Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Matthew 24:1 And Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way; and his disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered and 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. 3 And as he sat on the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

Jesus’ leaving the temple symbolizes the end of its relevance in the purpose of God. The fact that he goes from there to the Mount of Olives (v 3) can be a further echo of Ezekiel 11:23, where ‘the glory of the LORD’, on leaving the temple, stops at the same point.

The disciples’ preoccupation with the buildings, therefore, may be due to a tourist’s fascination (which is confirmed by Josephus, Ant. xv. 392–402, 410–420) But Jesus response goes beyond the repudiation of the temple to foretell its total destruction.

They still focus on the temple, on which Jesus has pronounced doom, since the true center of the relation between God and man has shifted to himself. In Matthew chapter 23 Jesus has already insisted that what Israel does with him, not the temple determines the fate of the temple and of Israel nationally.

Jesus’ prediction became known and was quoted in a garbled form at his trial (26:61) and at his execution (27:40). It was the starkest expression of his rejection of Jewish nationalism and of those leaders whose power was focused on the temple and its rituals.

Warnings against premature expectation (24:3–14)

The disciples’ question apparently relates to the date of the destruction of the temple, and also to the sign of your coming and of the close of the age.

It seems that the disciples linked the destruction of the temple, which was of such momentous significance that to them, and to all who heard of Jesus’ prediction, that it had to be tied to the beginning of the end.

Jesus’ task was to make them realize that a continuation without the temple until the ‘close of the age’ is possible, that the end of the temple (and with it of the special status of Judaism) is not necessarily the end of all things.

Parousia (‘coming’) is used only in this chapter in the Gospels (vv. 3, 27, 37, 39), though in the Epistles it is used several times of Jesus’ return in glory.

The expression the close of the age will recur in 28:20; strictly it could refer to the conclusion of any era (not necessarily the final one). Generally in apocalyptic such expressions point to a more ‘final’ conclusion, and the phrase has already occurred in that sense.

Jesus answers their questions v 3, ‘When will this be?

Jesus’ reply in the remainder of the chapter is to distinguish this eschatological event from the destruction of the temple. But the linking of the two events by the disciples shows that the destruction of the temple was of such momentous significance that to them, it seemed that it must be the beginning of the end.

It is Jesus’ task, then, to extend their horizons, to make them realize that a continuation without the temple until the ‘close of the age’ is possible.
4–5. Jesus’ reply begins immediately with what is to be one of its main themes, the danger of being led astray, of jumping too hastily to eschatological conclusions. In my name does not mean they come with, or even claim, his authority, but rather that they aim to usurp his place.. In the years leading up to the Jewish War there were many nationalistic leaders who collected a popular following, Acts 5:36–37; 21:38

Some think that Jesus envisaged some ‘thing’ comparable to Antiochus’ statue. Suggestions for the identification of such an ‘abomination’ in the period before the destruction of the temple include the emperor Gaius’ attempt to set up a huge statue of himself in the temple (AD 40–41 there was the desecration of the temple by the Zealots in the winter of AD 67 shortly before the Roman siege began; or the appearance of the Roman standards (regarded by the Jews as idolatrous) in the temple at its actual destruction in AD 70.

v. 16 speaks not of the city but of Judea, which was to suffer savage devastation during and after the siege of Jerusalem. Whatever the precise fulfilment of Jesus’ warning, it seems clear from what follows that it is in the events of the Jewish War of AD 66–70 that he sees the reappearance of Daniel’s desolating sacrilege.

16–18. Its appearance is the cue for urgent flight; those in the countryside of Judea must take to the hills as the Romans come to ravage the farmlands and villages. It is a vivid picture of an urgent crisis. Eusebius (H.E. iii.5.3) tells us that before the siege some of the Jerusalem Christians, in response to ‘an oracle given by revelation’, fled to Pella in Transjordan.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the disciples linked the destruction of Jerusalem and the return of Jesus. When Jesus told them that not one stone would remain on another, so great would the sack of Jerusalem be (24:2) they replied, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (24:3).

Verses 4–28 can be divided into three parts.

First, wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and the like do not tell us that the end is very near. “See to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.… All these things are the beginning of birth pains” (24:6, 8).

Second, although such things point to Jesus’ return, they are characteristic of the entire period between His first and second comings. Every single one of these took place within the lifetime of the generation that first heard these words from Jesus and they have continued in every subsequent generation.

Third, Jesus’ warnings presuppose that a substantial period of time will elapse before the end comes. It takes time for nation to rise against nation, and it takes time for the gospel to be preached in the whole world.

Finally, in any case, Jesus gave this outline not to encourage speculation but to warn His disciples against being deceived (24:4, 5). Even social unrest will make the claims of false Christs seem plausible to the ill-informed. These false messiahs will dupe many precisely because the wars, catastrophes, and persecution will make them gullible, eager to accept instant solutions, eager to follow any leader who proposes a solution.

In the second part of Matthew 24:4–28, Jesus described one particularly sharp “birth pain,” many see this as the fall of Jerusalem (24:15–21). Jesus predicted that the impending destruction (which would take place in A.D. 70) would be so terrible that those who would heed His warning should flee in haste

Many commentators hold that Matthew (but probably not Mark and certainly not Luke) here portrays not just the Fall of Jerusalem but also the Great tribulation before Antichrist comes , but it seems the details in vv. 16–21 seem to be too limited geographically and culturally to justify that view.

Jesus viewed this destruction as the ultimate work of “the abomination that causes desolation.” This expression was used four times by Daniel (8:13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) with reference to a number of destructions. But they point forward to this supreme sacrilege: “Let the reader [of Daniel] understand” (Matt. 24:15).

Dan 9: 27 He will make a firm covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. And the abomination of desolation will be on a wingy of the temple until the decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator.”

Daniel 11:31 clearly refers to the desecration under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C. 1 Macc 1:54–61), who erected an altar to Zeus over the altar of burned offering, sacrificed a swine on it, and made the practice of Judaism a capital offense. The other references in Daniel are more disputed.

Dan 11:31 His forces will rise up and desecrate the temple fortress. They will abolish the regular sacrificer and set up the abomination of desolation.

By the time the Roman military standards (an eagle in silver or bronze over the imperial bust, to which soldiers paid homage not far removed from worship) surrounded Jerusalem, the city was defiled. Some have held that though Luke refers to the approaching armies, Matthew and Mark refer to the Zealot excesses that polluted the temple before A.D. 70 (including murder and the installation of a false high priest; cf. Jos. War IV, 147–57 334–44 ), when there was still time to flee. In any case, there is reasonably good tradition that Christians abandoned the city, perhaps in A.D. 68, about halfway through the siege.

Josephus, a Jewish historian who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the desecration of the Temple after a siege of four years, described the horror. The famine was so severe that mothers ate their children. Rival groups within the city slaughtered one another and desecrated the Temple long before the Roman troops breached the walls of the city. The entire populace was either slaughtered or sold into slavery and the city was burned and razed to the ground.

The savagery, slaughter, disease, and famine (mothers eating their own children) were monstrous Jos. War V, 424–38

There have been massacres of greater numbers in the sorry history of the race, but what destruction has been as cruel, so totally destructive, proportionately so ruinous as this? There have been more extensive judgments on the race—remember the Flood—but the fall of Jerusalem remains in a class by itself, if only because the distress was not only proportionately complete, but prolonged and ruthless. Indeed, that was Jesus’ estimate: “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again” (24:21).

Verses 15–22 describe the crisis which will soon come upon Judea, and which will be the prelude to the destruction of the temple predicted in v. 2; 23–28 then go on to give further warnings against premature eschatological expectation even in that terrible situation, even then, ‘the end is not yet’.

15. An ‘abomination’ in Old Testament idiom is an idolatrous affront to the true worship of God, and the reference in Daniel was to the pagan statue which Antiochus Epiphanes set up in the temple at Jerusalem in 167 BC, thus ‘desolating’ the worship of the temple.

Jesus looks for a repetition of this act of sacrilege, committed in the holy place (which would normally mean the temple itself, not just the city of Jerusalem, Acts 6:13; 21:28); the phrase let the reader understand calls on those who read Daniel’s words to apply them to their own situation

16–19 The instructions Jesus gives his disciples about what to do in view of v. 15 are so specific that they must be related to the Jewish War. The devastation would stretch far beyond the city; people throughout Judea should flee to the mountains, where the Maccabeans had hidden in caves

The burden of the first section of the Olivet Discourse, then, is that this entire age is to be characterized by distress, persecution, witness, opposition, wars, famines, and assorted false Christs whose purpose is to deceive God’s people.

The third part of this section of Matthew (24:22–28) reverts to a consideration of the tribulation throughout the period between the comings of Jesus. Some have interpreted the words, “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive” (24:22) as if they refer to the days of the destruction of Jerusalem. But there are very good reasons for thinking that “those days” refers to the entire period of distress.

First, the word for distress is found not only in 24:15–21, but also in 24:9 (rendered “to be persecuted”. So when a few verses later in 24:29 we read about “the distress of those days,” there is no reason why we must restrict the reference to the fall of Jerusalem. It makes better sense, as we shall see, to understand “the distress of those days” to be a reference to the “distress” first introduced in 24:4–14 as characteristic of the entire age.

Second, the words “no one would survive” (24:22) translates an expression that normally embraces all humanity. The verse would not be true if the reference were only to the destruction of Jerusalem.

Climax of the crisis within ‘this generation’ (24:29–35)

Verses 15–28 have spoken of Judea’s crisis, but without describing the climax of that crisis in the destruction of the temple. Yet this was the question which gave rise to the whole discourse (vv. 2–3). When, therefore, v. 29 speaks of a cataclysmic event ‘immediately after the tribulation of those days’, it is natural to expect that now Jesus is going to complete the account with a specific mention of the fate of the temple. But these verses contain no explicit mention of the temple.

Instead, vv. 29–31 the events so described are explicitly dated within ‘this generation’ (v. 34), whereas the parousia cannot be so dated (v. 36); and v. 27 has just explicitly distinguished the parousia from the events of the siege of Jerusalem.

34. The time of this catastrophic event is now even more closely specified, and the solemn Truly, I say to you marks this out as a pronouncement to be noted. Those who interpret this passage as referring to the parousia must therefore either conclude that it proved to be untrue, or that this generation does not here carry its normal meaning.

It has, for instance, been taken to mean ‘the Jewish race’, or ‘unbelieving Judaism’. It is unlikely that such an improbable meaning for the noun would have been suggested at all without the constraint of apologetic embarrassment! Nor can all these things easily be taken to exclude the events described in the immediately preceding verses. On the natural understanding of this verse either Jesus was wrong (or Matthew has misunderstood him), or the discourse has not yet taken up directly the question of v. 3b, the ‘sign of your parousia and of the close of the age’, but has rather concentrated entirely so far on the first part of the disciples’ question, ‘When will these things (the destruction of the temple) be?’

v. The unexpected parousia of the Son of man (24:36–25:13)

The practical conclusion to be drawn from vv. 36–41 is that of constant readiness, which will also be the focus of the rest of the chapter and of 25:1–13.

Notes. 3 parousia (‘coming’) is used mainly for formal visits by those in authority. In the NT it usually (but not always) refers to Jesus’ predicted ‘second coming’. For the end of the age cf. 13:39, 40, 49.

24:29–35 The climax of the coming crisis (see Mk. 13:24–31; Lk. 21:25–33). These verses are often understood as referring to the parousia, and thus as moving to the second part of the disciples’ question. But immediately after does not leave room for a long delay, nor does the explicit time-scale given in v 34. The word parousia does not occur in this section but is prominently reintroduced in the new paragraph which begins at v 36, where its unknown time is contrasted with the clear statement that the events of this paragraph will take place within this generation.

This section is therefore in direct continuity with what has gone before, the account of the siege of Jerusalem.

In this context, therefore, this poetic language appropriately refers to the great changes which were about to take place in the world, when Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed. It speaks of the Son of Man entering into his kingship, and his angels gathering in his new people from all the earth. The fall of the temple is thus presented, in highly allusive language, as the end of the old order, to be replaced by the new régime of Jesus, the Son of Man, and the international growth of his church, the new people of God.

All this would happen very soon, once the preliminary signs of vs 15–21 have occurred, just as summer inevitably follows quickly once the leaves appear on the fig-tree.

Within this generation it would all be over; we have Jesus’ word for it!
24:36–51 The unexpected coming of the Son of Man. All talk of signs and times now disappears, as we turn from the events of this generation to the parousia. The only thing which may be said with conviction about the time of the parousia is that it will come when it is not expected!

An important part of the story is the delay: the church must be prepared to wait for the parousia. All ten virgins fell asleep during the wait, so the point (as with the two servants in 24:45–51) is not that we should be on constant alert but that we must have the necessary provision for when the time comes. This parable does not spell out what that provision is, but the next one offers a hint.