Last week's column ended with: "For several years the Jewish defenders held off the Romans. However, in 73 A.D. the siege of Masada came to an end when the Roman army build an immense earthen ramp up the side of the mountain and battered their way through the wall with siege machinery. The victorious soldiers who breached the wall were greeted with dead silence. They soon discovered that all but seven of the 960 mountain top defenders were dead---the result of mass suicide and murder."
The story is told that the leader of the Jewish resistance fighters made a rousing patriotic speech to his followers as they anticipated that the Romans would break down the walls the next morning. What follows is supposed to be the last words of the Jewish leader, Eleazer Ben Jair, as he appealed to his people.
"Brave and loyal followers, long ago we resolved to serve neither the Romans nor anyone other than God Himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind. The time has now come that bids us prove our determination by our deeds. At such a time we must not disgrace ourselves. Hither to, we have never submitted ourselves to slavery even when it brought us no danger with it. We must not choose slavery now which with its penalties which will mean the end of everything if we fall alive in the hands of the Romans. We were the first to revolt, we will be the last to break off the struggle. I think it is God who has given us this privilege, that we can die so nobly and as free men.
In our case it is evident that daybreak will end our resistance, but now we are still free to choose an honorable death with our loved ones. This our enemies cannot prevent, however earnestly they may pray to take us alive, nor can we defeat them in battle. Let our wives die unabused, our children without knowledge of slavery. After that let us do each other an ungrudging kindness, preserving our freedom as an excellent funeral monument for us.
But first let our possessions and the whole fortress go up in flames. It will be a bitter blow to the Romans, that I know, to find our persons, beyond their reach and nothing left for them to loot. One thing only, let us spare our store of food, it will bear witness when we are dead in fact, that we have perished, not through want, but because, as we resolved in the beginning, we choose death rather than slavery. After all, we were born to die, we and those we brought into this world. This even the luckiest man must face, but courage, slavery, and the sight of our wives led away to shame, with our children, these are not evils that which men are subject by the laws of nature. Men undergo them through their own cowardice, if they have a chance to forestall them by death, and will not take it. We are very proud of our courage, so we revolted against Rome. Pity the young whose bodies are strong enough to survive the prolonged torture. Pity the not so young whose old frames would break under such usage. Come while our hands are free and can hold a sword, let them do a noble service, let us die unenslaved by our enemies, and leave this world, as free men in company with our wives and children." Josephus, "Concerning Masada and Those Sicarii Who Kept It," Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Tenth Printing, 1972, p. 598.

Blessings in your study of God's Word!

Marvin Hunt

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Blessings!
Marvin Hunt

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