cry, 'Woe, woe to the city and to the temple!'" (Milman's History of
the Jews, Vol. II.) The above event spoken of in the tract Yoma,
which the pious Rabbi Yochanan thought to be in fulfillment of
Zechariah xi:1, is also mentioned by Josephus. He says, "The eastern
gate of the inner temple, which was of brass and very heavy, and had
been with difficulty shut by twenty men, was seen to open by itself
about the sixth hour of the night."
Once more Jerusalem is to be compassed about by armies and then there
will be signs in earth and in the heavens. Earthquakes will shake the
city, mountains will sink down and valleys will be exalted, the sun
will be darkened and the moon turned into blood, fire and smoke will
arise. The climax of it all will be the manifestation of the Lord who
will overthrow Israel's enemies.
Other interpreters among the Jews declare that this prophecy speaks
of the destruction of the temple.
The correct interpretation is that it includes all the devastation of
the land, the burning of the temple, the slaughter of the flock, the
spoiling of the shepherds, the Jewish leaders and the complete
overthrow of the land and of the people. How awful the fulfillment of
the prophecy has been! The Lord's voice full of tears cried, long
after Zechariah's mournful vision, "If thou hadst known, at least in
this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are
hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee that thine
enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round, and
keep thee in on every side. And shall lay thee even with the ground,
and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one
stone upon another." The measure was full. After terrible wars
amongst themselves, the fire advanced in the direction from Lebanon,
in the form of the Roman army full of vengeance, spreading ruin and
misery wherever they went, till after a long and dreadful siege
Jerusalem fell, the temple was burnt, and over a million human beings
were slain. Not one stone was left upon another. Up to now this
judgment has been the most appalling, the tribulation then, the
greatest; but there is another tribulation coming of which the former
destruction of Jerusalem is but a faint type, and that tribulation
which is even now so close at hand will find a climax in the day of
wrath, the day of vengeance of our God. The next three verses speak
of the flock of slaughter and the last attempt divine love made to
save the doomed nation. Zechariah is commanded to feed them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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