Jews, aggrieved by the oppressions of the Romans, rose against. them ; but the Romans, gaining the ascendancy, slew of that nation fifty thousand persons, sparing neither infants nor the aged. And after this, at the siege of Jopata, not less than forty thousand Jews perished. While these destructive contests prevailed in the East, the western parts of the Roman empire were rent by the fierce contentious of Galba, Otho, and Vertellis ; of which three emperors, it is remarkable that they all, together with Nero, their immediate predecessor, died a violent death, within the short space of eighteen months Finally, the whole nation of the Jews took up arms against the Romans, king Agrippa, &c. and provoked that dreadful war which, in a few years, deluged Judea in blood, and laid its capital in ruins.
