Mark 13:24

ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις. Very indefinite; see on Mark 1:9. We may believe that this is nearer to the expression actually used than the εὐθέως of Mt. Mt. wrote at a time when it was believed that the Second Advent would quickly follow the fall of Jerusalem, and, as often, he gives his interpretations as having been actually spoken; see on Mark 8:29; Mark 9:29; Mark 10:19; Mark 10:28; Mark 10:33; Mark 10:38; Mark 10:40. Christ showed that His Coming would not save Jerusalem from destruction but would follow that destruction. That it would follow quickly (Revelation 22:20) was a wrong inference which experience corrected: ἀρχὴ ὠδίνων (Mark 13:8) and πρῶτον δεῖ (Mark 13:10) imply that the interval would not be short. The language here used is highly symbolical, such as is found in the Prophets and in the apocalyptic literature of the Jews. Cf. Isaiah 13:10; Isaiah 34:4; Ezekiel 32:7-8; Amos 8:9; Joel 2:30-31; Joel 3:5. It intimates that mighty results follow when God shows His hand in the government of the world. “It is needless to minimize these words into eclipses or meteoric showers, or to magnify them into actual destruction of sun and moon and stars. They are not events, but only imaginative portrayal of what it means for God to interfere in the history of the nations” (Gould). All three Gospels here speak of catastrophic changes of nature which probably represent catastrophic changes in the social and spiritual world. Guesses as to their exact meaning are not very profitable.

μετὰ τ. θλίψιν ἐκείνην. After the overthrow of Jerusalem.

σκοτισθήσεται. Cf. Luke 23:45; Revelation 6:12; Revelation 8:12 : also the Testaments, Levi iv. 1; Enoch lxxx. 2–7; Assumption of Moses x. 5, where we read that the sun will not give light, the horns of the moon will be broken and turned to darkness, and the circle of the stars will be shaken.