XXIV. (1) AND JESUS WENT OUT. — Better, following the best MSS., _Jesus departed from the Temple, and was going on His way, when His disciples._ St. Mark and St. Luke report the touching incident of the widow’s mite as connected with our Lord’s departure. HIS DISCIPLES CAME TO HIM. — We may well th... [ Continue Reading ]
THERE SHALL NOT BE LEFT HERE ONE STONE UPON ANOTHER. — So Josephus relates that Titus ordered the whole city and the Temple to be dug up, leaving only two or three of the chief towers, so that those who visited it could hardly believe that it had ever been inhabited (_Wars, vii._ 1). The remains whi... [ Continue Reading ]
THE DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM PRIVATELY. — From St. Mark we learn their names — “Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew;” _i.e.,_ the four in the first of the three groups that made up the Twelve. The position of Andrew as the last is noticeable, as connected with the general pre-eminence of the first... [ Continue Reading ]
JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO THEM... — The great discourse which follows is given with substantial agreement by St. Mark and St. Luke, the variations being such as were naturally incident to reports made from memory, and probably after an interval of many years. In all probability, the written recor... [ Continue Reading ]
MANY SHALL COME IN MY NAME, SAYING, I AM CHRIST. — Better, _the Christ._ No direct fulfilments of this prediction are recorded, either in the New Testament, or by Josephus, or other historians. Bar-Cochba (the “son of the star”), who claimed to be the “Star” of the prophecy of Balaam (Numbers 24:17)... [ Continue Reading ]
YE SHALL HEAR ... — Literally, _ye shall be about to hear_ — a kind of double future, or possibly an example of the transition between the older future tense and the use of an auxiliary verb. WARS AND RUMOURS. — St. Luke adds “commotions.” The forty years that intervened before the destruction of J... [ Continue Reading ]
NATION SHALL RISE AGAINST NATION. — Some of the more memorable of these are recorded by Josephus: one at Seleucia, in which 50,000 Jews are said to have perished (_Ant._ xviii. 9, §§ 8, 9); others at Cæsarea, Scythopolis, Joppa, Ascalon, and Tyre (_Wars_ 2:18); and the memorable conflict between Jew... [ Continue Reading ]
THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS. — The words mean strictly, _the beginning of travail pangs._ The troubles through which the world passes are thought of as issuing in a “new birth” — the “regeneration” of Matthew 19:28. So St. Paul speaks of the whole creation as “travailing in pain together” (Romans 8:22)... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN SHALL THEY DELIVER ... — The adverb, here and in Matthew 24:10, points to synchronism rather than sequence in its connection with Matthew 24:8. TO BE AFFLICTED. — Literally, _unto affliction._ The words repeat in substance the predictions of Matthew 10:22. (See Notes there.) Here we have “hated... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL MANY BE OFFENDED. — The words point primarily to those who were believers in Christ, and found, a stumbling-block either in the new aspects of truth from time to time presented, or in the slowness of its victory, or in the delayed coming of the Lord. (Comp. 2 Peter 3:4.) SHALL HATE ONE ANOTHER... [ Continue Reading ]
MANY FALSE PROPHETS SHALL RISE. — The later writings of the New Testament bear repeated testimony to this feature of the ten years that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem. St. John speaks of false prophets (1 John 4:1), and many antichrists (1 John 2:18); St. Peter of “false teachers” (2 Peter 2:... [ Continue Reading ]
BECAUSE INIQUITY SHALL ABOUND ... — Better, _lawlessness._ No word could more fitly represent the condition of Judæa in the time just referred to: brigandage, massacres, extortion, assassination, came to be common things. THE LOVE OF MANY ... — Better, _of the many_; the greater part of the true Isr... [ Continue Reading ]
HE THAT SHALL ENDURE UNTO THE END ... — The words have at once a higher and lower sense. Endurance to the end of life is in every case the condition of salvation, in the full meaning of the word. But the context rather leads us to see in the “end” the close of the period of which our Lord speaks, _i... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL BE PREACHED IN ALL THE WORLD. — The words must not be strained beyond the meaning which they would have for those who heard them, and they were certain to see in “all the world” (literally, _the inhabited earth,_ as in Luke 2:1; Acts 11:28) neither more nor less than the Roman empire; and it w... [ Continue Reading ]
THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION. — The words, as they stand in Daniel 12:11, seem to refer to the desecration of the sanctuary by the mad attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to stop the “daily sacrifice,” and to substitute an idolatrous worship in its place (2Ma. 6:1-9). What analogous desecration our Lord... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN LET THEM WHICH BE IN JUDSEA. — The words were acted on when the time came. Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ iii. 5) records that the Christians of Judæa, acting “on a certain oracle,” fled, in A.D. 68, to Pella, a town on the northern boundary of Peræa. So Josephus (_Wars,_ iv. 9, § 1; v. 10, § 1) more... [ Continue Reading ]
LET HIM WHICH IS ON THE HOUSETOP. — The houses in the streets of Jerusalem were built in a continuous line, and with flat roofs, so that a man might pass from house to house without descending into the street until he came to some point near the wall or gate of the city, and so make his escape. At a... [ Continue Reading ]
TO TAKE HIS CLOTHES. — Better, in the singular, _his cloak._ The man would be working in the field with the short tunic of the labouring peasant, leaving the flowing outer garment at home in the city. Here also the flight was to be rapid and immediate.... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE UNTO THEM. — Better, _alas for them,_ or _woe for them._ The tone is that of pity rather than denunciation. The hardships of a hurried flight would press most heavily on those who were encumbered with infant children, or were expecting childbirth. The same tenderness of sympathy shows itself in... [ Continue Reading ]
PRAY YE THAT YOUR FLIGHT ... — Rules were given for flight where the conditions lay within their own power. Other incidents which lay outside their will might lawfully be the subjects of their prayers. It is characteristic of St. Matthew, as writing for Jews, that he alone records the words “nor on... [ Continue Reading ]
SUCH AS WAS NOT SINCE THE BEGINNING... — The words come from Daniel 12:1. One who reads the narrative of Josephus will hardly hesitate to adopt his language, “that all miseries that had been known from the beginning of the world fell short” of those of the siege of the Holy City (_Wars,_ v. 13, §§ 4... [ Continue Reading ]
SHOULD NO FLESH BE SAVED. — The words are of course limited by the context to the scene of the events to which the prophecy refers. The warfare with foes outside the city, and the faction-fights and massacres within, would have caused an utter depopulation of the whole country. FOR THE ELECT’S SAKE.... [ Continue Reading ]
LO, HERE IS CHRIST, OR THERE. — Better, _Lo, here is the Christ._ The narrative of Josephus, while speaking of many _“_deceivers” claiming divine authority (_Wars, ii._ 13, § 4), is silent as to any pretenders to the character of the Messiah. It is scarcely conceivable, however, that this should not... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL SHEW GREAT SIGNS AND WONDERS. — Simon Magus (Acts 8:9) and Elymas (Acts 13:6) may be taken as representative instances of these false claimants to supernatural powers. So “signs and lying wonders” are the notes of the coming of the Wicked One, in whom the mystery of iniquity shall receive its... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THE SECRET CHAMBERS. — The word is the same as that translated “closet” in Matthew 6:6. What is meant is that the pretenders will in some way or other shun the publicity which would test their claims. There would be whispered rumours that the Christ was concealing Himself in the wilderness beyond... [ Continue Reading ]
AS THE LIGHTNING COMETH OUT OF THE EAST. — In this and the three preceding verses we are, as it were, on the dim border-land of the primary and the ultimate fulfilments of the words. The disciples in their questions (Matthew 24:3) had connected the destruction of Jerusalem with the “coming” of their... [ Continue Reading ]
WHERESOEVER THE CARCASE IS. — Two interpretations of this verse may, without much risk of error, be at once rejected: — (1) That which sees in the “eagles” the well-known symbols of the strength of the Roman legions, and in the “carcass” the decayed and corrupted Judaism which those legions came to... [ Continue Reading ]
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TRIBULATION OF THOSE DAYS. — From this point onwards the prophecy takes a wider range, and passes beyond the narrow limits of the destruction of Jerusalem to the final coming of the Son of Man, and the one is represented as following “immediately” on the other. No other meaning... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN SHALL APPEAR THE SIGN OF THE SON OF MAN. — Can we picture to ourselves what this sign shall be? Is it distinct from the coming of the Son of Man which here is so closely united with it? Men have given wildly conjectural answers to these questions, and have dreamt of the cross as appearing in th... [ Continue Reading ]
HE SHALL SEND HIS ANGELS. — The words are memorable as the formal expansion of what had been, as it were, hinted before in the parables of the Tares (Matthew 13:41) and the Net (Matthew 13:49). WITH A GREAT SOUND OF A TRUMPET. — The better MSS. omit “sound:” _With a great trumpet._ We know not, and... [ Continue Reading ]
NOW LEARN A PARABLE OF THE FIG TREE. — As in so many other instances (comp. Notes on John 8:12; John 10:1), we may think of the words as illustrated by a living example. Both time and place make this probable. It was on the Mount of Olives, where then, as now, fig trees were found as well as olives... [ Continue Reading ]
SO LIKEWISE YE. — The pronoun is emphatic. Ye whom I have chosen, who are therefore among the elect that shall be thus gathered. The words are spoken to the four Apostles as the representatives of the whole body of believers who should be living — first, at the destruction of Jerusalem, and afterwar... [ Continue Reading ]
THIS GENERATION SHALL NOT PASS... — The natural meaning of the words is, beyond question. that which takes “generation” in the ordinary sense (as in Matthew 1:17; Acts 13:36, and elsewhere) for those who are living at any given period. So it was on “this generation” (Matthew 23:36) that the accumula... [ Continue Reading ]
HEAVEN AND EARTH. — The tone is that of One who speaks with supreme authority, foreseeing, on the one hand, death and seeming failure, but on the other, the ultimate victory, not of truth only in the abstract, but of His own word as the truth. The parallelism of the words with those of Psalms 102:26... [ Continue Reading ]
NO, NOT THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN. — St. Mark’s addition (Mark 13:32), “neither the Son” — or better, _not even the Son_ — is every way remarkable. Assuming, what is well-nigh certain (see _Introduction to St. Mark_)_,_ the close connection of that Gospel with St. Peter, it is as if the Apostle who heard... [ Continue Reading ]
AS THE DAYS OF NOE WERE. — Here again we note an interesting coincidence with the Epistles of St. Peter, both of which teem, more than any other portions of the New Testament, with references to the history to which the mind of the writer had been directed by his Master’s teaching, 1 Peter 3:20; 2 P... [ Continue Reading ]
SO SHALL ALSO THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN BE. — The words justify the interpretation given above of Matthew 24:29. If the “signs” of the Advent were to be phenomena visible to the eye of sense, there could not be this reckless apathy of nescience. If they are to be tokens, “signs of the times,” whi... [ Continue Reading ]
THE ONE SHALL BE TAKEN. — Literally, the present tense being used to express the certainty of the future, _one is taken, and one is left._ The form of the expression is somewhat obscure, and leaves it uncertain which of the two alternatives is the portion of the chosen ones. Is the man who is “taken... [ Continue Reading ]
TWO WOMEN SHALL BE GRINDING AT THE MILL. — The words bring before us the picture of the lowest form of female labour, in which one woman holds the lower stone of the small hand-mill of the East, while another turns the upper stone and grinds the corn. In Judges 16:21, and Lamentations 5:13, the empl... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT KNOW THIS. — The verses from Matthew 24:42 to Matthew 24:51 have nothing corresponding to them in the reports of the discourse given by St. Mark and St. Luke, but are found almost verbatim in another discourse reported by St. Luke 12:42, _et seq._ Here, as elsewhere, we have to choose between th... [ Continue Reading ]
IN SUCH AN HOUR AS YE THINK NOT. — The words are important as showing that even the signs which were to be as the budding of the fig-tree at the approach of summer were intended only to rouse the faithful to watchfulness, not to enable men to fix the times and the seasons which the Father hath set i... [ Continue Reading ]
WHO THEN IS A FAITHFUL...? — Better, _Who then is the faithful and wise servant?_ The latter word in the Greek is that which ethical writers had used to express the moral wisdom which adapts means to ends, as contrasted with the wisdom of pure contemplation on the one hand, or technical skill on the... [ Continue Reading ]
BLESSED IS THAT SERVANT. — The words, taken in their letter, seem to refer only to those who shall thus be found at the time of the final Advent. Christian insight has, however, rightly given them a wider application. As there are “days of the Lord” in the history of churches and nations, so the Lor... [ Continue Reading ]
HE SHALL MAKE HIM RULER. — The words are noteworthy as among the indications that the work of the faithful servant does not cease, either after his own removal from his earthly labour, or even after the final consummation of the kingdom. Over and above the joy of the beatific vision, or what is figu... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT AND IF THAT EVIL SERVANT. — Better, _but if that evil servant,_ the “and” being in modern English usage superfluous, and representing originally a different conjunction. MY LORD DELAYETH HIS COMING. — The temper described is identical with that portrayed in 2 Peter 3:3. The words are memorable a... [ Continue Reading ]
AND SHALL CUT HIM ASUNDER. — Here also, as in the case of the faithful servant, the words have more than one fulfilment. The form of punishment (one which, in its literal sense, belongs to the inventive cruelty of Eastern kings) would seem here to have been chosen for its figurative fitness. The man... [ Continue Reading ]