STORIES OF THE
Wars of the Jews
FROM THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY,
TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.
BY
A. L. O. E.
With Forty-Four Illustrations.
London:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1900
Preface.
Theworks which I have chiefly consulted in compiling the followingsketch, have been (in addition to the Holy Scriptures) the books ofthe Apocrypha, Josephus’ Wars of the Jews, the elaboratewritings of Prideaux, and a small volume on the history of the Hebrews,published some years ago in India.
There is no history more fraught with interest, or conveying moreimportant lessons, than that of God’s chosen nation. There are noannals which display instances of more heroic courage, faith, andself-devotion,—alas! of darker apostasy and crime,—than those of thedescendants of Abraham.
May the reader rise from the perusal of this brief sketch with a deeper[Pg vi]sense of the mercy and justice of God, as revealed in His dealingstowards His people; and a fervent prayer for the hastening of that daywhen the Lord’s gracious promise shall be fulfilled:—
“I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants ofJerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shalllook upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, asone mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him,as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. I am returned untoZion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall becalled, A city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, Theholy mountain.”
Introduction.
FORthe sins of His people the Lord had stricken Jerusalem, and givenup Judea into the hands of the heathen. The judgments of God had firstfallen on the kingdom of the ten tribes; as they had been foremostin the sin of idolatry, so they had first met its awful punishment.Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, had attacked Samaria (724 b.c.),and after a siege of nearly three years had taken the city, and carriedIsrael into captivity, with Hoshea its king.
The punishment of the kingdom of Judah had been for some time deferred.While such monarchs as the pious Hezekiah and the faithful Josiah hadsat on the throne of their ancestor David, God’s mercy had guarded...