I have never known another night like that night.  There was no way to know what was happening in the battle for the temple.  Darkness shrouded the hilltop, though from time to time eerie, leaping flames lit the scene.  With the constraints of the Sabbath removed, the defenders set to work urgently heating pitch, which they lit and poured down on the attackers as rivers of fire, hoping to consume the huge logs that were battering their defences.  Apparently one ram was badly damaged in this way, but the others remained unscathed, free to continue their terrible work.

Sleep was impossible, and there was nothing that I could do but pray.  I could feel the dull thud as the battering rams repeatedly struck the defensive walls.  These walls were strong enough that they had been able to resist an 8-month siege just a few years earlier, but they were not built like the walls of the city herself.  They could not resist the determination and modern equipment of Rome.

At times the rhythm altered or stopped entirely, as one or more of the battering rams reached another milepost in dismantling the walls.  Arrogant Gentiles were remorselessly battering their way into God’s temple.  I still remember my fervent prayer that God would do again in my days what he had done to the Assyrian army when it had thought to take over God’s temple.  But despite the prayer, I was filled with doubt, because the contrast between Hezekiah and our current leaders could not have been more marked.  Nor were there any prophets like Isaiah available – it seemed that God had withdrawn from his people.  Since God always keeps his promises, I was sure that he could not have abandoned the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  If he had withdrawn from us, it must have been because we had first withdrawn from him.

I was afraid that we stood on our own against the Romans – and the events of that horrific night did nothing to change my mind.

The night seemed as long as a week, and my ever-present fear turned to terror on several occasions when the sound of falling masonry was clearly heard and the noise of battle swelled for a time.  Yet each time, the noise level dropped again after a while and the familiar rhythm of attack returned. For the time being, abject terror receded, and the gnawing fear that had been with me for three months returned.  And still the night dragged on.

It was just before dawn that I felt a particularly heavy thud from a ram, followed by the thunder of falling stones.  My heart leapt into my mouth as the sound of shouting swelled, louder and louder.  I didn’t know what to do, but I could no longer stay where I was, doing nothing, so I ran, unthinking, towards the temple.

Before I arrived at the surrounding Roman wall, though, I had begun to think again, and slowed to a walk.  Pink was beginning to tint the clouds to the west and east, and I knew that before long it would be light.  The sounds of desperate fighting were easily audible, muffled though they were by the Roman defences.  I turned and retraced my path a little way to the house of a wealthy man whose wife had generously provided large quantities of food for the temple.  The second storey of their house commanded a clear view of the temple, and I hoped that I would be able to see what was happening.  True, it was early, but surely no-one could be sleeping as this horror unfolded in the temple!  

It was still dark in the streets as I approached the door and knocked, but a servant girl quickly opened the door.  I recognised her.

“Greetings, Abigail,” I said.  “Is your mistress available?”

“It’s very early to come visiting, missus.”

“Yes, but this is no ordinary day,” I agreed, looking over my shoulder as the noise of battle continued to increase.  It had become so loud that I wondered if the fighting had spilled out beyond the Roman containment walls.  Lights were flickering in the windows of most houses in the street, and several doors were opening cautiously.  “Abigail, please check whether I can see Miriam,” I pleaded.

“Alright,” began the girl, but then a worried voice came from behind her.

“What’s going on, Abigail?  Why is the door open?  Who is… oh, it’s you, Anna.”

“Yes, Miriam,” I replied, “I’m worried about what’s happening in the temple.  The noise keeps getting worse.  I wanted to find a place from which I can see.  Your upper rooms have a good view of the area.  May I come in?”

“It’s too dark to see much yet,” Miriam answered.  “I’ve been watching myself.”

“It will soon be fully light.”

“True – and I’m afraid of what we’ll see once it is.  But come in.”

I entered the house and the door was closed and barred behind me.  We climbed together to the upper room, where windows faced towards the temple.  The shutters were already open.  Clouds suffused with red and pink formed a serene backdrop that seemed somehow inappropriate as the garish yellow of leaping flames below and the overwhelming noise of conflict filled the senses.

As we looked through the window, we were able to see over the new Roman wall, but the gloom of night still hid most of what was happening beyond.  Where flames lit the scene, I could see hand to hand fighting.  Clearly the defensive wall that surrounded the temple area must have been breached somewhere nearby.

Daylight stole imperceptibly across the scene, and the fringes of the clouds changed slowly to gold.  Day was upon us, and suddenly another thundering crash came from further to the north, followed by the horrifying roar of falling rubble.  In the growing light, we could see thousands of Roman soldiers moving towards the section of the temple wall from which the sound seemed to have come.

Had the defence crumbled completely?  What was happening to the defenders – to Samuel?  I felt completely helpless.  Desperate prayer was the only option available, but already my prayers were failing me.  The defences that I had asked God to strengthen had fallen as I watched, and the Romans were closing in relentlessly.
I watched for much of the day, and the terrible sights I saw remain seared into my mind.  It was a day that challenged my faith in God more than any other before or since.

Roman soldiers captured the temple, easily overcoming all resistance.  Their armour protected them from the limited weaponry of the defenders, and their swords and spears made their brutal slaughter of the Jewish defenders seem almost casual and businesslike.  This was no response of angry revenge, nor a savage reaction to a fear-filled conflict that has got out of control: rather, it was a clinical and methodical extermination, as when a householder systematically removes unwanted insects from his home.

By noon, the fighting was over and thousands of Jewish fighters lay dead in the temple area they had tried to defend.  Even the priests who had been offering the morning sacrifice had been cut down as they worked, making no attempt at all to defend themselves, and many other defenders had committed suicide in preference to being captured and having to see the degradation of that holy place.

Yet that was not the end of the mayhem.

Thousands more of the defenders had been rounded up and now stood, sullen and silent, in the temple courts, under the watchful eyes of their conquerors.  It was at this time that the divisions among us Jews were highlighted in an utterly disgusting manner.  Most of the defenders were supporters of Aristobulus, and when the Romans had had their fill of slaughter and assembled the survivors together, Hyrcanus’ supporters joined the Romans, mocking and sneering at their defeated brothers.  The captives apparently responded with outspoken contempt of their own, and abuse flowed back and forth.  Tempers on both sides flared, but the captives were restrained and unarmed.  Hyrcanus’ supporters were not.

It was said later that as many Jews died from the angry knives of their fellow Jews as had died from the impersonal swords of the Romans.

About 12,000 Jews died that day.  I never found out how my Samuel died – whether at the hand of cold-blooded Romans or treacherous Jews.

Either way, at 25, I was a widow.

It was three days before I was able to confirm that Samuel was dead, and I never saw his body.  A friend of his who survived assured me that Samuel had been well early in the morning – before the Roman battering ram had broken through the wall of the tower.  That had been the loudest of the sounds that I had heard as day was breaking.  The tower had collapsed and taken some of the fortifications with it.  For the Romans, the falling masonry had opened a path into the temple compound.  For the defenders, it had opened the floodgates of death.

Samuel had loved God’s temple and had been willing to give his life defending it.  But had his sacrifice achieved anything?

Aristobulus and Hyrcanus were brothers, as are the Sadducees and Pharisees, yet brotherly hatred had left our nation enslaved.

Thousands of widows like myself reaped the rewards of that hatred, and for several months I fought against the temptation to let hatred take over my heart as well.

Seven years of marriage was all too short.  How, I wondered, could God have let my Samuel die?  Now I had no husband, and no child to remember him by either.  I felt utterly alone.

In the 60 years that have followed, I have tried to concentrate on my relationship with God.  At first it was an unbearable struggle, but slowly I learned acceptance and possibly even a little understanding.

God promised that if his nation obeyed his laws, they would always receive blessings, growing ever more powerful as a nation.  Exile to Assyria and Babylon had come because of disobedience, but it seemed that the returning exiles had learned little from their punishment.

Divisions between brothers had led to a struggle for power so bitter that both sides were willing to enlist foreign help over many years.  For most of the participants in the struggle, the temple, and men like my husband Samuel, were only tools.  Could a nation that behaved like this ever expect God’s help?

Surely, I felt, if God’s help was to be given at all, it would not be to Aristobulus or Hyrcanus, to Sadducees or Pharisees?  Surely God’s help would come another way – a humble, holy way.

Samuel’s death still saddens me, but at least I know that he had a hope for the future – and I think that I have now been blessed to see the first step of that future arriving….