p. 763; from whom
we learn that this ditch was sixty feet deep, and two hundred and fifty
feet broad. However, its depth is, in the next section, said by Josephus
to be immense, which exactly agrees to Strabo's description, and which
numbers in Strabo are a strong confirmation of the truth of Josephus's
description also.

[6] That is, on the 23rd of Sivan, the annual fast for the defection and
idolatry of Jeroboam, "who made Israel to sin;" or possibly some other
fast might fall into that month, before and in the days of Josephus.

[7] It deserves here to be noted, that this Pharisaical, superstitious
notion, that offensive fighting was unlawful to Jews, even under the
utmost necessity, on the Sabbath day, of which we hear nothing before
the times of the Maccabees, was the proper occasion of Jerusalem's being
taken by Pompey, by Sosius, and by Titus, as appears from the places
already quoted in the note on Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 8. sect. 1; which
scrupulous superstition, as to the observation of such a rigorous rest
upon the Sabbath day, our Savior always opposed, when the Pharisaical
Jews insisted on it, as is evident in many places in the New Testament,
though he still intimated how pernicious that superstition might prove
to them in their flight from the Romans, Matthew 25:20.

[8] This is fully confirmed by the testimony of Cicero, who: says, in
his oration for Flaecus, that "Cneius Pompeius, when he was conqueror,
and had taken Jerusalem, did not touch any thing belonging to that
temple."

[9] Of this destruction of Gadara here presupposed, and its restoration
by Pompey, see the note on the War, B. I. ch. 7. sect. 7.

[10] Dean Prideaux well observes, "That notwithstanding the clamor
against Gabinius at Rome, Josephus gives him a able character, as if
he had acquitted himself with honor in the charge committed to him" [in
Judea]. See at the year 55.

[11] This history is best illustrated by Dr. Hudson out of Livy, who
says that "A. Gabinius, the proconsul, restored Ptolemy of Pompey and
Gabinius against the Jews, while neither of them say any thing new which
is not in the other to his kingdom of Egypt, and ejected Archelaus, whom
they had set up for king," &c. See Prid. at the years 61 and 65.

[12] Dr. Hudson observes, that the name of this wife of Antipater in
Josephus was Cypros, as a Hebrew termination, but not Cypris, the Greek
name for Venus, as some critics were ready to correct it.

[13] Take Dr. Hud