Have you read Revelation 9 and wondered at its meaning. All manner of odd “interpretations” have been attempted. All sorts of unbiblical explanations have been given of these weird torturous creatures in this chapter. People have even tried to pass them off as helicopters in the post-modern age.
Yet Revelation 9 is one of the passages pointing most strongly to the events of the horrors of 66-70AD in Judea that Jesus had forewarned of. So when we read of the height of wickedness in Jerusalem, and the murder of a high priest in the temple that Josephus describes, then diligent Bible scholars, with their knowledge that Revelation is drawing imagery and truth about judgment from across scripture, will see the fulfilment recorded in Josephus’ history, “The Wars of the Jews” Book 4, chapter 9.
It is, of course, apocalyptic writing, and not a description of literal animals in verses 3 to 12. They are “animalistic” in the biblical way of human degradation. We see this when Nebuchadnezzar was reduced to an animal state in the book of Daniel.
Josephus often uses the terms, “madness” and “such madness” as he recounts the events, and as a Levite himself, his horror at the treatment and killing of the high priest in Book 4, Chapter 5, causes him to recognise this as a turning point into mayhem in Jerusalem. This is where we also see tortured people desiring death but unable to have its relief, as in Revelation 9:6. These were mad, seditious acts of the zealots against their own countrymen and not the acts of the Romans.
When we read of priests dying in Josephus’ account, we recall that the writer was not a Christian. Josephus gives accurate historical records with no personal interest in validating the prophecies of Jesus or Messianic / apocalyptic prophecies in the Old Testament. The priests officiating in 66 to 70AD were those who had rejected Jesus Christ as the ultimate high priest and as their Saviour. They had heard the gospel in the forty years of grace. But that generation did not heed the words of Christ carried by the apostles and saints, and did not repent (Revelation 22:11 – they were given over to what they had freely chosen for themselves).
Book 4.5.3 recounts how the madness grew after the killing of the high priest in the temple:
“Now after these (the high priest, Ananas, Jesus[1] and Zacharias) were slain, the zealots and the multitude of Idumeans fell upon the people as upon a flock of profane animals and cut their throats, and for the ordinary sort, they were destroyed in what place soever they caught them, and bound them, and shut them up in prison, and put off their slaughter in hopes that some of them would turn over to their party; but not one of them would comply with their desires, but all of them preferred death before being enrolled among such wicked wretches as acted against their own country. But this refusal of theirs brought upon them terrible torments; for they were so scourged and tortured, that their bodies were not able to sustain their torments, till at length and with difficulty they had the favour to be slain.”
We see in Book 4, Chapter 9.10 the account that is symbolised in Revelation 9, by scorpions who, at the fifth trumpet of Revelation appear as locusts. The imagery is of extreme pain, a desire for death, whose relief would not come to them, just as a scorpion tortures, but does not kill. The locust imagery (of men) speaks of an attack that leaves, in the end, nothing standing. While these things happened across the months, John’s Revelation brings them in summary in a Chapter 9 Revelation pericope.
“10. And now, as soon as Simon had set his wife free, and recovered her from the zealots, he returned back to the remainders of Idumea, and driving the nation all before him from all quarters, he compelled a great number of them to retire to Jerusalem; he followed them himself also to the city, and encompassed the wall all round again; and when he lighted upon any labourers that were coming thither out of the country, he slew them. Now this Simon, who was without the wall, was a greater terror to the people than the Romans themselves, as were the zealots who were within it more heavy upon them than both of the other; and during this time did the mischievous contrivances and courage [of John] corrupt the body of the Galileans; for these Galileans had advanced this John, and made him very potent, who made them suitable requital from the authority he had obtained by their means; for he permitted them to do all things that any of them desired to do, while their inclination to plunder was insatiable, as was their zeal in searching the houses of the rich; and for the murdering of the men, and abusing of the women, it was sport to them. They also devoured what spoils they had taken, together with their blood, and indulged themselves in feminine wantonness, without any disturbance, till they were satiated therewith; while they decked their hair, and put on women’s garments, and were besmeared over with ointments; and that they might appear very comely, they had paints under their eyes, and imitated not only the ornaments, but also the lusts of women, and were guilty of such intolerable uncleanness, that they invented unlawful pleasures of that sort. And thus did they roll themselves up and down the city, as in a brothel-house, and defiled it entirely with their impure actions; nay, while their faces looked like the faces of women, they killed with their right hands; and when their gait was effeminate, they presently attacked men, and became warriors, and drew their swords from under their finely dyed cloaks, and ran everybody through whom they alighted upon. However, Simon waited for such as ran away from John, and was the more bloody of the two; and he who had escaped the tyrant within the wall was destroyed by the other that lay before the gates, so that all attempts of flying and deserting to the Romans were cut off, as to those that had a mind so to do.”
4.18.2
“….. Indeed, though they had so great an army lying round about them, they bore a siege of five months, till some of Herod’s chosen men ventured to get upon the wall, and fell into the city, as did Sosius’s centurions after them; and now they first of all seized upon what was about the temple; and upon the pouring in of the army, there was slaughter of vast multitudes everywhere, by reason of the rage the Romans were in at the length of this siege, and by reason that the Jews who were about Herod earnestly endeavoured that none of their adversaries might remain; so they were cut to pieces by great multitudes, as they were crowded together in narrow streets, and in houses, or were running away to the temple; nor was there any mercy showed either to infants, or to the aged, or to the weaker sex; insomuch that although the king sent about and desired them to spare the people, nobody could be persuaded to withhold their right hand from slaughter, but they slew people of all ages, like madmen.”
Book 5 Chapter 1 in which Josephus details the seditions in Jerusalem, the anger of Jewish tyrants in uprisings (there came three Jewish factions fighting each other in the temple) and the march of Titus again on Jerusalem after his father had gone back to Rome to defend his claim there.
“But for the present sedition one should not mistake it if he called it a sedition, begotten by another sedition, and to be like a wild beast grown mad, which for want of food from abroad, fell now upon eating its own flesh.” Josephus continues to explain his metaphor: two of the main zealot tyrants, as they went murdering, turned on each other, Eleazar being jealous of his fellow tyrant in the cause. At this stage, they had invaded the temple, where an abundance of sacrificial stuff would supply their food. Thus, the civil war continued in the temple, our historian writing, “…there were continuous sallies, made one against another, and the temple was defiled everywhere with murders.”
We recall that others were in the temple besides the assailants and so these people invited Simon, son of Giora’s in, but that only increased things with “more vehement assaults” from above. So that “in any persons who came thither with great zeal from the ends of the earth, to offer sacrifices at this celebrated place, which was esteemed holy by all mankind, fell down before their own sacrifices themselves and sprinkled that altar which was venerable among all men, both Greeks and Barbarians, with their own blood, till the dead bodies of strangers were mingled together with those of their own country, and those of prophane persons with those of the priests and the blood of all sorts of dead carcases stood in lakes in the holy courts themselves.”
The success of the Roman siege was further affected by the stores of corn being set on fire by the tyrants themselves, leading to mass starvation and cannibalism. Such madness as prevailed was indeed serving the enemy they had initially set out to be free of, Rome. But the beast (we recall from Revelation and Daniel is a political entity or empire) which unfaithful Jerusalem had ridden to kill the Christ and saints was turned now against them, and their own wickedness it was that destroyed them.
Here in Book 5 we see more of the tortures, people desiring death because of the sting of the scorpion effect of Revelation 9 for five months.
5.6.3 “….But these zealots came at last to that degree of barbarity, as not to bestow a burial either on those slain in the city, or on those that lay along the roads; but as if they had made an agreement to cancel both the laws of their country and the laws of nature, and, at the same time that they defiled men with their wicked actions, they would pollute the Divinity itself also, they left the dead bodies to putrefy under the sun; and the same punishment was allotted to such as buried any as to those that deserted, which was no other than death; while he that granted the favour of a grave to another would presently stand in need of a grave himself. To say all in a word, no other gentle passion was so entirely lost among them as mercy; for what were the greatest objects of pity did most of all irritate these wretches, and they transferred their rage from the living to those that had been slain, and from the dead to the living. Nay, the terror was so very great, that he who survived called them that were first dead happy, as being at rest already; as did those that were under torture in the prisons, declare, that, upon this comparison, those that lay unburied were the happiest.”
Book 5.10.3 of the famine and inhumane wickedness of those under siege
“3. It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring tears into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the more powerful had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want of it.] But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives: and while they ate after this manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious everywhere came upon them immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others; for when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their very throats, and this by force: the old men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor. But still they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize upon, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right. They also invented terrible methods of torments to discover where any food was, and they were these to stop up the passages of the privy parts of the miserable wretches, and to drive sharp stakes up their fundaments; and a man was forced to bear what it is terrible even to hear, in order to make him confess that he had but one loaf of bread, or that he might discover a handful of barley-meal that was concealed; and this was done when these tormentors were not themselves hungry; for the thing had been less barbarous had necessity forced them to it; but this was done to keep their madness in exercise, and as making preparation of provisions for themselves for the following days. These men went also to meet those that had crept out of the city by night, as far as the Roman guards, to gather some plants and herbs that grew wild; and when those people thought they had got clear of the enemy, they snatched from them what they had brought with them, even while they had frequently entreated them, and that by calling upon the tremendous name of God, to give them back some part of what they had brought; though these would not give them the least crumb, and they were to be well contented that they were only spoiled, and not slain at the same time.”
In several places, Josephus mentions the beauty and magnificence of Jerusalem and its riches, trade etc and the lament that went up at her falling. We read of this also in Jesus’ prophecy written shortly before the war in Revelation 18. Here, Babylon is the symbolic fallen Jerusalem, receiver of the woes prophesied earlier by Jesus in Matthew 23.
Book 6.1.21
1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every day, and the seditious were still more irritated by the calamities they were under, even while the famine preyed upon themselves, after it had preyed upon the people. And indeed the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench, which was a hinderance to those that would make sallies out of the city, and fight the enemy: but as those were to go in battle-array, who had been already used to ten thousand murders, and must tread upon those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they deem this affront offered to the deceased to be any ill omen to themselves; but as they had their right hands already polluted with the murders of their own countrymen, and in that condition ran out to fight with foreigners, they seem to me to have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were too slow in punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if they had any hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner in that despair of deliverance they were already in. And now the Romans, although they were greatly distressed in getting together their materials, raised their banks in one and twenty days, after they had cut down all the trees that were in the country that adjoined to the city, and that for ninety furlongs round about, as I have already related. And truly the very view itself of the country was a melancholy thing; for those places which were before adorned with trees and pleasant gardens were now become a desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down: nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change: (see Revelation 18:19 – 19:4)
Josephus also gives details elsewhere of the magnificence of the “great City” of Revelation – “ for the war had laid all the signs of beauty quite waste: nor if any one that had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again; but though he were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it notwithstanding.”
We read the prophecies of this destruction of vegetation in Revelation 8:7, “· The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and it was thrown down on the earth, and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.”
Book 6 Chapter 5.2 – regarding false prophecy.
“. And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round about the holy house, burnt all those places, as also the remains of the cloisters and the gates, two excepted; the one on the east side, and the other on the south; both which, however, they burnt afterward. They also burnt down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity of money, and an immense number of garments, and other precious goods there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people had there built themselves chambers [to contain such furniture]. The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer [court of the] temple, whither the women and children, and a great mixed multitude of the people, fled, in number about six thousand. But before Caesar had determined anything about these people, or given the commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage, that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them escape with his life. A false prophet 19 was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance. Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his deliverance.”
This was followed by point 3 which reveals more about the false prophet notion and about the supernatural warning that the deceived took as a sign of their salvation from the mess they found themselves in. Recall, too that, although Josephus was a Pharisee, he was a very practical lawyer who had got himself into a convenient role as historian for the Romans in this war. He was no Christian or spiritually inclined fellow. His aim was to deal with the facts as befits an historian, although occasionally he was moved emotionally by what he was recording.
6.5.3
“ Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star 20 resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, 21 [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner 22 [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.” But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, 23 began on a sudden to cry aloud, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!” This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” And when Albinus [for he was then our procurator] asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, “Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!” And just as he added at the last, “Woe, woe to myself also!” there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.”
[1] This is not our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was a common name at the time because by calculation, people knew the Messiah was expected.
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