ere in a rage
at the injury that had been offered them by their exclusion out of the
city; and when they thought the zealots had been strong, but saw nothing
of theirs to support them, they were in doubt about the matter, and many
of them repented that they had come thither. But the shame that would
attend them in case they returned without doing any thing at all, so far
overcame that their repentance, that they lay all night before the wall,
though in a very bad encampment; for there broke out a prodigious storm
in the night, with the utmost violence, and very strong winds, with
the largest showers of rain, with continued lightnings, terrible
thunderings, and amazing concussions and bellowings of the earth, that
was in an earthquake. These things were a manifest indication that some
destruction was coming upon men, when the system of the world was
put into this disorder; and any one would guess that these wonders
foreshowed some grand calamities that were coming.

6. Now the opinion of the Idumeans and of the citizens was one 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
under