Why did Titus destroy Jerusalem?

English: Roman Triumphal arch panel copy from Beth Hatefutsoth, showing spoils of Jerusalem temple. עברית: העתק של שער הניצחון של טיטוס (מוצב במוזיאון התפוצות) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gessius Florus loved money and hated Jews. As Roman procurator, he ruled Judea, caring little for their religious sensibilities. When tax revenues were low, he seized silver from the Temple. In 66, as the uproar against him grew, he sent troops into Jerursalem to crucify and massacre some of the Jews. Florus’s action sparked the explosion of a rebellion that had been sizzling for some time.
For the previous century, Rome had not handled the Jews very well. First Rome had propped up the hated usurper Herod the Great. For all the beautiful public buildings he erected, Herod could not buy his way into the people’s hearts.
Herod’s son and successor, Archelaus, was so bad that the people cried to Rome for relief. Rome obliged by sending a series of governors—Pontius Pilate, Felix, Festus, and Floras. These and others had the unenviable task of keeping the peace in a volatile land.

The Jews’ independent streak had never died. They looked back with fondness to the days of the Maccabees, when they had thrown off the yoke of their Syrian overlords. Now their own petty divisions and the awesome rise of Rome had put them back under the thumb of foreigners.

The heartbeat of revolution had continued during Herod’s rule. Zealots and Pharisees, each in their own way, looked for change to occur. Messianic fervor ran high. When Jesus warned that people would say, “Here is the Christ—or there!” He wasn’t kidding. That was the spirit of the age.
At Masada (a virtually impregnable hunk of rock that looked out over the Dead Sea, where Herod had built a palace and the Romans had erected a fortress), the Jewish revolt would have its beginning—and its bitter end.
Inspired by the atrocities of Florus, some crazy Zealots decided to attack the fortress. Amazingly they won, slaughtering the Roman army encamped there.
In Jerusalem, the Temple captain declared open rebellion against Rome by stopping the daily sacrifices for Caesar. Soon all Jerusalem was in an uproar, expelling or killing the Roman troops. Judea revolted, then Galilee. For a brief time it looked as if the Jews might pull an upset.

Cestius Gallus, the Roman governor of the region, marched from Syria with 20,000 soldiers. He besieged Jerusalem for six months and failed, leaving behind 6,000 dead Roman soldiers and a fair amount of weaponry that the Jewish defenders picked up and used.

Emperor Nero sent Vespasian, a decorated general, to quell the revolt. Vespasian nibbled away at the rebels’ strength, putting down the opposition in Galilee, then Transjordan, then Idumea. Then he circled in on Jerusalem.
But before the coup de grace, Vespasian was called back to Rome. Nero had died. A leadership struggle concluded with the eastern armies calling for Vespasian to be emperor. In one of his first imperial acts, he appointed his son, Titus, to conduct the Jewish War.

The tide had turned for Jerusalem, now isolated from the rest of the nation. Factions within the city fought over defense strategies. As the siege wore on, people were dying from starvation and plague. The high priest’s wife, who once basked in luxury, scavenged for crumbs in the city streets.

Meanwhile the Romans employed new war machines to hurl boulders against the city walls. Battering rams assaulted the fortifications. Jewish defenders fought all day and struggled to rebuild the walls at night. Eventually the Romans broke through the outer wall, then the second wall, finally the third wall. Still the Jews fought, scurrying to the Temple as their last line of defense.

That was the end for the valiant Jewish defenders—and for the Temple. The Jewish historian Josephus said that Titus wanted to preserve the Temple, but his soldiers were so angry at their resilient opponents that they burned it.
The fall of Jerusalem essentially ended the revolt. Jews were slaughtered or captured and sold as slaves. The Zealot band who had taken Masada stayed there for three years. When the Romans finally built their siege ramp and invaded the mountain fortress, they found the defenders dead. They had committed suicide to avoid being captured by foreigners.
The Jewish revolt marked the end of the Jewish state, at least until modern times.
The destruction of Herod’s Temple signified a change in the Jews’ worship. When the Babylonians had destroyed Solomon’s Temple, in 586 B.C., the Jews had established synagogues, where they could study God’s law. The destruction of Herod’s Temple ended the Jewish sacrificial system and forced them to rely on the synagogue, which increased in importance.

Where were the Christians during the Jewish revolt? Remembering Christ’s warning (Luke 21:20–24), when they saw armies surrounding Jerusalem, they fled. They refused to take up arms against the Romans and escaped to Pella, in Transjordan.

Once the Jewish nation and its Temple had been destroyed, the Christians could no longer rely on the empire’s protection of Judaism. There was nowhere to hide from Roman persecution.


Curtis, A., Lang, J. S., Petersen, R., & Curtis, J. S. L. A. K. (1998). 100 most important events in christian history, the. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.