To the Jew First | 27
But Israel had no hope. Generations had come and gone,
centuries of anguish had rolled on their way, prophet upon
prophet had given forth God’s revelations, each had buoyed up
the hope of the children of Judah with the electrifying message
“the Prince of peace is soon to come!” Ever and anon a charlatan
would spring up from some wilderness and announce to the
waiting throngs, “I am the Messiah!” Each in his turn would gain a
following, and the poor misled mobs, gullible and ignorant, would
flock like sheep, and rally about each false Messiah, thinking,
“Now, at last has come deliverance for our people!” Altogether,
some seventy such false Messiahs inflicted themselves upon the
Jewish nation, until the very word Messiah came to be despised
and feared. Always there was disaster in the end, always the
gullible remained fooled.
SAVAGERIES OF ANTIOCHUS
The heroic age of the Maccabees adds an illustrious chapter to
the annals of Jewish warfare. Antiochus had wreaked havoc upon
Jerusalem. The record is “Her sanctuary was laid waste like the
wilderness; her feasts were turned into mourning, her Sabbaths
into reproach, her honor into contempt.” Dr. Harry Ironside, in
describing those tragic says, says:
“Antiochus and his minions knew no mercy. They spared
neither age, sex, nor condition. Young and old, men and
women, priest and people, rich and poor, suffered alike in
those fearful days of vengeance. Women who attempted to
keep the law and circumcise their sons, were led publicly
through the city with their babes at their breasts and flung
bodily from the city walls, thus being literally broken to
pieces. Any who were discovered observing the Sabbath day
were apprehended and burnt alive.
Josephus’ account of those dire and sorrowful times
remarkably coincides with the epistle to the Hebrews’
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