Hosea 3:4-5 “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.”
The next key event that we will discuss is the final exile of the Jews from their promised land. In the above-quoted passage of scripture, we have a record of Hosea's prophecy delivered to the children of Israel in approximately the year 753 BC[1]. Although at the time of Hosea’s prophecy, Israel and Judah had already split into two separate kingdoms, the prophecy was nevertheless addressed to the combined nation of Israel, and not just the northern kingdom. In this prophecy, the Lord informed Israel that the nation would experience three events in the future. The first two events were explicit, while the third event was implied. It is important to note the sequence of events in this prophecy. The first event (explicit) that would happen was that Israel would be without a king. The second event (explicit) that would happen is that Israel would be without a temple and its accompanying Levitical priesthood. The third event (implied) that would happen is that Israel would be dispersed (exiled) among the various nations of the earth, for this prophecy speaks of the children of Israel returning in the latter days. The Lord said in this prophecy that these events would impact Israel for "many days". So the question is asked, what period equates to the term "many days"? The Lord answers that question for us in this prophecy, for He tells us that the period of "many days" will only be completed in the "latter days". In other words, the Lord was saying that Israel would be impacted by these three events until the latter days, i.e. the close of this current age. We have already discussed the first event in an earlier section, i.e. Israel’s loss of their king (sovereignty). We have also discussed the second event in the previous section, i.e. Israel's loss of their temple. And so in this section, we want to discuss the third event, i.e. Israel’s dispersion among the various nations of the earth. In that regard, we have already seen that the Northern Kingdom (Israel) experienced a partial exile in the year 722 BC, and we saw that those Jews became part of the Jewish dispersion. We have also seen that the Southern Kingdom (Judah) experienced a partial exile between the years 609 BC and 587 BC, and even though Judah’s exiles returned between the years 539 BC and 444 BC, not all returned, for a number of them chose to become part of the Jewish dispersion. And so we see that at the first coming of Jesus the Messiah, even though by that time there were a substantial number of Jews living among the dispersion, the majority of the Jewish nation was still living in Israel. In other words, the third event of Israel’s dispersion among the various nations of the earth had not yet been fulfilled.
Luke 21:22-24 “For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. (23) But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. (24) And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
We have already looked at the above-quoted passage of scripture when we discussed the destruction of the Second Temple. The context of this passage is that the Lord Jesus was prophesying about the destruction of both the Second Temple and the city of Jerusalem, and we saw that the Lord's prophecy was fulfilled in the year 70 AD. Nevertheless, in the passage quoted above, we see that the Lord also prophesied about the Jewish dispersion, for the Lord said that the Jews would be led away captive into all nations. As we have already mentioned, because of the ending of New Testament scripture in approximately the year 62 AD (Acts 28:30-31), there is no scriptural account of the Jews being led away captive into all nations. And so in this section, we will only discuss the historical account of this event. As we have already seen, the sequence of events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem began in the year 66 AD, when the Jews rebelled against the rule of the Roman Empire. This was the first of a series of three Jewish rebellions in Judea against the Roman Empire. And so in response to the rebellion, Rome sent her legions into Judea to restore their control over the territory. The Jewish rebellion continued for four years, culminating in the year 70 AD, with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. The destruction of Jerusalem at the time resulted in an estimated loss of more than ninety percent of its population. The city of Jerusalem was not the only population centre to experience destruction however, because by the time the rebellion was finally defeated, close to one-third of the Jewish population in Judea effectively vanished from the demographic map (due to death and enslavement)[2]. After the rebellion, Rome banned all Jews from entering the city of Jerusalem[3]. In other words, whereas before the year 70 AD, the population of Jerusalem had been 100% Jewish, after 70 AD the population of Jerusalem became 100% Gentile. Nevertheless, a significant portion of the Jewish population remained in Judea after the rebellion. This led to a second Jewish revolt breaking out between the years 132 AD and 136 AD. Historical records show that the second Jewish revolt against Rome resulted in the final destruction of Judea and the Jewish population still living there. Roman historians tell us that almost all of the larger Judean villages were razed to the ground. One historian wrote that 580,000 men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease, and fire was past finding out, thus nearly the whole of Judea was made desolate. It was at this time that the Roman province of Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina (i.e. Palestine). As an aside, the leader of the rebellion was an individual named Simon bar Kokhba who took the title Prince of Israel and ruled over an entity named Israel that was virtually independent for over two and a half years. The Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva, who was the spiritual leader of the revolt, identified Simon Bar Koziba as the Jewish messiah, and gave him the Aramaic patronymic bar Kokhba, meaning "Son of a Star", a reference to the Star Prophecy in Numbers 24:17: "A star rises from Jacob", and the era of the redemption of Israel was announced. All of this proved to be futile, however, when Rome finally crushed the rebellion[4]. Nevertheless, after the destruction of the Jews in Judea, a significant portion of the Jewish population remained in Galilee. This led to the third and final Jewish revolt against Rome between the years 351 AD and 352 AD. And so in response to the latest Jewish insurrection, Rome sent their troops in once again to quell the rebellion and to destroy and expel what remained of the Jewish population in Galilee[5]. And so we see that the Lord's exiling of the Jews, which began in the year 722 BC, was finally completed over 1,000 years later in the year 352 AD. After the final Jewish rebellion, almost all of the surviving Jewish population became part of the Jewish Diaspora. In other words, the Jewish population in Palestine was effectively reduced to zero. That status quo remained in place for the next 1,500 years[6]. And so we see that all three events prophesied by Hosea came to pass in the exact sequence that he foretold; Israel first lost its king, then Israel lost its temple and finally Israel was sent into exile.
Michael E.B. Maher
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