Luke 21
AlfordLuke 21:1
- ἀναβλέψας] Our Lord as yet has been surrounded with His disciples (see ch. Luke 20:45), and speaking to them and the multitude. He now lifts up His eyes, and sees at a distance, &c.
πλουσ. belongs to τοὺςβάλ., and ὄντας is not to be supplied, nor a comma put after γαζ. It was not the rich only, which that would imply—but ὁὄχλος (Mark), who were casting gifts in.
Luke 21:4
- εἰςτὰδῶρ., among (into) the gifts; not quæ donarent (Beza), ‘as,’ or, ‘for, gifts,’ which would require the omission of the article:—nor so that τὰδῶρ. = τὸγαζ.
Luke 21:5
- Meyer has made the same mistake here, and spoken of the τινές as those to whom the discourse was delivered. The ἀναθήματα were many and precious. Tacitus, Hist. Luke 21:8, calls it immensæ opulentiæ templum: and Jos., B. J. ver. 5. 4, gives an account of the gilding, and golden vines (presented by Herod the Great) with bunches of grapes as large as a man, &c. in the temple: see also Antt. xv. 11. 3.
Luke 21:6
- ταῦταἃθ.,—absolute: see reff.
Luke 21:7
- That Luke’s account alone gives us no trace of a different scene or a different auditory, is a proof of its independence of the others; for how could any rational writer have omitted so interesting a matter of accurate detail, if he had been aware of it?
οὖν, on account of what our Lord had said, Luke 21:6.
Luke 21:8
- ὁκ. ἤγγ., i.e. the time of the Kingdom.
They are the words, not of our Lord, but of the πολλοί: see on Matthew 24:4-5.
Luke 21:10
- τότεἔλ. αὐτ. perhaps implies a break in the discourse which the other reports do not notice.
Luke 21:11
- ἀπʼ οὐρ. belongs to both φόβηθ. and σημ.: so does μεγάλα. φόβηθρα cannot stand alone, especially with τεκαί.
Luke 21:12
- Why the words πρὸδὲτ. π. should have made any difficulty, I am at a loss to imagine. The prophecies of Mat 24:7-8,—Mark 13:8,—and Luke 21:10-11 here,—are a parenthetical warning of what shall happen before the τέλος. And then having stated, ἀρχὴὠδίνωνταῦτα,—these things shall be the very beginning of the actual pangs themselves (see note on Matt.), the prophetic chronology is resumed from οὔπωτὸτέλος in all three accounts; here, by distinct statement, πρὸδὲτούτωνπάντων: in Mark by implication, βλέπετεδὲὑμ. ἑαυ. παρ. ὑμ., by which δέ, the following words are thrown back to the βλέπετε before:—in Matthew by the gathering up of the parenthetical announcements as πάνταταῦτα, and thus casting them off, as the ἀρχὴὠδίνων belonging to the τέλος, before the discourse proceeds with the τότε taken up from Luke 21:6. The whole difficulty has arisen from not rightly apprehending the force of ὠδίνων, as the death-throes of the end.
Luke 21:13
- εἰςμαρτ., viz. of your faithfulness, and (Mark) αὐτοῖς, ‘against them:’ the dativus incommodi.
Luke 21:15
- Luke only. ἀντειπ. corresponds to στόμα, ἀντιστ. to σοφία.
Luke 21:16
- καί—‘non modo ab alienis,’ Bengel.
θαν. ἐξὑμ., of the Apostles. One of the four who heard this discourse was put to death, Acts 12:2.
Luke 21:18
- Not literally, but really true; not corporeally, but in that real and only life which the disciple of Christ possesses.
Luke 21:19
- By your endurance (of all these things), ye shall acquire (not, possess, which is only the sense of the perf. κέκτημαι) your souls: this endurance being God’s appointed way, ἐν (in and by) which your salvation is to be put in your possession.
κτήσ. as εὑρήσει, Matthew 16:25—σῶσαι, ch. Luke 9:24.
Luke 21:20
- κυκλ., not circumdari, but participial, graphically setting forth the scene now before them, as it should then appear. On the variation of expression from Matt. and Mark, see note on Matthew 24:15.
Luke 21:21
- αὐτῆς belongs to the αὐτῆς of Luke 21:20, and signifies not Judæa, but Jerusalem.
ταῖςχώρ., the fields—not ‘the provinces:’ see reff.
Luke 21:22
- ἐκδικ., a hint perhaps at ch. Luke 18:8. The latter part of the verse alludes probably to the prophecy of Daniel, which Luke has omitted, but referred to in ἡἐρήμωσιςαὐτῆς, Luke 21:20.
Luke 21:23
- ἐπὶτ. γ., general; τῷλ. τούτῳ, particular. The distress on all the earth is not so distinctly the result of the divine anger, as that which shall befall this nation.
Luke 21:24
- A most important addition, serving to fix the meaning of the other two Evangelists,—see notes there,—and carrying on the prophetic announcements, past our own times, even close to the days of the end.
πεσοῦνται … αἰχμ., viz. this people.
ἔσταιπατ.] See Revelation 11:2. The present state of Jerusalem. Meyer maintains that the whole of this was to be consummated in the lifetime of the hearers, on account of the ἀνακύψατε, &c. Luke 21:28. What views of the discourses of our Lord must such an expositor have!
πληρ. καιροὶἐθν.] Who could suppose that καιροὶἐθνῶν should have been interpreted (by Meyer) the appointed time until the Gentiles shall have finished this judgment of wrath—to be ended by the παρουσία, within the lifetime of the hearers?
The καιρ. ἐθν. (see reff.) are the end of the Gentile dispensation,—just as the καιρός of Jerusalem was the end, fulfilment, of the Jewish dispensation:—the great rejection of the Lord by the Gentile world,—answering to its type, His rejection by the Jews,—being finished, the καιρός shall come, of which the destruction of Jerusalem was a type. καιροί = καιρός: no essential difference is to be insisted on. It is plural, because the ἔθνη are plural: each Gentile people having in turn its καιρός.
Luke 21:25-26
25, 26. The greater part of these signs are peculiar to Luke.
ἀπορίᾳἤχους, despair on account of the noise—so Herodian (see Me[109].) iv. 14. 1, ἐνἀπορίᾳ … τοῦπρακτέου. By no possibility can ἤχους be gen. after σημεῖα, as Wordsw.: the καί after ἄστροις having since its occurrence taken up a new subject in apposition.
[109] Meyer.
καί be[110]. σάλου—‘vocem angustiorem annectit latiori.’ Kypke, Observv. in loc.
[110] before.
The same may be said of the καί be[111]. προσδοκ. in Luke 21:26.
[111] before.
Luke 21:28
- ἀπολ., i.e. the completion of it by My appearing.
Luke 21:34
- ἑαυτοῖς and ὑμῶν are emphatic, recalling the thoughts to themselves, after the recounting of these outward signs.
Luke 21:35
- There is meaning in καθημ.,—sitting securely.
Luke 21:36
- σταθ., to be set, i.e. by the angels—see Matthew 24:31—before the glorified Son of Man.
Luke 21:37-38
37, 38. Peculiar to Luke. These verses close the scene of our Lord’s discourses in Jerusalem which began ch. Luke 20:1. It does not appear, as Meyer will have it, that Luke believed our Lord to have taught after this in the temple. Nothing is said to imply it—a general closing formula like this applies to what has been related.
Luke 21:38
- ὤρθρ. is literal,—not figurative, ‘came eagerly,’ as De Wette, &c. think, from several places in the LXX. There is no occasion for a figure here.
Luke relates nothing of any visits to Bethany. He has the name, incidentally only, in ch. Luke 19:29 and ch. Luke 24:50, where see note.
On the whole question regarding the history of the woman taken in adultery (see digest), compare notes, John 8:1 ff.