18:2. “…the cage of every unclean and hateful bird….”

 

                Matt. 24:28, Jesus said that “wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together...”  Lightfoot says:  “…[in] Luke xvii.37; when, after the same words that are spoke here in this chapter, it was inquired, ‘Where, Lord?’ he answered, ‘Wheresoever the body is,’ &c.; silently hinting thus much, that Jerusalem, and that wicked nation which he described through the whole chapter, would be the carcase, to which the greedy and devouring eagles would fly to prey upon it.”  [The Roman soldiers carried the ensign with the eagle upon it.]  [2:319]

 

            “Among the monsters of the Jewish routs, preceding the destruction of the city, the multitude of robbers, and the horrible slaughters committed by them, deservedly claim the first consideration; which, next to the just vengeance of God against that most wicked nation, you may justly ascribe to divers originals.

 

                “1. It is no wonder, if that nation abounded beyond measure with a vagabond, dissolute, and lewd sort of young men; since, by means of polygamy, and the divorces of their wives at pleasure, and the nation’s unspeakable addictedness to lasciviousness and whoredoms, there could not but continually spring up bastards, and an offspring born only to beggary or rapine, as wanting both sustenance and ingenuous education.

 

                “2.  The foolish and sinful indulgence of the council could not but nurse up all kind of broods of wicked men, while they scarce ever put any one to death, though never so wicked, as being an Israelite; who must not by any means be touched.

 

                “3. The opposition of the Zealots to the Roman yoke made them study only to mischief the Romans, and do all the mischief they could to those Jews that submitted to them.

 

                “4.  The governors of Judea did often, out of policy, indulge a licentiousness to such kind of rapines, that they might humble that people they so much hated, and which was continually subject to insurrections, by beating them, as it were, with their own clubs; and sometimes getting a share in the booty….”  [2:367-8]

 

18:2. “…Babylon, the great is fallen, is fallen….”

 

                “The Talmudic Chronicles bear witness also to this saying, ‘On the ninth day of Ab the city of Jerusalem was ploughed up;’ where Maimonides delivereth more at large: ‘On the ninth day of he month Ab, fatal for vengeance, the wicked Turnus Rufus, of the children of Edom, ploughed up the Temple, and the places about it, that that saying might be fulfilled, ‘Sion shall be ploughed as a field.”

 

                Josephus writes: “The emperor commanded them to dig up the whole city and the Temple….’Thus those that digged it up laid all level, that it should never be inhabited, to be a witness to such as should come thither.'”  [2:309]

 

                [The fact that all was laid level by Titus‘ army indicates that the present ‘wailing wall’ was not there at that time.]

 

                On Luke 21:24, “…’Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled:’ and what then?  in what sense is this word … until, to be understood?  … I am well assured our Saviour is discoursing about the fall and overthrow of Jerusalem: but I doubt, whether he touches upon the restoration of it: nor can I see any great reason to affirm, that the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled before the end of the world itself….  ‘Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled.’ It is strange this should be no more observed, as it ought to have been, … when, in truth, these very words are as a gnomon to the whole chapter.”  [3:199]

 

18:4. “…Come out of her my people…”

 

                Jesus was called a Nazarene, which “…denotes not only a separation, dedicated to God, such as that of the Nazarenes was; but it signifies also the separation of a man from others, as being unworthy of their society; Gen. xlix.26,…”  [2:44]

 

                The Sanhedrin removed from its regular place of meeting in the room Gazith in the Temple when it became unwilling, because of the overwhelming incidents of murder, to try murderers.  Lightfoot quotes Josephus: “…’On the feast which is called Pentecost, the priests, according to custom, entering into the inner temple by night, to perform the service, perceived first, as they said, a certain motion and crack, and then a sudden voice … Let us remove from hence.‘”  [4:43]

 

                Davies, [284]  “It is in the light of stories such as the above that we are to understand how a Rabbi would regard a death by crucifixion; the latter was a death that according to the Torah implied that the victim was outside the pale of Israel; that he was herem.”  [Herem means ‘accursed’ or ‘condemned to total destruction.’]  Therefore, the call to “Come out” was the call to make a complete and total separation from the Old Israel and, as in Heb. 13:12-13:

                12  Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13  Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (Heb. 13)

 

18:4. “…come out of her, my people….”

 

                Eusebius records that the Christians fled to Pella before the war began in which Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70.  According to the traditions of the Jews, the city was destroyed ‘in the seventh year,’ that is, of the cycle of years in which the land was not to be sown or reaped in the seventh year.

 

                Lightfoot shows that Pella was not considered to be ‘holy’ as was the other lands of Israel, during the second Temple era, and therefore they could sow and reap their lands.  However, “‘…They sow it, therefore, the seventh year; and they appoint thence the first tithe, and the poor’s tithe the seventh year, for the maintenance of the poor; who have not a corner of the field left, nor a gleaning that year: thither therefore the poor betake themselves, and have there a corner left, and a gleaning, and the poor’s tithe.'”

 

                “We produce this, for the sake of that story which relates how the Christians fled from the siege and slaughter of Jerusalem to Pella.  And why to Pella?  Certainly if that be true which obtains among the Jews, that the destruction of Jerusalem was…’in the seventh year,’ which was the year of release, when on this side Jordan they neither ploughed nor sowed, but beyond Jordan there was a harvest, and a tithing for the poor, &c.; hence one may fetch a more probable reason of that story than the historians themselves give; namely, that those poor Christians resorted thither for food and sustenence, when husbandry had ceased that year in Judea and Galilee.  But we admire the story, rather than acquiesce in this reason.”  [1:256-7]

 

18:4. “… that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

 

                “…The Masters dispute the reason of the laying-waste of Jerusalem.

 

                “‘Abai saith, Jerusalem was not destroyed for any thing but the profanation of the sabbath.  R. Abba saith, It was not destroyed for any thing but their neglect in reciting their phylacteries morning and evening.  Rabh Menona saith, It was not destroyed for any thing but their not minding the bringing up of their children in the school.  Ulla saith, Jerusalem had not been destroyed but for their immodesty one towards another.  R. Isaac saith, It had not been destroyed, but that they equalled the inferior with the superior.  R. Chainah saith, It had not been destroyed, but that they did not rebuke one another.  R. Judah saith, It had not been destroyed, but that they condemned the disciples of the wise men,’ &c.  But Wisdom saith, Jerusalem was destroyed, because she knew not the time of her visitation.

 

                “All those great good things that were promised to mankind were promised as what should happen in the last days, i.e. in the last days of Jerusalem.  Then was the Messiah to be revealed: then was the Holy Ghost to be poured out: then was the mountain of the Lord to be exalted, and the nations should flow in to it: in a word, then were to be fulfilled all those great things which the prophets had foretold about the coming of the Messiah and the bringing in of the gospel.  These were the times of Jerusalem’s visitation, if she could have known it.  But so far was she from that knowledge, that nothing was more odious, nothing more contemptible, than when indeed all these ineffable benefits were dispensed in the midst of her.  Nor indeed were those times described before-hand with more remarkable characters as to what God would do, than they were with black and dreadful indications as to the perverseness and obstinacy of that people  They were the best of times, and the worst generation lived in them.  In those last days of that city were ‘perilous times,’ 2 Tim.iii.1: ‘departing from the faith,’ 1 Tim.iv.1: ‘Scoffers’ of religion, 2 Pet. iii.3: in a word, ‘many antichrists,’ 1 John ii.18.  So far was Jerusalem and the nation of the Jews from knowing and acknowledging the things that belonged unto their peace.”  [3:195-6]

 

18.8. “… and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord who judgeth her.”

 

                Lightfoot mentions the Jewish writings: “We meet with a form of prayer in the Jewish writings which was used on the solemn fast of the ninth month Ab, of which this is one clause: ‘Have mercy, O God, upon the city that mourneth, that is trodden down and desolate; … because thou didst lay it waste by fire, and by fire wilt build it up again.’ If the Jews expect and desire their Jerusalem should be rebuilt by fire, let them direct their eyes towards these fiery tongues; {of Pentecost}, and acknowledge both that the building commenced from that time, and the manner also, how only it is to be restored.”  [4:28]

 

18:11. “And the merchants of the earth/land shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more.”

 

                The land of Judea in the first century was the hub of the wheel, or the focal point, or the tip of the iceberg, of the much larger Jewish community dispersed throughout the Roman world.  The Jews were international merchants and Jerusalem was their ‘headquarters’, so to speak.

 

                Lightfoot quotes the Gemarists: “The Galileans’ care was of reputation, not of money; the inhabitants of Judea, their care was of money, not of reputation….”  [1:169]

 

DAVIES [132-3]  There was a body of literature known as the derek ‘eretz literature, especially the Derek Eretz Rabba and the Derek Eretz Zuta which may be based on rules of behavior dating back to the first century AD.  Some of this material is believed to date back to the pre-Talmudic Age and may be ‘a missionary appeal to the heathen’, giving them a natural law that they should follow until, or with the hope that, they may come to accept the whole Torah.

 

                Note 1, p. 133: “…. that sayings such as the Golden Rule were meant to be potted versions of the essential Torah which should be offered to the heathen … [as was] the Two Ways which we find in the Didache….  referring to the famous passage in Josephus, Antiq.20.2,3 … where a trader obviously acts as missionary, Klein holds that Jewish traders often acted thus.  Under pretence of selling Lebensbalsam … they offered the description of the good life found in Ps. 34.15…. the Lebensbalm was ‘Turning from evil,’ etc…. Paul in 2 Cor.2.17, may have as its background this trading missionary activity…. Klein regards the Noachic commandments as a missionary minimum designed to attract the heathen….”

 

18:15, 17. “…The merchants…which were made rich by her…For in one hour so great riches is come to nought….”

 

                One of the sources of the great wealth of the Temple at Jerusalem was the ‘Temple Tax’ that was imposed upon all Jews throughout the world.

 

                “‘ (Quoting the Talmud and Maimonides)…It is an affirmative precept of the law, that every Israelite should give half a shekel yearly: even the poor, who live by alms, are obliged to this; and must either beg the money of others, or sell their clothes to pay half a shekel; as it is said, ”’The rich shall give no more, and the poor shall give no less.’”

 

                “In the first day of the month Adar, they made a public proclamation concerning these shekels, that every one should provide his half shekel, and be ready to pay it.  Therefore on the fifteenth day of the same month, the exchangers …sat in every city, civilly requiring this money: they received it of those that gave it, and compelled those that did not.  On the five-and-twentieth day of the same month they sat in the Temple; and then compelled them to give; and from him that did not give they forced a pledge, even his very coat….'” 

 

                “‘It is necessary that every one should have half a shekel to pay for himself.  Therefore, when he comes to the exchanger to change a shekel for two half shekels, he is obliged to allow him some gain, which is called…kolban.  And when two pay one shekel [between them]…each of them is obliged to allow the same gain or fee.…'”  [2:275]