8

Prophecy and
Interpretation

ON THE FOURTH DAY after the sacking of the city, Josephus sat in Titus’s spacious tent, awaiting instructions from the general. It was already a very hot August morning on the top of the Mount of Olives, and Josephus was sipping some poska, the Roman beverage of wine vinegar with spices. His mind was on how exactly he was going to write about what had just transpired in Jerusalem. It was going to be tricky. On the one hand, it would be dangerous to criticize the Romans for what they had done. On the other hand, as a Jew he hoped to make clear that the blame for the disaster in Jerusalem should be laid at the door of only the Zealots, not Jews in general.

A weak breeze caught up the tent flap, giving Josephus a momentary glimpse of the smoldering ruins of the city.

The image of feet suddenly blocked Josephus’s view. Titus entered to his tent in full regalia. Addressing his armor bearer, he said, “Marcus, take this off me at once! This beastly Judean heat! It’s all I can do to stand in this armor under that blazing sun.”

Titus’s cupbearer, a young man named Decimus, was at the ready as usual. He handed Titus a silver goblet of wine. Titus drank deeply. Once his armor was off, he relaxed and shook out his limbs, sitting down with a groan.

“So, will you come with me to Roma and celebrate our triumph there?” Titus asked, with a wink in the direction of Josephus. He frequently took pleasure in taunting Josephus, as a member of the people they had just conquered, though an educated one.

Another Titus

Josephus was also named Titus. While his Jewish name was Yosef ben Matityahu, his Roman name was Titus Flavius Josephus. Born in Jerusalem a few years after the death of Jesus, Josephus was approaching his thirtieth year when he was enlisted to aid Titus in trying to convince the Jews holed up in Jerusalem to surrender and prevent further bloodshed. In this Josephus failed miserably. The Jews of the revolt were obdurate to the end, and some of the principals even escaped to fight another day, at Masada. Josephus was granted Roman citizenship by Vespasian’s son Titus, and he quickly became an adviser and friend of Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the siege of Jerusalem. There were not many Jews prepared to help the Romans who were literate and fluent in Greek as well as Aramaic and Hebrew. Growing up in a wealthy, priestly family in Jerusalem (Josephus was a direct descendant of the high priest Jonathan from the Hasmonean era), Josephus’s natural inclination would have been against Zealots of all sorts. This makes it something of a mystery that he took up the cause of the Zealots when the war began and led an army in Galilee.

“If that is what my lord would wish, I would be honored,” said Josephus with a weary smile. “Certainly, there is no more future for me here in my hometown of Jerusalem.” He paused. “My lord, whatever is next, I wish to reiterate that I am truly grateful for your granting to me Roman citizenship in exchange for my meager help in this venture. And I hope you will find it pleasing to hear that I have taken the Roman name Titus Flavius Josephus.”

“That is good. I was hoping you would come around to seeing things my way.” Unlike his younger brother, Domitian, Titus was fairly affable in nature, more like their father, Vespasian. Also like his father, he was a good soldier. He took another drink and stretched his limbs with a brief grimace.

“So what will you do if you come to Roma with me?”

“With your kind permission, I will write up an account in Greek of your great triumphs here in Judea and in Galilee. Something like Caesar’s account of his wars in Gaul.” Josephus paused, choosing his words carefully. “I will talk about how it is futile for a people, including my people, to resist God’s will and fate when it should be apparent to all that divine favors rests on the progress of Roma. When the story is told of the past century, it will be a story of the rise of your empire.” An idea came to him suddenly. “In fact, did you know, your Majesty, that there is an ancient prophecy in our book of Daniel that speaks of the Roman Empire?”

“Is there indeed? And what might this Jewish prophecy say?”

“It is written in Aramaic, but if you like, I can read it to you.”

“By all means. By all means. Read away.”

Reaching into his scroll basket, Josephus found the one he needed and unrolled it. “Daniel was a prophet who was in exile in Babylon, and he had visions. Here is what he says about one of them:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off, and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it.

And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, “Get up and eat your fill of flesh!” After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule.

After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.

While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being—

“Who are these so-called beasts in these visions?” demanded Titus.

“They represent empires, Majesty,” replied Josephus. “As I understand the prophecy, the first of these empires is the Babylonian one, the second the Persian one, the third Alexander’s empire, and the fourth is Roma. Notice the reference to the great power and fierce nature of the fourth beast, which has iron teeth and tramples everything in its path.” He looked at the scroll again. “See too that we are told it is different from the three previous beasts in various ways. Note the ten horns, a reference to power distributed to ten.”

“Like, say, ten Roman provinces?” said Titus, catching on.

“Possibly, or perhaps ten rulers. Did you catch the reference to three horns being uprooted by another one, a little horn?”

“That must refer to the year of the three emperors, and how my own father—short of stature—displaced them!”

“Some things are opaque about the prophecy, but that line seems most clear to me as well,” said Josephus, smiling. “This is the very prophecy that prompted me to predict that your father would be made emperor. And it did indeed come to pass!”

“So even your god recognizes and favors the rise of Roma?” Titus raised his eyebrows.

“It would seem so, Majesty. It would seem so.”

“In any case, we must celebrate this victory.” His expression clouded. “But I will have to dispatch someone else to chase down those infernal bandits who escaped.”

“If I may be so bold, Majesty, perhaps you could send several cohorts or a legion with Flavius Silva to run them into the ground. He’s a good commander. And surely your father would approve.”

“A good idea. I will write him. And I will take it that you will come with me in the new year, when sailing is possible again. We have much to do here to finish this job entirely and secure the land. We cannot make it before the sailing season on Mare Nostrum1 ends in another month.”

“Very wise. I would not want to sail in the offseason.”

Titus stood up, as did Josephus in response. This was the signal that this audience was over. “I must go check on my horse. He seems to have come up lame yesterday. But why don’t you begin gathering your notes for the tale of the Jewish wars. I shall look forward to reviewing your work in due course, when we get back to Rome.”

Josephus nodded and watched Titus leave the tent without so much as a vale. Sighing with relief, Josephus thought to himself, Well, at least with the patronage of Titus I shall land safely on my feet in the Pax Romana.2 But my reading of that prophecy had better be right! 3

Sailing in the Mediterranean

Sailing in the Mediterranean was a dangerous proposition, especially in a small boat or in the offseason. For safety’s sake, the ideal sailing season fell between May 27 and September 14. So in our story Titus says he would need to wait until the new year to sail home, in the spring of AD 71. Soldiers or grain being transported in an emergency situation might sail as late as October or as early as April, when conditions might be marginally acceptable. Winter storms made sailing very hazardous throughout December, January, and February.

There were no passenger ships per se in antiquity. Travelers secured passage on merchant ships, usually large grain freighters. Only the larger boats actually sailed across the Mediterranean Sea from Egypt in a diagonal line to Italy. All other boats avoided open-sea crossings, sailing point to point along the coastlines of Palestine, Asia Minor, and Greece. Paul, for instance, took a grain freighter from Patara to Tyre on his way to Jerusalem. On a big vessel, and with prevailing winds, it was a five-day journey to sail from Rome to Corinth, and ten days from Rome to Alexandria in Egypt.

Most travelers on large ships were simply deck passengers who slept on the open deck or under makeshift tents. They would travel with basic cookware, food, bathing items, and a little bedding as well. A very large vessel, say a slave ship, might hold up to six hundred people, but this was exceptional.

Ships rarely sailed on a predictable schedule, being subject to both wind and calm. Consequently, getting passage could be an ordeal. Travelers would hang out in a port until the captain announced the departure. The winds and tides would wait for no one, and when they were favorable, not a moment was to be lost.

The hazards of sailing are depicted in the dramatic story of Paul’s shipwreck (Acts 27:13-44). When a boat encountered fierce gales, the safest option was to run with the wind and hope to avoid a leeward shore. Ancient ships were not designed to sail as directly into the wind, as modern sailing vessels are. Those who attempted sea travel knew they were taking their lives in their hands.^a

^aOn all this see the relevant passages in my commentary on The Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), and for an interesting recent account of a scholar who has retraced the sailing journeys of Paul, see L. Stutzman, With Paul at Sea: Learning from the Apostle Who Took the Gospel from Land to Sea (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012).