Matthew 24:30

καὶ τότε. Amid the general crash what longing would arise in Christian hearts for the presence of the Christ! To this longing the announcement introduced by these words “and then ” responds. τὸ σημεῖον τ. υἱ. τ. ἀ. The question what is this sign has greatly perplexed commentators, who make becoming confessions of ignorance. “We must not be positive in conjecturing,” Morison. “What this shall be it is vain to conjecture,” Cambridge N. T. Is the reference not to Daniel 7:13, “one like the Son of Man,” and the meaning: the sign which is the Son of Man, τ. υ. τ. ἀ. being genitive of appos.? So Weiss after Storr and Wolf. (“ σημεῖον υἱοῦ, similis est illis quibus profani passim utuntur quando dicunt βία Ἡρακλέος,” i.e., “vis Herculis seu ipse Hercules,” Wolf, Curae Phil.) Christ His own sign, like the lightning or the sun, self-evidencing. καὶ τότε κόψονται, etc.: a clause not in Mk. and obscure in meaning; why mourn? because they recognise in the coming One their Judge? or because they see in Him one who had been despised and rejected of men, and penitently (taking the sin home to themselves) acknowledge His claims? (“believed on in the world,” 1 Timothy 3:16). ἐρχόμενον … πολλῆς, description of the coming, here as in Matthew 16:27; Matthew 26:64, in terms drawn from Daniel 7:13.