Mark 13:30

ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν. This important Saying (30, 31), with its solemn introduction, has nearly the same wording in all three.

οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ. Shall assuredly not pass away; cf. Mark 13:2; Mark 13:19; Mark 9:1; Mark 9:41; Mark 10:15.

ἡ γενεὰ αὕτη. Here, as elsewhere in the Gospels (see on Mark 8:12) this expression can hardly mean anything else than Christ’s own contemporaries; see esp. Matthew 23:36. To make it mean the Jewish race, or the race of believers, or the whole race of mankind, is not satisfactory. But, if any of these be adopted, the sentence is only an expansive way of saying that some persons in some period will see the fulfilment of the predictions. If Christ’s own generation is meant, then we may suppose that either (1) tradition has confused what was said of the destruction of Jerusalem with what was said of the End; or (2) the destruction, as removing Judaism, the great obstacle of the Gospel, was the beginning of the End; or (3) the destruction of Jerusalem is a symbol of the End and is treated as identical with it.