Tisha B' Av ( the nine of Av) in History

Today is a mourning day for the Jewish people all across the earth. They are mourning the destruction of the first and second temple. Why morn something that happened 2000 years ago?  To answer this question we have to go back in history to find the answer to that ‘Why’ question.

The First Temple was built by King Solomon and was the most important place in ancient Judaism. Who was King Solomon?

Solomon (approximately 970-928 BCE), the second son of King David and Bathsheba, remember them? King David, the King of Israel and all man kind for that matter. If you are Jewish, Muslim or Christian I am sure you have heard of King David. Most of the information and history from King Solomon is in Kings I and Chronicles II. 

King Solomon was a very wise person. A famous story came about to supporting that wisdom when two women came to his court, each claiming that she was the mother of the same baby. Solomon threatened to split the baby in half. One woman was prepared to accept the decision, but the other begged the King to give the live baby to the other woman. Solomon then knew the second woman was the mother.

King Solomon was a builder and built many historical building but the most famous of all was the First Temple in Jerusalem, Israel. The Temple took seven years to complete. It was built of stone and cedar, carved within and overlaid with pure gold.

The question is why did King Solomon build the first temple? His father, King David, had wanted to build a great Temple for God a generation earlier, as a permanent resting place for the Ark containing the Ten Commandments . A divine edict, however, had forbidden him from doing so. "You will not build a house for My name," God said to him, "for you are a man of battles and have shed blood" 

I Chronicles 28:3 

We all know that King David was a great fighter I mean a small person taking down a giant is no joke; I wouldn’t want to meet him in a small alley.  (Just saying) Okay back to History… 

So this temple was created for people to go and worship GD which is something that was commanded to do. Times were so different back then that they were today. But I am sure I don’t have to break down the facts supporting the time changes.  Why was this holy temple destroyed? The temple where Jews and non-Jewish for that matter prayed and gave sacrifice to Gd. And who destroyed this temple?

In history it is said that the first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, some four hundred years after it was built. The who?

Yeah I know...

The Babylonians was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) with Babylon as its capital. Okay so now that we know where the Babylonians came from now the same questions arises why did they destroy the first temple?

The destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is one of the epochal moments in Jewish history. This was king Jehoiakim kingdom at the time which later became his son Prince Zedekiah's kingdom shortly after his father’s death.  

Yet the events as they unfolded were by no means inevitable, and were mainly brought about by the ill-considered choices of Jerusalem’s rulers. Therefore today’s Jews view the destruction of the First Temple as a punishment from God.

 Many myths and tales surround the figure of Nebuchadnezzar, conqueror of Jerusalem and destroyer of the First Temple. One of these is that one night, during the peak of his reign, the king of Babylon dreamed of a statue with a golden head, silver shoulders and chest, copper torso and thighs, and calves and feet of iron. Sounds to me that someone was being a little greedy?

  During that destruction it was bad; I mean people were being murdered!  Women and children were being rapped. Once inside, the Babylonians utterly destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the First Temple, taking all who remained into exile. The siege itself is chronicled as a time of deep horror, when hunger drove people to terrible acts.

Meanwhile, attempting to escape, Zedekiah fled through a secret passage from his palace to a location outside the city walls. But he was captured by Babylonian soldiers, and forced to witness the execution of his whole family before he himself was blinded.  

70 years later after that horrific massacre a Second Temple was rebuild and Prayers and Scarify to GD were once again being made.

King Herod better known as Herod the Great build back Jerusalem and the Second Temple although he was not a favored man by many. He converted to Judaism but he was not following the laws and acts of a religious Jewish person. It is known at one point in his life he murdered his whole family. Herod the great had many wives and many children. As an old man he broke down with sickness and grief. He suffered from dropsy, ulcers, convulsions, and probably cancer. He died at the age of 69 hated by all his people. It was said of him that he stole to the throne like a fox, ruled like a tiger, and died like a dog.

10 years later after King Herod’s death the Romans wanted to take over Jerusalem.

 At the time there were Jewish revolts who wanted to protect their land. Emperor Titus was victorious and succeeded to bringing down Jerusalem 70 CE. The total destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple was catastrophic for the Jewish people. According to the contemporary historian Josephus Flavius, hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the siege of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the country, and many thousands more were sold into slavery.

Now going back to King Herod the Great. The king knew that he needed a hiding place to be built incase a great revolt came against him, so he build this place in Israel named Masada. This was going to be his escape where it was almost impossible for the enemy to reach.


During the down fall of Jerusalem when the Romans were killing every person in sight there was a group of 1000 Jewish extremist called Sicarii the word meaning dagger or contract- killer. They didn’t want to go with out a fight and they would never dare to surrender to the Romans to have their loved ones rapped and killed. When the Roman Empire caught up to Masada and the Jewish extremist saw that there was no way out they committed suicide by jumping down the cliff which was 1,300 feet high. Women and child, husband and wife and elders all perished that day.

The account of the siege from Masada were later reported by two women who survived the great suicide by hiding out with five children as it is stated that committing suicide is against Jewish law. Some say the people killed one another so that they wouldn’t disrespect the law of committing suicide but whatever it might be the lost was great.

Because of these acts of destroying the holy temples and because of all those people that perished today is a day of mourning for the Jewish people.

 We fast and we cry and remember all those destroyed and pray that one day we can rebuild the third temple that will be following the end of time.