And the LORD have removed men far away, and [there be] a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
Ver. 12. And the Lord have removed men far away.] Judea lay utterly waste for seventy years, insomuch that after the slaughter of Gedaliah, when all - man, woman, and child - fled into Egypt, there was not a Jew left in the country. And in that last desolation by the Romans, such affliction befell them as never had been from the beginning, nor shall be to the world's end. Mar 13:19 After Titus had slain a million of them, and carried away captive ninty-seven thousand more, Adrian the emperor, for their sedition under Barchochach, drove all the Jews utterly out of Jewry, set a sow of white marble over the chief gate of Jerusalem in reproach of their religion, and by proclamation forbade them so much as to look toward that land from any high tower or mountain. a Howbeit, they afterwards obtained leave to go in once a year and bewail the destruction of their temple, giving a piece of money to the soldiers; and at this day, when or wherever they build a house, they use to leave about a yard square of it unplastered, on which they write, Zecher lechorban, The memory of the desolation. b
a Josephus.
b Leo Modena.