In the end-times speeches of the Lord Jesus, we can see two prominent characteristics of the last time before His coming, besides various other signs. Firstly, we have the re-awakening or putting forth leaves of the fig tree (Matthew 24:32-33, Mark 13:28-29, and Luke 21:29-32). In the Bible, the fig tree stands for the nation of Israel. The first prominent characteristic of the last times is therefore the reawakening or rebirth of the Jewish state. This event took place in 1948. Only five years before the founding of the state of Israel, this would have been regarded as madness, in view of the Shoah and the events of the Second World War. The second prominent characteristic is inseparably connected with the first. Hereby we are (figuratively speaking) being led from the body to the heart. It is about the developments concerning Jerusalem, which is closely connected with the Israel question. 

The events surrounding Jerusalem play a decisive part in end-time developments, from a prophetic point of view. The world-political events involving Jerusalem do not just mean the end of the age of the nations and thereby the imminent return of Jesus. They will also in the future be directly connected with the visible coming of the Lord for all people (Zechariah 12:1-10). For this reason, we will concern ourselves with the significance of Jerusalem for end-time developments in this article.

The Treading Down of Jerusalem by the Nations

a) The siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. That which the Lord Jesus prophesied in Luke 21:20-24 was fulfilled in the year 70 A.D. with literal precision. The siege and conquest of Jerusalem by Titus belonged to one of the most atrocious sieges of cities in the whole of world history.

When Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate forty years before, the agitated mob wanted freedom for Barabbas and not Jesus. According to the Bible, Barabbas can be counted among the zealots (Mark 15:7, Luke 23:19 and John 18:40). This Jewish underground troop terrorized the Roman occupiers and wanted to bring the Kingdom of God by force. Instead of the gentle King of peace, however, the people chose the zealot, Barabbas. 

During the siege of Jerusalem from 67-70 A.D., Jerusalem was not just surrounded by the Romans. In connection with the choice of Barabbas instead of Christ and the warning prophecy of Luke 21, what the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus reports is absolutely shocking. Within the surrounded city, the rebels not only fought against the occupiers, but the rival zealot groups were also in conflict with one another. Hence, the population was terribly affected. Although the city was besieged from outside, the zealots, in their blindness, set fire to their own storehouses. The priests and those bringing sacrifices to the temple were attacked with projectiles thrown by the rival zealot groups, so that many of them lost their lives during the temple ceremonies. While the Roman siege became more and more oppressive, the hunger and misery in the city increased dramatically. 

Titus, on the other hand, wanted to spare Jerusalem, the people and the temple as far as possible. But the stubbornness and cunning of the zealots led to the increasing anger of the Roman soldiers at the step by step conquest of Jerusalem. When the resistance fighters finally withdrew to the well-fortified temple, Titus once more gave the express command to spare the temple. Of the battle for the Temple Mount, Josephus writes the following: “These Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamour, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered any thing to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing, for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard about it…One would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them: for the ground did no where appear visible, for the dead bodies that lay on it, but the soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them.”1

In the place of the sanctuary, the Roman legionary eagle was now erected. For every God-fearing Jew, this was an unimaginable abomination and blasphemy. Thus, we have a first pre-fulfillment of the prophesied abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel 9:27. The ultimate fulfillment of this verse is still outstanding, however. After the fall of Jerusalem, Titus gave the command to destroy the city and the temple. Only a few towers and the western surrounding wall were to remain. With shocking accuracy, that which Jesus had predicted in His end-time speech concerning the temple was fulfilled, “And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). The Roman military commander Titus was, against his will, an instrument of God so that the Biblical prophecy concerning the destruction of the temple and the treading down of Jerusalem was literally fulfilled.

b) The Bar-Kokhba revolt (132-135 A.D.). Around sixty years after the destruction of the temple, a man called Simon bar Kokhba appeared on the scene. He was a heroic figure, who radiated courage and had strategic skill. The Jews were under his spell, which led to the revolt against Rome. Rome, under the governor Quintus Tineius Rufus, was driven back farther and farther. In true delirium of victory, the rioters were even able to liberate Jerusalem.2 Even the sacrificial ritual was reinstated, although the temple no longer existed.3 After further severe defeats, Rome was able to bring about a turning-point under the general, Julius Severus.

Simon bar Kokhba was a descendant of the house of David.4 The rabbi Akiba proclaimed him as the “Messianic King.” Before this he was called Simon ben Kosiba, but then his name was changed to “Simon bar Kokhba,” meaning “Son of a Star.”5 Thus, Jesus’ prediction in John 5:43 was fulfilled for the first time, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.”

After the turning point had come, the Roman emperor Hadrian became resolute. Werner Keller describes the situation as follows: “Eretz Israel presented a ghostly sight. It was completely desolate and almost devoid of people. The stench of death filled the air. The bodies could not be buried in the ground. Their sight should serve as a warning and deterrent. All the villages that had resisted lay in ashes. Where there had previously been olive groves and vineyards in Galilee, there was hardly an olive tree left, hardly a vine. Once again, after the immense losses of the Jewish wars, the remnant of the population who had remained in the land had been terribly decimated. The captive rebels, with women and children among them, had been sold at the market in Mamre by Abraham’s tree and at the slave market in Gaza. Many of them had been driven to Egypt. For months, the Roman commandos hunted those who had fled and those who were hiding in valleys and caves.”6 

The revolt cost the lives of around 530,000 Jews. It is estimated that a further 500,000 died as a consequence of the war. Hadrian had the Temple Mount ploughed, so that every memory of the sanctuary was erased. Unwittingly, he thereby fulfilled the prediction of the prophet Micah, “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest” (Micah 3:12).

In the place of the sanctuary, a temple dedicated to Jupiter was built. Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina by Hadrian. It was forbidden for a Jew to set foot on the ground of Jerusalem, under penalty of death. Simultaneously, a severe persecution of believers was initiated. Hadrian wanted with the extermination of the Jewish faith, to also put an end to the existence of the chosen people. At this time, the term “Palestine” was born. David Dolan writes of this: “Judaea received the Latin name Syria Palaestine, which later became the well-known term ‘Palestine.’ ‘Palestine’ means the ‘land of the Philistines.’ With this term, every Jewish connection to the land that the God of Israel calls His own was to be exterminated.”7

c) The treading down of Jerusalem in the time of the nations. Thus began for Jerusalem an almost 2,000-year history of treading down and desolation. Although Jews lived in Jerusalem during this time span, it was literally trodden down by the nations:

In the year 70: the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

In 135: The destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian. The city was ploughed over.

In 614: The Persians desolated Jerusalem.

In 629: The Byzantine Empire reconquered Jerusalem.

In 638: Conquered by Muslim Arabs.

In 1071: Conquered by Seljuks.

In 1099: Conquered by the Crusaders.

In 1187: Conquered by Sultan Saladin.

In 1244: Conquered by the Tatars.

In 1250: Conquered by Mamluks.

In 1517: Conquered by the Ottoman Empire. 

In 1917: Conquered by the British in the First World War.

In 1948: East Jerusalem is conquered by Jordan.8

There is surely no city in world history which has experienced so much suffering and war as Jerusalem. In 1852, the geographer Arthur Stanley stated that the present city is built on ruins. These ruins reached 30-40 ft. below the present foundation. But even since the year 1844, the Jews were proven to be the greatest group populating Jerusalem.9 Therefore, it is incontestable that Jerusalem, even during the time of her being trodden down by the nations, was never a true Arab city, but merely under Arab occupation.

In 1948, Israel became an independent state. Contrary to the assurances of Jordan, the Jews were refused entrance into the Old City and the Western Wall. The Jordanians not only denied access to the Western Wall, however, but also deliberately desecrated Jewish sites. Leonard J. Davis wrote on this subject that Jordan had in fact polluted these sites. In order to attract more tourists, King Hussein permitted the building of a road leading to the Hotel Intercontinental running right through the Mount of Olives cemetery. Hundreds of Jewish graves were destroyed on account of a highway, which could just as well have been built elsewhere. The tombstones which were once erected in honor of rabbis and scholars were turned into foundations, walls, paving and latrines of a military station by the Jordanian Arab Legion. Inscriptions on these stones are still legible today. Some of the stones were used for the building of the garden wall around the hotel. Over some of the graves, a small mosque was built. The Jewish cemetery in Hebron was destroyed in a similar manner. The old Jewish quarter of Jerusalem was desolated. Thereby 34 synagogues were also destroyed, some of which were a few centuries old. Arab “squatters” came from Hebron and transformed the Jewish quarter into a slum. The Western Wall (Wailing Wall) was desecrated through slum quarters and latrines. Two large buildings on the peak of Mount Scopus, the Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University, were not used for 20 years.10

Jordan conquered and occupied East Jerusalem together with the West Bank in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, contrary to international law. In spite of this, nobody demanded an “independent Palestinian state” with Jerusalem as its capital until 1967. This demand was only made after the Old City of Jerusalem was back under Jewish control.

(NAI0611/752)

(We continue with Part 2 in the next issue.)

1 Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, p. 496-497; 500

2 Abba Eban, Dies ist mein Volk (“This Is My People”), Zurich 1970,  p. 88

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., p. 87

5 A reference to the Star out of Jacob (Numbers 24:17).

6 Werner Keller, Und wurden zerstreut unter alle Völker (“And Were Scattered Among all Peoples”), München/Zürich 1966, p. 90

7 David Dolan, Krieg um das Heilige Land? (“War Over the Holy Land?”), Lahr Dinglingen 1991, p. 64

8 Ibid., p. 65-66

9 Leonard J. Davis, Israels Ueberlebenskampf (“Israel’s Fight for Survival”), Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1987, p. 232

10 Ibid., p. 237-238