The God of History

OVER 2774 YEARS AGO, ON April 21, 753 BC, a city, destined to become one of the longest continuous surviving of the great cities of the world, was founded. It was ROME.

Rome is variously referred to as “The Eternal City” – a misnomer of note. Assuming the above historically given date be correct then at least one middle-eastern city predates ROME by more than 1200 years: that is, JERUSALEM.

This Blog will specifically consider the interrelationship between Rome and Jerusalem with the objective of illustrating the prophetic prescience of the Eternal Creator in regard to the conflicting convergence of nations, i.e., their wars. We also synoptically consider the historic development of these two totally divergent cultures to demonstrate the divine interventions underlying their future which brought divine judgement upon one segment of God’s chosen people in 70 AD, the Jews.

The Jews had, after their rejection and condemnation of the Messiah, sunk deeper into heinously depraved and sinful behaviors; behaviors which resulted in Jerusalem being sacked by Rome and razed to the ground in 70 AD.

This first century juxtaposition of Rome and Jerusalem was centuries in preparing. And, germane to this intertwining of “fates” is the demonstrable fact that the God of the bible, the Covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their physical descendants, the 12 tribes of Israel, is also the ONE WHO orchestrated the origins of nations [Genesis 10]; planned their geographic distribution [Deut 32:8]; predetermined their wealth cycles, their rise and fall, their socio-economic and political development, as well as their historic interrelationships, millennia ahead of time, to fulfil His divine eternal purposes.

In appreciation of these momentous realities a little historical background is helpful.

At the time of Rome’s founding, Jerusalem, then called Salem, had already been in existence over 1 200 years. Rome’s founding coincided with the birth of one of the greatest kings in Judaic history, Hezekiah [c. 753 - 697 BC].

BY THIS TIME the great prophet Isaiah had already been in office for about a quarter of a century. And, at just about the same time that Rome was established in 753 BC, Yehovah had already declared Jerusalem to be the Eternal City! [Is 60:15.]

The Kingdom of Israel (not to be confused with Judah, the Jews) -- already existed for over 700 years and having become militarily effete and morally foul, were poised to experience its destruction and deportation as slaves by the Assyrian Empire under King Shalmanezer in 721 BC. This was a mere 32 years after the birth of Hezekiah and the establishment of Rome!

All this indicates the ancientness of God’s chosen people, Israel, and the city of Jerusalem in particular. Rome therefore is hardly “eternal” nor, as Byron opined, “City of the soul!”

Israel’s southern branch, the Kingdom of Judah [the Jews], would continue for another 136 years before finally being conquered by the Babylonian Empire under King Nebuchadnezzar, circa 585 BC.

THOUGH THE FINAL CONQUEST occurred in 586/5 BC the Babylonian deportations started about 20 years earlier, c. 606/5 BC. This first invasion, capture and deportation of Jews, featured the familiar figures of Daniel, Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. Counting from the first invasion [c. 606/5 BC] the Babylonian captivity ended 70 years later about 536/5 BC, when King Cyrus decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem. At which time Judah was restored under Zerubbabel [Hag 3].

THIS BRIEF HISTORIC OVERVIEW INDICATES how the history of God’s covenant people, Israel and Judah, and that of pagan Rome intersected in future centuries to teach humanity that God rules in the international politics of nations and gives rulership to whomsoever He wills—irrespective of their vile, evil character.

Daniel was given this unique understanding. God does not necessarily appoint morally upright people to rule nations! Notice:

Dan 4:17b “...the most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever he will, and sets up over it the basest of men” – even if they have to “steal” an election, or overthrow a ruling party by military coup, or assassinate presidents -- by greased bullet, or gerrymandered balloting!

This is an important truth for all God’s people to remember in these trying times during which humanity will experience the most heinous governmental interference, restrictions, and political upheavals ever experienced in our corrupt and evil world. Calloused, insensitive, unfeeling, thick-skinned, unsympathetic, uncaring and inconsiderate beast-minded men and women [as per Rev 13 and 17:9] will rule over nations in the end of a re-engineered civilization.

As sovereign kingdoms in their own land, Israel’s historicity surpasses that of pagan Rome by over seven centuries, starting at the entry into Canaan, circa 1450 BC.

The history of Israel and Rome were to intersect in the distant future. An historic irony emerges from the parallel but separate developments of Rome and Israel in this figure that while Rome still suckled at the teats of the wild she-wolf [artistically presented in the ancient Etruscan wolf statue with the two boys added during the Renaissance to give credence to the myth], Israel and Judah were already waning forces on the international scene, having reached their zenith in about 1003 BC when Solomon dedicated the most magnificent gold-laden Temple in all history unto Yehovah.

Thus, 350 years before the founding of Rome, Jerusalem had enjoyed world fame for its culture, riches, religious wisdom, and military might.

The Queen of Sheba had already swooned at Solomon’s feet on Chinese silk, sweeping over onyx, marble and gold, more than a third of a millennium before the fabled wild, cruel, fierce and rapacious she-wolf infused two twin boys with her milk of unkind ferociousness, bloodlust and relentless cruelty. Savagery wrapped in sophistication!

Roman savagery apart, Jerusalem's citizens suffered the agony they virtually pleaded for by their insistent indifference to the warnings of the prophets, their unrelenting contempt for the laws of Yehovah their covenant God, and their resolute disdain for Christ and the apostles through whose teaching they had an opportunity to repent of their persistent, scornful, condescension towards the Torah [laws] of the Eternal.

Christ cried out in lament: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kill the prophets, and stone them which are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings [for protection], and you would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” [Mat 23:37-38].

Rome, in the meantime, had successively seen Royal rule [753-510 BC], followed by the Republic [510-27 BC]. With the final defeat of Marc Anthony at the Battle of Actium, Octavianus [Augustus Caesar] became Emperor.

Within this Imperial Period of Rome the year 69 AD “Lives on in infamy”. Three Emperors were slain in quick succession and Vespasianus Titus Flavius [Vespasian] becomes Emperor in December of that year.

Densely muscled, like the army mules he bred in the rough and tough hill country, the jutting-jawed, hook-nosed, sharp-eyed, rotund, war-hardened veteran of many successful campaigns, Vespasian, commenced the siege of Jerusalem in 69 AD. But due to the murderous chaos in Rome he sets out to rescue the City – nay, the Empire! Rome was immersed in internal violence, political intrigue, corruption, material filth, moral debauchery, deeply in debt, with a restless populace facing starvation.

Vespasian leaves the sacking of Jerusalem, the killing of a million self-destructing, genocidal Jews, and the eventual [unintentional] burning of the Temple, to his son, Titus.

Titus ran out of his tent virtually in his underwear [being not in battle dress (Josephus, Wars, 6, 4, 6)] to save the Temple from the fire! According to Josephus Titus remonstrated with his troops and shouted commands for saving the Temple but could not be heard above the clatter and din of the warring factions in the Temple. Exasperated and equally incensed he left the soldiers to vent their savage anger on the bands of recalcitrant Jews. He, however, managed to salvage the main Temple furnishings – the menorah, table of showbread, the golden altar … there was no ark of the covenant. Long before, during the Babylonian raids, according to one tradition, it had been hidden by Jeremiah under the temple mount. Some believe it it still to be there!

This Jewish holocaust was totally self-inflicted.

Yes, the Jews “would not”. Though they suffered at the evil hands of the seditious factions within the city those who wished to escape was granted the opportunity by Titus. But as a whole they desired not to be gathered unto their Messiah. They willfully chose to reject Christ's invitation to deliverance and salvation. They preferred their religiously self-righteous, sinful ways. By Hebraism this means they, “having an evil heart of unbelief” delighted in “departing from the living God”! [Heb. 3:12].

And so, after having been weened for eight centuries, the vengeful savagery of the wolfish beast which is Rome, was brought to Jerusalem with sophisticated machinery of destruction in 69/70 AD by Vespasian and his son Titus.

This historic reality was predictable in terms of the willfulness of the factious Jews who -- though there was enough food in store for about three years, had the supplies burned! Some resorted to eating cow dung from old dung heaps. Others scraped the city sewers for sustenance!

Josephus records in The Wars of the Jews, Book 5, Chapters 9 to 13, that houses were full of rotting corpses; people died while burying the dead; some simply climbed into coffins and died; others swallowed their gold and attempted to escape, only to be met outside the city wall to have their bellies sliced open and their innards searched for treasure. Over 700 000 corpses were simply thrown out the city gates or over the city walls. Ultimately over a million Jews died -- mostly due to the seditious criminal elements in their own midst that terrorized the citizens.

General Titus, upon seeing the putrefying bodies in the valleys surrounding Jerusalem "gave a groan: and spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to witness that this was not his doing!" [Ibid.]

These two great cities -- equally evil and sinful [Jehovah himself calls Jerusalem spiritual Sodom and Egypt! (Is 1:10, Ezek 16:46, 53, Rev 11:8)] – reached this climactic clash in 70 AD. It was a tragic crossing of historic paths IN THE MAKING BY THE ETERNAL MORE THAN EIGHT CENTURIES BEFORE THE EVENT!

But the historic reality has a disturbing appendage for all who assume their special “chosen” status with God.

VESPASIAN as indicated earlier, received an Empire approaching total economic collapse. To ensure the survival of the Empire he needed money—plenty of it! And, it came just in time.

Titus having just pillaged Jerusalem brought to Rome all the solid golden artefacts of the Holy Temple, all the accumulated tithes and offerings of devout Jews, all the precious stones and opulent temple regalia, every ounce of silver and gold - except that which the soldiers looted and dug from the crevices of the temple courtyard after the meltdown of the Temple.

So it was that the Eternal God—Yehovah, the covenant God of Israel—divested Himself of His chosen people once again, delivering them to a pagan force. In 585BC Judah and its temple treasures were delivered up to Babylon. In 168 BC, Antiochus Epiphanes sacked Jerusalem and seized the Temple Treasure. In 70AD Judah was delivered up to the horrendously antinomian society, Rome, to rebuild a Pagan Empire with the very treasury from Yehovah’s holy Temple!

God abandoned the “chosen people” and gave His sacred treasures to the pagans to rescue a pagan Empire. Rome was part of the great image of Daniel 2, which still had to continue for some centuries to fulfil the Eternal's prophetic declarations through His prophets. He used His own temple treasure---His people's tithes and offerings!---to ensure the outcome of His prophetic predictions.

Additionally, the Temple treasury was used to build the Colosseum, scene of murderous savagery as has not been witnesses on a large scale in our present corrupt world—yet!

The ruins of the Colosseum in the centre of Rome is a global reminder of the fact that God does not treasure money – all the gold on earth are His anyway [Ps 24:1]. Neither does he regard as sacred any money offered to Him by corrupt people. [For that reason no tithe or offering is acceptable to the Eternal from a prostitute, male of female! (Deut 23:18.)]

The tithes and offerings of, inter alia, the Scribes and Pharisees who had trumpeters blow at the treasury before they deposited their “sacred” tithes and offerings, being given with evil motives, self-righteousness and vanity, were viewed by the Eternal as defiled!

Every time you see the ruins of the Colosseum remind yourself of this fact: God does not honor gifts from the sinner who seeks to buy His favors.

Truly, God gives the rule of nations to whomsoever He wills and great treasures to boot—even if it be his own! The Eternal shifts wealth around as it pleases His divine design.

There’s a prophetic termination to this intersecting of the history of Rome and Jerusalem. As Jerusalem is a modern Sodom [Rev 11:8] so Rome is a modern Babylon.

Revelation 18 declares spiritual Babylon [representative of Rome, religious and secular], as twice fallen. Babylon’s physical dwelling place – the seven hills and Vatican City [Rev 17:9] – is filled with demons and foul spirits [Rev 18:2]. This is the state of Rome before Christ’s return and must be cleansed to establish the Holy Kingdom in which abides no evil thing! Eventually Rome is to be “utterly burned with fire” [v.8].

In this metaphor we have a final statement about the juxtaposition between the two cities. Demon infested Rome will clearly not be the “eternal” city. It will be totally destroyed, for ever. Jerusalem, soon to undergo a major destruction, will, however, ultimately be restored with pure transparent gold in splendiferous glory.

As God gave His treasures for the re-establishment of Gentile Rome, so in the foreseeable future He will gather gold, silver, and precious stones, in unimaginable abundance, from the Gentiles to rebuild and restore His Holy Place! The twelve tribes of Israel will be fully restored from around the world after the return of Christ. Foreigners will rebuild Israel; their kings will serve them; peoples will bring their national wealth to Israel. Israel will prosper beyond belief! [Zech 14:14; Is 60:10-11;16-17; 61:5-6; 66:11-12.] And all this was prophesied when Rome’s first mud huts were slapped together! The God of past history is also the God of future prophecy.

Jerusalem is the city destined to be “The Eternal City” and the “City of the Soul!” That’s where the fourth Temple will be built and where the nations will assemble themselves every year at the Feast of Tabernacles [Zech 14:16ff] in the true worship of the only true God, Yehovah.

Jerusalem--Millennial and Eternal--is being prepared by the God of History and Eternity for a very special people [John 14:2]. Might you be one of those special people for whom a mansion is being prepared? Will you find comfort and peace and eternity in the Eternal City of the God of History?