Jerus. Chetub. fol. 35. col. 3. which in Megillah fol. 73. col. 4. and in R. Solo∣mon upon the first of Isaiah are reckoned up to four hundred and fourscore. But now not one relick left, of Temple, Synagogue, Midrash, House, o•• any thing else but rub∣bish and desolation. Her people used this custom while she stood, that on all other days of the year the unclean walked in the middle of the street, and the clean by the house sides, and the unclean said unto them, Keep off: But on the days of the Festivals, the clean walked in the middle of the street, and the unclean by the house sides, and then the clean bid Keep off. Jerus. Shekalin fol. 51. col. 1. But now where is that company, that niceness, nay where are the streets? Titus himself some time after the desolation, coming that way, could not but bemoan the fall of so brave a City, and cursed the Rebels that had occasi∣oned so fatal a destruction: Joseph. De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 15.
How the Country near about was wasted with so long and terrible a siege, and in∣deed the whole Country with so dreadful a War, it is easier conceived then expressed. Josephus tells particularly much of it, and this thing for one, That all the timber twelve miles about the City was cut down, and brought in to make forts and engines for the siege, lib. 6. cap. 40.
We may take a view of the whole Country as to the surface and situation of it in this prospective of their own: The Land [say they] that Israel possessed that came out of Ba∣bylon, was these three Countries, Judea, Galilee, and Beyond Jordan, and these were seve∣rally tripartite again. There was Galilee the upper, and Galilee the neather, and the Vale. From Caphar Hananiah upward, all that bears not Sycamores, is Galilee the upper, and from Caphar Hananiah downward, all that doth bear Sycamores is Galilee the lower, and the border of Tiberias is the Vale. And in Judea, there is the Mountanous, and the Plain, and the Vale. And the plain of Lydda is as the plain of the South, and the mountanous there∣of as the mountain royal: From Bethoron to the Sea is one Region: Shiviith per. 9. ha∣lac. 2. The Jerusalem Gemarists do ad•• thus, What is the vale in Galilee? The vale of Genezareth and the adjoyning. What is the mountanous in Judea? This is the mountain royal; and the plain thereof is the plain of the South, and the vale is from Engedi to Je∣richo. And what is the mountanous beyond Jordan? R. Simeon ben Eleazar saith, The hills of Ma••var, and Gedor: And the plain thereof Heshbon and all her Cities, Dibon, Bamoth Baal, and Beth Baal Meon. And the vale is Beth Haran, and Beth Nimrah. Sheviith fol. 38. col. 4.
It were endless to trace the footsteps of the War particularly in all these places, let Josephus be consulted for that: we may say in short, that hardly any considerable place escaped, but such as were peaceable, or such as were unaccessible. Of the la∣ter sort the mountanous of Judah was the chiefest place, Joshua 21. 1. Luke 1. 39. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The mountain royal, as the Hebrew Writers do commonly call it [a place incredibly populous as they testifie, Jerus. Taanith fol. 69. col. 1.] Hither Christ gives his Disciples warning before hand to flee, when these evils should come, Matth. 24. 16. Which warning we cannot judge but they took, and so planted here as in a place of safe∣ty by his warrant.
Though therefore the Country were extreamly wasted, with so long and so furious a War, yet was it not utterly waste, nor the Nation destroyed from being a people, though it were destroyed from being what it had been. Those places and persons that had quietly submitted to the Roman power, if they had escaped the fury of their own se∣ditious ones, were permitted to live in quiet, yea to injoy their own Religion and Laws, they in the mean while demeaning themselves as peaceable subjects, to that power that had brought them under. And for one acknowledgment of that subjection, they were in∣joyned to pay that Didrachma or half shekel that they usually paid to the Temple for their lives, to Jupiter Capitolinus, Xiphil. apud Dionem. pag. 748.
Their Sanhedrin continued in the same lustre and state, as it had done for many years before the City fell: and their Synagogues in the same posture, and their Religion in the same condition, save only those parts of it which were confined to Jerusalem, which was now in the dust. And generally the places and people that had escaped the War, if they would live quiet, did injoy their quietness, as well as men could do in a Land in such a condition as into which it was now brought.