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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>Matthew 24 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/matthew/24.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; 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Was that house, with all its goodly buildings and great stones, its golden and its “beautiful” gates (<a href="/acts/3-2.htm" title="And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;">Acts 3:2</a>)—through which they had probably passed—its porticos, its marble cupolas, the structural and ornamental offerings which had accumulated during the forty-six years that had passed since Herod had begun his work of improvement (<a href="/john/2-20.htm" title="Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and will you raise it up in three days?">John 2:20</a>), to be left “desolate”? Would not the sight of its glories lead Him to recall those words of evil omen? This seems a far more natural explanation than that which sees in what they were doing only the natural wonder of Galilean peasants at the splendour of the Holy City. They had seen it too often, we may add, to feel much wonder.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-2.htm">Matthew 24:2</a></div><div class="verse">And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">There shall not be left here one stone upon another.</span>—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 (<span class= "ital">Wars, vii.</span> 1). The remains which recent explorations have disinterred belong, all of them, to the substructures of the Temple—its drains, foundations, underground passages, and the like. The words fell on the ears of the disciples, and awed them into silence. It was not till they had crossed the Mount of Olives that even the foremost and most favoured ventured to break it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-3.htm">Matthew 24:3</a></div><div class="verse">And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what <i>shall be</i> the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?</div>(3) <span class= "bld">The disciples came unto him privately.</span>—From St. Mark we learn their names—“Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew;” <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> 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 three.<p><span class= "bld">The sign of thy coming.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">of Thy presence.</span> The passage is memorable as the first occurrence of the word (<span class= "greekheb">παρονσία</span>,<span class= "ital"> parousia</span>)<span class= "ital">,</span> which was so prominent in the teaching of the Epistles (<a href="/1_thessalonians/2-19.htm" title="For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?">1Thessalonians 2:19</a>; <a href="/1_thessalonians/3-13.htm" title="To the end he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.">1Thessalonians 3:13</a>; <a href="/james/5-7.htm" title="Be patient therefore, brothers, to the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.">James 5:7</a>; <a href="/1_john/2-28.htm" title="And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.">1John 2:28</a>, <span class= "ital">et al.</span>)<span class= "ital">.</span> They had brought themselves to accept the thought of His departure and return, though time and manner were as yet hidden from them.<p><span class= "bld">The end of the world.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">the end of the age.</span> In the common language of the day, which had passed from the schools of the Rabbis into popular use, “this age,” or “this world,” meant the time up to the coming of the Messiah; the “age or world to come” (<a href="/matthew/13-40.htm" title="As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.">Matthew 13:40</a>; <a href="/matthew/19-28.htm" title="And Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, That you which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.">Matthew 19:28</a>; <a href="/hebrews/2-5.htm" title="For to the angels has he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.">Hebrews 2:5</a>; <a href="/hebrews/6-5.htm" title="And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,">Hebrews 6:5</a>), the glorious time which He was to inaugurate. The disciples had heard their Lord speak in parables of such a coming, and they naturally connected it in their thoughts with the close of the age or period in which they lived.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-4.htm">Matthew 24:4</a></div><div class="verse">And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">Jesus answered and said unto them . . .</span>—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 record came, in the first instance, from the lips of St. Peter, and it will accordingly be instructive to compare its eschatology, or “teaching as to the last things,” with that which we find in his discourses and epistles. St. Paul’s reference to “the day of the Lord “coming” as a thief in the night” (<a href="/1_thessalonians/5-2.htm" title="For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.">1Thessalonians 5:2</a>) suggests the inference that its substance had become known at a comparatively early date; but it was probably not published, <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> not thrown as a document into circulation, among Christian Jews, till the time was near when its warnings would be needed; and this may, in part, account for the variations with which it then appeared.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-5.htm">Matthew 24:5</a></div><div class="verse">For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.</div>(5) <span class= "bld">Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">the Christ.</span> 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 (<a href="/numbers/24-17.htm" title="I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.">Numbers 24:17</a>), is often named as a fulfilment; but he did not appear till A.D. 120—nearly 50 years <span class= "ital">after</span> the destruction of Jerusalem. In the excited fanaticism of the time, however, it was likely enough that such pretenders should arise and disappear, after each had lived out his little day, and fill no place in history. The “many antichrists, <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> rival Christs, of <a href="/1_john/2-18.htm" title="Little children, it is the last time: and as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.">1John 2:18</a>, may point to such phenomena; possibly, also, the prophecy of <a href="/2_thessalonians/2-4.htm" title="Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.">2Thessalonians 2:4</a>. Theudas (the last rebel of that name—not the one named in <a href="/acts/5-36.htm" title="For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nothing.">Acts 5:36</a>, but by Josephus, <span class= "ital">Ant. xx.</span> 5), or “the Egyptian” of <a href="/acts/21-38.htm" title="Are not you that Egyptian, which before these days made an uproar, and led out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?">Acts 21:38</a>, may possibly have mingled Messianic claims with their pretensions, but there is no evidence of it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-6.htm">Matthew 24:6</a></div><div class="verse">And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all <i>these things</i> must come to pass, but the end is not yet.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">Ye shall hear</span> <span class= "bld">. . .</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">ye shall be about to hear</span>—a kind of double future, or possibly an example of the transition between the older future tense and the use of an auxiliary verb.<p><span class= "bld">Wars and rumours.</span>—St. Luke adds “commotions.” The forty years that intervened before the destruction of Jerusalem were full of these in all directions; but we may probably think of the words <span class= "ital">as</span> referring specially to wars, actual or threatened, that affected the Jews, such, <span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> as those of which we read under Caligula, Claudius, and Nero (Jos. <span class= "ital">Ant. xx.</span> 1, 6). The title which the historian gave to his second book, “The Wars of the Jews,” is sufficiently suggestive. As the years passed on, the watchword, “Be not troubled,” must have kept the believers in Christ calm in the midst of agitation. They were not to think that the end was to follow at once upon the wars which were preparing the way for it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-7.htm">Matthew 24:7</a></div><div class="verse">For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">Nation shall rise against nation.</span>—Some of the more memorable of these are recorded by Josephus: one at Seleucia, in which 50,000 Jews are said to have perished (<span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xviii. 9, §§ 8, 9); others at Cæsarea, Scythopolis, Joppa, Ascalon, and Tyre (<span class= "ital">Wars</span> 2:18); and the memorable conflict between Jews and Greeks at Alexandria, under Caligula, A.D. 38, of which we learn from Philo. The whole period was, indeed, marked by tumults of this kind.<p><span class= "bld">Famines.</span>—Of these we know that of which Agabus prophesied (<a href="/acts/11-28.htm" title="And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.">Acts 11:28</a>), and which was felt severely, in the ninth year of Claudius, not only in Syria, but in Rome (Jos. <span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xx. 2). Suetonius (<span class= "ital">Claud.</span> c. 18) speaks of the reign of that emperor as marked by “continual scarcity.”<p><span class= "bld">Pestilences.</span>—The word is not found in the best MSS., and has probably been inserted from the parallel passage in <a href="/luke/21-11.htm" title="And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.">Luke 21:11</a>. It was, however, the inevitable attendant on famine, and the Greek words for the two (<span class= "greekheb">λιμὸς</span>, and <span class= "greekheb">λοιμὸς</span>,<span class= "ital"> limos </span>and <span class= "ital">loimos</span>) were so like each other that the omission may possibly have been an error of transcription. A pestilence is recorded as sweeping off 30,000 persons at Rome (Sueton. <span class= "ital">Nero,</span> 39; Tacitus, <span class= "ital">Ann.</span> xvi. 13).<p><span class= "bld">Earthquakes, in divers places.</span>—Perhaps no period in the world’s history has ever been so marked by these convulsions as that which intervenes between the Crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem. Josephus records one in Judæa (<span class= "ital">Wars,</span> iv. 4, § 5); Tacitus tells of them in Crete, Rome, Apamea, Phrygia, Campania (<span class= "ital">Ann.</span> xii. 58; xiv. 27; xv. 22); Seneca (<span class= "ital">Ep.</span> 91), in A.D. 58, speaks of them as extending their devastations over Asia (the proconsular province, not the continent), Achaia, Syria, and Macedonia.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-8.htm">Matthew 24:8</a></div><div class="verse">All these <i>are</i> the beginning of sorrows.</div>(8) <span class= "bld">The beginning of sorrows.</span>—The words mean strictly, <span class= "ital">the beginning of travail pangs.</span> The troubles through which the world passes are thought of as issuing in a “new birth”—the “regeneration” of <a href="/matthew/19-28.htm" title="And Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, That you which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.">Matthew 19:28</a>. So St. Paul speaks of the whole creation as “travailing in pain together” (<a href="/romans/8-22.htm" title="For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.">Romans 8:22</a>). So a time of national suffering and perplexity is one in which “the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth” (<a href="/isaiah/37-3.htm" title="And they said to him, Thus said Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.">Isaiah 37:3</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-9.htm">Matthew 24:9</a></div><div class="verse">Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">Then shall they deliver</span> <span class= "bld">. . .</span>—The adverb, here and in <a href="/matthew/24-10.htm" title="And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.">Matthew 24:10</a>, points to synchronism rather than sequence in its connection with <a href="/matthew/24-8.htm" title="All these are the beginning of sorrows.">Matthew 24:8</a>.<p><span class= "bld">To be afflicted.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">unto affliction.</span> The words repeat in substance the predictions of <a href="/matthew/10-22.htm" title="And you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endures to the end shall be saved.">Matthew 10:22</a>. (See Notes there.) Here we have “hated of all the nations,” <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> heathen nations, instead of the wider “hated of all men.” So, when Paul reached Rome, the “sect” of the Christians was “everywhere spoken against” (<a href="/acts/28-22.htm" title="But we desire to hear of you what you think: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against.">Acts 28:22</a>) “as evildoers” (<a href="/1_peter/2-12.htm" title="Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.">1Peter 2:12</a>). So, a little later on, Tacitus describes them as “hated for their crimes” (<span class= "ital">Ann.</span> xv. 44).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-10.htm">Matthew 24:10</a></div><div class="verse">And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.</div>(10) <span class= "bld">Shall many be offended.</span>—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. <a href="/2_peter/3-4.htm" title="And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.">2Peter 3:4</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Shall hate one another.</span>—The words received a terrible fulfilment in the faction-fights of the Zealots and Sicarii at Jerusalem (Jos. <span class= "ital">Wars, iv.</span> 3), in the disputes in every city between believing and unbelieving Jews (<a href="/acts/13-50.htm" title="But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.">Acts 13:50</a>; <a href="/acts/14-19.htm" title="And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.">Acts 14:19</a>; <a href="/acts/17-5.htm" title="But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took to them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.">Acts 17:5</a>; <a href="/acts/18-6.htm" title="And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said to them, Your blood be on your own heads; I am clean; from now on I will go to the Gentiles.">Acts 18:6</a>; <a href="/acts/19-9.htm" title="But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spoke evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.">Acts 19:9</a>), in the bitter hatred of the Judaisers against St. Paul (<a href="/acts/23-12.htm" title="And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.">Acts 23:12</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-11.htm">Matthew 24:11</a></div><div class="verse">And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.</div>(11) <span class= "bld">Many false prophets shall rise.</span>—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 (<a href="/1_john/4-1.htm" title="Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.">1John 4:1</a>), and many antichrists (<a href="/1_john/2-18.htm" title="Little children, it is the last time: and as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.">1John 2:18</a>); St. Peter of “false teachers” (<a href="/2_peter/2-1.htm" title="But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.">2Peter 2:1</a>), like the false prophets of old; St. Paul of men who should give heed to seducing spirits (<a href="/1_timothy/4-1.htm" title="Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;">1Timothy 4:1</a>). These show the extent of the evil which was the natural outcome of the feverish excitement of the people. In Josephus (<span class= "ital">Wars, vi.</span> 5, § 2) we have the record of this working of false prophecy in more immediate connection with Judæa and Jerusalem. Up to the last moment of the capture of the city by Titus, men were buoyed up with false hopes of deliverance, based on the predictions of fanatics and impostors.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-12.htm">Matthew 24:12</a></div><div class="verse">And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.</div>(12) <span class= "bld">Because iniquity shall abound</span> <span class= "bld">. . .</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">lawlessness.</span> 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.<p><span class= "bld">The love of many</span> <span class= "bld">. . .</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">of the many</span>; the greater part of the true Israel who would be found in the Church of Christ; perhaps, also, the greater part of the nation as such. This was the natural result of the condition of things implied in the “lawlessness.” The tendency of all such times, as seen in the histories of famines, and pestilences, and revolutions, is to intensify selfishness, both in the more excusable form of self-preservation, and in the darker form of self-aggrandisement. In the tendency to “forsake the assembling of themselves together” among the Hebrew Christians, we have, perhaps, one instance of the love waxing cold (<a href="/hebrews/10-25.htm" title="Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.">Hebrews 10:25</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-13.htm">Matthew 24:13</a></div><div class="verse">But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.</div>(13) <span class= "bld">He that shall endure unto the end</span> <span class= "bld">. . .</span>—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, <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the destruction of Jerusalem; and so the words “shall be saved” at least include deliverance from the doom of those who were involved in that destruction.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-14.htm">Matthew 24:14</a></div><div class="verse">And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">Shall be preached in all the world.</span>—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, <span class= "ital">the inhabited earth,</span> as in <a href="/luke/2-1.htm" title="And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.">Luke 2:1</a>; <a href="/acts/11-28.htm" title="And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.">Acts 11:28</a>) neither more nor less than the Roman empire; and it was true, as a matter of fact, that there was hardly a province of the empire in which the faith of Christ had not been preached before the destruction of Jerusalem. Special attention should be given to the words, “a witness unto all the <span class= "ital">nations,” i.e.,</span> to all the Gentiles, as an implicit sanction of the work of which St. Paul was afterwards the great representative. So taken, the words prepare the way for the great mission of <a href="/matthew/28-19.htm" title="Go you therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:">Matthew 28:19</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-15.htm">Matthew 24:15</a></div><div class="verse">When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)</div>(15) <span class= "bld">The abomination of desolation.</span>—The words, as they stand in <a href="/daniel/12-11.htm" title="And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.">Daniel 12:11</a>, 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 (<a href="//apocrypha.org/2_maccabees/6-1.htm" title="Not long after this the king sent an old man of Athens to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers, and not to live after the laws of God:">2 Maccabees 6:1-9</a>). What analogous desecration our Lord’s words point to, is a question that has received very different answers. We may at once narrow the range of choice by remembering (1) that it is before the destruction of the Temple, and therefore cannot be the presence of the plundering troops, or of the eagles of the legions in it; (2) that the “abomination” stands in the “Holy Place,” and therefore it cannot be identified with the appearance of the Roman eagles in the lines of the besieging legions under Cestius, A.D. 68. The answer is probably to be found in the faction-fights, the murders and outrages, the profane consecration of usurping priests, which the Jewish historian describes so fully (Jos. <span class= "ital">Wars,</span> iv. 6, §§ 6-8). The Zealots had got possession of the Temple at an early stage in the siege, and profaned it by these and other like outrages; they made the Holy Place (in the very words of the historian) “a garrison and stronghold” of their tyrannous and lawless rule; while the better priests looked on from afar and wept tears of horror. The mysterious prediction of <a href="/2_thessalonians/2-4.htm" title="Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.">2Thessalonians 2:4</a> may point, in the first instance, to some kindred “abomination.”<p>The words “spoken of by Daniel the prophet” have been urged as absolutely decisive of the questions that have been raised as to the authorship of the book that bears the name of that prophet. This is not the place to discuss those questions, but it is well in all cases not to put upon words a strain which they will scarcely bear. It has been urged, with some degree of reasonableness, that a reference of this kind was necessarily made to the book as commonly received and known, and that critical questions of this kind, as in reference to David as the writer of the Psalms, or Moses as the author of the books commonly ascribed to him, lay altogether outside the scope of our Lord’s teaching. The questions themselves had not been then raised, and were not present to the thoughts either of the hearers or the readers of his prophetic warnings.<p><span class= "bld">Whoso readeth, let him understand.</span>—The words have been supposed by some commentators to have been a marginal note in the first written report of the discourse, calling attention to this special prediction on account of its practical bearing on the action of the disciples of Christ at the time. There appears, however, to be no sufficient reason why they should not be received as part of the discourse itself, bidding one who read the words of Daniel to ponder over their meaning till he learnt to recognise their fulfilment in the events that should pass before his eyes.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-16.htm">Matthew 24:16</a></div><div class="verse">Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:</div>(16) <span class= "bld">Then let them which be in Judsea.</span>—The words were acted on when the time came. Eusebius (<span class= "ital">Hist. Eccl.</span> 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 (<span class= "ital">Wars,</span> iv. 9, § 1; v. 10, § 1) more generally relates that many of the more conspicuous citizens fled from the city, as men abandon a sinking ship. The “mountains” may be named generally as a place of refuge, or may point, as interpreted by the event, to the Gilead range of hills on the east of Jordan.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-17.htm">Matthew 24:17</a></div><div class="verse">Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:</div>(17) <span class= "bld">Let him which is on the housetop.</span>—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 moment of danger (in this case that arising from the factions within the city, rather than the invaders without), any delay might prove fatal. Men were to escape as though their life were “given them for a prey” (<a href="/jeremiah/45-5.htm" title="And seek you great things for yourself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil on all flesh, said the LORD: but your life will I give to you for a prey in all places where you go.">Jeremiah 45:5</a>), without thinking of their goods or chattels.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-18.htm">Matthew 24:18</a></div><div class="verse">Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.</div>(18) <span class= "bld">To take his clothes.</span>—Better, in the singular, <span class= "ital">his cloak.</span> 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.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-19.htm">Matthew 24:19</a></div><div class="verse">And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!</div>(19) <span class= "bld">Woe unto them.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">alas for them,</span> or <span class= "ital">woe for them.</span> 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 the words spoken to the daughters of Jerusalem in <a href="/context/luke/23-28.htm" title="But Jesus turning to them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.">Luke 23:28-29</a>. Perhaps the words point to the darker horrors of the siege, when mothers were driven, in the frenzy of starvation, to feed on their infants’ flesh (Jos. <span class= "ital">Wars, vi.</span> 3, § 4).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-20.htm">Matthew 24:20</a></div><div class="verse">But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:</div>(20) <span class= "bld">Pray ye that your flight</span> <span class= "bld">. . .</span>—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 the Sabbath day.” Living as the Christians of Judæa did in the strict observance of the Law, they would either be hindered by their own scruples from going beyond a Sabbath day’s journey (about one English mile), which would be insufficient to place them out of the reach of danger, or would find impediments—gates shut, and the like—from the Sabbath observance of others.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-21.htm">Matthew 24:21</a></div><div class="verse">For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.</div>(21) <span class= "bld">Such as was not since the beginning . . .</span>—The words come from <a href="/daniel/12-1.htm" title="And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which stands for the children of your people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time your people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.">Daniel 12:1</a>. 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 (<span class= "ital">Wars,</span> v. 13, §§ 4, 5). Other sieges may have witnessed, before and since, scenes of physical wretchedness equally appalling, but nothing that history records offers anything parallel to the alternations of fanatic hope and frenzied despair that attended the breaking up of the faith and polity of Israel.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-22.htm">Matthew 24:22</a></div><div class="verse">And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.</div>(22) <span class= "bld">Should no flesh be saved.</span>—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.<p><span class= "bld">For the elect’s sake.</span>—Those who, as believers in Jesus, were the “remnant” of the visible Israel, and therefore the true Israel of God. It was for the sake of the Christians of Judæa, not for that of the rebellious Jews, that the war was not protracted, and that Titus, under the outward influences of Josephus and Bernice, tempered his conquests with compassion (<span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xii. 3, § 2; <span class= "ital">Wars,</span> vi. 9, § 2). The new prominence which the idea of an election gains in our Lord’s later teaching is every way remarkable. (Comp. <a href="/matthew/18-7.htm" title="Woe to the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!">Matthew 18:7</a>; <a href="/matthew/20-6.htm" title="And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and said to them, Why stand you here all the day idle?">Matthew 20:6</a>). The “call” had been wide; in those who received and obeyed it He taught men to recognise the “elect” whom God had chosen. Subtle questions as to whether the choice rested on foreknowledge or was absolutely arbitrary lay, if we may reverently so speak, outside the scope of His teaching.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-23.htm">Matthew 24:23</a></div><div class="verse">Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here <i>is</i> Christ, or there; believe <i>it</i> not.</div>(23) <span class= "bld">Lo, here is Christ, or there.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">Lo, here is the Christ.</span> The narrative of Josephus, while speaking of many <span class= "ital">“</span>deceivers” claiming divine authority (<span class= "ital">Wars, ii.</span> 13, § 4), is silent as to any pretenders to the character of the Messiah. It is scarcely conceivable, however, that this should not have been one of the results of the fevered dreams of the people, and the reticence of the historian was probably a <span class= "ital">suppressio veri</span> connected with his own recognition of Vespasian as a <span class= "ital">quasi</span> Christ (<span class= "ital">Wars,</span> vi. 5, § 4).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-24.htm">Matthew 24:24</a></div><div class="verse">For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if <i>it were</i> possible, they shall deceive the very elect.</div>(24) <span class= "bld">Shall shew great signs and wonders.</span>—Simon Magus (<a href="/context/acts/8-9.htm" title="But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:">Acts 8:9-11</a>) and Elymas (<a href="/acts/13-6.htm" title="And when they had gone through the isle to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus:">Acts 13:6</a>) 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 full development (<a href="/2_thessalonians/2-9.htm" title="Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,">2Thessalonians 2:9</a>). But for the warning thus given, even the “elect”—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the Christians of Judæa and Jerusalem—might have been carried away by the current of popular delusions.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-26.htm">Matthew 24:26</a></div><div class="verse">Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, <i>he is</i> in the secret chambers; believe <i>it</i> not.</div>(26) <span class= "bld">In the secret chambers.</span>—The word is the same as that translated “closet” in <a href="/matthew/6-6.htm" title="But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly.">Matthew 6:6</a>. 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 the Jordan, or in the inner recesses of some zealot’s house, and would at the last moment appear to claim the throne of His father David. (Comp. Jos. <span class= "ital">Wars,</span> vi. 5, § 2). Believers in Christ would hear such words with a calm indifference, for they would know that such was not to be the manner of His approach.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-27.htm">Matthew 24:27</a></div><div class="verse">For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.</div>(27) <span class= "bld">As the lightning cometh out of the east.</span>—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 (<a href="/matthew/24-3.htm" title="And as he sat on the mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world?">Matthew 24:3</a>) had connected the destruction of Jerusalem with the “coming” of their Lord, and the two are connected even in His own words and thoughts. In whatever way He came, whether in the final destruction of the Temple and polity of Israel, or at the end of the world’s great drama, the advent would be sudden and unlooked-for as the lightning-flash. The crises of the world’s history, which are the “springing and germinant accomplishments” of such words as these, are always unexpected by the great mass of mankind, even though the few whose eyes are opened can discern the signs of the times, and know that their “redemption draweth nigh.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-28.htm">Matthew 24:28</a></div><div class="verse">For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.</div>(28) <span class= "bld">Wheresoever the carcase is.</span>—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 destroy. This, true as far as it goes, is too narrow and localised in its range for so wide and far-reaching a comparison. (2) The strange fantastic imagination of many of the Fathers that the “carcass” is Christ Himself, as crucified and slain, and that the eagles are His true saints and servants who hasten to meet Him in His coming. Those who picture to themselves with what purpose and with what results the vultures of the East swoop down on the carrion which they scent far off upon the breeze, will surely find such an explanation at once revolting and irrational. What the enigmatic proverb (if indeed it be enigmatic) means, is that wherever life is gone, wherever a church or nation is decaying and putrescent, there to the end of time will God’s ministers of vengeance, <span class= "ital">the</span> vultures that do their work of destruction, and so leave room for new forms of life by sweeping off that which was “ready to vanish away” (comp. <a href="/hebrews/8-13.htm" title="In that he said, A new covenant, he has made the first old. Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away.">Hebrews 8:13</a> for the phrase and thought), assuredly be found. What the disciples should witness in the fall of Jerusalem would repeat itself scores of times in the world’s history, and be fulfilled on the largest scale at the end of all things. The words of Isaiah (<a href="/isaiah/46-11.htm" title="Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executes my counsel from a far country: yes, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.">Isaiah 46:11</a>) and Ezekiel (<a href="/ezekiel/39-4.htm" title="You shall fall on the mountains of Israel, you, and all your bands, and the people that is with you: I will give you to the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.">Ezekiel 39:4</a>), in which the “ravenous bird” is a symbol of the nations who do the work of destruction to which God sends them, illustrate the meaning of the generalised law which is here asserted.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-29.htm">Matthew 24:29</a></div><div class="verse">Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:</div>(29) <span class= "bld">Immediately after the tribulation of those days.</span>—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 could have been found in the words when they were first heard or read. The “days” of this verse are those which were shortened “for the elect’s sake” (<a href="/matthew/24-22.htm" title="And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.">Matthew 24:22</a>). The “tribulation” can be none other than that of <a href="/matthew/24-21.htm" title="For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.">Matthew 24:21</a>, which was emphatically connected with the flight of men from the beleaguered city. The language of St. Mark, “in those days, after that tribulation,” followed by a description of the second Advent identical in substance with St. Matthew’s, brings the two events, if possible, into yet closer juxtaposition. How are we to explain the fact that already more than eighteen centuries have rolled away, and “the promise of His coming” still tarries? It is a partial answer to the question to say that God’s measurements of time are not as man’s, and that with Him “a thousand years are as one day” (<a href="/2_peter/3-8.htm" title="But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.">2Peter 3:8</a>); that there is that in God which answers to the modification of a purpose in man, and now postpones, now hastens, the unfolding of His plan. But that which may seem the boldest answer is also (in the judgment of the present writer) that which seems the truest and most reverential. Of that “day and hour” knew no man, “not even the Son” (<a href="/mark/13-32.htm" title="But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.">Mark 13:32</a>), “but the Father only” (<a href="/matthew/24-36.htm" title="But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.">Matthew 24:36</a>); and therefore He, as truly man, and as having, therefore, vouchsafed to accept the limitations of knowledge incident to man’s nature, speaks of the two events as poets and prophets speak of the far-off future. As men gazing from a distance see the glittering heights of two snow crowned mountains apparently in close proximity, and take no account of the vast tract, it may be of very many miles, which lies between them; so it was that those whose thoughts must have been mainly moulded on this prediction, the Apostles and their immediate disciples, though they were too conscious of their ignorance Of “the times and the seasons” to fix the day or year, lived and died in the expectation that it was not far off, and that they might, by prayer and acts, hasten its coming (<a href="/2_peter/3-12.htm" title="Looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?">2Peter 3:12</a>). (See Note on <a href="/matthew/24-36.htm" title="But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.">Matthew 24:36</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Shall the sun be darkened.</span>—The words reproduce the imagery in which Isaiah had described the day of the Lord’s judgment upon Babylon (<a href="/isaiah/13-10.htm" title="For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.">Isaiah 13:10</a>), and may naturally receive the same symbolic interpretation. Our Lord speaks here in language as essentially apocalyptic as that of the Revelation of St. John (<a href="/revelation/8-12.htm" title="And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.">Revelation 8:12</a>), and it lies in the very nature of such language that it precludes a literal interpretation. Even the common speech of men describes a time of tribulation as one in which “the skies are dark” and “the sun of a nation’s glory sets in gloom;” and the language of Isaiah, of St. John, and of our Lord, is but the expansion of that familiar parable. Sun, moon, and stars <span class= "ital">may</span> represent, as many have thought, kingly power, and the spiritual influence of which the Church of Christ is the embodiment, and the illuminating power of those who “shine as lights in the world” (<a href="/philippians/2-15.htm" title="That you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the middle of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world;">Philippians 2:15</a>), but even this interpretation is, it may be, over-precise and technical, and the words are better left in their dim and terrible vagueness.<p><span class= "bld">The powers of the heavens.</span>—These are, it will be noted, distinguished from the “stars,” and may be taken as the apocalyptic expression for the laws or “forces” by which moon and stars are kept in their appointed courses. The phrase is found elsewhere only in the parallel passages in St. Mark and St. Luke.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-30.htm">Matthew 24:30</a></div><div class="verse">And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.</div>(30) <span class= "bld">Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man.</span>—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 the sky (as if the vision of Constantine were to be reproduced in the last days), or the lightning flash that shall dazzle all men with its brightness, or of some visible manifestation which none can imagine till it shall come. The vision of <a href="/daniel/7-13.htm" title="I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.">Daniel 7:13</a> supplies, it is believed, the true answer. The sign of the Son of Man is none other than the presence of the Son of Man Himself, coming in the clouds of heaven, in the ineffable glory of His majesty. And here, too, we must remember that we are still in the region of apocalyptic symbols. All such imagery falls short of the ultimate reality, and a “sign in heaven” is something more than a visible appearance in the sky.<p><span class= "bld">Then shall all the tribes of the earth.</span>—It lies in the nature of the case, that the “tribes” are those who have done evil, and who therefore dread the coming of the Judge. The words find their best comment in <a href="/revelation/1-7.htm" title="Behold, he comes with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.">Revelation 1:7</a>, where St. John combines them freely with the prediction of <a href="/zechariah/12-10.htm" title="And I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look on me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.">Zechariah 12:10</a>, “They also which pierced Him,” obviously including not only those who were sharers in the actual “piercing” of the crucified body of the Lord Jesus (<a href="/john/19-37.htm" title="And again another scripture said, They shall look on him whom they pierced.">John 19:37</a>), but all who in any age “crucify the Son of God afresh” (<a href="/hebrews/6-6.htm" title="If they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.">Hebrews 6:6</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-31.htm">Matthew 24:31</a></div><div class="verse">And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.</div>(31) <span class= "bld">He shall send his angels.</span>—The words are memorable as the formal expansion of what had been, as it were, hinted before in the parables of the Tares (<a href="/matthew/13-41.htm" title="The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;">Matthew 13:41</a>) and the Net (<a href="/matthew/13-49.htm" title="So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,">Matthew 13:49</a>).<p><span class= "bld">With a great sound of a trumpet.</span>—The better MSS. omit “sound:” <span class= "ital">With a great trumpet.</span> We know not, and cannot know, what reality will answer to this symbol, but it is interesting to note how deeply it impressed itself on the minds not only of the disciples who heard it, but of those who learnt it from them. When St. Paul speaks of the “trumpet” that shall “sound” (<a href="/1_corinthians/15-52.htm" title="In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.">1Corinthians 15:52</a>), of “the voice of the archangel and the trump of God” (<a href="/1_thessalonians/4-16.htm" title="For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:">1Thessalonians 4:16</a>), we feel that he was reproducing what had been thus proclaimed, and that his eschatology, or doctrine of the last things, was based on a knowledge of, at least, the substance of the great prophetic discourse recorded in the Gospels.<p><span class= "bld">They shall gather together his elect.</span>—The “elect” are the same in idea, though not necessarily the same individuals, as those for whom the days were to be shortened in <a href="/matthew/24-22.htm" title="And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.">Matthew 24:22</a>; and the work of the angels is that of gathering them, wherever they may be scattered, into the one fold. As with so many of the pregnant germs of thought in this chapter, the work of the angels is expanded by the visions of the Apocalypse, when the seer beheld the angels come and seal the hundred and forty-four thousand in their foreheads before the work of judgment should begin (<a href="/revelation/7-2.htm" title="And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,">Revelation 7:2</a>). In each case the elect are those who are living on the earth at the time of the second Advent. In these chapters there is, indeed, no distinct mention of the resurrection of the dead, though they, as well as the living, are implied in the parable of judgment with which the discourse ends.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-32.htm">Matthew 24:32</a></div><div class="verse">Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer <i>is</i> nigh:</div>(32) <span class= "bld">Now learn a parable of the fig tree.</span>—As in so many other instances (comp. Notes on <a href="/john/8-12.htm" title="Then spoke Jesus again to them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.">John 8:12</a>; <a href="/john/10-1.htm" title="Truly, truly, I say to you, He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.">John 10:1</a>), 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 (<a href="/matthew/21-19.htm" title="And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said to it, Let no fruit grow on you henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.">Matthew 21:19</a>), and the season was that of early spring, when “the flowers appear on the earth” and the “fig tree putteth forth her green figs” (Song <a href="/context/songs/2-11.htm" title="For, see, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;">Song of Solomon 2:11-13</a>). And what our Lord teaches is that as surely as the fresh green foliage of the fig tree is a sign of summer, so shall the signs of which He speaks portend the coming of the Son of Man.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-33.htm">Matthew 24:33</a></div><div class="verse">So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, <i>even</i> at the doors.</div>(33) <span class= "bld">So likewise ye.</span>—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 afterwards at the end of the world. Of the four, St. John alone, so far as we know, survived the destruction of Jerusalem.<p><span class= "bld">That it is near.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">that He is near, in</span> accordance with <a href="/james/5-9.htm" title="Grudge not one against another, brothers, lest you be condemned: behold, the judge stands before the door.">James 5:9</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-34.htm">Matthew 24:34</a></div><div class="verse">Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.</div>(34) <span class= "bld">This generation shall not</span> <span class= "bld">pass . . .</span>—The natural meaning of the words is, beyond question. that which takes “generation” in the ordinary sense (as in <a href="/matthew/1-17.htm" title="So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations.">Matthew 1:17</a>, <a href="/acts/13-36.htm" title="For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid to his fathers, and saw corruption:">Acts 13:36</a>, and elsewhere) for those who are living at any given period. So it was on “this generation” (<a href="/matthew/23-36.htm" title="Truly I say to you, All these things shall come on this generation.">Matthew 23:36</a>) that the accumulated judgments were to fall. The desire to bring the words into more apparent harmony with history has led some interpreters to take “generation” in the sense of “race” or “people,” and so to see in the words a prophecy of the perpetuity of the existence of the Jews as a distinct people till the end of the world. But for this meaning there is not the shadow of authority; nor does it remove the difficulty which it was invented to explain. The words of <a href="/matthew/16-28.htm" title="Truly I say to you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.">Matthew 16:28</a> state the same fact in language which does not admit of any such explanation.<p><span class= "bld">Till all these things be fulfilled.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">till all these things come to pass.</span> The words do not necessarily imply more than the commencement of a process, the first unrolling of the scroll of the coming ages.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-35.htm">Matthew 24:35</a></div><div class="verse">Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.</div>(35) <span class= "bld">Heaven and earth.</span>—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 <a href="/psalms/102-26.htm" title="They shall perish, but you shall endure: yes, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a clothing shall you change them, and they shall be changed:">Psalm 102:26</a>, <a href="/isaiah/40-8.htm" title="The grass wither, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.">Isaiah 40:8</a>, gives them their full significance. The Son of Man claims for His own words the eternity which belongs to the words of Jehovah. (Comp. <a href="/context/1_peter/1-24.htm" title="For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass wither, and the flower thereof falls away:">1Peter 1:24-25</a>.) The whole history of Christendom witnesses to the fulfilment of the prophetic claim. Amid all its changes and confusions, its errors and its sins, the words of Christ have not passed away, but retain their pre-eminence as the last and fullest revelation of the Father.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-36.htm">Matthew 24:36</a></div><div class="verse">But of that day and hour knoweth no <i>man</i>, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.</div>(36) <span class= "bld">No, not the angels of heaven.</span>—St. Mark’s addition (<a href="/mark/13-32.htm" title="But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.">Mark 13:32</a>), “neither the Son”—or better, <span class= "ital">not even the Son</span>—is every way remarkable. Assuming, what is well-nigh certain (see <span class= "ital">Introduction to St. Mark</span>)<span class= "ital">,</span> the close connection of that Gospel with St. Peter, it is as if the Apostle who heard the discourse desired, for some special reason, to place on record the <span class= "ital">ipsissima verba</span> of his Master. And that reason may be found in his own teaching. The over-eager expectations of some, and the inevitable reaction of doubt and scorn in others, both rested on their assumption that the Son of Man had definitely fixed the time of His appearing, and on their consequent forgetfulness of the “long-suffering” which might extend a day into a thousand years (<a href="/context/2_peter/3-3.htm" title="Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,">2Peter 3:3-8</a>). It is obviously doing violence to the plain meaning of the words to dilute them into the statement that the Son of Man did, not communicate the knowledge which He possessed as the Son of God. If we are perplexed at the mystery of this confession in One in whom we recosniise the presence of “the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (<a href="/colossians/1-19.htm" title=" For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell;">Colossians 1:19</a>; <a href="/colossians/2-9.htm" title=" For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.">Colossians 2:9</a>), we may find that which may help us at least to wait patiently for the full understanding of the mystery in St. Paul’s teaching, that the eternal Word in becoming flesh, “emptied Himself” (see Note on <a href="/philippians/2-7.htm" title="But made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:">Philippians 2:7</a>) of the infinity which belongs to the divine attributes, and took upon Him the limitations necessarily incidental to man’s nature, even when untainted by evil and in fullest fellowship, through the Eternal Spirit, with the Father.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-37.htm">Matthew 24:37</a></div><div class="verse">But as the days of Noe <i>were</i>, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.</div>(37) <span class= "bld">As the days of Noe were.</span>—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, <a href="/1_peter/3-20.htm" title="Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.">1Peter 3:20</a>; <a href="/2_peter/2-5.htm" title="And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;">2Peter 2:5</a>; <a href="/2_peter/3-6.htm" title="Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:">2Peter 3:6</a>. This is, perhaps, all the more noticeable from the fact that the report of the discourse in St. Mark does not give the reference, neither indeed does that in St. Luke, but substitutes for it a general warning-call to watchfulness and prayer. Possibly (though all such conjectures are more or less arbitrary) the two Evangelists who were writing for the Gentile Christians were led to omit the allusion to a history which was not so familiar to those whom they had in view as it was to the Hebrew readers of St. Matthew’s Gospel.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-39.htm">Matthew 24:39</a></div><div class="verse">And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.</div>(39) <span class= "bld">So shall also the coming of the Son of man be.</span>—The words justify the interpretation given above of <a href="/context/matthew/24-29.htm" title="Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:">Matthew 24:29-30</a>. 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,” which can be discerned only by the illumined insight of the faithful, the hardened unbelief on the one side, and the expectant watchfulness on the other, are the natural result of the power or the want of power to discern them.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-40.htm">Matthew 24:40</a></div><div class="verse">Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.</div>(40) <span class= "bld">The one shall be taken.</span>—Literally, the present tense being used to express the certainty of the future, <span class= "ital">one is taken, and one is left.</span> 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” received into fellowship with Christ, while the other is abandoned? or is he carried away as by the storm of judgment, while the other is set free? On the whole, the use of the Greek word in other passages (as, <span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> in <a href="/matthew/1-20.htm" title="But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, you son of David, fear not to take to you Mary your wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.">Matthew 1:20</a>; <a href="/matthew/1-24.htm" title="Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took to him his wife:">Matthew 1:24</a>; <a href="/matthew/12-45.htm" title="Then goes he, and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also to this wicked generation.">Matthew 12:45</a>; <a href="/john/1-11.htm" title="He came to his own, and his own received him not.">John 1:11</a>; <a href="/john/14-3.htm" title="And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.">John 14:3</a>) is in favour of the former interpretation. What is taught in any case is that the day of judgment will be, as by an inevitable law, a day of separation, according to the diversity of character which may exist in the midst of the closest fellowship in outward life.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-41.htm">Matthew 24:41</a></div><div class="verse">Two <i>women shall be</i> grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.</div>(41) <span class= "bld">Two women shall be grinding at the mill.</span>—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 <a href="/judges/16-21.htm" title="But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.">Judges 16:21</a>, and <a href="/lamentations/5-13.htm" title="They took the young men to grind, and the children fell under the wood.">Lamentations 5:13</a>, the employment appears as the crowning degradation of male captives taken in battle. It is probable that in this case, as in that of the fig-tree, the illustration may have been suggested by what was present to our Lord’s view at the time. The Mount of Olives might well have presented to His gaze, even as He spoke, the two labourers in the field, the two women at the mill.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-43.htm">Matthew 24:43</a></div><div class="verse">But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.</div>(43) <span class= "bld">But know this.</span>—The verses from <a href="/matthew/24-42.htm" title="Watch therefore: for you know not what hour your Lord does come.">Matthew 24:42</a> to <a href="/matthew/24-51.htm" title="And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.">Matthew 24:51</a> 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. <a href="/luke/12-42.htm" title="And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?">Luke 12:42</a>, <span class= "ital">et seq.</span> Here, as elsewhere, we have to choose between the assumption of a repetition of the same words, or of a transfer of what was spoken on one occasion to another; and of the two, the former hypothesis seems the more probable. It may be noted, however, that the variations in the three reports of this discourse indicate a comparatively free treatment of it, the natural result, probably, of its having been often reproduced, wholly or in part, orally before it was committed to writing. On ordinary grounds of evidence, St. Mark’s report, assuming his connection with St. Peter, would seem likely to come nearest to the very words spoken by our Lord.<p><span class= "bld">The goodman of the house.</span>—Better, as in <a href="/matthew/20-1.htm" title="For the kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard.">Matthew 20:1</a>., <span class= "ital">householder.</span><p><span class= "bld">In what watch.</span>—The night-watches were four in number, of three hours each. So in <a href="/luke/12-38.htm" title="And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.">Luke 12:38</a>, we have “the second or the third watch” specified. The allusion to the “thief coming” would seem to have passed into the proverbial saying, that the day of the Lord would come “as a thief in the night,” quoted by St. Paul in <a href="/1_thessalonians/5-2.htm" title="For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.">1Thessalonians 5:2</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-44.htm">Matthew 24:44</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.</div>(44) <span class= "bld">In such an hour as ye think not.</span>—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 in His own power. The apparent destiny of failure which has attended on all attempts to go beyond this in the interpretation of the apocalyptic eschatology of Scripture might have been avoided had men been more careful to restrain here also their efforts after knowledge “within the limits of the knowable.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-45.htm">Matthew 24:45</a></div><div class="verse">Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?</div>(45) <span class= "bld">Who then is a faithful . . .?</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">Who then is the faithful and wise servant?</span> 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 other.<p><span class= "bld">To give them meat in due season.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">to give them their food.</span> In the parallel passage of <a href="/luke/12-42.htm" title="And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?">Luke 12:42</a>, the word used means “a measure or fixed portion of meal or flour.” The comparison brings before us one function of the minister of Christ. He is to supply men with the spiritual food which they need for the sustenance of their higher life. It may be the “spiritual milk” of <a href="/1_peter/2-2.htm" title="As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby:">1Peter 2:2</a>, <a href="/hebrews/5-12.htm" title="For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.">Hebrews 5:12</a>, <a href="/1_corinthians/3-2.htm" title="I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for till now you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able.">1Corinthians 3:2</a>; it may be the “strong meat” or “solid food.” There is an art, as it were, of spiritual dietetics, which requires tact and discernment as well as faithfulness. The wise servant will seek to discover not only the right kind of food, but the right season for giving it. An apparent parallel presents itself in the common interpretation of “rightly dividing the word of truth” (<a href="/2_timothy/2-15.htm" title="Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.">2Timothy 2:15</a>), but the imagery implied in that phrase is probably of an entirely different character. (See Note there.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-46.htm">Matthew 24:46</a></div><div class="verse">Blessed <i>is</i> that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.</div>(46) <span class= "bld">Blessed is that servant.</span>—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 Lord comes to men in the crises of their individual lives; and one such coming is that day of death which closes the trial-time of their earthly life, and brings them into the presence of the Judge.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-47.htm">Matthew 24:47</a></div><div class="verse">Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.</div>(47) <span class= "bld">He shall make him ruler.</span>—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 figured to us as the peace of Paradise, there will still be a work to be done, analogous to that which has been the man’s training here, and in it there will be scope for all the faculties and energies that have been thus disciplined and developed. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/matthew/25-21.htm" title="His lord said to him, Well done, you good and faithful servant: you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter you into the joy of your lord.">Matthew 25:21</a>; <a href="/luke/19-17.htm" title="And he said to him, Well, you good servant: because you have been faithful in a very little, have you authority over ten cities.">Luke 19:17</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-48.htm">Matthew 24:48</a></div><div class="verse">But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;</div>(48) <span class= "bld">But and if that evil servant.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">but if that evil servant,</span> the “and” being in modern English usage superfluous, and representing originally a different conjunction.<p><span class= "bld">My lord delayeth his coming.</span>—The temper described is identical with that portrayed in <a href="/context/2_peter/3-3.htm" title="Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,">2Peter 3:3-4</a>. The words are memorable as implying the prescience, even in the immediate context of words that indicate nearness, that there would be what to men would seem delay. Those who looked on that delay as St. Peter looked on it would continue watchful, but the selfish and ungodly would be tempted by it to forget that Christ comes to men in more senses and more ways than one. The tyranny and sensuality which have at times stained the annals of the Church of Christ have had their origin in this forgetfulness, that though the final coming may be delayed, the Judge is ever near, even at the doors (<a href="/james/5-9.htm" title="Grudge not one against another, brothers, lest you be condemned: behold, the judge stands before the door.">James 5:9</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/matthew/24-51.htm">Matthew 24:51</a></div><div class="verse">And shall cut him asunder, and appoint <i>him</i> his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.</div>(51) <span class= "bld">And shall cut him asunder.</span>—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 had been a hypocrite, double-minded, trying to serve two masters, and his Lord, with the sharp sword of judgment, smites through the false, apparent unity of his life, and reveals its duplicity.<p><span class= "bld">There shall be weeping.</span>—As elsewhere, “<span class= "ital">the</span> weeping and <span class= "ital">the</span> gnashing.”<p><span class= "bld"><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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