Matthew 24

M. 1 And Jesus departed from the temple: and as he went out, his disciples came to him to shew him the buildings of the temple. And some spake how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts; and one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here! And Jesus answering said unto them, See ye not all these great buildings? Verily I say unto you, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, over against the temple, the disciples Peter and James and John and Andrew came unto him privately, and asked him, saying, Master, tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and 4 of the end of the world, when all these things shall be fulfilled? And Jesus answered 5 and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many: and the time draweth near; go ye 6 not therefore after them. And ye shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars. But when ye shall hear of wars, and commotions, see that ye be not terrified, and troubled: for 7 all these things must first come to pass; but the end is not yet. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and great earthquakes shall be in divers places; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and troubles; and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from heaven. These are the beginnings of sorrows.

Mk. 9 But take heed to yourselves; for before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, and deliver you up to councils, and to the synagogues, and into prisons, to be afflicted; and in the synagogues, ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake; and they shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony against them. 11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, settle it therefore in your hearts, and take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither premeditate what ye shall answer: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye L. 15 that speak, but the Holy Ghost. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. M. 10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one Mk. 12 another. The brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. L. 16 And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends. 18, 19 But there shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls. M. 11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity 12, 13 shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, 14 the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall first be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

THE developments of Divine Providence filled up the outline of the Divine Word, and no man with the Word of God in one hand and the history of the Jews in the other can fail to see a most minute and perfect correspondence between the two. And so long as the world reads the words of Jesus, and beholds those words fulfilled in Jerusalem still trodden down of the Gentiles, and in the Jews still scattered and homeless among the nations, it has an argument for the infallibility of the founder of Christianity, and for the truth of the religion proceeding forth from him and his teaching, which nothing can gainsay or resist. Out of the dust and ashes of the Holy City, for eighteen hundred years, has risen a voice in attestation of the Messiahship of him who was crucified without her walls; and the people who denied the Holy One and the Just, in all their dispersion, have, for an equal period, been proclaiming him their true though rejected Lord. H. S. Kelsey.

M. 1. As he withdrew, the gracious presence of God left the sanctuary; and the temple, with all its service, and the whole theocratic constitution, was given over to destruction. B.—To shew him the buildings of the temple. That is, to draw his attention to the magnitude, the splendor, the apparent solidity and stability of that magnificent structure. P.—One of them was eager to call his attention to its goodly stones and splendid offerings—those nine gates overlaid with gold and silver, and the one of solid Corinthian brass yet more precious; those graceful and towering porches; those double cloisters and stately pillars; that lavish adornment of sculpture and arabesque; those alternate blocks of red and white marble, recalling the crest and hollow of the sea-waves. 2. To him the sole beauty of a temple was the sincerity of its worshippers, and no gold or marble, no delicate sculpturing or votive gems, could change for him a den of robbers into a house of prayer. The builders were still busily at work, as they had been for nearly fifty years, but their work, unblessed of God, was destined to be destroyed before it was finished. Briefly and almost sternly Jesus answered, as he turned away from the glittering spectacle, “Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another which shall not be thrown down.” F.

Josephus tells us that Titus having held a council of his generals, who were for burning the temple, declared that he would by all means save that edifice, as an ornament to the empire. But one greater than Titus had determined and declared that it should be destroyed. Accordingly the soldiers burnt it without paying any regard to his orders. M.—There was scarcely anything more remarkable in this celebrated temple than the stupendous size of the stones of which it was constructed. In the superstructure there were stones of the whitest marble, upward of sixty-seven feet long, more than seven feet high, and nine broad. This circumstance gives peculiar force to our Saviour’s prediction here, which was fulfilled almost in a literal sense. For when the Romans had taken Jerusalem, Titus ordered his soldiers to dig up the foundations both of the city and of the temple. The Jewish writers themselves acknowledge that Terentius Rufus, who was left to command the army, tore up with a ploughshare the foundations of the temple, hereby fulfilling the prophecy of Micah, chap. 3 : 12. P.—Titus himself was amazed at the massive structures of Jerusalem, and saw in his conquest of it the hand of God. Thirty-five years afterward that temple sank into the ashes of its destruction; neither Hadrian, nor Julian, nor any other, were able to build upon its site; and now that very site is a matter of uncertainty. F.—Inasmuch as we are now under a dispensation of forbearance, the thunders of God go softly over the earth: and so gentle is their voice that the ears of most men hear them not. But the downfall of Jerusalem is a gracious admonitory sign written on the page of history, that there is a righteousness of God, which, although it may long retain its thunder, will in the end let it fall, certainly, irresistibly fall, upon the head of the guilty. A. T.

3. Many questions as to the time, the manner, the causes, the consequences of it, would at once arise to trouble the disciples’ mind. Their Master, however, is already on his way to the gate which leads out to Bethany, and they follow. Silent all and thoughtful they follow him; they descend into the valley of Jehoshaphat, cross the Kedron, begin the ascent of Olivet, have reached a height which commands the city, where Jesus pauses and sits down—as that accurate narrator Mark informs us, “over against the temple.” H.—Jesus paused before passing the ridge of Olivet, and sat down with his disciples, to look back upon Jerusalem for the last time. The sun was setting, and the whole city, with the surrounding valleys and hill-sides alive with the camps of pilgrims, lay beneath him in the evening light. The history of a thousand years, the divine oracles speaking by a thousand voices, the monuments of prophets, patriarchs, and kings, the visitations of angels, miraculous interpositions in judgment and in blessing, from the offering of Isaac and the building of the temple, were present to him, as he looked upon Moriah and Zion, and heard the murmur and the evening songs of a million people gathered within and around the walls of the holy city. Nowhere on earth was it possible to find another scene of such commanding interest as that which lay before the eye of Jesus, when he turned to look upon Jerusalem for the last time. March.

It is impossible to conceive a spectacle of greater natural or moral sublimity than the Saviour seated on the slope of the Mount of Olives, looking down almost for the last time on the whole temple and city of Jerusalem, crowded as it then was with near three millions of worshippers. It was evening, and the whole irregular outline of the city, rising from the deep glens which encircled it on all sides, might be distinctly traced. The sun, the significant emblem of the great Fountain of moral light to which Jesus and his faith had been perpetually compared, may be imagined sinking behind the western hills, while its last rays might linger on the broad massy fortifications on Mount Zion, on the stately palace of Herod, on the square tower Antonia at the corner of the temple, and on the roof of the temple fretted all over with golden spikes which glittered like fire; while below, the colonnades and lofty gates would cast their broad shadows over the courts, and afford that striking contrast between vast masses of gloom and gleams of the richest light, which only such an evening scene can display. Nor, indeed (even without the sacred and solemn associations connected with the holy city), would it be easy to conceive any natural situation in the world of more impressive grandeur than that of Jerusalem, seated upon hills of irregular height, intersected by bold ravines, and hemmed in almost on all sides by still loftier mountains; and itself formed in its most conspicuous parts of gorgeous ranges of Eastern architecture, in all its lightness, luxuriance, and variety. The effect may have been heightened by the rising of the slow volumes of smoke from the evening sacrifices, while, even at the distance of the slope of Mount Olivet, the silence may have been faintly broken by the hymns of the worshippers. H. M.

The quiet spot, the evening hour, the serene attitude, his words so lately spoken, all conspire to draw the disciples’ thoughts upon the dark and doubtful future. H.—When shall these things . . . and what the sign? The double question of the disciples—first, respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, and especially the time when it was to happen, and second, respecting the signs of his advent, and of the end of the world—required a double answer; the two parts referring each to one of two events. C. B.—Our Lord’s answer to these questions was framed to afford all the information needful to them, or useful for their guidance, but little to gratify a vague curiosity. Neither did he answer their questions categorically, but so intermingled his replies that it required after-knowledge and experience to discriminate more than was actually needful for their safety and warning to know. We can now distinguish that he spoke of his coming, not personally, but by the fulfilment of his predictions concerning Jerusalem, and for the final uprooting of that theocracy which had become obstructive to the progress of the gospel; and again of his final coming to judge the world, of which also they inquired. Much that our Lord said might be applicable to both these great events—both these “comings,” being in fact comings to judgment; but toward the close, his language grew more distinctly applicable to his final coming to judge the world. K.—Many generations before, the prophet Zechariah, foretelling the final coming and judgment, for which the world is still looking, saw the curtain lifted, and wrote thus: “His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east.” Now, in most unforeseen coincidence, as the evening shadows gather, the Messiah, standing on that very spot of Olivet, declares to the ages that one solemn prediction which should always keep them in expectation of his reappearing, ending, “Then shall they see the Son of man coming with power and great glory; and he shall send his angels, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” F. D. H.

Josephus furnishes the best commentary on this chapter. It is a wonderful instance of the care of Providence for the Christian Church, that Josephus, an eye-witness of so great credit, should be preserved to transmit a collection of facts which exactly illustrate this prophecy in almost every circumstance. D.—6-8. First come “wars, commotions, rumors of wars; nation set against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:” and the whole East was in a ferment, and Judea in open insurrection, while the armies of Spain and Gaul and Germany, Illyricum and Syria, converged upon Italy, to decide who should succeed to Nero’s purple. The throes of inanimate nature seemed to sympathize with the travail of the world—and the histories of the age are full of “famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places.” “Fearful sights and great signs from heaven” appeared to mark the very spot at which the great judgment was to descend—a comet shaped like a scimitar hung over the devoted city during the whole year before the war. Other portents are recorded, in the very exaggeration of which we trace how “men’s hearts failed them for fear, and for looking after those things which were coming on the earth”—an agitation which found a voice for several successive years in the monotonous cry of the fanatic, Jesus the son of Ananus, “Woe! woe to Jerusalem! Woe! woe to the city and to the temple.” “All these were the beginning of sorrows.” S.

Mk. 9. Every circumstance here mentioned was minutely verified, as appears in the Acts of the Apostles. Their lives were one continued experience of persecution of every kind. They were imprisoned, beaten, brought before councils and kings; many were put to death, were hated of all nations for the sake of Christ; that is, for being called by his name. The very name of Christian exposed them to every species of indignity and cruelty. P.—How fully these particulars were accomplished, we learn also from the Roman historians, Tacitus and Suetonius. M.—It shall turn to you for a testimony. God will turn all this to your advantage and his glory. For, by these means, your innocence and sincerity, and their malice, will be made manifest; the doctrine of the gospel will be more inquired into, and more effectually published to the world, and the truth of it more firmly established. S. C.—This and the succeeding verses indicate four dangers which will assail the Church: persecution from without; apostasy, schism, and controversy from within; false doctrine; and worldliness and consequent backsliding. Each of these dangers came in a small measure upon the Apostolic Church before the destruction of Jerusalem. And in the subsequent history of the Christian Church the reader must look for a larger fulfilment. L. A.

M. 14. Shall be preached in all the world. The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy we learn chiefly from the writings of the New Testament, which inform us that the gospel was preached by Paul in Arabia, and through the vast tract from Jerusalem to Iconium in Lycaonia, and in Galatia, and through all Asia Minor, and in Greece, and round about to Illyricum, and in Crete, and Italy, probably also in Spain and Gaul. Besides, we find him writing to Christians who had never seen his face. Also we have Peter’s epistles to the converted Jews in Pontus, Asia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia. Probably the gospel was preached in these and many other countries, by the Jews who sojourned there, and who, having come up to Jerusalem to the Passover, were converted on the day of Pentecost. The Ethiopian eunuch, converted by Philip, would carry it likewise into his country. But whatever way it happened, the fact is certain, that in most of these countries churches were planted within thirty years after Christ’s death, or about ten years before the destruction of Jerusalem. Hence we find the apostle telling the Romans (10 : 18), that the sound of the preachers of the gospel had gone forth into all the world, and their word to the end of the earth. Hence likewise he tells the Church at Col. 1 : 6, 23, that the truth of the gospel was come not to them only but to all the world, being preached to every creature. The preaching of the gospel through the whole world by twelve illiterate fishermen, and the destruction of Jerusalem, were events extremely improbable, and therefore the prediction and accomplishment of them deserve to be particularly taken notice of. M.—It appears from credible records, that the gospel was preached in Idumea, Syria, and Mesopotamia, by Jude; in Egypt, Marmorica, Mauritania, and other parts of Africa, by Mark, Simon, and Jude; in Ethiopia, by Candace’s eunuch, and Matthias; in Pontus, Galatia, and the neighboring parts of Asia, by Peter; in the territories of the seven Asiatic churches, by John; in Parthia, by Matthew; in Scythia, by Philip and Andrew; in the northern and western parts of Asia, by Bartholomew; in Persia, by Simon and Jude; in Media, Carmania, and several eastern parts, by Thomas; through the vast tract from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum, by Paul; as also in Italy, and probably in Spain and Gaul; in most of which places Christian churches were planted in less than thirty years after the death of Christ, which was before the destruction of Jerusalem. D.

And then shall the end come. The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy we learn from Josephus, who wrote seven books of the wars of the Jews, wherein he described with great exactness this scene of desolation in all its dreadful circumstances; and by a variety of dates showed that it happened about forty years after our Lord’s death, consequently immediately after the gospel was preached through the whole Roman Empire. M.—God never sends judgment without previous warning; and there can be no doubt that the Jews, already dispersed over most known countries, had nearly all heard the gospel “as a witness,” before the end of the Jewish state. The same principle was repeated and will repeat itself to the end. B.

Section 131.—Signs of Coming Destruction.

Mount of Olives.

L. 20 AND when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing, where it ought not, in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. And let him which is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter to take any thing out of his house; neither let him that is in the field turn back again to take up his garment. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath-day. 19 For in those days shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, no, nor ever shall be. For there shall be great distress in the land, affliction and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And except that the Lord had shortened those days, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, those days shall be shortened. 21 And then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders: insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. 23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. 29 But immediately after the tribulation of those days, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars. The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven; and upon the earth shall be distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the 30 powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of 31 man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And then shall he send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of hea- L. 28 ven. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads: for your redemption draweth nigh. 29 And he spake to them, saying, Now learn a parable of the fig-tree, and all the trees: 30 When the branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye see and know of your own 31 selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand, even at the 32 doors. Verily I say unto you, That this generation shall not pass away, till all these 33 things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass Mk. 32 away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but my Father only.

THE destruction of Jerusalem may well be called the coming of the Son of man, not only in just judgment upon those who had rejected him; not only as a sovereign visits with desolation a rebellious province that has refused all offers of mercy: but as the completion of the first great step in the establishment of his kingdom upon earth. And since this is the most momentous revolutionary epoch in the religious history of the world, that ever was or that ever shall be, it is fitly made, in the rest of the discourse, the type of the “coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” to destroy all that is earthly and corrupt in the Church and world, to “gather his elect from the four winds of heaven,” to judge the quick and the dead, and to establish his everlasting kingdom. S.

It was far from Christ’s intention to give them a complete view of the development of the kingdom of God up to its final consummation. He imparted only so much as was necessary to guard them against deception, to stimulate their watchfulness, and confirm their confidence that the end would come at last. Much, indeed, was at that time beyond their comprehension, and could only be made clear by the enlightening influence of the Spirit, and by the progress of events. N.

L. 20. We know that two years before the city was invested by Vespasian, a Roman army under Cestius Gallus approached and invested it. It strangely enough happened that as Titus surprised the city at the time of the Passover, Cestius surprised it during the feast of Tabernacles, when all the male population of Judea was collected in the capital. As the Hebrew converts to Christianity continued to observe the greater ceremonies of their ancient faith up to the time of the fall of Jerusalem, they too would be there along with the rest. They would see Jerusalem compassed with armies, and would know that the time for their flight had come. H.

M. 15. Abomination of desolation. Before the foundations of the second temple were laid, the prophet Daniel had predicted its desolation by the overspreading (or siege) of abominations, as an event following the cutting off of the Messiah. That word abomination had a definite sense to a Jewish ear, denoting the objects of heathen worship. S. —It is clear that “the abomination of desolation” denotes the Roman army which besieged Jerusalem, and which Daniel, in the place here alluded to, calls “the abomination that maketh desolate.” The Roman army is here called an abomination, because upon its standards were depicted the images of their emperor and the tutelary gods whom they worshipped; and idols were held by the Jews in the utmost abhorrence, and called by the very name here used, “an abomination.” The word “desolation” is added because this mighty army brought ruin and desolation on Jerusalem. This city, and the mountain on which it stood, and a circuit of several furlongs around it, were accounted holy ground; and, as the Roman standards were planted in the most conspicuous places near the fortifications of the city, they are here said to stand in “the holy place.” P.

16. The admonition to “them who were in the midst of Jerusalem to depart out” shows that the “encompassing with armies” here spoken of was such as in the end would permit the inhabitants to flee out of the city. Cestius Gallus in the beginning of the war invested Jerusalem, and took the lower town, Bezetha. Josephus says, “If he had continued the siege but a little longer, he would have taken the city. But Cestius removed his army; and having received no loss, unadvisedly departed from the city.” In this manner the providence of God verified the prophecy of Christ, and interposed for the deliverance of the disciples. Josephus further tells us that, “immediately after Cestius’s departure, many of the Jews daily fled from the city, as from a sinking ship.” Among these were many Christians, who, remembering this admonition of the Master, foresaw what was to happen. M.—By such warnings the Christians were preserved. Before John of Giscala had shut the gates of Jerusalem, and Simon of Gerasa had begun to murder the fugitives, so that “he who escaped the tyrant within the wall was destroyed by the other that lay before the gates”—before the Roman eagle waved her wing over the doomed city, or the infamies of lust and murder had driven every worshipper in horror from the temple courts—the Christians had taken timely warning. F.—Taking advantage of the space before the siege was formed by Titus, they departed in a body to Pella, a village beyond Jordan, which became the seat of the “Church of Jerusalem” till Hadrian permitted their return. S.

Mk. 18. The siege by Cestius, sent as a warning to them as the after-siege was sent as a punishment to their unbelieving countrymen, occurred in the month of October. Their flight, therefore, was not in the winter. It has been proved that the day on which Cestius, in a panic which never could be accounted for, suddenly called off his troops and retreated from the city, was a Tuesday. Their flight, therefore, was not upon the Sabbath. H.—At the beginning of A. D. 70, when Titus made his appearance, the zealots themselves were divided into two parties: that of John of Giscala and Eleazar, who held the temple and its courts and the Antonia—8,400 men; that of Simon Bar-Gioras, whose headquarters were in the tower Phasaëlus, and who held the upper city, the lower city in the valley, and the district where the old acra had formerly stood, north of the temple—10,000 men and 5,000 Idumeans: in all a force of between 23,000 and 24,000 soldiers, trained in the civil encounters of the last two years to great skill and thorough recklessness. S.

19. Tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world. Whoever will turn to the history of this war by Josephus, and there read the detail of the horrible and almost incredible calamities endured by the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the siege, not only from the fire and sword of the enemies without, but from famine and pestilence, and continual massacres and murders from the fiend-like fury of the seditious zealots within, will be convinced that the very strong terms used by our Lord do not go beyond the truth. Indeed Josephus himself says: “No other city ever suffered such miseries, nor did any age, from the beginning of the world, ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was.” And again: “If the miseries of all mankind from the creation were compared with those which the Jews then suffered, they would appear inferior.” The prediction of our Lord, and the accomplishment of it as described by the historian, are exact counterparts of each other, and seem almost to have been written by the same person. Yet Josephus was not born till after our Saviour was crucified; and he was not a Christian, but a Jew. P.—Our Lord wept at the foresight of these calamities; and no humane person can read the relation of them in Josephus, without weeping also. These were the days in which all the calamities predicted by Moses, Joel, Daniel, and other prophets, as well as those foretold by our Saviour, met in one common centre, and were fulfilled in the most terrible manner on that generation. G. T.

L. 24. Captive into all nations. The number of those who perished by sword and famine is stated by Josephus to have been not less than 1,100,000. The number of those that were made captive was 97,000, who were subjected to every kind of cruel treatment, being either sold, or dispersed through the provinces of the Roman Empire, to be torn to pieces by wild beasts. Hammond.—The falling by the edge of the sword is not to be confined to what happened at the siege. It comprehended all the slaughters that were made of the Jews in the different battles, and sieges, and massacres, both in their own land and out of it, during the whole course of the war—such as at Alexandria, where 50,000 perished; at Cesarea, 10,000; at Scythopolis, 13,000; at Damascus, 10,000; at Ascalon, 10,000; at Apheck, 15,000; upon Gerizim, 11,000; and at Jotapata, 30,000. And thus was verified what our Lord told his disciples, that wherever the carcass was, there the eagles should be gathered together. M.

Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles. After the Jews were almost utterly destroyed by death and captivity, Vespasian commanded the whole land of Judea to be sold. Jerusalem in particular, with its territory, becoming Vespasian’s property, was sold to such Gentiles as chose to settle there. M.—And Jerusalem has never since been in the possession of the Jews. It was first in subjection to the Romans, afterward to the Saracens, then to the Franks, next to the Mamelukes, and now to the Turks. Thus has the prophecy of Christ been most literally and terribly fulfilled, on a people who are still preserved, as continued monuments of the truth of our Lord’s prediction, and of the truth of the Christian religion. G. T.—Palestine was the cradle of the gospel; the Jews the people first divinely appointed to expound it. The destruction—never to be repaired—of their material temple cut the cords which bound the new faith to its local habitation, and launched it, under the hand of Providence, on its career of spiritual conquest. H. M.—While every dispersed people mentioned in history has been swallowed up of the nations among whom they were dispersed, without leaving the smallest trace of their ever having existed, the Jews continue, after so many ages, a distinct people in their dispersion. In all countries, by openly separating from the nations who rule them, they have subjected themselves to hatred and derision; nay, they have exposed themselves to death, by bearing about with them the outward marks of their descent. By this unexampled constancy they have preserved themselves a distinct people everywhere. But of this constancy can any better account be given than that it is the means by which God verifies the prediction of his Son? He has declared that when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, the Jews shall be converted; and therefore, through the whole course of their dispersion, they must continue a distinct people. If the hand of Providence is not visible in these things, I cannot tell where it will be found. M.

Until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. The meaning, in the light of Rom. 11 : 12, 15, is this: Jerusalem shall lie waste until the full completion of the number of converts to Christianity which was to result from the downfall of Judaism, and the universal proffer of the gospel resulting therefrom. J. J. O.—Till the Gentiles have had their full time of that place in the Church which the Jews in their time had before them—after which, the Jews being again “graffed into their own olive-tree,” one Church of Jew and Gentile together shall fill the earth. B.—On any theory of prophetic interpretation, it appears highly probable that in the progress of Christianity, Palestine, no longer under the misrule of barbarians and the blight of false religion, shall become a goodly land, its cities be rebuilt, and a large portion—if not the whole body—of the Jewish people be found in the old home of their fathers, honored amid the family of nations, in proportion as through the ages they have been so generally despised. N. C. B.

Mk. 22. There shall arise false Christs. Our Lord had already cautioned his disciples against believing the false Christs and false prophets who would appear before the siege; and he now warns them against those that would rise up during the siege. This, as Josephus tells us, they did in great abundance, and flattered the Jews with the hope of seeing their Messiah coming with great power, to rescue them from the Romans. And they pretended to show “signs and wonders;” the very words used by that historian as well as by our Lord. P.

M. 28. The eagles be gathered. The meaning is, that as the eagles collect together wherever they find their prey, so shall the Roman armies follow the call of divine vengeance. It is a beautiful allusion to the eagles of the Roman standards. Newcome.

29. The sun shall be darkened, etc.** These which follow are strong figurative expressions, denoting that the Jewish state should be utterly destroyed. By similar figures we frequently find described in Scripture an utter desolation, and terrible destruction brought upon nations and capital cities. So Isaiah of Babylon, chapter 13; and of the Idumeans, chapter 34; and Ezekiel of Egypt, chapter 32. Whitby.—The desolation and calamity here spoken of may be most appropriately referred to the overthrow and complete extirpation of the Jewish people fifty years later under Adrian; when they were sold as slaves, and utterly driven out from the land of their fathers. This was the final war and catastrophe of the Jewish nation under the celebrated and mysterious Bar-Cochba, “Son of a Star.” The figurative language of these verses (Matt. 24 : 29–31, etc.) is similar to that of many passages in the Old Testament, which refer to civil commotions and historical events, of far less importance than the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish state. R.

30. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man.** The Jews many times asked for a sign; now a sign will appear, that he is the true Messiah whom they despised, derided, crucified. He shall give proof of himself, not indeed in any visible form, but in vengeance and judgment, so visible that all the tribes of the earth shall be forced to acknowledge him the avenger. J. L.

Mk. 32. Of that day and hour knoweth no man. This ignorance is made by Christ an argument for watchfulness, as if any day might prove “the day,” and any hour “the hour.” The attitude of faith is that of listening for the footfalls of an approaching Redeemer. Christians are described as those who “are waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” They are “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” It is the obedience of faith, neither to postpone the second advent to a distant future, nor to say that it has actually come, or is coming at a specified date. The Christian should always associate the future with the coming of his Lord, his actual and visible coming, or some spiritual preparation for it. To his believing outlook every event has something to do with him, and may be a precursor of the advent. It is more in accordance with Christian believing and living, to think of the coming of Christ, than of the coming of death. W. I. B.

Not the angels. Here the Son of God is contrasted both with men and angels. Whoever the Son was, he was distinct from men, and above the angels, being clearly contrasted with both, not here in respect of knowledge, but in degree as being. The gradation is, “no man,” “no angel,” not even the Son. J. P. T.—That day knoweth neither the Son. Christ does not know it as man, and it is not his office to declare it as the Son of God. By saying that the angels do not know it, he checked the disciples from desiring to know it. The times and seasons are in the Father’s own power, and they are not therefore for the Son to reveal. It is in this sense only that he says that they are not known by him. W.—The Son here is Christ, considered as the Son of man, as the prophet sent into the world to reveal his Father’s will; not as delivering to the world what he as “the Word” knew, but, according to his frequent declarations concerning himself, what the Father which sent him gave him commandment to say. Whitby.

What was wanted was a Saviour coming forth out of the Godhead, “very God of very God,” at once divine in his nature and human in his sympathies, to restore, to redeem, to rescue man from himself—to heal a fatal alienation, to put lost man and the Holy Father at one again. Who else but God manifest in human flesh was competent to this? While accomplishing it, is it very strange that he should sometimes speak of himself, in this condescending and peculiar office, as unable to know or to do certain things as of himself without the Father, with whom he ever dwells in perfect oneness, each in each; or that in this human sojourn he should declare himself dependent on that whole and undivided Deity, that entireness of the Godhead, from which he came forth into the world? For that also, and for all the blessed spiritual comfort, light, strength, hope, assurance, promise, salvation, it gives us, let us be humbly and most devoutly thankful. And let us look reverently up to that Lord and Redeemer who in the beginning “was God”—who left the Father’s bosom for our deliverance from the law of sin and death—who hath ascended up where he was before—who has put it past all doubt or question that he and his Father are one, and who with that Father reigns in consubstantial glory, ever one God, world without end. F. D. H.

Section 132.—Transition to His Final Coming. “Watch!”

Mount of Olives.

L. 34 AND take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. 35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. But M. 37 as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the 38 days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in 39 marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood 40 came, and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then 41 shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left: two women shall L. 36 be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Take ye heed; watch therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. For ye know not M. 43 what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would 44 not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as you think not the Son of man cometh Mk. 34 For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to

M. 45 watch. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over 46 his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his 47 lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that he shall make 48 him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My 49 lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and 50 drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh 51 not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of; and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mk.35 Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, 36 or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly, he 37 find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.

CONCERNING that great and notable day of which he here spoke, two facts only he announces—the certainty of its coming, and its suddenness. The element of uncertainty in death, in the second advent of Christ, in the day of judgment, is intended, not to excite the imagination to curiosity, but to arouse the conscience to vigilance, and the heart to fidelity. “It is the fundamental law of watchfulness to be always watching.” Yet the watching is not to be that of anxious waiting, but of faithful doing. Men steeped in worldliness are heedless of death and the judgment to come. They lose the thought of conse- quences, and grow reckless and unscrupulous as to the methods by which they gratify their desires. But the servant of Christ holds everything in trust for his Lord, and uses time, talents, means, life itself, for his glory. Such fidelity to trust shall be rewarded with confidence and honor from his Lord. But sad and hopeless shall be the doom of such as waste life’s opportunities, and live only for self and sin. J. P. T.

M. 37-39. As in the times of Noah, men and women shall be employed in their ordinary work. These verses show us that to the last the elect of God will be mingled in companionship and partner- ship with the children of this world. They also confirm, by his mouth who is truth itself, the his- toric reality of the flood of Noah. A.

41. Two women shall be grinding. At Nazareth, we beheld two women grinding at the mill, preparing flour to make bread. Seated on the ground, they held between them two round flat stones. In the centre of the upper stone was a cavity for pouring in the corn, and by the side of this an upright wooden handle for moving the stone. As the operation began, one of the women, with her right hand, pushed this handle to the woman opposite, who again sent it to her companion, thus communicating a rotatory and very rapid motion to the upper stone; their left hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the ma- chine. E. D. Clarke, 1801.—In the village of Siloam, we heard a sound from one of the houses, which we guessed to be that of a hand-mill on which corn was being ground for the afternoon’s meal. We entered and found a young woman seated on the earthen floor, and busily at work with her mill. In- terpreting our wishes, she took off the upper circular stone, showed us the iron pivot in the lower stone on which it revolved, and also the hollow slant by which the meal escaped after it was ground. As we were examining it, a second girl entered, and sit- ting down on the opposite side, and laying hold of the well-worn handle, the little mill went round more rapidly than ever. A. Thomson, 1876.

L. 36. Watch . . . pray. The two great duties which in prospect of trial are constantly enjoined. These warnings, suggested by the need of preparedness for the tremendous calamities ap- proaching, and the total wreck of the existing state of things, are the general improvement of the whole discourse, carrying the mind forward to judgment of another kind, and on a grander and more awful scale —not temporal but eternal—when all safety and blessedness will be found to lie in being able to “stand before the Son of man” in the glory of his personal appearing. B.—The discourse of our Lord up to this point is to be regarded as a whole, which is here completed; having reference to his coming for the overthrow of Judaism. Our Lord here makes a transition, and proceeds to speak of his final coming at the day of judgment. R.—In the discourse from this point we meet with no signs by which this greater coming of our Lord is her- alded. But the whole burden, onward to the de- scription of the judgment (Section 135), is the most solemn and urgently repeated exhortation to watchfulness, and a constant readiness to meet the Son of man at this his great and final coming. J. J. O.

The judgment over the degenerate theocracy, and the final judgment of the world; the first free development of the kingdom of God, and its final and glorious consummation, correspond to each other: the former, in each case, prefiguring the latter. And so, in general, all great epochs of the world’s history, in which God reveals himself as Judge, condemning a creation ripe for destruction, and calling a new one into being; all critical and creative epochs of the world’s history correspond to each other, and collectively prefigure the last judgment and the last creation—the consummation of the kingdom of God. N.

Mk. 34. Left his house. The Christian Church is here compared to a great house or palace left for a time by its Lord and Master, the Son of man. He left his Church at his ascension, and he will return again to take account of it at the general judgment in the end of the world. He comes at the same time to every individual at his death. The Son of man at his departure gave authority to his servants, that is, not merely to the office-bearers of his Church, but to all his servants, authority to transact in his room, to maintain due order in the house, and seek its good. There is meanwhile no other above them in the house, no earthly master, but only the Word of Christ, which under the teaching of his Spirit he has left for their guidance.

To every man his work. Work is the common duty of all in Christ’s house. The first thing we read of God doing for man when he made him was to assign him work. Before he gave him a right to eat of the fruit of the trees “he put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” When man is translated to the heavenly Eden it is not to idleness—“they serve him day and night in his temple.” He who made all worlds has said, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” It would be strange then if the Christian Church, which was intended to be the beating heart to all this world’s activities, were exempted from a law so universal. It was for this end that Christ called its members into it—“why stand ye here all the day idle?” and then “gave to every man his work.”

The porter to watch. While the mode of labor in the house may vary, there is something common to all who are in it—the duty of watchfulness. The porter must stand at the door of every heart while that heart pursues its work. To watch is to do all our work with the thought of his eye measuring it, as of a friend who is ever present to our soul, gone from us in outward form, sure to return, and meanwhile near in spirit—to subject our plans and acts to his approval, asking ourselves at every step how this would please him, shrinking from what would cloud his face, rejoicing with great joy in all that would meet his smile. Ker.

M. 45–51. Observe the contrast between the good and the evil servant. The good servant is faithful, to his lord and in his trust; prudent, in watching for his lord’s coming; beneficent, using his power as a trust, for others; patient, in continuing his well-doing till the coming of his lord; and his blessing is an enlarged honor, and a grander sphere of activity in the future. The evil servant becomes a practical disbeliever in Christ’s second coming, uses his power to oppress his fellow-servants, and to gratify himself, finds his companions with the self-indulgent, not with the self-denying; and to him judgment comes suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning, and with terrible and final condemnation, that separates him from the saints, and allots his portion with sinners. L. A.

Mk. 35–37. It was never meant by the framer of the prophecies that any distinct vision of the future should, by help of them, be obtained by us. There is such variety of construction in the different parts, that much must remain of double or doubtful import, till the interpreting event occurs. It has been so with all that section of the prophetic writings of which the fulfilments are already before our eyes. It must be so with all that lies over to be accomplished in the future. But with all the obscurity thus intentionally thrown around the day and the hour of Christ’s coming, let us not forget that no obscurity, no uncertainty, hangs around the great event itself; that the same Jesus whom the clouds received out of the apostles’ sight shall come again the second time without sin unto salvation. In all that future which lies before us, these are the only two events of which we are absolutely certain: our own approaching death, our Lord’s approaching advent. Our faith in the certainty of the one rests on the uniformity of nature; our faith in the other on the sure testimony of our Lord himself—a testimony that we put above the other, for he says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” We must all die, and we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. H.—There is nothing more certain than death; nothing more uncertain than the time of dying. I will therefore be prepared at all times for that which may come at any time, must come at one time or another. I shall not hasten my death by being ready, but sweeten it. It makes me not die the sooner, but the better. Warwick.

I say unto all, Watch. Watch, therefore, and pray that we may be able to stand before the Son of man. Nor shall vigilance and prayer be ineffectual. On those who mock at God’s threatenings, and reject his promises, on these only the severity of wrath will fall. But for those who lay these warnings to heart, who dread the pollutions of the world, and flee from sin as from a serpent; who fear God’s displeasure more than death, and seek his favor more than life, though much of frailty will to the last adhere to them, yet these are the objects of the Father’s mercy, of the Redeemer’s love. For these he died, for these he pleads, these he supports and strengthens with his spirit, these he shall lead with him triumphant to the mansions of glory, when sin and death shall be cast into the lake of fire Horsley.—Who is he that overcometh, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ? and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith—faith in the unseen Saviour; faith in his having lived and died for us on earth; faith in his having passed into the heavens, appearing there in God’s presence for us; faith in his future coming to take us to himself. By watchfulness, by prayer, by all good fidelity to our absent Lord, let us nourish this vital principle of faith within us; so that when at last it is said to us, “Behold, he cometh!” the ready answer of our spirit may be, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” II.

Section 133.—The Ten Virgins.

Mount of Olives.