Rome's imperial legions, commanded by her future Caesar Titus Flavius Vespasianus in AD 70 made Jerusalem a desolation. The second temple was set aflame and as it burned, rivulets of gold betraying its magnificence mingled with the blood that bathed the temple mount. And as the conflation consumed the city, a remnant, a Jewish diaspora, was scattered by the four winds of heaven to every nation of the earth.
The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem1
Longfellow in the 1845 poem “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” laments “How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves” as he describes the diaspora of the Jews “in narrow streets and lanes obscure," in “Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire” partaking “unleavened bread and bitter herbs of exile” slaking their “thirst with [the] marah of their tears” while enduring “the life of anguish and the death of fire.”
But lamentably, in the last four verses, Longfellow affirms a two millennia "anathema."
But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.
But ah! What once has been shall "be" again! 1948, in fulfillment of an ancient prophecy! A dead nation "did" rise again!
“… Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD” (Ezekiel 37:9-14).
But ah! Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus’ “Eternal” Roman Imperium!
“What once has been shall be no more!”
1The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.
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