We Are Back

Before I resume from where we left off with current events as they relate to prophecy, I want to share with you something that happened on our ‘pause’.

Editor and I decided that since we had visited her rich Spanish background by visiting cities in Spain several years ago, it was my turn and we visited southern Italy.

Although Rome was not a city of my ancestry, it was the first city on our itinerary. We flew there to begin our journey to southern Italy. We joined a tour group on a free afternoon to explore the Colosseum—and there, unexpectedly, we found a prophecy and a legend waiting to be discovered.

In 90-degree heat, we entered the crowded Colosseum and made our way to a spot where we could see the arena where so much death and destruction had taken place nearly 2,000 years earlier.

We learned how General Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian, led his troops to destroy the city of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Our guide did not mention that Titus was fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24:2 that not one stone would be left upon another.

What I did know was that Titus and his men tore the temple stones down to get to the melted gold inlays. Titus then gathered the gold implements of the Temple loaded them on ships and headed back to Rome leaving over 1,100,000 dead Jews in his wake.

But then came the showstopper of something I didn’t know. Titus’ father, Emperor Vespasian, used the temple gold and plunder to fund the building of the Colosseum. According to our guide when the construction was completed around 80AD by then Emperor Titus, he threw a three month-long death fest of games to entertain Roman citizens.

Would God allow this outrage without judgment?

I asked our guide if she had ever heard the legend of Titus’ flea to which she responded she had not. Since the legend is not Biblical, we cannot state it as fact.

However, we can draw on the Biblical account of how God punished King Belshazzar of Persia in Daniel 5 for using Temple implements to throw a drunken orgy. And, as the handwriting appeared on the wall, Belshazzar’s rule came to an end that very night.

Take a look at the Legend of Titus’ flea and you decide.

“… a gnat came, and entered the nostril of Titus, and picked at his brain for seven years. Titus suffered greatly from this until one day he passed by the gate of a blacksmith’s shop. The gnat heard the sound of a hammer and was silent and still. Titus said: I see that there is a remedy for my pain. Every day they would bring a blacksmith who hammered before him. He would give four dinars as payment to a gentile blacksmith, and to a Jew he would simply say:’ It is enough for you that you see your enemy in so much pain’. He did this for thirty days and it was effective until then. From that point forward, since the gnat became accustomed to the hammering, it became accustomed to it, and once again it began to pick away at Titus’s brain.

תַּנְיָא, אָמַר רַבִּי פִּנְחָס בֶּן עֲרוּבָא: אֲנִי הָיִיתִי בֵּין גְּדוֹלֵי רוֹמִי, וּכְשֶׁמֵּת פָּצְעוּ אֶת מוֹחוֹ, וּמָצְאוּ בּוֹ כְּצִפּוֹר דְּרוֹר מִשְׁקַל שְׁנֵי סְלָעִים. בְּמַתְנִיתָא תָּנָא: כְּגוֹזָל בֶּן שָׁנָה – מִשְׁקַל שְׁנֵי לִיטְרִין.

It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Pineḥas ben Arova said: “I was at that time among the noblemen of Rome, and when Titus died they split open his head and found that the gnat had grown to the size of a sparrow weighing two sela. It was taught in another baraita: It was like a one-year-old pigeon weighing two litra.”

Source: Excerpts Talmudology here
https://www.talmudology.com/jeremybrownmdgmailcom/2023/7/24/talmudology-for-tisha-bav-that-gnat-in-the-ear-of-titus