Roman Destruction of 2nd Temple and Judeans

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                                                                           

From 37 to 100 CE, the land of Judah had been occupied by the Romans.  Romans are about to attack Jerusalem in the picture above.   "When the Romans entered, they slaughtered many Jews  from 66 to 70 CE by putting most on the cross."  As the siege of Jerusalem began in the year 70, the Passover sacrifice was beginning to which naturally many thousands of pilgrims had arrived from all parts of the country.  The number of the besieged was then very great.  Among them were many from beyond the Euphrates and other foreign lands. 

1,100,000 men perished during the siege.  97,000 were taken captive and of these, only 40,000 were saved-all being citizens of Jerusalem.  The rest were sold as slaves.  Some were sent into the mines of Egypt.  Others were distributed among the provinces for the circuses.  The 40,000 found homes nearby and others headed in the direction of Rome, to continue onto France and Germany eventually.  

In the year of 71, Titus marched thousands of Judeans he took as slaves to Rome.  The Arch of Titus commemorates the event.  He became the Roman emperor from 79 to 81 CE.  As the son of Vespasian, he had taken over command of the Roman army in Judea from his father in the year 70, when the Romans burned down the beloved 2nd Temple of the Jews.  Then he destroyed Jerusalem after a 5 month long siege.  Jewish tradition is calling Titus "wicked."  His mistress was Bernice, a Judean princess.  Perhaps because of her, he didn't accede to the demand of the people of Antioch to abolish Jewish privileges there.  
                                                                     

                                                                           

Titus, son of Vespasian, took command of the army from his father in the year 70.
" Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire; a Roman soldier threw a burning stick onto one of the Temple's walls. Destroying the Temple was not among Titus' goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon. The fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. The Temple was captured and destroyed on 9/10th of Tisha B'Av,at the end of August, and the flames spread into the residential sections of the city.  Josephus described the scene:Everywhere was slaughter and flight. Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. Round the Altar the heaps of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the Sanctuary steps poured a river of blood and the bodies of those killed at the top slithered to the bottom.

Showing  his triumph held in 71 for his successful Sack of Jerusalem.

Details easier to see in black and white.  The seven-branched menorah and trumpets are clearly depicted. It became a symbol of the Jewish diaspora. In a later era, Pope Paul IV made it the place of a yearly oath of submission. Until the modern State of Israel was founded in 1948, many Jews refused to walk under it due to a rabbinical prohibition.  The menorah depicted on the Arch served as the model for the menorah used on the emblem of the state of Israel

                                                                       
The Arch of Titus in Rome was erected by the Senate in honor of Vespasian and Titus.  The present one we can see in Rome dates from the reign of Dimitian who reigned from 81 to 96 CE.  The original structure did not survive till then.

 It shows the goddess of victory crowning Titus.  The march of Jewish captives bearing the Temple vessels, the shewbread table, 7-branched candlesticks and the trumpet; the Jordan River and the sacrificial procession is seen in the Arch.
                                                                                   

By the year 72, Vespasian, Roman emperor from 69 to 79,  took 12,,000 Jews as slaves from Judah to Rome to build the Colosseum under himself.  Nero had sent him in 67 to subdue the Judean rebellion and by 68, he had conquered the Galilee, Transjordan and the Judean coast before suspending operations after receiving the news of Nero's death.  Then in 69 he was emperor!  The campaign was ended by his son. 

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_triumph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_Titus
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE)
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/03/lydda-israel-what-really-happened-there.html

Pharisees and Sadducees of 2nd Temple and Christianity

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                                                  King  Solomon's Temple

Moses (1391-1271 BCE) didn't just bring down 10 Commandments.  Throughout the 40 years of wandering during the Exodus, started when he was 80 years old already,   he wrote 613 more laws for the future Jews to follow till he died at age 120.  What do we Jews believe, anyway?  The ideas we have of course came from Moses, but they were also interpreted by the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Two traumatic events happened to the Jewish people.  The Assyrians attacked and carried away people in 721 BCE.  The Babylonians attacked twice; in 597 and 586 BCE.  They also carried away people.  They destroyed Solomon's Temple.

The Jews rebuilt the Temple.  During the 2nd Temple period from 538 to 515 BCE, there appeared a political party as well as a religious one, the Pharisees (the lenient ones) , who were probably a continuation of the Hasideans, a pious Jewish religous sect.  It was first recorded during the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes in the 2nd century BCE when its member suffered martyrdom rather than desecrate the Sabbath and formed the backbone of the Hasmonean revolt.  .  They were a fairly narrow body and kept a closed membership to the masses.  Their job was to teach the traditions to everyone with stories to develop a holy spirit in them.  They felt there was a huge gap of knowledge between the masses regarding  their own law and themselves and therefore the masses were not practicing it.

They sat apart from the masses in order to keep themselves pure.  In other words, they were scrupulous about keeping kosher.  They would eat with their own groups and ate only consecrated food in the Temple, or kosher food that had been prepared in the Temple kitchen.

The Pharisees put the people of Judah's life within a halakhic framework found in the Oral Law which they regarded as vital as the Written Law (the Tanakh). The oral law was the interpretations and analysis of the written law and was handed down orally from generation to generation.  It's said it also was given to Moses with the written law.   Their doctrine was to embrace the whole life of the community, touching on the theological foundations of life, questions of fate, good and evil, the immortality of the soul, and eschatology.

They admitted Divine predestination but also man's responsibility for his deeds.  They believed in life after death, the resurrection of the dead, the Messiah that they needed and the Day of Judgment.

Not all Pharisees were angels in their behavior, of course.  The Talmud lists 7 hypocritical types.  However, they "were in reality not like the derogatory New Testament picture" that paints them as terrible people.  It just so happens that "they were responsible for strengthening morality and introducing the elasticity which enabled Judaism to withstand its subsequent tribulations."

The Pharissees had the chutzpa to bring into their culture the cult-folk-customs not mentioned in the Torah, such as the Water-Drawing Festival (Simchat bet ha Shoevah), which dismayed the Sadducees.  This was a festival of water-libation observed at the end of the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles.  The Sadducees didn't want it included in their observances because it had no authority in the Pentateuch, but the people nevertheless observed it enthusiastically.  The ceremonies are elaborately described in the Mishnah under (Sukkah 5).  It fell into abeyance with the destruction of the Temple but has been revived in an altered form in modern Israel.  I can understand that any holiday involving water emergence or enjoyment would be loved in the hot land of Judah.The Pharisees have been carried into the stream of historic Judaism.

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News on TV  has written a book that carries out the derogatory essence of the New Testament. Yes, the Gospels may be sacred to Christians, but they hold a lot of anti-Semitism towards the Jews.  O'Reilly's book is "Killing Jesus," the act that the Christians have been blaming Jews for during  the past 2,000 years.  It has only been recently that Pope Benedict XVI finally forgave us, but that was the pope himself.  The masses haven't all agreed with him as yet.  The pope also wrote a book, Jesus of Nazareth."  "In 'Jesus of Nazareth' excerpts released in 2011, Benedict uses a biblical and theological analysis to explain why it is not true that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.  Perhaps he still believed that some Pharisees were still responsible.  I'm not sure.  We've been suffering for this as a people  from the Crusades to the Inquisition in Spain.  All Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism and this is what has got the masses going, the death of Jesus.  From there they have managed to find all sorts of reasons why they hate Jews.  We've become the scapegoats of the world.  

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews. " While the Vatican has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said recently that  the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was significant and would help fight anti-Semitism today.  Of course O'Reilly's  main references must rely on the four Gospels which are loaded with attacking Jews.  Jesus had died on the cross, and that was something the Romans had been doing to thousands of Jewish men for any slight indiscretion to their own Roman government.  But the Christians forming a group after his death blamed the Pharisees and Sadducees for it to have happened.   This happened during Herod's time of ruling, a man who was appointed ruler over the Judeans by the Romans.

It was Pontiius Pilate who ruled in the case of Jesus.  He was a procurator, a governor of Judea under the Roman emperors and ruled from 26 to 36 CE.  As a procurator, he had full powers to inflict punishment including the death penalty, which meant to be placed on the cross.  He executed  with the cross Galilean patriots (Jewish men) without a trial and introduced Roman military standards into Jerusalem, used Temple funds for the construction of an aqueduct and maltreated the Samaritans for which he was finally recalled to Rome.  Jesus was crucified during his term of office along with thousands of other Jews.

The problem lies with the Gospels referring often to the Sadducees and Pharisees because Jesus was in constant conflict with them.  They were the ruling group of Israel in religion.  The Christians in the Gospel claim that the two groups conspired to put Jesus to death, as told in (John 11;48-50;  where it mentions that many Jews were believing in Jesus, the Romans were going to take their nation, and Caiaphas, a high priest (18-36 CE) that year said that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation would perish otherwise so he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation. Joseph Caiaphas  was appointed as high priest by the procurator, Valerius Gratus and also served under Pontius Pilate.  The New Testament represent him and his father-in-law Annas as being responsible for the prosecution of Jesus and the arrest of the apostles.  He was removed by the Syrian governor, Vitellius.  Then they (other priests ?) took counsel together to put Jesus  to death.  After that Jesus didn't walk up to the Jews anymore but went into the countryside  near the wilderness into Ephraim with his disciples.   Mark in 14:53; and 15:1), also presented anti-Semitic words  Other mentions of the Sadducees are found in Act 4:1 and Acts 5:17.  The Sadducees are implicated in the death of James by writer Josephus (Acts 12:1-2).  He was writing for a Roman audience.

The Catholics teach in their Catechism for the Catholic church that from the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, that certain Pharisees and partisans of Herod, together with priests and scribes had agreed to destroy Jesus.  The reason was that they suspected Jesus of demonic possession and accused him of blasphemy and false prophecy which were religious crimes which the Law punished with death by stoning.  It's because he had expelled demons, forgave sins, healed on the sabbath day and had his own interpretation of the Law concerning purity and had tax collectors and public sinners as friends.

In order to disassociate themselves with Jews, the new Christian leaders who wrote the Gospels did paint an ugly view of the Jews of Jesus's day on purpose, I say.  They were starting a new movement and needed followers.  They believed strongly that because Jesus had pardoned people for their sins that this was a sign that manifested him to be the Savior God himself (cf.Jn 5:16-18).  Jews did not and do not today recognize any man as G-d  so saw him only as a man who made himself to be thought of as a G-d possibly since he never came out and said he was G-d as far as they knew.    Remember, it was the Romans who had been occupying Judah  and they believed in such things as men and women who were half god and half man.  That was going on at that time.  A culture of belief in half god half man or demigods was rubbing elbows with a strict monotheistic culture and they were an invading group also spreading their belief system just by being there and most likely celebrating their festivals.  Achilles, half man an half god born from a nymph; Dionyses, son of Zeus, Jason, son of Jupiter, Hercules, son of Zeus.  All were worshipped and were men.

My problem with the accusation against the Pharissees and Sadducees is that the Gospels were written several hundred years after the fact.  What is being accused has only gossip to go by.  Even in Jewish law there has to be several witnesses.  This was an accusation that was political in order to put down Judaism and heighten Christianity.  It could have taken place without this false accusation on its own merits if they were worthy.  I do not blame the writers of the gospel for what they have laid on us Jews, for in Jesus' supposed words, "They knew not what they had done."  I blame the people since then for not having the common sense to stop blaming future generations of Jews for something they think went on so long ago.  Of course to them, it is killing their G0d or deicide.  One thing I noticed is that the Pharisees are blamed for the deaths by stoning, yet it was actually the Sadducees who were as strict as that, telling me the Gospels didn't know as much about the two political/religious groups as they thought they did.  It was the Pharisees who were the lenient ones.

"The debate really comes down to the question: When was the New Testament originally written? And this question leads to another important question: Even if it was written at an early date, how do we know the New Testament that exists today is the same as the original? How do we know the modern translations aren't full of human errors, additional content, or the interpretations of countless human scribes?"  "The earliest manuscript of the New Testament was discovered about 50 years ago. P52 is a small papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John (18:31-33 on the front; 18:37-38 on the back), and it has been dated to about 125 AD.  So that's at least 100 years after the fact.  "The manuscripts dating from 100 to 300 AD are almost entirely papyrus fragments. These fragments are named with a "P" followed by a number. The vast majority of them were found in Egypt in the twentieth century, and are now kept in various museums and libraries throughout the world, including at Dublin, Ann Arbor, Cologny (Switzerland), the Vatican and Vienna." Pieces that they have found considered important were from 300, 350 and 450 CE.  John, so profoundly anti-Semitic, also was different from the other renditions in that  throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus openly presents himself as the divine Son of God, not hiding his identity as he does in Mark.  So people reading this Gospel get the double whammy; Jews killed their G0d.  

Right around Easter, some actors usually put on a Passion Play.  After seeing this, many people are imbued with hatred for Jews and want to kill or maim someone.  Hopefully this book of O'Reilly's will not have the same intention or results.  

The Pharisees had been  in competition with the Sadducees. (the strict ones)   The Sadducees had absolute control of the Temple.  Many feel the Sadducees were incapable of adapting to a changing environment while the Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in their legal decisions.  Remember, this was at least 2,044 years ago and they had decisions to make like that.  The Sanhedrin's seats were taken mostly by the Sadducees.  They worked at keeping the peace with the Romans, who were the occupiers.

The Sadducees stuck with the letter of the written text.  Their name seems to have come from the high priest Zadok whose descendants served in the same office until 162 BCE.  Evidently the well connected priests and prominent aristocrats belonged to the Sadducees, who were thus influential in political and economic life.  To them the Jewish religion was the Temple cult . They differed from the Pharisees in the nature of their religious outlook and way of life.  In their view, people must aspire to well-being in their world without expecting recompense in the world to come. They had no belief in a future world like resurrection, or the immortality of the soul and also rejected the existence of angels and spirits.  They were purists.  They stuck with the Written Law and allowed no more expansion on that. So did the Essenes.   So they behaved severely in cases involving the capital penalty and they interpreted the Lex Talionis ( eye for an eye punishment)  literally instead of in the sense of monetary compensation which was adopted by the Pharisees.
Their beliefs were carried out in the Temple where they had the role of priests and they opposed the Pharisaic innovation like the Water-Drawing Festival.  This might have given a foothold to non-sacerdotal circles.  They were the supporters of the Hasmonean kings from the reign of John Hyreanus, but they lost their influence under Salome Alexandra and suffered at the hands of Herod.  Their whole power and existence was bound up with the Temple cult, and on the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE they disappeared.

The one thing they all agreed upon was that there was but ONE G-d.  At this point in time, all the other points of the religion were being debated.  It would take another 1,000 years for a rabbinical scholar to emerge and straighten out our religion for us, for Rashi was born in 1040 in Troyes, France and became so well known for his dissertations.  He wrote a commentary on the Bible, the Jewish Tanakh.

 Joseph Caro, who wrote the Shulhan Arukh, (Prepared Table) or table of laws  in 1564-65,  is another man who set the record straight as we observe Judaism today with his codes.  He was born in 1488 in Toledo, Spain and died in 1575.  The Spanish Inquisition occurred in 1492, so he ultimately found his way to the Holy Land.  He lived in Safed, where one can visit his synagogue today.  His writing became the authoritative code.  This rabbi was interested in Kabbalah.  The Pharisees had won out after all.  .

References: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Jesus-Bill-OReilly/dp/0805098542/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396460615&sr=1-1&keywords=killing+jesus+bill+o%27reilly
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/pope-exonerates-jews-for-death-of-jesus-1.346699
http://dictionary.infoplease.com/lex-talionis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demigods
http://greece.mrdonn.org/greekgods/hercules.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/04/sanhedrin-court-of-ancient-israel.html
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/features/new_testament_manuscripts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberammergau_Passion_Play
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Catechism of the Catholic church online
New Testament "Holy Bible" The World Publishing company, Cleveland and New York, King James Version

Bar Kochba's Jewish Rebellion Against the Romans and the Aftermath in Arabia and Islam

Nadene Goldfoot
The Temple of the Jewish people in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE, and Jerusalem was under the rule of Hadrian who attempted to prevent circumcision in 130 CE with his beginnings to hellenize the city.    A leader arose by the name of Bar Kochba who had 200,000 men to command.  They recaptured Jerusalem and also many other towns and villages throughout the land.  A war raged for about 4 years against the Romans.  The enemy had to bring in legion after legion of reinforcements to suppress the Jews.  Israel had become a nation about 1220 BCE and wasn't about to lose their land so easily. 

Ultimately, the Romans sacked the city of Jeruslaem abt 132-135 CE  with an army of 35,000  whose commander was Julius Severus who was under Hadrian  and expelled a good many of the survivors. They destroyed 50 fortresses and 985 villages.   About 580,000 Jewish men were killed besides those that died of hunger and disease.  The Roman Emporer Hadrian changed the name of the city to Aelia Capitolina.  Then he ordered the building of a temple to Jupiter on the Jewish temple site and  excommunicated all Jews from the city and if found would be killed.  Judea then was called Syria-Palaestina.  Not only did Jerusalem become a pagan city, but Hadrian had a statue of himself placed on the site of the Holy of Holies. 

Jews may have stayed away from Jerusalem at that point, but not the rest of the land.  Others returned.  Some Jews left the land to go to places like Arabia where they formed new settlements or joined other Jewish Arabian communities that had been established around the time of their captivity in Babylon or even before then. 

Jews had probably settled in Arabia at the fall of Samaria in 721 BCE.  There was even a Jewish military colony in Aswan and upper Egypt founded just after the fall of Samaria.  In the 1st and 2nd centuries CE Arabia offered a near asylum to Jews victimized by the ruthless Romans.  By the 7th Century CE it would spawn Islam, but a number of Jewish and Christian settlements were established in different parts spreading Aramaic and Hellenistic culture.  A Christian center was Najran.  Jews and Judaised Arabs were everywhere, especially in Yathrib, later named Medina.  This was to become the Arab world's 2nd holiest city, first settled by the Jewish tribes from the north, the Banu Nadir and Banu Quraiza.  It's where Mohammad listened to Jewish stories from the Torah from readers on the streets. 

Resource: From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters pages 140-141

The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Assyrians Wanted the Land of Zion and What Happened to Them

Nadene Goldfoot                                      

Isaiah said that a Jew can only know himself through his Judaism and his past.  He felt that the great majority of Jews are ignorant of the ideals of their faith, their scripture , their Sacred  Language and the story of Israel.  "My people doth not consider.  But Israel doth not know!"   Here is some of our ancient history. 
                                                    

The Assyrians coveted the land of Zion and finally took it. In these ancient days the way an empire financed themselves was to take over other countries.  They didn't need the land for their population to expand and live in.  They just wanted what it possessed.  The people in these lands were seen as potential slaves.  Who didn't need help in cooking and cleaning and tilling the ground?   "Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BC) initiated a renewed period of Assyrian expansion; Urartu, Persia, Media, Mannea, Babylonia, Arabia, Phoenicia, Israel, Judah, Samaria,  Nabatea, Chaldea and the Neo-Hittites were subjugated, Tiglath-Pileser III was declared king in Babylon and the Assyrian empire was now stretched from the Caucasus Mountains to Arabia and from the Caspian Sea to Cyprus." Wikipedia  This is when many of the 10 tribes of Israel were taken away. 

The Assyrians were a Semitic Akkadian Kingdom in existence from the middle 23rd Century BCE to 608 BCE.  It was on the Upper Tigris River in Northern Mesopotamia, which would have been the area Iraq is in today.  It is no longer in existence, but its people can be found as the Christians in Iraq, NE Syria, SE Turkey, and NW Iran.  It was an earlier home to a Neanderthal culture.  This is thought because of remnants of Neanderthals were found in the Shanidar Cave.  Usually we have been told that Neanderthals were only found in Europe. 
                                                    

Once there were two Jewish kingdoms; the Northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern kingdom of  Judah.  They had been one nation, but were divided in 933 after the death of King Solomon, King David's son.

 Israel fell first in about 740 BCE and Judah was left. Judah was a poor and less important state compared to Israel.   Israel's people were deported.  This deportation method was practiced by many cultures upon taking a land.  Isaiah tells about the fall in 721 BCE. Isaiah, a major prophet,  was the son of Amoz and  lived from 740 to 701 BCE.    The wild Assyrian soldiers had ruined the land.   27,290 people were deported from the capital city, Samaria. Samaria had been a city of great strength and beauty situated on a hill overlooking a rich valley. It had become the capital of Israel by King Omri who reigned anywhere from 888-876 BCE to 880-869 BCE. 

Judah's  wall around Jerusalem had managed to keep out the Assyrian expansion in 701 BCE However, large numbers of captives were again taken and deported by the Babylonians in 597 BCE, 587 and 582, this time from Judah.  The Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar II (604-561 BCE) inherited the Assyrian Empire and after his conquest of Judah (597, 586), exiled many Jews to Babylon. 

Jerusalem was the capital, captured by King David in 1,000 BCE and the 1st Temple was built by Solomon there in 900 BCE.  It was destroyed by the King of Assyria in 700 BCE.  Then the 2nd Temple was built over it and was totally destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.  Today the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits over the site of the Temple.  All the Jews have left is the Western Wall.  The Assyrians had overrun Judah and took Jerusalem.These barbarian enemies claimed to have captured 46 cities of Judah.  The Jews later found good living in Chaldea and had homes and land as well as their own government by the Elders under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.  Chaldea was a small territory in Southern Babylonia, which would now be Iraq. 

The leaders of Judah had done the unforgivable in seeking an alliance with Egypt in order to fight off the Assyrians.  Egypt did promise to help  them in rebelling against Assyria and Babylon but failed at the critical hour to redeem her promise.  This is when Jews of today remember this fiasco with the Fast of Gedalia.  Jeremiah wrote about this when he had advised not to seek out Egypt's help and his own people forcibly took him there where he died.  Jeremiah had been born in 650 BCE when Josiah was king of Judah. 

In 620 this prophet saw Nineveh, the capital of the new Assyrian empire fall.  It was built from 1100 BCE .  The Assyrian Empire fell in 606 BCE.  Josiah died in 605 BCE.  Then the Persian conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great gave permission to the Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple in  537 BCE.  40,000 were thought to return. 

The Assyrians had left a garrison in Judah. The Assyrians had to leave it as the Persians attacked Babylonia and soldiers were needed there.   However, Jerusalem was said to have become so deserted and forsaken that grass and boughs were growing in the streets where cattle grazed.  The people left there were people of no understanding.  This may have been said because the elite, which would have also included educated people had been taken away. 

Babylon was about 600 miles away as the crow flies.  Jews deported to there must have had to walk all the way, which would have been horrible.  I think of the Trail of Tears, a  forced relocation of Native Americans in the United States when the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole and Choctaw  Indian Nations were forced to walk  2,2,00 miles to Oklahoma; men, women and children in 1830 CE.  Not all made it.  Such a long walk caused them to suffer from exposure in cold weather, disease and starvation.  Out of just the Cherokees that numbered 15,000, 4,000 died on the trail.  It must have taken the Jews and Assyrian army at least two months to get to Babylon.  The walk to Babylon from Judah happened about 2,733 years ago and though it was a shorter trek, could have been deplorable at that.  Lions prevailed in the area as well as other predators.  Being they were captured people, would not have been able to carry their bows and arrows for protection.  Their lives were at the mercy of their captors. 

Assyria, from 20 century BCE had expanded rapidlly in the 13th and 10th centuries.  Then it had declined rapidly after King  Manasseh of Judah 692-638 BCE was exiled to Assyria in 652 BCE and Assyria was succeeded by Babylon.  King Manasseh, who became a king at age 12 taking over from his father King Hezekiah, was thought to be Judah's worst king.  He had introduced pagan practices.  People figured that the destruction of the Temple was his fault.  It is thought that his pagan innovations were the result of Assyrian pressure. 

Abraham and Sarah had come from Ur, which was in the Chaldees.  The Chaldees was the Babylon area.  He had migrated to Canaan, probably on a camel, and then his descendants had to walk back there again.  The Babylonian exile lasted for 70 years. 

600 years later in 70 CE, Jerusalem fell to the Romans.

Resource: Pentateuch and Haftorahs by Hertz
The New Standard Jewish Encycloopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
http://jewsandjoes.com/history-and-timeline-of-israel-and-judah.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_in_Jerusalem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldea