Hello Kyredneck. I hope you are doing well.
Hello Tom. I'm better now; there was several months there that I was nearly totally consumed with tending to my parents, but we've finally got Mom into an outstanding nursing home that can give her the care that she requires (not easy to find, IME), and subsequently Dad is much better now, and I'm getting some semblance of a routine back into my life.
I hope everything is well with you.
Josephus also says that it was the Jews themselves who were destroying their city and temple, not the Roman leaders (Titus and Vespasian, who wanted to save them.) This ties in well with the prophecy of Daniel 9:26:
"And the people [that is, the Jews] of the Prince who is to come [Christ, according to immediate context] shall destroy the city and the sanctuary."
Josephus laments several times over the fact that his fellow countrymen were literally self destructing.
Here is an excerpt from 'The Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation' by Phillip Mauro:
“SELF-INFLICTED SUFFERINGS
In the light, therefore, of this comparison of scripture with scripture, we think it plain that the "great tribulation" of Matthew 24:14 was that unparalleled calamity, with its unspeakable sufferings, which befell the city and people in A.D. 70.
In the history of "The Wars of the Jews" by Josephus we have a detailed account, written by an eye witness, of the almost unbelievable sufferings of the Jews during the siege of Jerusalem. To this account we will refer later on; but we wish to state at this point that the distresses of those who were hemmed in by the sudden appearance of the Roman armies were peculiar in this respect, namely, that
what they endured was mainly self-inflicted. That is to say, they suffered far more from cruelties and tortures inflicted upon one another, than from the common enemy outside the walls. In this strange feature of the case
it was surely "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time" (#Da 12:1).
What went on within the distressed city calls to mind the words of Isaiah:
"Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel (the food) of the fire.
No man shall spare his brother. And he shall snatch on the right hand and shall be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand and not be satisfied; they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm. Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His wrath is poured out still" (#Isa 9:19-21).” Mauro, Chap 13, 70 Wks.
This madness that set in on the people was foretold in other places:
For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith Jehovah; but, lo,
I will deliver the men every one into his neighbor`s hand, and into the hand of his king; and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them. Zech 11:6
And it shall come to pass in that day, that
a great tumult from Jehovah shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor. Zech 14:13
I came to cast fire upon the earth [i.e. 'the land']; and what do I desire, if it is already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth [the land]? I tell you, Nay; but rather
division: for there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. Lu 12:49-52
But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, passeth through waterless places, seeking rest, and findeth it not. Then he saith, I will return into my house whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and
the last state of that man becometh worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this evil generation. Mt 12:43-45
Excerpts from Josephus, 'Wars of the Jews':
“.....I Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, a priest also, and one who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at what was done afterwards, [am the author of this work].....”
“WHEREAS
the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations; ..........” Preface; sec.1
“.....Yet shall I suit my language to the passions I am under, as to the affairs I describe, and must be allowed to indulge some lamentations upon the miseries undergone by my own country. For that it was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed it, and that they were the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us, who unwillingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our holy temple, Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a witness, who, during the entire war, pitied the people who were kept under by the seditious, and did often voluntarily delay the taking of the city, and allowed time to the siege, in order to let the authors have opportunity for repentance. But if any one makes an unjust accusation against us, when we speak so passionately about the tyrants, or the robbers, or sorely bewail the misfortunes of our country, let him indulge my affections herein, though it be contrary to the rules for writing history; because it had so come to pass, that
our city Jerusalem had arrived at a higher degree of felicity than any other city under the Roman government, and yet at last fell into the sorest of calamities again. Accordingly, it appears to me that the misfortunes of all men,
from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews (3) are not so considerable as they were; while the authors of them were not foreigners neither.
This makes it impossible for me to contain my lamentations. But if any one be inflexible in his censures of me, let him attribute the facts themselves to the historical part, and the lamentations to the writer himself only.....” Preface, sec. 4
