The Messiah and the Covenants of Israel (Continued)

The Messiah and the Land Covenant

The Land Covenant made the occupation of Israel conditional on the obedience of the people to the Mosaic Law. One of the purposes of the Mosaic Law was to prepare Israel to receive their Messiah. Jesus said, “if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.” (John 5:46) The rejection of the Messianic claims of Jesus is a prima facie case against Israel that they were not keeping the Law. This is also the direct accusation of the Son of God, the only One who never told a lie. “Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law?” (John 7:19) immediately adding, “Why do you seek to kill Me?”  thus identifying the final act of His rejection, which, if the Word of God holds true would have to bring about an exile of the nation. And so it was. The Messiah who never shed tears over His own pain shed tears over the judgment that was to fall on Jerusalem. When He saw the city He wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44)

Jesus indicated that the exile would not really end until they reversed the national rejection of His Messianic office. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ” (Matt. 23:37-39; Luke 13.34) The desolation of Israel will not end until they repent of national rejection of the Son of God, and call for His help and assistance. Israel cannot survive without God, and it is only the believing remnant that maintains the continuity of their existence.

On the way to His place of execution when His rejection would be finally confirmed by the most unjust and cruel act imaginable, He repeated His warning to the nation. In view of their statement, “His blood be on us and on our children.” (Matt. 27:25) Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!’ Then they will begin ‘to say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’ For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?” (Luke 23:28-31)

The leaders of the nation, supported by the majority of the population, had rejected their Messiah with the words, “Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him! … We have no king but Caesar!” (John 19:15) They will find out what kind of king Caesar is. Not insignificantly, Caesar also claimed the honor of being a deity.

The physical consequences of the rejection of Jesus and the fulfillment of His chilling prophecy to the women of Jerusalem did not mature until more than three decades later. Gessius Florus, the Roman governor/procurator of Israel from AD64 to 66 was not averse to utilizing his power for personal gain. Josephus blames him for ‘kindling the war’,[1] that is, it was Florus’ actions that brought about the Jewish revolt that ultimately led to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. Several Roman commanders were involved. The campaign was begun by the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, who with the 12^th legion, plus two thousand men from other legions and reinforced with cavalry and auxiliary troops began the campaign to subdue a revolt by the disenchanted Jewish people. His campaign began successfully enough but he failed to take the Temple Mount and withdrew. Gallus was succeeded by Vespasian and Vespasian’s son, Titus, and it would be Titus who would finally conquer Jerusalem, over-run the opposition on the Temple Mount and destroy the Temple. The Titus arch, erected in Rome to memorialize his victory, depicts the seven branch Menorah being carried away by Roman legionaries.

Although the Jews were seriously depleted and some exiled at the time of the Vespasian war, it would be the rebellion under the Messianic claimant Bar Cochba that would bring about the wholesale deportation of the population. In AD 132 Simon Bar Cochba persuaded many leading Jews that he was the Messiah and would be able to lead a resistance against Rome that would be the fulfillment of the word of the prophets and free them from the Gentile yoke. Initially there was some success, but Rome always had reinforcements and the ability to put down rebellions, and the revolt was finally subdued in AD 135. However, the cost to Rome was heavy, both in the loss of men and resources. The province itself was reduced to a wilderness. Schurer reports “All Judea was well-nigh a desert. 50 fortresses, 985 villages were destroyed, 580,000 Jews (?) fell in battle, while the number of those who succumbed to their wounds and to famine was never reckoned. Innumerable was the multitude of those who were sold away as slaves. At the annual market at the Terebinth of Hebron they were offered for sale in such numbers that a Jewish slave was of no more value than a horse. What could not be disposed of there was brought to Gaza and there sold or sent to Egypt, on the way to which many died of hunger or by shipwreck”.^[2] Jerusalem was converted into a Roman colony with the name Aelia Capitolina. The character of the city was transformed from Jewish to heathen by driving out any remaining Jewish occupants, and replacing them with colonists. No Jew was allowed to re-enter the city. Any discovered within its boundaries was put to death. A Temple to Jupiter was erected to replace the Jewish Temple on the Temple mount. That which Antiochus Epiphanes had tried to accomplish some centuries earlier was now accomplished by the Roman conquerors. Thus the Jews finally and completely lost the Temple, the City and the Land. It would be some 1800 years before they would have a partial foothold in Israel once again.

More Next Time:

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[1] The works of Josephus, Wars 2, 556

^[2]Schürer, E. (1890). A history of the Jewish people in the time of Jesus Christ, first division, Vol. II. (2:314). Edinburgh: T&T Clark.