The Bloody Road To Jerusalem

THE BLOODY ROAD TO JERUSALEM

The Days of Vengeance Came Upon the Land

When Jesus warned His disciples about Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, He was describing a catastrophe that would engulf far more than the city walls of Jerusalem.

The Jewish War became a devastating Roman campaign throughout the land, with Jerusalem as the ultimate objective.

The war erupted in AD 66 during the reign of Nero. After the humiliating defeat of the Roman governor Cestius Gallus, Nero realized that the revolt had become a serious threat. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Nero appointed the more experienced general Vespasian to bring the rebellion under Roman control. Vespasian did not simply march directly to Jerusalem.

Rome began systematically crushing the surrounding country.

GALILEE

In AD 67 Vespasian entered Galilee with a massive Roman force. City after city came under attack.

Josephus records that when the Romans captured Gadara in Galilee, they killed the young men, burned the city, and then burned the surrounding villages and smaller towns. Some inhabitants were carried away into slavery.

The Romans then moved against Jotapata, where Josephus himself commanded the Jewish resistance. After a long and bloody siege, the city fell. The campaign continued through Galilee. Tiberias surrendered. Taricheae fell. Gamala was taken. Gischala eventually fell under Roman control. This was not merely an army traveling down a road toward Jerusalem. Rome was dismantling Jewish resistance region by region.

People were being killed. People were being captured. Families were being enslaved. Cities were being rifled and burned. Refugees were fleeing from one region to another.

Jerusalem was still the destination .

LYDDA

Even before Vespasian’s campaign, the Roman advance under Cestius Gallus in AD 66 demonstrated how vulnerable the surrounding Jewish cities were.

Josephus tells us that when Cestius arrived at Lydda, most of its inhabitants were absent because they had gone up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Romans found the city largely empty. They killed fifty people who remained and burned the city. Think about the significance of that. These were Jews who lived outside Jerusalem but remained connected to Jerusalem through the Temple and the feast days. Jerusalem was the religious center of the nation. The judgment was already reaching the surrounding country.

PEREA

Then Rome turned its attention eastward. Vespasian moved against Perea, the territory beyond the Jordan. Josephus describes terrible scenes as Roman forces pursued those fleeing from the cities. People attempted to escape toward Jericho, but Roman’s overtook them.

The slaughter became so extensive that Josephus describes the countryside as filled with dead bodies and even speaks of bodies being carried down the Jordan into the Dead Sea.

Roman forces then moved through the neighboring towns and villages until, Josephus says, Perea had essentially either surrendered or been conquered. The circle around Jerusalem was getting smaller.

JERICHO

Next came Jericho.

As the Romans approached, large numbers of people fled Jericho toward the mountainous country facing Jerusalem. Those who remained suffered heavily.

Vespasian established Roman positions at Jericho and the surrounding strategic locations.

Josephus then makes an extremely important observation: Vespasian had now fortified the places around Jerusalem. That tells us what the campaign had been accomplishing all along. Jerusalem was being isolated. The escape routes were disappearing.

IDUMEA AND THE SURROUNDING COUNTRY

Roman forces continued bringing the mountainous regions, villages and plains surrounding Jerusalem under control. Josephus describes cities being captured, houses plundered, families taken captive, villages burned and inhabitants killed.

At Gerasa, for example, he records that Roman forces killed about a thousand young men who had not escaped, took their families captive, plundered their possessions and burned their houses before moving into the neighboring villages. Josephus finally summarizes the situation with chilling clarity: the war had swept through the mountainous and plain country, and those inside Jerusalem were losing their ability to get out. Jerusalem was becoming trapped.

Now listen again to Jesus:

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Matthew 24:16

Jesus did not say only those living inside Jerusalem. He said those in JUDAEA.

Luke gives even more detail:

Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.

Luke 21:21

Why would Jesus warn people throughout Judea? Because the Roman war would sweep through the land. That was a killing spree on the way to Jerusalem. And there was another danger.

As Rome devastated the surrounding regions, people naturally fled toward fortified locations. Jerusalem was the great fortified city and religious center of the Jewish nation.

But Jesus told His disciples to do the opposite.

GET OUT.

Do not run into Jerusalem for protection. When you see the armies approaching, flee.

THEN NERO DIED

In AD 68 Nero died.

Vespasian temporarily suspended his planned attack upon Jerusalem while the Roman Empire descended into political upheaval. But Jerusalem had not escaped.

The surrounding country had already been devastated and Roman forces had established control around the city.

Then something extraordinary happened. Vespasian himself became emperor.

The general Nero had commissioned to crush the Jewish rebellion would not personally finish the siege. That responsibility passed to his son Titus.

THE PAUSE BEFORE THE FINAL SIEGE

In AD 66, Cestius Gallus actually reached Jerusalem and began an attack, but then unexpectedly withdrew his forces. This temporary opening is traditionally associated with the opportunity for the believers to obey Jesus’ warning to flee Jerusalem and Judea.

Vespasian came afterward, commissioned by Nero to crush the revolt, before Titus ultimately returned for the final siege in AD 70.

He turned the completion of the Jewish War over to his son Titus, who returned against Jerusalem in AD 70. Early Christian tradition records that the believers in Jerusalem escaped to Pella, beyond the Jordan, before the final siege.

AD 70: THE FINAL DESTINATION

Titus returned with the Roman legions and concentrated the war upon Jerusalem.

By then, much of the surrounding resistance had already been destroyed or subdued.

Galilee had fallen. Perea had been subdued. Jericho had been taken. The surrounding towns and villages had been devastated. Roman positions surrounded Jerusalem.

Now the final destination of the campaign stood before them:

JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE.

Jesus had said:

And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.

Luke 21:20

And then He explained exactly what those days represented:

For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

Luke 21:22

This wasn’t Rome suddenly appearing outside Jerusalem one morning in AD 70.

The storm had been moving across the land for years.

Galilee saw it.

Perea saw it.

Lydda saw it.

Jericho saw it.

The surrounding villages saw it.

Cities burned.

People were slaughtered. Families were taken captive. Refugees fled.

Roman control tightened around the country. And finally the legions stood before Jerusalem.

Jesus had warned that very generation saying “this generation” what was coming.

And history records the terrible progression of the war that eventually brought the Roman armies exactly where Jesus said they would be: Surrounding Jerusalem.

Even though Jerusalem was the final prophetic destination of Rome’s campaign, the destruction was certainly not confined to Jerusalem. As the Roman armies tightened their grip on the land, many thousands were killed, captured, enslaved, or driven from their homes throughout Galilee, Perea, Judea, and the surrounding regions.

Cities and villages burned and families were scattered before the legions ever began their final siege. Jerusalem was the climax of the judgment, but the devastation swept across the land on the way there.