The Destruction of the First Temple, 9 Av 3338

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.