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How Can It Be That Israel’s 1st Century Leaders Were Judged So Harshly?

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Matthew 24:29. Here is what Luke says in Luke 21:25: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.”

Again, the bible itself explains the bible. “Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” Genesis 37:9. Joseph’s dream was immediately understood by his brothers, his father, and his mother. Genesis 37:10. He would rule over them. Why would they immediately understand that as the meaning, unless they already understood the heavenly bodies to stand for the family of Jacob? Didn’t God show Abraham the heavenly bodies and say, “And he brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.”? Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.’ ” Genesis 15:5.

Isaiah 13:10 is part of a prophesy against Babylon by Isaiah concerning punishment upon it for its evil. “For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.” The judgment involves the falling of Babylon’s rulers, and Isaiah states it as Babylon is rising to power, not when it’s falling. The rest of the world is included in the judgment: “Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.” Isaiah 13:3. The context of the entire book of Isaiah is the coming judgment upon Israel, Jacob’s descendants.

When Israel is judged, the entire earth and heavens are shaken. “Then the moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed, for the LORD of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and his glory will be before his elders.” Isaiah 24:23. “The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again. On that day the LORD will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth.” Isaiah 24:19-21. The host of heaven, by the way, means the stars and heavenly bodies in the sky. No prince, no matter how high or how great, will be punished.

This passage is not talking about the final end of the world; the context, which is essential to understanding a passage, makes it clear that Isaiah is referring to coming judgment on the nations of Isaiah’s day and not long after. These descriptions of disaster in the heavens could refer to actual physical phenomena of the time, but it also refers to the falling of governing powers, both Jewish and Gentile. See also Ezekiel 32:7; Joel 2:10, 31; 3:15, passages referring to judgment by God on nations during the Old Covenant period, not at the end of all time.

Notice that Jesus is still speaking of the time of the destruction of the temple, which occurred in 70 A.D. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days” is when the powers of the heavens are shaken. And He indeed shook them. The heavenly bodies, leadership of the Jewish nation, were shaken to the point of being totally unrecoverable. They were murdered and assassinated by the Zealots, who thought them too weak before the Romans. And those totally committed Zealots who took over in Jerusalem just before the Romans began their siege, were destroyed in a bloodbath in that City that is difficult to describe in its horror and savagery. See Josephus’ “Wars of the Jews.” Throughout the Old Covenant, God used Gentile armies to discipline His own people. When faithful and obedient, He gave them victory. By instigating and being complicit in crucifying the Son of God and persecuting His Church, they were not faithful and obedient.

“For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.” Luke 21:22. Remember Jesus’ words to the scribes and pharisees just before his discussion with the disciples:

“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” Matthew 23:33-36.

Why would all righteous blood come upon that generation; it doesn’t seem fair. It is fair when you consider who was the final prophet they killed – Jesus Christ. He was the penultimate, the final, the comprehensive statement of all God had ever said in the past. He was the exemplar of all that was good and loving and merciful and just about God. Yet they killed Him. Therefore, that sin wraps up all the sins of history into the worst, the one deserving the greatest punishment in history.

By the way, the destruction of Jerusalem was not the only upheaval of political leadership going on in the first century, but there’s not time in this one post to go into it all. I can say that the upheavals even affected the internal politics of the emperors and other leadership of the Roman Empire. It was a time in which wars upset the Pax Romana, that unusual period of history when there was relative peace throughout the Empire. But the sins of the Jews had come to their head. They suffered the most, and the Old Covenant had to be finalized so no one could be confused. Let’s not add confusion to the matter, Christians, by misunderstanding what is happening in the first century.

So, when Jesus says that “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” in Matthew 24:29, He means it. And it doesn’t take long for those who persecuted the Son to see Him coming in vengeance. He will take vengeance on His enemies today.