Day 5: Masada
One of my personal favorite locations in all of Israel is the fortress built atop a mountain. The ruins today still stand between the Dead Sea and the Desert. As a lover of (ancient) history and fantasy novels, this location uncontrollably sparked my imagination. It’s powerful because it’s a true story, it’s romantic because of the tragedy. I stood and imagined the anxieties, the terror, the hope, the determination, and the zeal with which all parties stood their ground. I can imagine the Zealots taking over Masada, using this stunning Herodian Palace-fortress that had been abandoned, at first being thrilled with their luck only to turn into such a place of despair. I can picture it full of glory for the few days that Herod the Great used it, for it to host over 70 years later, people he would have hated. That the fortress he had built for himself was a refuge that harbored nearly a thousand people trying to reclaim their country, and for it today being known for such a tale so much more powerful than his.
Lay of the Land
The fortress of Masada is built on a plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. The plateau originally had been used by the Hasmoneans, who were in control of Israel during the rise of the Maccabean Revolt. They were later conquered by Rome.
Herod the Great, who was a Jewish king under the control of the Roman Empire, was paranoid for his life. He knew where he stood with the treacherous people around him, and the Jewish people that he renovated the fortress to have multiple palaces, roman baths, cisterns, storage with mass amounts of food and drink that could have sustained a lifetime, barracks, an armory and a synagogue. This, in the event of a rebellion against him, could have another sanctuary.
But it was not to be, and Herod died without ever using fortress after all. It was left abandoned for nearly 8 decades, and in that time, there was another great revolt that began to take place, and we see the second destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and rise and fall of the Zealots. The Zealots were a group of religious Jews that believed that they were to expel the unbelievers from the land, purge their great country by force. You can research what the Zealots did in the land, and some of it is truly hideous. They took their task to purge the land very seriously. But they were not meant to succeed in their mission. The Romans chased them throughout all of Israel, and cut them off from outside sources and their chances to survive in hiding.
There was a group of them that captured and lived on top of the plateau of Masada. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote that there were about 960 people living in the fortress. Husbands with their wives and children. They were living off of the food that was stored on the mountain 70+ years before. Roman soldiers built camps around the base of the mountain and began to build a ramp to the top of the plateau in order to conquer Masada. They were trapped.
The Siege of Masada
As the story is told, we learned that it was the belief of those trapped on top of the plateau that it was the will of God that they die rather than be captured by the Romans. The leader, Eleazar ben Ya'ir, was a Sicarii, one of the “dagger men” in a small sect of the Zealots. The 960 people lived on the mountain in the fortress stayed there for 3 years, with the siege raging there for several months before the fall.
According to Flavius Josephus based on what he was told by one of the surviving women, Eleazar ben Ya’ir made a rousing speech as the Roman soldiers had finally completed their ramp and broken into the fortress.
“Since we long ago resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God Himself, Who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice...We were the very first that revolted, and we are the last to fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God has granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom.”
Death was better than the horror’s awaiting them being taken prisoner by the Romans. A group of men were tasked with killing the surviving zealots and their families. As the numbers of the living grew smaller, the final 10 men began to cast lots to see who would kill who. As suicide in Judaism is prohibited, there was just one man at the very end who had to take his own life, a martyr for the people he had lived with for 3 years. When the 10th Legion had fully taken over the fortress, they were met with nothing. The provisions had been destroyed. There was no one to fight them. And hidden away in a cistern carnage were 2 women and 5 children. The sole survivors of the fall of Masada, of the Zealots.
Today
There is a national love affair with the tale of Masada. The fall was one of the last great stands against the Roman Empire, just 3 years after the 2nd destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s the last stand of group of people willing to die rather than go into slavery again. It’s such a foreshadowing I believe, of things that were still yet to come for Israel. If I am remembering correctly, there are about 2,000 years of dispersion of Israel before it became the State of Israel in 1948. Some of the details and the horror and bloodshed of Masada is extremely reminiscent of the Holocaust. And yet, God made them a resilient people. He blessed them and promised them. And in His faithfulness, Masada is a National Heritage site, and it’s one of the traditional locations for members of the Israel Defense Force to end their training. As I close out this post, I want you to imagine Masada in all of its former glory, its horror, and the ruins that remain. And picture, if you will, young soldiers, exhausted from their training and this pre-sunrise hike up a mountain to this place in their country where lives were so tragically lost, and you hear this declaration:
“Masada will never fall again.”
It has been a long time since I’ve posted and I apologize for that! I’m planning to continue sharing photos and stories and lessons from my Zealous year.
Thanks for reading.
- Maddie
