They army had not been able completely to invest passed out with their heads muffled, either for disguise, or to express their sense of the greatness of the calamity, and bearing on their shoulders such articles of value as they hoped to save. As in the case of David, the object of the King was to escape to the east of the Jordan. He and his companions descended, unobserved, by the royal gardens, and down the steep descent to Jericho. There he was overtaken by the Chaldæan soldiers, who had received intelligence of his flight from deserters; and in that wide plain, the scene of the first triumph of Joshua, was fought the last fight of the expiring monarchy. His troops fled, and were scattered to the winds. "Swifter than the eagles of "heaven they pursued" the fugitives down "the mountains" of the pass of Adummim, "and laid wait for "him in the wilderness" of the Jordan valley. In him and his royal house the spirit of David held out to the last, and when he was ensnared, like a lion in the hunter's net, the weakness of his character was forgotten in the greatness of his fall, and a long sigh was heaved in remembrance of the opportunity that had still been open to him. "The breath of our nostrils, "the Anointed of the Lord,' is taken in their pits, of "whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live 66 5 6 among the heathen." He and his family were carried off in chains to Riblah, where Nebuchadnezzar was encamped awaiting the double result of the sieges of Jerusalem and of Tyre. Even at this final moment it was the vengeance of his broken oaths that 1 Ezek. xii. 6, 12. 4 Ibid. Jer. lii. 8; Ezek. xii. 14. 5 Lam. iv. 19. Ezek. xii. 18; xvii. 20. 7 Lam. iv. 20. 8 Joseph. Ant. x. 8, § 2. pursued the unfortunate Prince, alike from the exiled Prophet and from the conquering King. A solemn judgment was pronounced upon him. His courtiers and his sons were executed in his The exile of sight; and then, according to the barbarous Zedekiah. usage of the East, his eyes were put out, and he was taken to Babylon, where, according to later traditions, he worked like a slave in a mill, a fate the more tragical, because contrasted with the comparative ease of his nephew Jehoiachin. The singularity of his fate is made by Josephus the chief argument for the predictive power of the ancient Prophets, as reconciling, in this unexpected manner, the apparent discrepancy be tween Jeremiah and Ezekiel.2 struction of There was a long suspense at Jerusalem. It was not till nearly a month had elapsed, the tenth The deday of the fifth month, a day again memorable the city. in Jewish annals, as a "day of misery," when the siege of Titus closed in like manner, a day tragical as the 10th of August in European history,-that Nebuzaradan, captain of the royal guard, came with orders from Nebuchadnezzar to put the finishing stroke to the work of destruction. The Temple, the palace, the houses of the nobles, were deliberately set on fire. The very bones and framework of Jerusalem appeared to be wrapped in flames. The walls and gates seemed to lament and cry, as they sunk into the earth. The sepulchres, even the consecrated catacombs of the Kings, were opened, and the bodies thrown out to the vultures and beasts of prey, which flocked to their frightful feast outside the walls.3 Jackals wandered even over the sacred hill of Zion. 1 Ezek, xvii. 20. Joseph. Ant. x. 8, § 2, 3. Some of the princes 3 Jer. viii. 1; Ps. lxxix 2, 3. were hung up by their hands on the Temple walls; others were carried off to execution at Riblah,1 including the two Chief Priests and other great officers of the court and camp that were found in the city. The havoc and carnage in the streets was such that passers-by avoided every one they met, lest they should be defiled by their bloody touch.2 Age and youth, men and women, alike fell victims to the passion or cruelty of the conqueror. The spoils of the Temple, those sacred vessels whose fate had been so furiously contested by the Prophets of the contending factions, were swept away to adorn the temples or tables of the Babylonian court; and there is a pathetic earnestness in the tone of the historian, as he tells how even the brazen laver, even those two beautiful pillars, which had remained uninjured through so many devastations, which had seemed the pledges of durability and stability, at last,. with all their prized and delicate ornaments, were broken to pieces, and carried off as mere fragments of metal to Babylon, never to return. In the remains of the population of the Samaritan kingdom it is affecting to see that all sense of ancient rivalry was lost in the grief of the common calamity. Pilgrims from the ancient capitals of Ephraim, Samaria, Shechem, and Shiloh came flocking with shorn beards, gashed faces, torn clothes, and loud wailings, to offer incense on the ruined Temple, which was not their own. But in the neighboring heathen tribes there was a savage exultation-more bitter to the heart of Judah than the calamity itself-in the thought that the Divine Inheri tance had now passed into their hands. There was the 1 2 Kings xxv. 18-20. Lam. iv. 14, 15 3 Ibid. v. 11-13 2 Chr. xxxvi. 17. 4 2 Kings xxv. 16, 17. 5 Jer. xli. 5. 6 Ps. lxxix. 1. 1 fierce Ammonite clapping his hands and stamping with his feet, and the cold-blooded Moabite calmly reviewing the descent of the sacred city to the level of the surrounding nations.1 The forgotten Philistine was there, reviving his "old hatred and despiteful "heart." 2 Tyre, on her distant island, rejoiced in the fall of a powerful rival: "I shall be replenished, now "that she is laid waste." But deepest of all was the indignation roused by the sight of the nearest of kin, the race of Esau, often allied to Judah, often independent, now bound by the closest union with the power that was truly the common enemy of both. There was an intoxication of delight in the wild Edomite chiefs, as at each successive stroke against the venerable walls they shouted, "Down with it! down with it! even to "the ground." They stood in the passes to intercept the escape of those who would have fled down to the Jordan valley; they betrayed the fugitives; they indulged their barbarous revels on the Temple hill. Long and loud has been the wail of execration which has gone up from the Jewish nation against Edom. It is the one imprecation which breaks forth from the Lamentations of Jeremiah; it is the culmination of the fierce threats of Ezekiel; it is the sole purpose of the short, sharp cry of Obadiah; it is the bitterest drop in the sad recollections of the Israelite captives by the waters of Babylon; and the one warlike strain of the Evangelical Prophet is inspired by the hope that the Divine Conqueror should come knee-deep in Idumean blood." 1 Ezek. xxv. 6, 8. 2 Ibid. xxv. 15. 3 Ibid. xxvi. 2. 4 Lam. iv. 21. 5 PB. cxxxvii. 7; 1 Esdr. iv. 45. 6 Obad. 14, 16. Edom. 7 Lam. iv. 21, 22; Ezek. xxv. 8, 12-14; Obad. 1-16; Jer. xlix. 7–22 Ps. cxxxvii. 7; Isa. lxiii. 1-4. 2 It has been a not unnatural, though groundless, conclusion of later Jewish teachers, that the name of Edom represented the bitter enemy of Judaism in all future ages; that Edom is the type and emblem of Rome; that Cæsar and Titus were Edomites by descent; that the soul of Esau still lingers in the Christian persecutors of the race of Israel.' It is an equally natural but hardly more warrantable thought, which has possessed the mind of many a Christian reader of these Prophecies, that in the desolation which, many centuries afterwards, began to brood over the rock-hewn habitations and tombs of Petra, were fulfilled the curses of the Jewish Prophets on the eagle's nest and rocky clefts in which the sons of Esau had deemed themselves secure. The judgment on Edom, whatever it was, was exhausted when Edom itself passed away. The Roman Empire and the Christian Church have their own sins to answer for, without being loaded with the guilt of an ancient tribe, with which they had no connection. But the spirit of those stern Prophetic cries has an eternal meaning; for they are the human expression of the Divine malediction on a sin common alike to East and West, to Churches, kingdoms, and individuals, — the sin most difficult to be forgiven,—the desertion of kinsmen by kinsmen, of friends by friends, the readiness to take advantage of the weaker side-hounding on the vic torious party—"standing on the other side" in the day of the sorest need.3 So perished the city of David: "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she a widow, that was great among the nations! and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! . . . 1 Seder Olam (Meyer). 3 Obad. 11, 12. |