32. Does the word order in Jesus’ illustration mean that the king delayed further marriage feast arrangements until after he had the city of those “invited” destroyed?

³² From the above word order of Jesus in setting out the details of the illustration, we are not to understand that, before the king paid any further attention to the marriage feast, he ordered out his armies for active service and sent them against the city where unappreciative “invited” ones lived and “destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” Otherwise, it would mean that the heavenly King, Jehovah God, did not send out his slaves to gather in people indiscriminately to the wedding feast until late in the year 70 of our Common Era, for it was in the summer of that year that Jerusalem was razed to the ground by the Romans under General Titus the son of Emperor Vespasian. Then, indeed, those “murderers” were killed. As reported by Flavius Josephus, 1,100,000 Jews perished in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and 97,000 were carried away captive to be disposed of as slaves.​—Luke 21:20-24; 19:41-44.

1. (a) How did “those invited” to the marriage feast show that they were “unworthy”? (b) What would it have meant for them to leave their selfish materialistic interests?

WHY did the killing of the antichristian “murderers” at the destruction of their holy city, Jerusalem, and the breaking up of their Jewish nationhood in the year 70 C.E. occur? It was because, as the king in Jesus’ illustration said, those invited to the marriage feast “were not worthy.” (Matt. 22:8) The Jews had proved this by their insulting, disrespectful, disloyal, often violent refusal to act on the heavenly King’s invitation after the second notification from Him. What would it have meant for them to leave their selfish materialistic concerns and come to the spiritual “marriage feast”? It would have meant to repent, not only of their falling short in keeping the Mosaic Law covenant, but also of their violent rejection of the Messiah from God and then to get baptized in water as disciples of Jesus as their Messiah. But they were too proud, too self-righteous, too occupied with their own plans, and so balked against meeting such requirements. This was the case with the nation of Israel in general.