For the days shall come upon you, that your enemies shall cast a bank about you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side,
Read Chapter 19
Clement Of Rome
AD 99
Accordingly, therefore, prophesying concerning the temple, He said: `See ye these buildings? Verily I say to you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another which shall not be taken away; and this generation shall not pass until the destruction begin. For they shall come, and shall sit here, and shall besiege it, and shall slay your children here.'
For the days shall come. The Greek reads, "Thy enemies shall cast up a bank about thee and compass thee round." The Arabic, "The days shall come in which thine enemies shall throw down thy standards, and shall surround thee." How truly Christ foretold this appears from Josephus, who in Bk. vi. Chap37 , of his "Wars of the Jews," says that Titus and the Romans erected three mounds round Jerusalem, and, in the space of only three days, surrounded the whole city with a wall of39 stadia, so that there should be neither exit nor passage for any one. Christ alludes to Isaiah 29:1-2, "Woe to Ariel," &c. For Jerusalem, which before was strong and unconquered, was, as it were, Ariel—that Isaiah , the Lion of God, now deserted by me, and given over to destruction by the Romans , and to become, as it were, the ram of justice, and the sacrifice of divine vengeance. So Eusebius, S. Cyril and Theodoret on Isaiah xxix. I.
And keep thee in on every side. To such a pitch of famine, and to such strait...
