While reading Jeremiah last night, I found that my Study Bible says that Jer. 8:13-9:24 is read today to commemorate the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. The note said that it is read on the 9th of Ab (which is the month we’re in now, maybe?) for both the Babylonian destruction and the destruction by the Romans.
Is the date actually the same for both times the temple was destroyed? I looked a bit more and found that Jeremiah says Jerusalem was burned on the 10th, but Kings gives the 7th (and the notes indicate that one must be a copyist’s error, but which is which is unknown).
If the date for the destruction by the Romans is the same, does anyone know the reasons?
My guesses – pure coincidence / divine coincidence (i.e. the Romans were clueless about the Babylonians, or Solomon’s Temple.) This seems unlikely.
Other guesses would be : the Romans did it deliberately, either to rub it in to the Jews that it had happened once before, or to try to liken themseleves to the Babylonians; or, since I don’t know the details, the possibility that resisting Jews capitulated on that very date as they understood the Romans would soon overpower them.
The verses in question, in case i have the numbers wrong, begin with something like “I will tear the grapes from the vine” and include “Is there no balm in Gilead?”
This is off the top of my head, here; I’ll double-check my sources tonight.
The date of the 7th given for the destruction of the first actually marks the day that the Babylonians “came to Jerusalem.” (this is a quote from II Kings) He didn’t actually burn the Temple (the next phrase of that verse) until the 9th. I think the two-day lag is learned out somewhere in the Talmud; that’s what I’ll have to look up, unless someone else here posts it first). The verse in Jeremiah that refers to the 10th speaks of the Temple burning until the tenth (at midday. Most restrictions that apply to the “nine days” of mourning that begin on the first of Av are in force until midday on the tenth.)
The fact that the Romans destroyed the secons Temple on the same Hebrew date was not intentional on the Romans’ part (unless someone can prove it was?). It is (according to Jewish tradition) a divine coincidence that this day is a day of anger from G-d. Other tragedies that occurred on that day include the destruction of Betar (a city that rebelled against the Romans in the early second century) and the explusion from Spain in 1492.
The reason (again, according to Jewish tradition) that this day is set aside for mourning is that the 9th of Av was the day that the spies (Numbers 13) returned to the Israelite camp in the desert with a bad report about the land of Canaan, and the Israelites cried “woe!” over it. G-d was angered at this reaction (they should have had faith in him that he’d enable them to defeat the nations inhabiting Canaan) and punished them, saying, “Today, you cried for no reason; therefore, this day will become a day of sorrow for you and your descendants forever.”
With modern warfare techniques, a city can be destroyed in a day – or even obliterated in a matter of seconds. In ancient times, the destruction of a city took time, with days of fighting and battling in the streets, etc. Thus, the assignment of a specific day to the destruction of the Temple is necessarily somewhat arbitrary.
Actually, I didn’t know this particular date coincided; the Bible I have only indicates that Ab/Av falls around July/August, presumably when the NIV was published, anyway.
I read the note two nights ago but didn’t ask the question until today. I apologize for asking clueless questions at a time of mourning; although I can’t help feeling there’s a little bit of divine coincidence here as well.
I think I’m straight on the destruction date being slightly inexact, though still in line with God’s statement before the entrance to Canaan. Perhaps the initial desecration by the foreigners was enough to signal the temple’s destruction. And even if the Romans had acted deliberately, I’d still say God was at work in it . My follow-up is more historical; what records do we have of the date of the Roman destruction? I’d guess the Romans recorded it somehow; do these records survive?
panama jack
Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. - Jer. 8:21
The burning of the Temple was begun toward the evening of the ninth. Most of the burning took place on the tenth. The Talmud records some disagreement as to whether the day of mourning should have been set for the ninth or tenth.
Okay, here’s what the Talmud (Tractate Taanis, page 29a) says. As I mentioned, in II Kings, it only says that the Babyllonians came in to Jerusalem on the seventh; the burning of the Temple is mentioned in the following verse. Jeremiah says that the burning happened on the tenth…no contradiction, therefore.
Why the ninth, then? Another verse in Jeremiah, (6:4, if I recall correctly) mentions the Jews’ sorrows beginning “when the day is going,” i.e., prior to, but close to, sunset. The Talmudic Rabbis take this to mean that the Temple was actually set afire close to sunset on the ninth (the Jewish day begins/ends at sunset), and the bulk of the burning actually occurred during the night and day of the tenth. As IzzyR said, the Talmudic Rabbis disputed over whether the day of mourning should be the ninth, when the destruction began, or the tenth, when most of it was accomplished. Obviously (from the state of current Jewish practice), the “beginning” camp won the debate.
