CHAPTER 13

Mr 13:1-37. CHRIST'S PROPHECY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, AND WARNINGS SUGGESTED BY IT TO PREPARE FOR HIS SECOND COMING. ( = Mt 24:1-51; Lu 21:5-36).

Jesus had uttered all His mind against the Jewish ecclesiastics, exposing their character with withering plainness, and denouncing, in language of awful severity, the judgments of God against them for that unfaithfulness to their trust which was bringing ruin upon the nation. He had closed this His last public discourse (Mt 23:1-39) by a passionate lamentation over Jerusalem, and a solemn farewell to the temple. "And," says Matthew (Mt 24:1), "Jesus went out and departed from the temple"--never more to re-enter its precincts, or open His mouth in public teaching. With this act ended His public ministry. As He withdrew, says OLSHAUSEN, the gracious presence of God left the sanctuary; and the temple, with all its service, and the whole theocratic constitution, was given over to destruction. What immediately followed is, as usual, most minutely and graphically described by our Evangelist.

1. And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him--The other Evangelists are less definite. "As some spake," says Luke (Lu 21:5); "His disciples came to Him," says Matthew (Mt 24:2). Doubtless it was the speech of one, the mouthpiece, likely, of others.
- Master--Teacher.
- see what manner of stones and what buildings are here--wondering probably, how so massive a pile could be overthrown, as seemed implied in our Lord's last words regarding it. JOSEPHUS, who gives a minute account of the wonderful structure, speaks of stones forty cubits long [Wars of the Jews, 5.5.1.] and says the pillars supporting the porches were twenty-five cubits high, all of one stone, and that of the whitest marble [Wars of the Jews, 5.5.2]. Six days' battering at the walls, during the siege, made no impression upon them [Wars of the Jews, 6.4.1]. Some of the under-building, yet remaining, and other works, are probably as old as the first temple.

2. And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings?--"Ye call My attention to these things? I have seen them. Ye point to their massive and durable appearance: now listen to their fate."
- there shall not be left--"left here" (Mt 24:2).
- one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down--Titus ordered the whole city and temple to be demolished [JOSEPHUS, Wars of the Jews, 7.1.1]; Eleazar wished they had all died before seeing that holy city destroyed by enemies' hands, and before the temple was so profanely dug up [Wars of the Jews, 7.8.7].

3. And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, over against the temple--On their way from Jerusalem to Bethany they would cross Mount Olivet; on its summit He seats Himself, over against the temple, having the city all spread out under His eye. How graphically is this set before us by our Evangelist!
- Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately--The other Evangelists tell us merely that "the disciples" did so. But Mark not only says that it was four of them, but names them; and they were the first quarternion of the Twelve.

4. Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?--"and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" They no doubt looked upon the date of all these things as one and the same, and their notions of the things themselves were as confused as of the times of them. Our Lord takes His own way of meeting their questions.

Prophecies of the Destruction of Jerusalem (Mr 13:5-31).

5. And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:

6. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ--(see Mt 24:5) --"and the time draweth nigh" (Lu 21:8); that is, the time of the kingdom in its full splendor.
- and shall deceive many--"Go ye not therefore after them" (Lu 21:8). The reference here seems not to be to pretended Messiahs, deceiving those who rejected the claims of Jesus, of whom indeed there were plenty--for our Lord is addressing His own genuine disciples--but to persons pretending to be Jesus Himself, returned in glory to take possession of His kingdom. This gives peculiar force to the words, "Go ye not therefore after them."

7. And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled--(See on Mr 13:13, and compare Isa 8:11-14).
- for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet--In Luke (Lu 21:9), "the end is not by and by," or "immediately." Worse must come before all is over.

8. These are the beginnings of sorrows--"of travail-pangs," to which heavy calamities are compared. (See Jer 4:31, &c.). The annals of TACITUS tell us how the Roman world was convulsed, before the destruction of Jerusalem, by rival claimants of the imperial purple.

9. But take heed to yourselves: for--"before all these things" (Lu 21:12); that is, before these public calamities come.
- they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten--These refer to ecclesiastical proceedings against them.
- and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings--before civil tribunals next.
- for my sake, for a testimony against them--rather "unto them"--to give you an opportunity of bearing testimony to Me before them. In the Acts of the Apostles we have the best commentary on this announcement. (Compare Mt 10:17, 18).

10. And the gospel must first be published among all nations--"for a witness, and then shall the end come" (Mt 24:14). God never sends judgment without previous warning; and there can be no doubt that the Jews, already dispersed over most known countries, had nearly all heard the Gospel "as a witness," before the end of the Jewish state. The same principle was repeated and will repeat itself to "the end."

11. But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand--"Be not anxious beforehand."
- what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate--"Be not filled with apprehension, in the prospect of such public appearances for Me, lest ye should bring discredit upon My name, nor think it necessary to prepare beforehand what ye are to say."
- but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost--(See on Mt 10:19, 20.)

13. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake--Matthew (Mt 24:12) adds this important intimation: "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many"--"of the many," or "of the most," that is, of the generality of professed disciples--"shall wax cold." Sad illustrations of the effect of abounding iniquity in cooling the love even of faithful disciples we have in the Epistle of James, written about the period here referred to, and too frequently ever since.
- but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved--See on Mt 10:21, 22; and compare Heb 10:38, 39, which is a manifest allusion to these words of Christ; also Re 2:10. Luke (Lu 21:18) adds these reassuring words: "But there shall not an hair of your heads perish." Our Lord had just said (Lu 21:16) that they should be put to death; showing that this precious promise is far above immunity from mere bodily harm, and furnishing a key to the right interpretation of Ps 91:1-18 and such like.

14. But when ye shall see--"Jerusalem compassed by armies"--by encamped armies; in other words, when ye shall see it besieged, and
- the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not--that is, as explained in Matthew (Mt 24:15), "standing in the holy place."
- (let him that readeth understand)--readeth that prophecy. That "the abomination of desolation" here alluded to was intended to point to the Roman ensigns, as the symbols of an idolatrous, and so unclean pagan power, may be gathered by comparing what Luke says in the corresponding verse (Lu 21:20); and commentators are agreed on it. It is worthy of notice, as confirming this interpretation, that in 1 Maccabees 1:54--which, though aprocryphal Scripture, is authentic history--the expression of Daniel (Da 11:31; 12:11) is applied to the idolatrous profanation of the Jewish altar by Antiochus Epiphanes.
- then let them that be in Judea flee to the mountains--The ecclesiastical historian, EUSEBIUS, early in the fourth century, tells us that the Christians fled to Pella, at the northern extremity of Perea, being "prophetically directed"--perhaps by some prophetic intimation more explicit than this, which would be their chart--and that thus they escaped the predicted calamities by which the nation was overwhelmed.

15. And let him that is on the housetop not get down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house--that is, let him take the outside flight of steps from the roof to the ground; a graphic way of denoting the extreme urgency of the case, and the danger of being tempted, by the desire to save his property, to delay till escape should become impossible.

16. And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment.

17. But woe to them--or, "alas for them."
- that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days--in consequence of the aggravated suffering which those conditions would involve.

18. And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter--making escape perilous, or tempting you to delay your flight. Matthew (Mt 24:20) adds, "neither on the sabbath day," when, from fear of a breach of its sacred rest, they might be induced to remain.

19. For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be--Such language is not unusual in the Old Testament with reference to tremendous calamities. But it is matter of literal fact that there was crowded into the period of the Jewish war an amount and complication of suffering perhaps unparalleled; as the narrative of JOSEPHUS, examined closely and arranged under different heads, would show.

20. And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh--that is, no human life.
- should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days--But for this merciful "shortening," brought about by a remarkable concurrence of causes, the whole nation would have perished, in which there yet remained a remnant to be afterwards gathered out. This portion of the prophecy closes, in Luke, with the following vivid and important glance at the subsequent fortunes of the chosen people: "And they shall fall by the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Lu 21:24). The language as well as the idea of this remarkable statement is taken from Da 8:10, 13. What, then, is its import here? It implies, first, that a time is coming when Jerusalem shall cease to be "trodden down of the Gentiles"; which it was then by pagan, and since and till now is by Mohammedan unbelievers: and next, it implies that the period when this treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles is to cease will be when "the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" or "completed." But what does this mean? We may gather the meaning of it from Ro 11:1-36 in which the divine purposes and procedure towards the chosen people from first to last are treated in detail. In Ro 11:25 these words of our Lord are thus reproduced: "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." See the exposition of that verse, from which it will appear that "till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in"--or, in our Lord's phraseology, "till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled"--does not mean "till the general conversion of the world to Christ," but "till the Gentiles have had their full time of that place in the Church which the Jews had before them." After that period of Gentilism, as before of Judaism, "Jerusalem" and Israel, no longer "trodden down by the Gentiles," but "grafted into their own olive tree," shall constitute, with the believing Gentiles, one Church of God, and fill the whole earth. What a bright vista does this open up!

21. And then, if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo he is there; believe him not--So Lu 17:23.

22. For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders. No one can read JOSEPHUS' account of what took place before the destruction of Jerusalem without seeing how strikingly this was fulfilled.
- to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect--implying that this, though all but done, will prove impossible. What a precious assurance! (Compare 2Th 2:9-12).