| Luke 21:24
| And they shall fall by the edge of the sword: and shall be led away captives into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles: till the times of the nations be fulfilled.
| Whoever reads Josephus's history of the calamities which befell Jerusalem before its destruction, will find none of these terrible menaces unfulfilled. Seventy thousand were carried away captives in this war. After the soldiers were weary of killing, Titus ordered the finest of the young men to be kept to adorn his triumph. The number of captive Jews was so great in Rome, as to make the heathen poet, Rutilius Numantianus, who lived about the year 410, complain of it as a great burden to the empire. Atque utinam nunquam Judea subacta fuisset Pompeii bellis, imperioque Titi; Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt Victoresque suos natio victa premit. --- Trodden down, etc. After Jerusalem had been taken and destroyed by the Romans, another city was built from its ruins, called Aelia, after the name of the emperor Aelius Adrian. This was inhabited by pagans and some Christians for the Jews were forbidden even to come near it, for more than two or three centuries. Tertullian informs us, that they even bought, at a great price, permission to see it at a distance, and drop a tear over the ashes of their ancient and ill-fated country. Thus was Jerusalem trodden under foot, till the time of the nations was accomplished; that is, till Christianity, in every nation, had triumphed over the persecution of paganism. (Calmet) --- Till the times of the nations be fulfilled. According to the common exposition of this, and some other places, the Jews from the time of the destruction of their temple and city, under Titus Vespasian; and especially from their utter destruction under the emperor Adrian, in punishment of their obstinate blindness, shall remain dispersed through the world under miseries and oppressions, till the gospel hath been preached to all nations; then, not long before the end of the world, the Jews shall be converted, and acknowledge Jesus to be their true Messias. See Romans 11:25. (Witham)
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