Luke 21:24

στόματι μαχαίρης. A Hebraism, though στόμα in the sense of ‘edge’ is also classical (comp. δίστομος). 1,100,000 Jews are said to have perished in the war. “It seems as though the whole race had appointed a rendezvous for extermination” Renan. (See on Luke 22:49.)

αἰχμαλωτισθήσονται. This is one of the group of words used only by St Luke and St Paul. Josephus speaks of 97,000 Jews sent to various provinces and to the Egyptian mines. B. J. VI. 9.

ἔσται πατουμένη ὑπὸ ἐθνῶν. So that the very thing happened which the Maccabees had tried to avert by their fortifications (1Ma 4:60). All sorts of Gentiles—Romans, Saracens, Persians, Franks, Norsemen, Turks—have ‘trodden down’ Jerusalem since then. The analytic future implies a permanent result.

ἄχρι οὗ πληρωθῶσιν. Attic Greek would require ἄχρι ἄν, but the ἂν is constantly omitted in the N.T. with these particles of time. See Luke 12:50; Luke 13:8, &c.; Mark 14:32.

καιροὶ ἐθνῶν. By the times—’seasons’ or ‘opportunities’ of the Gentiles—is meant the period allotted for their full evangelisation. Romans 11:25. This limit of time was fulfilled at Christ’s Parousia in the destruction of Jerusalem. The καιροὶ merely means the one καιρὸς regarded in its several elements.