Tisha B’Av: On What Day Were the Jerusalem Temples Destroyed?

Tisha B’Av: A Terrible Day in Jewish Tradition

The 9th of Av is described in Rabbinic Jewish sources as the day on which both temples were destroyed. It has been observed as a day of fasting and mourning by Jews for millennia, and seems to have biblical roots going back to the Babylonian exile, since the early restoration period prophet Zechariah mentions “the fast of the 5th month (=Av)”^[1] among a group of four fasts, presumably mourning the destruction of Jerusalem, that will become celebrations in the redemptive future:

^{זכריה ח:יט} כֹּה אָמַר יְ־הוָה צְבָאוֹת צוֹם הָרְבִיעִי וְצוֹם הַחֲמִישִׁי וְצוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי וְצוֹם הָעֲשִׂירִי יִהְיֶה לְבֵית יְהוּדָה לְשָׂשׂוֹן וּלְשִׂמְחָה וּלְמֹעֲדִים טוֹבִים וְהָאֱמֶת וְהַשָּׁלוֹם אֱהָבוּ.

^{Zech 8:19} Thus said YHWH of Hosts: “The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the 5th month, the fast of the 7th month, and the fast of the 10th month shall become occasions for joy and gladness, happy festivals for the House of Judah; but you must love honesty and integrity.”

Zechariah never says what each of these fasts is for, or the day in the month that they are observed, but according to several Rabbinic traditions, noted below, this fast is on the 9th day of Av—Tisha B’Av.

A Providential Day

The Mishnah piles even more tragedies onto this date:

^{משנה תענית ד:ו} חמשה דברים אירעו את אבותינו בשבעה עשר בתמוז וחמשה בתשעה באב….

^{m. Ta’anit 4:6} Five events took place for our fathers on the 17^th of Tammuz^[2] and five on the 9^th of Av….

בתשעה באב:

On the 9^th of Av:

נגזר על אבותינו שלא יכנסו לארץ
וחרב הבית בראשונה
ובשניה
ונלכדה ביתר
ונחרשה העיר

Our ancestors were punished by being forbidden to enter the land [after the sin of the spies] (Num 14).
The First Temple was destroyed.
So too the Second [Temple].
Betar [Bar Kochba’s capital] was captured. The city [of Jerusalem] was plowed [by Hadrian to turn it into a pagan city].

Although the list presents disasters that occurred on this date, it is more likely that the rabbis are beginning with one well-known event and date and are piling these other events onto that date to express the divine providence behind it and show God’s hand in history as one who punishes Israel for their sins. As Numbers 14 offers no date at all for the story of the spies, and the final three tragedies all took place in the Second Temple period or later, the central event is likely the destruction of the First Temple, which was already mourned in exilic times during Av.

The Seder Olam Rabbah, an early rabbinic text that offers an overview of Jewish history, lists only the destruction of the two Temples, emphasizing how this day was providentially chosen for the destruction of the Second Temple to exactly match the First:

^{סדר עולם רבה פרק ל} היה ר’ יוסי או’ מגלגלין זכות ליום זכות וחובה ליום חובה. כשחרב הבית בראשונה אותו היום מוצאי שבת היה ומוצאי שביעי(ת) היתה, ומשמרתו של יהויריב היתה, ותשעה באב היה. וכן בשנייה.

^{Seder Olam Rabbah §30 (Milikovsky ed.)} R. Yossi would say: Merit is pushed off till a day of merit, and reckoning to a day of reckoning. When the First Temple was destroyed, it was the night after Shabbat, it and was the year after a Sabbatical year, and it was the service time of the Yehoyariv family, and it was the 9th of Av. The same is true of the Second [Temple’s destruction].^[3]

The point here is that not only did the dates match, but even the day of the week, the place of the year in the seven-year cycle, and the priestly family doing the service in the Temple for that week matched.

Moreover, the rabbis also seem to be working with a concept of “bad-luck” days. For example, without making it prohibited, the rabbis encourage the practice of not working on Tisha be’Av (m. Pesachim 4:5, b. Berakhot 17b). One comment in the Geonic period “small tractate” states:

^{דרך ארץ רבה, היוצא §י} העושה מלאכה בתשעה באב אינו רואה סימן ברכה לעולם.

^{Derekh Eretz (“HaYoetzei” §10)} One who does business on Tisha B’Av will never see any benefit from it.

The 16^th century law code, Shulḥan Arukh (OḤ 551:1), states explicitly that doing any work from the beginning of the month of Av until after Tisha B’Av is ריע מזליה “bad luck.”^[4] Many contemporary, Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews avoid travel or anything “dangerous” for the entire three-week period from the fast of the 17^th of Tammuz through the fast of Tisha b’Av, which is referred to as בין המיצרים “between the straights.”

The First Temple Destroyed: 7^th or 10^th

Even though Tisha B’Av ostensibly entered the Jewish calendar as the anniversary of the destruction of the First Temple, according to the Bible, this destruction did not occur on the 9^thof Av.

The destruction of the Temple is described in two parallel sources, 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52. Although identical in many other respects, these sources give contradictory dates for the Temple’s destruction, and neither mentions the 9^th of Av:

As these two sources are almost identical, it is likely that one copied from the other, or, what is more likely, both copied from a third source.^[5] Either way, the dates should be identical as well, and the fact that they are not is likely due to a copyist error. Since the text of Kings 25 is corrupt in a number of places, it seems that the text in Jeremiah better reflects the original.^[6]

In contrast to most manuscripts of the MT and standard recension of LXX, the BHS reports that two MT manuscripts and the Lucianic recension of the LXX all read 9th here instead of 7th. The same is true for the Syriac Peshitta. Nevertheless, this probably does not reflect an ancient variant, but rather corrections by Jewish scribes to fit what is reported in Kings with the rabbinic tradition about Tisha B’Av.

In addition to 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52, the destruction of the Temple is also described briefly in Jeremiah 39:8^[7]—though this is missing from the LXX—and in 2 Chronicles 36:17-19,^[8] but neither of these sources offers any date at all for the destruction, though the passage in Jeremiah does offer dates for other events leading up to the destruction.^[9]

Two Av Fast Days: The Karaite Practice

In keeping with their general approach of tailoring their practice to the biblical text, the Karaites accept both the text in Kings and the text in Jeremiah as authoritative, and keep two fasts in Av, one on the 7^th and one on the 10^th. This requires them to understand “the fast of the 5th month” in Zechariah as “the fasts of the 5th month.” Thus, the Karaite sage Aaron ben Elijah (ca. 1328-1369) in his halachic work, Gan Eden, writes:

^{גן עדן, הלכות יום כיפור פרק ה} והצום החמישי הוא חדש אב שנאמר בחדש החמישי בשבעה לחדש היא שנת תשע עשרה שנה למלך נבוכדנצר ובחדש זה עצמו נאמר ובעשור לחדש, ונראה כי בשביעי התחילו באשר סביבו ויום העשירי התחילו בבית עצמו, כי אחרי שני המאמרים אומר וישרוף את בית ה’. והנה צריך לצום אלה שני הימים.

^{Gan Eden, Laws of Yom Kippur ch. 5} “The fast of the 5th” (Zech 8:19) – this refers to the month of Av, as it says (2 Kings 25:8): “On the 7th day of the 5th month — that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar…” But regarding this same month, it says (Jer 52:12): “…on the 10th of the month…” It would seem that on the 7th of the month, they started [burning] the area surrounding it (the Temple), whereas on the 10th they burned the Temple itself, since both passages end with “and he burned the Temple of the Lord” (2 Kings 25:9, Jer 52:13). Thus, it is necessary to fast on both of these days.^[10]

This same interpretation appears in the Adderet Eliyahu of the Turkish Karaite scholar, Elijah Bashyazi (ca. 1420-1480),^[11] who adds:

^{אדרת אליהו הלכות יום כיפור פרק ג} וקצת מן החרדים על דבר ה’ המתאבלים על שבר ציון וירושלים מתענים ארבעה ימים בחדש החמישי שהם משבעה בו עד עשרה בו.

^{Adderet Eliyahu “Laws of Yom Kippur, ch. 3} Some of those who tremble (chareidim) about the word of God, who mourn for Zion and Jerusalem, fast for four days on the 5th month, from the 7th until the 10th.^[12]

This Karaite practice for the extra-pious, to fast a four-day fast, highlights the problem with the rabbinic practice, which seems to ignore both biblical dates for the destruction. In theory, the question should be whether to fast on the 7th, the 10th, or both – but why fast on the 9th?

Rabbinic Resolutions

The rabbis were well aware of this problem and searched in the biblical text for ways to defend the rabbinic practice.

A Three-Day Event: Babylonian Talmud

The Babylonian Talmud suggests the following:

^{בבלי תענית כט. (כ"י מינכן 140)} ותניא: אי איפשר לומ’ שבעה שכבר נאמ’ בעשרה, ואי איפשר לומ’ בעשרה שכבר נאמ’ בשבעה.

^{b. Ta’anit 29a (MS Munich 140)} It was taught: It is impossible to say “seven” because it already says “ten” (in Jer 52). It is impossible to say “ten” since it already says “seven” (in 2 Kings 25).

הא כאיצד? בשבעה בו נכנסו גוים להיכל ואכלו ושתו וקירקרו בו [שביעי] שמיני ותשיעי, עד שפנה היום, שנ’ אוי לנו כי פנה היום כי ינטו צללי ערב. לעיתותי ערב הציתו בו את האור ונשרף עם שקיעת החמה ובעשור לחדש.^[13]

How can this be? On the 7th of the month, the gentiles entered the Temple. They ate, and drank, and raised a riot on the [7th,] 8th, and 9th, until the day was about to end, as it says (Jer 6:4): “Alas for us! for day is declining, the shadows of evening grow long.” In the late afternoon, they lit flames within it, and it burned with the setting of the sun, and on the 10th of the month.^[14]

To support both dates in the biblical text, the rabbis imagine a four-day period extending from the 7th to the 10th in which the destruction occurred. Moreover, to ensure that the 9^th itself has significance, they claim that the Babylonians set the Temple aflame on the 9th, immediately before sunset, so that it burned on the 10th.

The Rabbis’ idea that the Temple was set aflame as the day was ending which offers a solution to the problem of 9th vs. 10th, was inspired by a verse in Jeremiah describing an attack upon Jerusalem in the night:

^{ירמיהו ו:ד} קַדְּשׁוּ עָלֶיהָ מִלְחָמָה קוּמוּ וְנַעֲלֶה בַצָּהֳרָיִם אוֹי לָנוּ כִּי פָנָה הַיּוֹם כִּי יִנָּטוּ צִלְלֵי עָרֶב. ^ו:ה קוּמוּ וְנַעֲלֶה בַלָּיְלָה וְנַשְׁחִיתָה אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ.

^{Jer 6:4} Prepare for battle against her: “Up! we will attack at noon.” “Alas for us! for day is declining, the shadows of evening grow long.” ^6:5 “Up! let us attack by night, And wreck her fortresses.”

Jeremiah doesn’t say here who the attackers are and what they will destroy, but as Jeremiah is the prophet who predicted Jerusalem’s destruction, the rabbis connect this verse to that event.

The Talmudic passage concludes, acknowledging that its interpretation is not straightforward:

^{בבלי תענית כט.} והינו דאמ’ רבן יוח’ בן זכאי: אלמלא הייתי באותו הדור לא קבעתיו אלא בעשירי. ורבנן: אתחלתא דפורענותא עיקר.

^{b. Ta’anit 29a} This is why R. Yohanan ben Zakkai said: “If only I had been around during that generation, I would have set [the fast] for the 10th.” The rabbis [believe however] that the beginning of an ordeal is its essence [and thus the fast is on the 9th].

In short, some Talmudic rabbis acknowledge the problem of the date of the fast.

The City Was Torn Apart on the 9^th: Tosefta

The Tosefta, which also has the midrash about the four-day revelry in the Temple, opens with something quite different:

^{תוספתא תענית ג:י (וינה)} אם נאמר בשבעה לחודש למה נאמר בתשעה לחדש, ואם נאמר בתשעה לחודש, למה נאמר בשבעה לחודש?

^{t. Ta’anit 3:10 (Vienna)} If it says the 7th of the month, why does it say the 9th of the month? If it says the 9th of the month, why does it say the 7th of the month?

This text is puzzling, since the formula למה נאמר, “why does it say,” should introduce a biblical citation, but no biblical verse suggests that the Temple was destroyed on the 9th! For this reason, many scholars, including Saul Lieberman in his Tosefta Ke-feshuta (ad loc.), assume that the text of the Tosefta in the Vienna MS is corrupt, and emend it to the 10^th, following the biblical text of Jeremiah and the version of the baraita in the Babylonian Talmud and Seder Olam.

Nevertheless, Bar Ilan University Professor of Talmud, Chaim Milikovsky, notes that on principle, lectio difficilior potior, the difficult text is often the correct one, especially since the 9^th appears three separate times in the most reliable manuscript of the Tosefta.^[15] He thus suggests that the Tosefta is getting the 9^th of the month from an earlier verse in Kings, which mentions that the city was breached on the 9^th without stating which month.

^{מלכים ב כה:ג} בְּתִשְׁעָה לַחֹדֶשׁ וַיֶּחֱזַק הָרָעָב בָּעִיר וְלֹא הָיָה לֶחֶם לְעַם הָאָרֶץ: ^כה:ד וַתִּבָּקַע הָעִיר…

^{2 Kgs 25:3} By the 9th day the famine had become acute in the city; there was no food left for the common people. ^25:4 Then the city was breached (or “torn apart”)…

The Tosefta understands וַתִּבָּקַע הָעִיר as Jerusalem was “torn apart,” and that this verse is describing what happened on the 9^th of Av, as this is the only month mentioned in the rest of the passage (v. 8).

The chapter, however, continues by describing what Nebuzaradan did on 7^th of Av, which includes burning the Temple, the palace and all the houses, and tearing down the wall (vv. 9-10). But this would be two days earlier. To make sense of this, the Tosefta assumes that the chapter is telling the story in reverse chronological order, beginning with the final destruction, and then going back to say that the process began on the 7^th.^[16]

The Tosefta’s reading of Kings is not a peshat reading. Instead, modern scholars assumes that 2 Kings contains a scribal error.^[17] Indeed, the full date is again preserved in Jeremiah:

^{ירמיה נב:ו} בַּחֹדֶשׁ הָרְבִיעִי בְּתִשְׁעָה לַחֹדֶשׁ וַיֶּחֱזַק הָרָעָב בָּעִיר וְלֹא הָיָה לֶחֶם לְעַם הָאָרֶץ. ^נב:ז וַתִּבָּקַע הָעִיר...

^{Jeremiah 52:6} By the 9th day of the fourth month, the famine had become acute in the city; there was no food left for the common people. ^52:7 Then the city was breached...

Jeremiah’s text makes much more sense, since the walls are breached in Tammuz, and the Temple is destroyed in Av. But the benefit of the Tosefta’s reading is that it places the rabbinic date, 9^th of Av, into the biblical text.

Both the Tosefta and the Talmud are picking up on real problems in the text, and using them to defend the rabbinic dating of the Temple’s destruction. In other words, these midrashim are are post-hoc explanations for an already existing date, aimed at explaining why Rabbinic Jews mourn the loss of the Temple on the 9^th of Av, given the biblical evidence for a different date.

When Was the Second Temple Destroyed?

I suggest that the tradition that the First Temple was destroyed on the 9^th of Av is secondary, based on the date of the destruction of the Second Temple. The original date of this fast on the 10^th, as per Jeremiah, was adjusted so that a single fast could commemorate the destruction of both temples.

Precedent for this slight adjustment of dates from the destruction of the First Temple to agree with the destruction of the Second is found in the fast on the 17^th of Tammuz. In this case, the biblical sources (Jer 39:2, 52:6, and 2 Kings 25:3 [month reconstructed]) agree that the Babylonians breached the walls on the 9^th, and yet the fast is on the 17^th because that is when the Romans breached the walls before destroying the Second Temple (b. Ta’anit 28b).^[18]

The Second Temple: Also Destroyed on the 10th?

Josephus writes that the Second Temple was destroyed on the 10^th of Av:

^{Judean War 6:250} But as for that house, God had, for certain, long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of ages; it was the 10th day of the month Lous, [Macedonian for Ab,] upon which it was formerly burnt by the king of Babylon;

He returns to this point later in this same passage, and, like the Mishnah, notes that the 10^th of Av must be a fateful day, since both Temples were destroyed on it:

^{Judean War 6:267} Now although any one would justly lament the destruction of such a work as this was, since it was the most admirable of all the works that we have seen or heard of, both for its curious structure and its magnitude, and also for the vast wealth bestowed upon it, as well as for the glorious reputation it had for its holiness; yet might such a one comfort himself with this thought, that it was fate that decreed it so to be, which is inevitable, both as to living creatures, and as to works and places also. ^6:268 However, one cannot but wonder at the accuracy of this period thereto relating; for the same month and day were now observed, as I said before, wherein the holy house was burnt formerly by the Babylonians.

In short, Josephus here is clear: both Temples were destroyed on the 10th of Av.

Adjusting Dates

I believe that Josephus may have adjusted the date of the destruction of the Second Temple forward a day to agree with the biblical date of the destruction of the First.^[19] Like the rabbis, he was interested in showing that this destruction was providential, perhaps because he sided with the Romans and wished to show that God too sided with them.^[20] Thus, counterintuitively, it may be that the date of the destruction of the Second Temple was correctly preserved not in Josephus—a source contemporaneous with the events themselves—but in the lived practice of rabbinic Judaism.

Fateful Days