and the same. The Idumeans thought that God was angry at their
taking arms, and that they would not escape
punishment for their making war upon their metropolis.
Ananus and his party thought that they had conquered
without fighting, and that God acted as a general for them; but
truly they proved both ill conjectures at what was to come, and
made those events to be ominous to their enemies, while they were
themselves to undergo the ill effects of them; for the Idumeans
fenced one another by uniting their bodies into one band, and
thereby kept themselves warm, and
connecting their shields over their heads, were not so much
hurt by the rain. But the zealots were more deeply concerned for
the danger these men were in than they were for
themselves, and got together, and looked about them to see
whether they could devise any means of assisting them. The hotter
sort of them thought it best to force their guards with their
arms, and after that to fall into the midst of the city, and
publicly open the gates to those that came to their
assistance; as supposing the guards would be in disorder, and
give way at such an unexpected attempt of theirs, especially as
the greater part of them were unarmed and unskilled in the
affairs of war; and that besides the multitude of the citizens
would not be easily gathered together, but confined to their
houses by the storm: and that if there were any hazard in their
undertaking, it became them to suffer any thing whatsoever
themselves, rather than to overlook so great a multitude as were
miserably perishing on their account. But the more prudent part
of them disapproved of this forcible method, because they saw not
only the guards about them
very numerous, but the walls of the city itself carefully