Matthew 24:3

n interval of silence would naturally follow so stern a speech. This verse accordingly shows us Jesus with His disciples now on the other side of the Kidron, and sitting on the slope of Olivet, with face turned towards Jerusalem; Master and disciples sitting apart, and thinking their own thoughts. Satisfied that the Master means what He has said, and not daring to dispute His prophetic insight, they accept the fate predicted for Jerusalem, and now desire to know the when and how. κατʼ ἰδίαν looks as if borrowed from Mk., where it refers to four of the disciples coming apart from the rest. It goes without saying that none but the Twelve were there. τί τὸ σημεῖον τ. σ. π., etc. The questioners took for granted that all three things went together: destruction of temple, advent of Son of Man, end of the current age. Perhaps the association of the three helped them to accept the first as a fact. Weizsäcker (Untersuchungen, p. 549, note 1) suggests that the second and third questions are filled in by the evangelist to correspond with the answer. So also Weiss in Meyer. The main subject of interrogation is the predicted ruin: when will it happen, and how shall it be known when it is at hand, so as to be prepared for it? Cf. Mk. and Lk., where this alone is the subject of question. παρουσία (literally presence, second presence) and συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος are the technical terms of the apostolic age, for the second advent of Christ and the close of the present order of things, and they occur in Mt. only, so far as the Gospels are concerned. Do not the ideas also belong to that age, and are not the questions here put into the mouth of the Twelve too advanced for disciples?