The Romans had direct government of Iudaea since 6 C.E. Prior to that the Kingdom of Iudaea was a client kingdom under the Herods since Pompey's time. The only reason why Pompey and his legion had come was because they were invited by the Sadducees to mediate a civil war between the Pharisees and Sadducees, each faction supporting a rival heir to the Judean throne. This civil war tore the kingdom apart and very nearly destroyed it. After being betrayed by the faction that brought him, Pompey then occupied Judea and Herod's family (who was the choice of neither faction) was installed as the client monarchy. The Herods in turn were so brutal vicious that the Judean people themselves went to Caesar in Rome and begged for Herod Archelaus' removal. This was the cause of Rome organizing Iudaea into a Roman province with direct Roman oversight. They had, by this point, spent over sixty years trying to bring law, order, and peace in cooperation with the client kingdom, and now direct Roman governance was their last option.
In the meantime, those warring factions hadn't stopped being violent. But alongside hating each other, they then turned their daggers towards the Romans trying to bring order to their civil war. And so there were insurrections, murders of Roman personnel, false messiahs rising up to "overthrow their Roman oppressors," appearing to forget what it was like when they governed themselves. As their tactics became more vicious and brutal, the Roman response was in kind. Rome didn't tolerate chaos even as it tried to respect and absorb the other cultures, cults, and deities from the people within the empire's borders.
So what was Jesus warning them of? Hellfire? Not of the eternal kind, but of the very grounded earthly kind. He was warning the Judean people that if they didn't turn around from their tactics against the Romans, then they would be destroyed, which did happen starting in 70 C.E. after yet another Judean rebellion and false messiah in 66 C.E. culminating in the well known "last stand" suicides at Masada in the early second century.
What was He telling them to do? Love your enemies, do good to them, carry the soldier's gear the extra mile. Be kind to one another, and forgive one another. If the Judeans had followed what He said towards one another and towards the Romans, there would have been no Masada. There would have been no destruction of the Temple in 70, much less Jerusalem. There would have been no roads lined with crosses of Judean zealots. Had the nation done what He said, there would have been no need for the Roman legions to remain there, being needed elsewhere on the Imperial frontiers at the time, like Britannia or Germania. Had the Judeans practiced what Jesus preached and ceased their delusional, suicidal insurrection against a Rome that was going to bring peace at all costs even if it meant scorched earth, then none of what Jesus predicted would happen would have. As the Prophet of Yahweh (obviously more than this, but a prophet as well), He was warning them for three years, almost forty years before it happened, to turn around before they caused their own demise.
And they refused to hear Him. More than this, they harassed Him, spread fake news about Him, and ultimately murdered Him, just like the prophets before Him for warning them about what was coming, because they didn't want to hear it.
And what was even more insane about their behavior was that they knew what the Romans would do if they continued, because they did it in Greece with Corinth. When Rome subjugated Greece, the original Corinth was such a rebellious city that Rome razed it to the ground and rebuilt it as a Roman city. Even further back, when Carthage gave Rome such problems as a rival, ultimately, Rome came and razed Carthage to the ground, even going to far as to salt its farm fields so the people would be forced to move because they couldn't grow crops to feed themselves. This is what Rome did to cities that it deemed a threat. They destroyed them. And Jerusalem had been getting on their to-do list with their antics over the previous 90 years. Rome's patience had a limit.
Jesus wasn't telling them anything they couldn't have already known. But no, they were counting on being children of Abraham, and their supposed strict obedience to the Torah to save them from Rome's wrath. They supposed God would keep them from being destroyed because of the sacrifices, the tithing, the outward observance of the Torah's regulations, all while condoning murder of foreigners, abuse of women, hoarding of wealth, and so on. The preached the Torah, praised the prophets, but didn't listen to their words when those same prophets preached against the very same things.
Today, at least from my observations, we find ourselves in similar circumstances. If we would just live as Jesus taught, and walk as He walked, then all of the impending doom which appears to want to blow up in our faces wouldn't because it is a doom almost entirely of our own creation, and one we are, like the ancient Judeans, ignoring, believing that God will rescue us from it letting all the "sinners" who don't believe like we do be destroyed.
Scripture is clear it doesn't work that way. Jesus was actually clear that it doesn't work that way, and so were all of the prophets. You reap what you sow.
By 70 C.E., nearly all of the original disciples had either been martyred, or had left Jerusalem and Judea altogether. Ephesus in Asia Minor had become the new hub of the Christian faith for many years, and after Ephesus, Rome itself. They saw what was coming, and the murderous dispositions of the Zealots in Judea had encouraged them to get out before everything Jesus said had come to pass.
In the meantime, those warring factions hadn't stopped being violent. But alongside hating each other, they then turned their daggers towards the Romans trying to bring order to their civil war. And so there were insurrections, murders of Roman personnel, false messiahs rising up to "overthrow their Roman oppressors," appearing to forget what it was like when they governed themselves. As their tactics became more vicious and brutal, the Roman response was in kind. Rome didn't tolerate chaos even as it tried to respect and absorb the other cultures, cults, and deities from the people within the empire's borders.
So what was Jesus warning them of? Hellfire? Not of the eternal kind, but of the very grounded earthly kind. He was warning the Judean people that if they didn't turn around from their tactics against the Romans, then they would be destroyed, which did happen starting in 70 C.E. after yet another Judean rebellion and false messiah in 66 C.E. culminating in the well known "last stand" suicides at Masada in the early second century.
What was He telling them to do? Love your enemies, do good to them, carry the soldier's gear the extra mile. Be kind to one another, and forgive one another. If the Judeans had followed what He said towards one another and towards the Romans, there would have been no Masada. There would have been no destruction of the Temple in 70, much less Jerusalem. There would have been no roads lined with crosses of Judean zealots. Had the nation done what He said, there would have been no need for the Roman legions to remain there, being needed elsewhere on the Imperial frontiers at the time, like Britannia or Germania. Had the Judeans practiced what Jesus preached and ceased their delusional, suicidal insurrection against a Rome that was going to bring peace at all costs even if it meant scorched earth, then none of what Jesus predicted would happen would have. As the Prophet of Yahweh (obviously more than this, but a prophet as well), He was warning them for three years, almost forty years before it happened, to turn around before they caused their own demise.
And they refused to hear Him. More than this, they harassed Him, spread fake news about Him, and ultimately murdered Him, just like the prophets before Him for warning them about what was coming, because they didn't want to hear it.
And what was even more insane about their behavior was that they knew what the Romans would do if they continued, because they did it in Greece with Corinth. When Rome subjugated Greece, the original Corinth was such a rebellious city that Rome razed it to the ground and rebuilt it as a Roman city. Even further back, when Carthage gave Rome such problems as a rival, ultimately, Rome came and razed Carthage to the ground, even going to far as to salt its farm fields so the people would be forced to move because they couldn't grow crops to feed themselves. This is what Rome did to cities that it deemed a threat. They destroyed them. And Jerusalem had been getting on their to-do list with their antics over the previous 90 years. Rome's patience had a limit.
Jesus wasn't telling them anything they couldn't have already known. But no, they were counting on being children of Abraham, and their supposed strict obedience to the Torah to save them from Rome's wrath. They supposed God would keep them from being destroyed because of the sacrifices, the tithing, the outward observance of the Torah's regulations, all while condoning murder of foreigners, abuse of women, hoarding of wealth, and so on. The preached the Torah, praised the prophets, but didn't listen to their words when those same prophets preached against the very same things.
Today, at least from my observations, we find ourselves in similar circumstances. If we would just live as Jesus taught, and walk as He walked, then all of the impending doom which appears to want to blow up in our faces wouldn't because it is a doom almost entirely of our own creation, and one we are, like the ancient Judeans, ignoring, believing that God will rescue us from it letting all the "sinners" who don't believe like we do be destroyed.
Scripture is clear it doesn't work that way. Jesus was actually clear that it doesn't work that way, and so were all of the prophets. You reap what you sow.
By 70 C.E., nearly all of the original disciples had either been martyred, or had left Jerusalem and Judea altogether. Ephesus in Asia Minor had become the new hub of the Christian faith for many years, and after Ephesus, Rome itself. They saw what was coming, and the murderous dispositions of the Zealots in Judea had encouraged them to get out before everything Jesus said had come to pass.
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