Page:Works Translated by William Whiston.djvu/753
the king of Babylon conquered it, and made it desolate, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight years and six months after it was built; but he who first built it[1] was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is in our tongue called [Melchisedek], the Righteous King, for such he really was ; on which account he was [there] the first priest of God, and first built a temple [there], and called the city Jerusalem, which was formerly called Salem. However, David, the king of the Jews, ejected the Canaanites, and settled his own people therein-. It was demolished entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and seventy-seven years and six months after him ; and from king David, who was the first of the Jews who reigned therein, to this destruction under Titus, were one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine years ; but from its first building, till this last destruction, were two thousand one hundred seventy-seven years ; yet hath not its great antiquity, nor its vast riches, nor the diffusion of its nation over all the habit- able earth, nor the greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious account, been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed : and thus ended the siege of Jerusalem.
⁂ This is the proper place for such as have closely attended to these later books of the Wars to peruse, and that with equal attention, those distinct and plain predictions of Jesus of Nazareth, in the Gospels thereto relating, as compare4 with their exact completions in Josephus's history; upon which completions, as Dr. Whitby well observes, Annot. on Matt. xxiv. 2, no small part of the evidence for the truth of the Christian religion does depend; and as I have, step by step, compared them together in my Literal Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies. The reader is to observe farther, that the true reason why I have so seldom taken notice of those completions in the course of these notes, notwithstanding their being so very remarkable, and frequently so very obvious, is this, That I had entirely prevented myself in that treatise beforehand; to which, therefore, I must here once for all, seriously refer every inquisitive reader.
BOOK VII.
CONTAINING THE INTERVAL OF ABOUT THREE YEARS. FROM THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS, TO THE SEDITION OF THE JEWS AT CYRENE.
CHAPTER I.
How the entire city of Jerusalem was demolished, excepting three towers; and how Titus commended his soldiers, in a speech made to them, and distributed Rewards to them, and then dismissed many of them.
§ 1. NOW, AS soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the object* cf their fury (for they would not have spared any, had their remained any other such work to be done), Cæsar gave orders that City and Temple demolished. they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency; that Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne, and so much of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison; as were
- ↑ Why the great Bochart should say, De Phoenic. Colon. 6. ii. ch. iv. that "There arein this clause of Josephus asmany mistakes as words" I do by no means understand. Josephus thought Melchisedek first built, or rather rebuilt and adorned this city, and that it was then called Salem, as Psal. Ixxvi. 2 ; that it afterward came to be called Jerusalem; and that Melchisedek, being a priest as well as a king, built to the true God therein a temple, or place for public divine worship and sacrifice; all which things may be very true for aught we know to the contrary; and for the word ιερον, or Temple, as if it must needs belong to the great temple built by Solomon long afterward, Josephus himself uses ναος, for the small tabernacle of Moses, Antiq. b. Hi. ch. vi. sect. 4. See also Antiq. b. in. ch. vi. sect. I, as he here presently uses ιερον for a large and splendid synagogue of the Jews at Antioch, b. vii. ch. Hi. sect. 3.
farther recollection, reckons a sixth, Antiq. b. xii. ch. i. sect. I, who should have been here inserted in the second place; I mean Ptolemy, the son of Lagus.