Mark 13:19

in those days There is no "in" here properly. Those days shall be affliction, "þe ilke dayes of tribulacioun schulen be suche," Wyclif.

such as was not from the beginning of the creation The unexampled atrocities of the siege of Jerusalem are fully described by Josephus. He declares that "the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to those of the Jews, are not so terrible as theirs were," "nor did any age ever produce a generation more fruitful in wickedness from the beginning of the world." The horrors of war and sedition, of famine and pestilence, were such as exceeded all example or conception. The city was densely crowded by the multitudes which had come up to the Passover. Pestilence ensued, and famine followed. The commonest instincts of humanity were forgotten. Acts of violence and cruelty were perpetrated without compunction or remorse, and barbarities enacted which cannot be described. Mothers snatched the food from the mouths of their husbands and children, and one actually killed, roasted, and devoured her infant son. (Comp. Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:56-57). Dead bodies filled the houses and streets of the city, while cruel assassins rifled and mangled with the exultation of fiends. The besieged devoured even the filth of the streets, and so excessive was the stench that it was necessary to hurl 600,000 corpses over the wall, while 97,000 captives were taken during the war, and more than 1,100,000 perished in the siege. See Josephus, Bell. Jud. vi. 9. 3; Tacitus, Hist. Mark 13:13; Milman's History of the Jewsii. 16; Merivale's History of the Romansvi. 59.