The Destruction of the First Temple, 9 Av 3338
Nebuzaradan burned the Temple, the palace and all of Jerusalem and deported the people to Babylon. The House that had stood four hundred and ten years was gone.
On the seventh of Av, Nebuzaradan, captain of Nebuchadnezzar's guard, entered the city. On the ninth, toward evening, he set fire to the House of the Lord, the king's palace and every great house of Jerusalem; the fire burned on through the tenth. The Chaldeans tore down the walls on every side. The bronze pillars Jachin and Boaz, the bronze sea and the stands were broken up and carried off as metal by weight; the gold and silver vessels were taken whole.
The High Priest Seraiah, the deputy priest Zephaniah, three keepers of the threshold and the senior officials were brought to Riblah and executed there. The rest were marched away. "And Judah was exiled from its land."
The Temple had stood four hundred and ten years. Jeremiah, left among the ruins, wrote the book of Lamentations, read on the night of the Ninth of Av by candlelight, sitting on the floor: "How lonely sits the city once full of people."
From that day begins a reckoning that has not ended: the Second Temple fell on the same calendar date, and from that day runs the seventy-year term Jeremiah had named in advance.
How we know
On the chronology
Academic history dates this event differently: Seder Olam Rabbah counts the Persian period about 165 years shorter. Both dates are shown when the chronology-divergence layer is on.
Sources
Tanakh
- Melachim II 25:8–21 — the burning of the House, the breaking of the walls, the executions at Rivlah, and the deportation
- Yirmiyahu 52:12–27 — the same account with details about the vessels
- Eichah — an eyewitness lament over the city and the Temple
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Taanit 29a — the seventh, ninth and tenth of Av: why the fast was fixed on the ninth
- Gittin 57b — Nevuzaradan and the seething blood of the prophet Zechariah
- Eichah Rabbah, Petichta 24 — the patriarchs and Rachel interceding for the exiles
Basis: accounts differ.
People and places
Josiah · Jeremiah · Ezekiel · Jerusalem · Temple Mount · Babylon · Kings · Jeremiah · Ezekiel · Lamentations · Tisha B'Av · Shmita and Yovel · The Temple · Exile and redemption · Av · Baruch ben Neriah · Zedekiah · Nebuchadnezzar II · The four fasts of the destruction · Shechinah · Kinot · Gedalyah ben Achikam