Today's Scripture Reading (July 27, 2023): Ezekiel 24
Jerusalem. We often think of the city as the City of
David or even the Holy City. It is a city central to the belief of three
different religions. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of whom believe that
Jerusalem is Holy. But it is also a city of conflict. Jerusalem has been fought
over at least sixteen times in its long history. And every day, the city seems
to exist in an uneasy peace between the people who believe the city is essential
to their faith.
In 701 B.C.E., Sennacherib and the Assyrians laid
siege to the city. It was a siege that both sides claimed to have won, and that
is likely true. The Bible argues that the Assyrians laid siege to the city but
that God moved against the Assyrian army, and 185,000 soldiers died overnight around
the Judean Capital. Modern guesses range from some miraculous phenomena that
resulted in the death of the Assyrian soldiers to the presence of disease,
likely carried into the camp by the rats that had invaded the Assyrian outpost.
But, whatever the reason, the Assyrians left the siege and never returned with
the same kind of force that they had amassed at the city in 701. However, at the
end of the siege, Hezekiah and Judah did become a vassal state of Assyria. They
paid tribute to the Assyrian Empire, which would lend itself to the Assyrian
declaration of victory in the conflict.
In 586 B.C.E., The Babylonians laid siege to
Jerusalem and destroyed the city, even leveling Solomon's Temple. We have no
idea how many Jewish lives might have been lost during the siege of 701 B.C.E.,
but there was much bloodshed and loss of life in the city of 586.
The Romans laid siege again to the city in 70 C.E.
And in a very similar series of events to the Babylonian siege and once again,
the city was leveled, and the Second Temple, one that had been significantly
improved during the reign of the Herods in Jerusalem, was once again destroyed.
In 1099 C.E., the first Christian Crusaders laid
siege to the city and eventually captured the city. In an event that was not
Christianity's finest hour, the Christians slaughtered most of the city's
Muslim and Jewish residents. At this time, the Dome of the Rock was transformed
into a Christian Church, and Godfrey of Boullion, the pre-emanate leader of the
Crusade, became the Protector of the Holy Sepulcher. Godfrey narrowly escaped
being named King of Jerusalem, preferring the title of Prince. Baldwin I of
Jerusalem became the city's king in 1100. Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187
C.E., reconsecrating the Dome of the Rock as a Muslim shrine.
Speaking to Ezekiel, God calls Jerusalem a "city
of bloodshed." And there is no doubt that Jerusalem has also been that, with
the blood of the many prophets who had died in the city, added to the blood of
those who died in the Assyrian siege as well as the coming bloodshed that would
be spilled in the city by the Babylonian army in the destruction of the city.
But the history of bloodshed in the city is much deeper than just those instances.
History has revealed that Jerusalem is indeed as much a city of conflict and
bloodshed as it is the City of David or even the Holy City.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 25
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