Matthew 24
WesleyMatthew 24:1
Matthew 24:3
Wo to you, ye blind guides - Before he had styled them hypocrites, from their personal character: now he gives them another title, respecting their influence upon others. Both these appellations are severely put together in the 23d and Matthew 23:23,25. 25th verses; and this severity rises to the height in the 33d verse. The gold of the temple - The treasure kept there. He is bound - To keep his oath.
Matthew 24:7
He that sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon - Not only by the gift, but by the holy fire, and the sacrifice; and above all, by that God to whom they belong; inasmuch as every oath by a creature is an implicit appeal to God.
Matthew 24:10
Judgment - That is, justice: Faith - The word here means fidelity.
Matthew 24:11
Ye blind guides, who teach others to do as you do yourselves, to strain out a gnat - From the liquor they are going to drink! and swallow a camel - It is strange, that glaring false print, strain at a gnat, which quite alters the sense, should run through all the editions of our English Bibles.
Matthew 24:12
Full of rapine and intemperance - The censure is double (taking intemperance in the vulgar sense.) These miserable men procured unjustly what they used intemperately. No wonder tables so furnished prove a snare, as many find by sad experience. Thus luxury punishes fraud while it feeds disease with the fruits of injustice. But intemperance in the full sense takes in not only all kinds of outward intemperance, particularly in eating and drinking, but all intemperate or immoderate desires, whether of honour, gain, or sensual pleasure.
Matthew 24:13
Ye build the tombs of the prophets - And that is all, for ye neither observe their sayings, nor imitate their actions.
Matthew 24:17
We would not have been partakers - So ye make fair professions, as did your fathers.
Matthew 24:18
Wherefore ye testify against yourselves - By your smooth words as well as devilish actions: that ye are the genuine sons of them who killed the prophets of their own times, while they professed the utmost veneration for those of past ages. From the 3d to the 30th verse Matthew 23:3 - 30 is exposed every thing that commonly passes in the world for religion, whereby the pretenders to it keep both themselves and others from entering into the kingdom of God; from attaining, or even seeking after those tempers, in which alone true Christianity consists. As, Punctuality in attending on public and private prayer, ver. 4 - 14. Matthew 23:4 - 14 Zeal to make proselytes to our opinion or communion, though they have less of the spirit of religion than before, ver. 15. Matthew 23:15 A superstitious reverence for consecrated places or things, without any for Him to whom they are consecrated, ver. 16 - 22. Matthew 23:16 - 22 A scrupulous exactness in little observances, though with the neglect of justice, mercy, and faith, ver. 23, 24. Matthew 23:23,24 A nice cautiousness to cleanse the outward behaviour, but without any regard to inward purity, ver. 25, 26.
Matthew 23:25,26 A specious face of virtue and piety, covering the deepest hypocrisy and villany, ver. 27, 28. Matthew 23:27,28 A professed veneration for all good men, except those among whom they live.
Matthew 24:19
Fill ye up - A word of permission, not of command: as if he had said, I contend with you no longer: I leave you to yourselves: you have conquered: now ye may follow the devices of your own hearts. The measure of your fathers - Wickedness: ye may now be as wicked as they.
Matthew 24:20
Ye serpents - Our Lord having now lost all hope of reclaiming these, speaks so as to affright others from the like sins.
Matthew 24:21
Wherefore - That it may appear you are the true children of those murderers, and have a right to have their iniquities visited on you: Behold, I send - Is not this speaking as one having authority? Prophets - Men with supernatural credentials: Wise men - Such as have both natural abilities and experience; and scribes - Men of learning: but all will not avail. Luke 11:49.
Matthew 24:22
That upon you may come - The consequence of which will be, that upon you will come the vengeance of all the righteous blood shed on the earth - Zechariah the son of Barachiah - Termed Jehoiada, 2 Chronicles 24:20, where the story is related: Ye slew - Ye make that murder also of your fathers your own, by imitating it: Between the temple - That is, the inner temple, and the altar - Which stood in the outer court. Our Lord seems to refer to this instance, rather than any other, because he was the last of the prophets on record that were slain by the Jews for reproving their wickedness: and because God’s requiring this blood as well as that of Abel, is particularly taken notice of in Scripture.
Matthew 24:24
Matthew 24:25
Behold your house - The temple, which is now your house, not God’s: Is left unto you - Our Lord spake this as he was going out of it for the last time: Desolate - Forsaken of God and his Christ, and sentenced to utter destruction.
Matthew 24:26
Ye - Jews in general; men of Jerusalem in particular: shall not see me from this time - Which includes the short space till his death, till, after a long interval of desolation and misery, ye say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord - Ye receive me with joyful and thankful hearts. This also shall be accomplished in its season.
Matthew 24:28
Matthew 24:29
There shall not he left one stone upon another - This was most punctually fulfilled; for after the temple was burnt, Titus, the Roman general, ordered the very foundations of it to be dug up; after which the ground on which it stood was ploughed up by Turnus Rufus.
Matthew 24:30
As he sat on the mount of Olives - Whence they had a full view of the temple. When shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? - The disciples inquire confusedly, Concerning the time of the destruction of the temple; Concerning the signs of Christ’s coming, and of the end of the world, as if they imagined these two were the same thing. Our Lord answers distinctly concerning, The destruction of the temple and city, with the signs preceding, ver. 4, &c, 15, &c. Matthew 24:4,15. His own coming, and the end of the world, with the signs thereof, ver. 29 - 31. Matthew 24:29 - 31. The time of the destruction of the temple, ver. 32, &c. Matthew 24:32. The time of the end of the world, ver. 36. Matthew 24:36.
Matthew 24:31
Take heed that no man deceive you - The caution is more particularly designed for the succeeding Christians, whom the apostles then represented. The first sign of my coming is, the rise of false prophets. But it is highly probable, many of these things refer to more important events, which are yet to come.
Matthew 24:32
Many shall come in my name - First, false Christs, next, false prophets, Matthew 24:11. At length, both together, Matthew 24:24. And indeed never did so many impostors appear in the world as a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem; undoubtedly because that was the time wherein the Jews in general expected the Messiah.
Matthew 24:33
Wars - Near: Rumours of wars - At a distance. All these things must come to pass - As a foundation for lasting tranquillity. But the end - Concerning which ye inquire, is not yet - So far from it, that this is but the beginning sorrows.
Matthew 24:36
Then shall they deliver you up to affliction - As if ye were the cause of all these evils. And ye shall he hated of all nations - Even of those who tolerate all other sects and parties; but in no nation will the children of the devil tolerate the children of God. Matthew 10:17.
Matthew 24:37
Then shall many he offended - So as utterly to make shipwreck of faith and a pure conscience. But hold ye fast faith, Matthew 24:11. in spite of false prophets: love, even when iniquity and offences abound, Matthew 24:12. And hope, unto the end, Matthew 24:13. He that does so, shall be snatched out of the burning. The love of many will wax cold - The generality of those who love God will (like the Church at Ephesus, Revelation 2:4,) leave their first love.
Matthew 24:40
Matthew 10:22; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:17.
Matthew 24:41
This Gospel shall he preached in all the world - Not universally: this is not done yet: but in general through the several parts of the world, and not only in Judea And this was done by St. Paul and the other apostles, before Jerusalem was destroyed. And then shall the end come - Of the city and temple. Josephus’s History of the Jewish War is the best commentary on this chapter. it is a wonderful instance of God’s providence, that he, an eye witness, and one who lived and died a Jew, should, especially in so extraordinary a manner, be preserved, to transmit to us a collection of important facts, which so exactly illustrate this glorious prophecy, in almost every circumstance. Mark 13:10.
Matthew 24:42
When ye see the abomination of desolation - Daniel’s term is, The abomination that maketh desolate, Daniel 11:31; that is, the standards of the desolating legions, on which they bear the abominable images of their idols: Standing in the holy place - Not only the temple and the mountain on which it stood, but the whole city of Jerusalem, and several furlongs of land round about it, were accounted holy; particularly the mount on which our Lord now sat, and on which the Romans afterward planted their ensigns. He that readeth let him understand - Whoever reads that prophecy of Daniel, let him deeply consider it. Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20; Daniel 9:27.
Matthew 24:43
Then let them who are in Judea flee to the mountains - So the Christians did, and were preserved. It is remarkable that after the Romans under Cestus Gallus made their first advances toward Jerusalem, they suddenly withdrew again, in a most unexpected and indeed impolitic manner. This the Christians took as a signal to retire, which they did, some to Pella, and others to Mount Libanus.
Matthew 24:44
Let not him that is on the house top come down to take any thing out of his house - It may be remembered that their stairs used to be on the outside of their houses.
Matthew 24:46
Wo to them that are with child, and to them that give suck - Because they cannot so readily make their escape.
Matthew 24:47
Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter - They did so; and their flight was in the spring. Neither on the Sabbath - Being on many accounts inconvenient; beside that many would have scrupled to travel far on that day. For the Jews thought it unlawful to walk above two thousand paces (two miles) on the Sabbath day.
Matthew 24:48
Then shall be great tribulation - Have not many things spoken in the chapter, as well as in Mark 13:14 &c., Luke 21:21 &c. a farther and much more extensive meaning than has been yet fulfilled?
Matthew 24:49
And unless those days were shortened - By the taking of Jerusalem sooner than could be expected: No flesh would be saved - The whole nation would be destroyed. But for the elect’s sake - That is, for the sake of the Christians.
Matthew 24:50
Matthew 24:51
They would deceive, if possible, the very elect - But it is not possible that God should suffer the body of Christians to be thus deceived.