23 It will be hard for women who are with child, and for her with a baby at the breast, in those days. For great trouble will come on the land, and wrath on this people.
For the days are coming in which they will say, Happy are those who have had no children, whose bodies have never given birth, whose breasts have never given milk.
Who, to make the measure of their sins complete, kept us from giving the word of salvation to the Gentiles: but the wrath of God is about to come on them in the fullest degree.
The most soft and delicate of your women, who would not so much as put her foot on the earth, so delicate is she, will be hard-hearted to her husband and to her son and to her daughter; And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.
The hands of kind-hearted women have been boiling their children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
They say to him, He will put those cruel men to a cruel death, and will let out the vine-garden to other workmen, who will give him the fruit when it is ready.
But it will be hard for women who are with child and for those with babies at the breast in those days.
And it will be hard for women who are with child and for her who has a baby at the breast in those days.
For the time will come when your attackers will put a wall round you, and come all round you and keep you in on every side,
And has gone once and for ever into the holy place, having got eternal salvation, not through the blood of goats and young oxen, but through his blood. For if the blood of goats and oxen, and the dust from the burning of a young cow, being put on the unclean, make the flesh clean: How much more will the blood of Christ, who, being without sin, made an offering of himself to God through the Holy Spirit, make your hearts clean from dead works to be servants of the living God? And for this cause it is through him that a new agreement has come into being, so that after the errors under the first agreement had been taken away by his death, the word of God might have effect for those who were marked out for an eternal heritage. Because where there is a testament, there has to be the death of the man who made it. For a testament has effect after death; for what power has it while the man who made it is living?
For if we do evil on purpose after we have had the knowledge of what is true, there is no more offering for sins, But only a great fear of being judged, and of the fire of wrath which will be the destruction of the haters of God. A man who has gone against the law of Moses is put to death without pity on the word of two or three witnesses: But will not the man by whom the Son of God has been crushed under foot, and the blood of the agreement with which he was washed clean has been taken as an unholy thing, and who has had no respect for the Spirit of grace, be judged bad enough for a very much worse punishment? For we have had experience of him who says, Punishment is mine, I will give reward. And again, The Lord will be judge of his people. We may well go in fear of falling into the hands of the living God.
But go on doing good and giving to others, because God is well-pleased with such offerings.
Come now, you men of wealth, give yourselves to weeping and crying because of the bitter troubles which are coming to you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Luke 21
Commentary on Luke 21 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 21
Lu 21:1-4. The Widow's Two Mites.
1. looked up—He had "sat down over against the treasury" (Mr 12:41), probably to rest, for He had continued long standing as he taught in the temple court (Mr 11:27), and "looking up He saw"—as in Zaccheus' case, not quite casually.
the rich, &c.—"the people," says Mr 12:41 "cast money into the treasury, and many rich east in much"; that is, into chests deposited in one of the courts of the temple to receive the offerings of the people towards its maintenance (2Ki 12:9; Joh 8:20).
2. two mites—"which make a farthing" (Mr 12:42), the smallest Jewish coin. "She might have kept one" [Bengel].
3. And he said—"to His disciples," whom He "called to Him" (Mr 12:43), to teach from it a great future lesson.
more than … all—in proportion to her means, which is God's standard (2Co 8:12).
4. of their abundance—their superfluity; what they had to spare," or beyond what they needed.
of her penury—or "want" (Mr 12:44)—her deficiency, of what was less than her own wants required, "all the living she had." Mark (Mr 12:44) still more emphatically, "all that she had—her whole subsistence." Note: (1) As temple offerings are needed still for the service of Christ at home and abroad, so "looking down" now, as then "up," Me "sees" who "cast in," and how much. (2) Christ's standard of commendable offering is not our superfluity, but our deficiency—not what will never be missed, but what costs us some real sacrifice, and just in proportion to the relative amount of that sacrifice. (See 2Co 8:1-3.)
Lu 21:5-38. Christ's Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem and Warnings to Prepare for His Second Coming, Suggested by It—His Days and Nights during His Last Week.
5-7. (See on Mt 24:1-3.)
8. the time—of the Kingdom, in its full glory.
go … not … after them—"I come not so very soon" (2Th 2:1, 2) [Stier].
9-11. not terrified—(See Lu 21:19; Isa 8:11-14).
end not by and by—or immediately, not yet (Mt 24:6; Mr 13:7): that is, "Worse must come before all is over."
10. Nation, &c.—Matthew and Mark (Mt 24:8; Mr 13:8) add, "All these are the beginning of sorrows," or travail pangs, to which heavy calamities are compared (Jer 4:31, &c.).
12. brought before, &c.—The book of Acts verifies all this.
13. for a testimony—an opportunity of bearing testimony.
18. not a hair … perish—He had just said (Lu 21:16) 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 the ninety-first Psalm, and such like. Matthew adds the following (Mt 24:12): "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many," the many or, the most—the generality of professed disciples—"shall wax cold." But he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Sad illustrations of the effect of abounding iniquity in cooling the love of faithful disciples we have in the Epistle of James, written about this period referred to, and too frequently ever since (Heb 10:38, 39; Re 2:10). "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world 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.
20, 21. by armies—encamped armies, that is, besieged: "the abomination of desolation" (meaning the Roman ensigns, as the symbols of an idolatrous, pagan, unclean power) "spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (Da 9:27) "standing where it ought not" (Mr 13:14). "Whoso readeth [that prophecy] let him understand" (Mt 24:15).
Then … flee, &c.—Eusebius says the Christians fled to Pella, at the north extremity of Perea, being "prophetically directed"; perhaps by some prophetic intimation still more explicit than this, which still would be their chart.
23. woe unto—"alas for."
with child, &c.—from the greater suffering it would involve; as also "flight in winter, and on the sabbath," which they were to "pray" against (Mt 24:20), the one as more trying to the body, the other to the soul. "For then shall be tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be"—language not unusual in the Old Testament for tremendous calamities, though of this it may perhaps be literally said, "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened" (Mt 24:21, 22). 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. Here in Matthew and Mark (Mt 24:24; Mr 13:22) are some particulars about "false Christs," who should, "if possible"—a precious clause—"deceive the very elect." (Compare 2Th 2:9-11; Re 13:13.)
24. Jerusalem … trodden down … until, &c.—Implying (1) that one day Jerusalem shall cease to be "trodden down by the Gentiles" (Re 11:2), as then by pagan so now by Mohammedan unbelievers; (2) that this shall be at the "completion" of "the times of the Gentiles," which from Ro 11:25 (taken from this) we conclude to mean till the Gentiles have had their full time of that place in the Church which the Jews in their time had before them—after which, the Jews being again "grafted into their own olive tree," one Church of Jew and Gentile together shall fill the earth (Ro 11:1-36). What a vista this opens up!
25-28. signs, &c.—Though the grandeur of this language carries the mind over the head of all periods but that of Christ's second coming, nearly every expression will be found used of the Lord's coming in terrible national judgments, as of Babylon, &c.; and from Lu 21:28, 32, it seems undeniable that its immediate reference was to the destruction of Jerusalem, though its ultimate reference beyond doubt is to Christ's final coming.
28. redemption—from the oppression of ecclesiastical despotism and legal bondage by the total subversion of the Jewish state and the firm establishment of the evangelical kingdom (Lu 21:31). But the words are of far wider and more precious import. Matthew (Mt 24:30) says, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven," evidently something distinct from Himself, mentioned immediately after. What this was intended to mean, interpreters are not agreed. But as before Christ came to destroy Jerusalem, some appalling portents were seen in the air, so before His personal appearing it is likely that something analogous will be witnessed, though of what nature it is vain to conjecture.
32. This generation—not "this nation," as some interpret it, which, though admissible in itself, seems very unnatural here. It is rather as in Lu 9:27.
34-37. surfeiting, and drunkenness—All animal excesses, quenching spirituality.
cares of this life—(See on Mr 4:7; Mr 4:19).
36. Watch … pray, &c.—the two great duties which in prospect of trial are constantly enjoined. These warnings, suggested by the need of preparedness for the tremendous calamities approaching, and the total wreck of the existing state of things, are the general improvement of the whole discourse, carrying the mind forward to Judgment and Vengeance of another kind and on a grander and more awful scale—not ecclesiastical or political but personal, not temporal but eternal—when all safety and blessedness will be found to lie in being able to "STAND BEFORE THE Son of Man" in the glory of His personal appearing.
37, 38. in the daytime—of this His last week.
abode in the mount—that is, at Bethany (Mt 21:17).