(No. 7)

In Luke 19:43 Christ predicts:"For the days will come upon thee (Jerusalem) that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side." Now the word here for trench is "charaka," the accusative singular of "charax," meaning a pointed stake, or a palisade made of pointed stakes. Was this prophecy fulfilled when Titus took Jerusalem? Did he actually enclose the who|e city with a palisade of pointed stakes? He did. Josephus tells us that in three days, the whole Roman army being employed, a high wall of earth, held in place by pointed stakes, was erected to compass the whole city. Thus every single avenue of escape was cut off. But how did the Lord Jesus know that Titus would build such a wall forty years before this event happened? Read "Josephus," and you will find that all of Christ's predictions regarding the taking of Jerusalem (Mark 13:1, 2; Luke 19:41-44; and Luke 21:24) were fulfilled to the minutest detail. T. J. McCrossan