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The Second Jewish Apocalypse:
Far more powerful, and expressive of intense hatred of Rome, the Babel-like destroyer of Judea, is the second Jewish apocalypse,
or series of apocalypses, written during the siege and after the destruction of Jerusalem, and contained in ch. x. 2-xi. 13,
xii. 1-xiii. 18, and xiv. 6-xxii. 6. After the manner of Ezek. ii 8-iii. 3, the writer represents his vision as having been
received in the form of a book, which he is to eat with its bitter contents. In imitation of Ezek. xl. 3 and Zech. ii. 5-6,
the angel gives him a measuring-rodthat he may measure the site of the Temple and the altar, which is to remain intact, while
the rest of the Holy City is doomed to be trodden under foot by the Gentiles (the Roman soldiers) for forty-two months (Dan.
vii. 25, viii. 14, xii. 7). He is then told that during this time there shall be two prophets, witnesses of the Lord (Moses
and Elijah), who shall again manifest their power of restraining the heavens from giving rain (I Kings xvii. 1), of turning
the water into blood, and of striking the land with plagues (Ex. vii.-x.); and whosoever shall attempt to hurt them will be
devoured by fire from their mouths (II Kings i. 10). But they will finally fall victims to the beast that ascends out of the
abyss to make war upon them. After their dead bodies have been lying for three and a half days in the streets of the Holy
City, which shall have become a Sodom and Gomorrah, and the people of all tongues and of all nations have looked upon them
and rejoiced at the death of the prophets that had chastised them (by their preaching of repentance), refusing to give them
burial, God's spirit will again imbue them with life, and they will, to the astonishment of the people, rise and ascend to
heaven; and in the same hour a great earthquake will cause the death of 7,000 people (xi. 1-13). Of this eschatological feature
no trace is found in rabbinical sources, except the appearance of Moses and the Messiah during the war of Gog and Magog (Targ.
Yer. Ex. xii. 42). Possibly this is the older form of the legend of the Messiah ben Ephraim or ben Joseph being slain by Gog
and Magog, based on Zech. xii. 10-11 (comp. Jellinek, "B. H." iii. 80).
Then follows (xiii. 1, 12a, 5b, 10) the description of the beast (after Dan. vii. 4-7; comp. vii. 8, xi. 36). It bears (in
"Augustus Divus") the name of blasphemy, and its mouth speaks blasphemy against God and His Shekinah on earth and in heaven
(i. 5-6, misunderstood by the Christian translator). It has power over all nations and tongues, and over all those whose names
are not written in the book of life (the awkward addition "of the lamb" betrays the Christian hand) from the foundation of
the world, and it makes war upon the "saints" (the Jewish people, as in Daniel). For forty-two months (the three and a half
years of Daniel) will its power last, trying the patience of the saints.
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