According to the Jewish historian Josephus, in Book 15, Chapter 11 of Antiquities of the Jews, King Herod the Great, in an effort to curry favor with the Jews, dismantled the original foundation stones of the Temple (Ezra 3:8) and rebuilt the Temple on a new, raised foundation. He increased its height by 60 cubits, making it magnificent and grand. During Jesus’ time on Earth, the rebuilding of the Temple had already taken 46 years (John 2:20) and was still not completely finished.
The image above: A model of the Second Temple as expanded by Herod the Great, located in the Jerusalem Museum.The image above: The massive foundation stones of the Second Temple in the Western Wall Tunnels. According to Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, Book 15, Chapter 11, the Temple was built with white, hard stones, each 25 cubits long, 8 cubits high, and 12 cubits wide. In the New Testament era, one cubit was approximately 55.5 centimeters, making these stones colossal blocks measuring 13.8 meters by 4.4 meters by 6.7 meters. The stones of the Second Temple itself were dismantled, but the foundation buried underground has been excavated. A part of it is now the Western Wall Tunnels, open for visitors, which gives an idea of the grandeur of the Second Temple.
However, in Matthew 24:2, Jesus prophesied: “Do you see all these things? Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” This prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD when the Second Temple was completely destroyed by the Roman army led by Titus. The stones were even pried apart, leaving “not one stone on another,” to retrieve the gold leaf that had melted from the roof and flowed into the crevices when the Temple was burned.
The image above: Roman siege stones from 70 AD, excavated at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount (Jerusalem).The image above: On the ninth day of the month of Av in 70 AD, the Roman army captured Jerusalem. This 19th-century oil painting by Francesco Hayez depicts the destruction of the Temple and the capture of the golden menorah.The image above: A relief on the Arch of Titus, showing Roman soldiers carrying the golden menorah, trumpets, and the table of showbread looted from the Jerusalem Temple. Emperor Domitian built this marble triumphal arch shortly after his brother, Emperor Titus, died to commemorate Titus’s conquest of Jerusalem and the suppression of the Jewish revolt that began in 66 AD. To this day, many Jews refuse to walk under the arch. In 1948, when Israel was re-established, a large crowd from the Roman Jewish community passed through the Arch of Titus in the opposite direction of the ancient Roman triumphal procession.The image above: An oil painting by David Roberts from the 19th century, depicting Titus leading the Roman army in the conquest of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
The Romans destroyed the entire Temple structure and almost all of the surrounding buildings. The only surviving remnant of the Temple area is a wall. It was not part of the Temple structure itself but was the western remnant of a massive retaining wall built by King Herod to support the entire Temple Mount. This wall is known as the Western Wall. Although it is not the Temple itself, it is the last remaining vestige of the Temple’s location, a place where Jews mourn and weep for the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people. Therefore, the Western Wall is also known as the Wailing Wall.
The image above: The largest stone in the Western Wall Tunnels, measuring 13.6 meters long, 3 meters high, and about 3.5 to 4.5 meters wide, and weighing approximately 520 tons. It is not known what construction methods the Jews of that time used to move and place these gigantic stones. As the disciples said, “Look at these massive stones and magnificent buildings!” (Mark 13:1).
After the establishment of the modern State of Israel, Arab countries refused to allow Jews to enter East Jerusalem, where the Temple Mount is located, so Jews were unable to visit the Western Wall. Later, Israel captured all of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. Since then, Jews and people of all nations and faiths have been able to come to the Western Wall, a symbol of Jewish return and revival, to worship God.
The image above: On June 7, 1967, the first Israeli paratroopers to enter Jerusalem stand next to the Western Wall. After being driven from Jerusalem for nearly 2,000 years, the Jews finally returned to the Temple Mount. The combined forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan first launched the Six-Day War (the Third Middle East War) from June 5-10, 1967. At first, Israel was in peril, but six days later, Israel won a great victory and recaptured the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from Jordan. This fulfilled the prophecy in Zechariah 12:6: “‘On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume all the surrounding peoples to the left and to the right, and the people of Jerusalem will remain in their place, in Jerusalem.'” According to the Mishnah, the Levitical choir would sing a different psalm in the Temple each day: Psalm 24 on the first day, Psalm 48 on the second, Psalm 82 on the third, Psalm 94 on the fourth, Psalm 81 on the fifth, Psalm 93 on the sixth, and Psalm 92 on the seventh (Mishnah, Tamid 7:4). The Second Temple was destroyed on the evening of the Sabbath, at the beginning of Sunday, but the Levites did not sing the psalm for Saturday or Sunday. Instead, they sang Psalm 94 for Wednesday (Talmud, Arakin 11b:21, Tannit 29a:11). Why did they sing the Wednesday psalm? Jewish rabbis throughout the ages have offered many explanations. It wasn’t until June 7, 1967, that the Jews realized they had returned to the Temple Mount on a Wednesday.The image above: A Jewish man blowing a shofar, a ram’s horn, at the Western Wall during the Jewish New Year.
(Edited and compiled based on the Chinese Union Version Bible and Comprehensive Biblical Interpretation)
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