The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 17

The European Union in Prophecy
enemies who might have endeavoured to intercept them. At the time of the siege, the
Jews were assembled at Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and thus the
Christians throughout the land were able to make their escape unmolested. Without
delay they fled to a place of safety--the city of Pella, in the land of Perea, beyond
Jordan.
The Jewish forces, pursuing after Cestius and his army, fell upon their rear with
such fierceness as to threaten them with total destruction. It was with great difficulty
that the Romans succeeded in making their retreat. The Jews escaped almost without
loss, and with their spoils returned in triumph to Jerusalem. Yet this apparent
success brought them only evil. It inspired them with that spirit of stubborn
resistance to the Romans which speedily brought unutterable woe upon the doomed
city.
Terrible were the calamities that fell upon Jerusalem when the siege was
resumed by Titus. The city was invested at the time of the Passover, when millions of
Jews were assembled within its walls. Their stores of provision, which if carefully
preserved would have supplied the inhabitants for years, had previously been
destroyed through the jealousy and revenge of the contending factions, and now all
the horrors of starvation were experienced. A measure of wheat was sold for a talent.
So fierce were the pangs of hunger that men would gnaw the leather of their belts and
sandals and the covering of their shields. Great numbers of the people would steal out
at night to gather wild plants growing outside the city walls, though many were seized
and put to death with cruel torture, and often those who returned in safety were
robbed of what they had gleaned at so great peril. The most inhuman tortures were
inflicted by those in power, to force from the want-stricken people the last scanty
supplies which they might have concealed. And these cruelties were not infrequently
practiced by men who were themselves well fed, and who were merely desirous of
laying up a store of provision for the future.
Thousands perished from famine and pestilence. Natural affection seemed to
have been destroyed. Husbands robbed their wives, and wives their husbands.
Children would be seen snatching the food from the mouths of their aged parents. The
question of the prophet, "Can a woman forget her sucking child?" received the answer
within the walls of that doomed city: "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden
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