And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him--The other Evangelists are less definite. "As some spake," says Luke (Luk 21:5); "His disciples came to Him," says Matthew (Mat 24:2). Doubtless it was the speech of one, the mouthpiece, likely, of others.
Master--Teacher.
see what manner of stones and what buildings are here--wondering probably, how so massive a pile could be overthrown, as seemed implied in our Lord's last words regarding it. JOSEPHUS, who gives a minute account of the wonderful structure, speaks of stones forty cubits long [Wars of the Jews, 5.5.1.] and says the pillars supporting the porches were twenty-five cubits high, all of one stone, and that of the whitest marble [Wars of the Jews, 5.5.2]. Six days' battering at the walls, during the siege, made no impression upon them [Wars of the Jews, 6.4.1]. Some of the under-building, yet remaining, and other works, are probably as old as the first temple.
there shall not be left--"left here" (Mat 24:2).
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down--Titus ordered the whole city and temple to be demolished [JOSEPHUS, Wars of the Jews, 7.1.1]; Eleazar wished they had all died before seeing that holy city destroyed by enemies' hands, and before the temple was so profanely dug up [Wars of the Jews, 7.8.7].
Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately--The other Evangelists tell us merely that "the disciples" did so. But Mark not only says that it was four of them, but names them; and they were the first quarternion of the Twelve.
Prophecies of the Destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13:5-31).
and shall deceive many--"Go ye not therefore after them" (Luk 21:8). The reference here seems not to be to pretended Messiahs, deceiving those who rejected the claims of Jesus, of whom indeed there were plenty--for our Lord is addressing His own genuine disciples--but to persons pretending to be Jesus Himself, returned in glory to take possession of His kingdom. This gives peculiar force to the words, "Go ye not therefore after them."
for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet--In Luke (Luk 21:9), "the end is not by and by," or "immediately." Worse must come before all is over.
they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten--These refer to ecclesiastical proceedings against them.
and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings--before civil tribunals next.
for my sake, for a testimony against them--rather "unto them"--to give you an opportunity of bearing testimony to Me before them. In the Acts of the Apostles we have the best commentary on this announcement. (Compare Mat 10:17-18).
what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate--"Be not filled with apprehension, in the prospect of such public appearances for Me, lest ye should bring discredit upon My name, nor think it necessary to prepare beforehand what ye are to say."
but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost--(See on Mat 10:19-20.)
but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved--See on Mat 10:21-22; and compare Heb 10:38-39, which is a manifest allusion to these words of Christ; also Rev 2:10. Luke (Luk 21:18) adds these reassuring words: "But there shall not an hair of your heads perish." Our Lord had just said (Luk 21:16) that they should be put to death; showing that this precious promise is far above immunity from mere bodily harm, and furnishing a key to the right interpretation of the ninety-first Psalm and such like.
the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not--that is, as explained in Matthew (Mat 24:15), "standing in the holy place."
(let him that readeth understand)--readeth that prophecy. That "the abomination of desolation" here alluded to was intended to point to the Roman ensigns, as the symbols of an idolatrous, and so unclean pagan power, may be gathered by comparing what Luke says in the corresponding verse (Luk 21:20); and commentators are agreed on it. It is worthy of notice, as confirming this interpretation, that in 1 Maccabees 1:54--which, though aprocryphal Scripture, is authentic history--the expression of Daniel (Dan 11:31; Dan 12:11) is applied to the idolatrous profanation of the Jewish altar by Antiochus Epiphanes.
then let them that be in Judea flee to the mountains--The ecclesiastical historian, EUSEBIUS, early in the fourth century, tells us that the Christians fled to Pella, at the northern extremity of Perea, being "prophetically directed"--perhaps by some prophetic intimation more explicit than this, which would be their chart--and that thus they escaped the predicted calamities by which the nation was overwhelmed.
that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days--in consequence of the aggravated suffering which those conditions would involve.
should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days--But for this merciful "shortening," brought about by a remarkable concurrence of causes, the whole nation would have perished, in which there yet remained a remnant to be afterwards gathered out. This portion of the prophecy closes, in Luke, with the following vivid and important glance at the subsequent fortunes of the chosen people: "And they shall fall by the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luk 21:24). The language as well as the idea of this remarkable statement is taken from Dan 8:10, Dan 8:13. What, then, is its import here? It implies, first, that a time is coming when Jerusalem shall cease to be "trodden down of the Gentiles"; which it was then by pagan, and since and till now is by Mohammedan unbelievers: and next, it implies that the period when this treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles is to cease will be when "the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" or "completed." But what does this mean? We may gather the meaning of it from Rom. 11:1-36 in which the divine purposes and procedure towards the chosen people from first to last are treated in detail. In Rom 11:25 these words of our Lord are thus reproduced: "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." See the exposition of that verse, from which it will appear that "till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in"--or, in our Lord's phraseology, "till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled"--does not mean "till the general conversion of the world to Christ," but "till the Gentiles have had their full time of that place in the Church which the Jews had before them." After that period of Gentilism, as before of Judaism, "Jerusalem" and Israel, no longer "trodden down by the Gentiles," but "grafted into their own olive tree," shall constitute, with the believing Gentiles, one Church of God, and fill the whole earth. What a bright vista does this open up!
to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect--implying that this, though all but done, will prove impossible. What a precious assurance! (Compare Th2 2:9-12).
the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light.
and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken--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 (Isa 13:9-13); of Idumea (Isa 34:1-2, Isa 34:4, Isa 34:8-10); of Egypt (Eze 32:7-8); compare also Psa 18:7-15; Isa 24:1, Isa 24:17-19; Joe 2:10-11, &c. We cannot therefore consider the mere strength of this language a proof that it refers exclusively or primarily to the precursors of the final day, though of course in "that day" it will have its most awful fulfilment.
and shall gather together his elect, &c.--As the tribes of Israel were anciently gathered together by sound of trumpet (Exo 19:13, Exo 19:16-19; Lev 23:24; Psa 81:3-5), so any mighty gathering of God's people, by divine command, is represented as collected by sound of trumpet (Isa 27:13; compare Rev 11:15); and the ministry of angels, employed in all the great operations of Providence, is here held forth as the agency by which the present assembling of the elect is to be accomplished. LIGHTFOOT thus explains it: "When Jerusalem shall be reduced to ashes, and that wicked nation cut off and rejected, then shall the Son of man send His ministers with the trumpet of the Gospel, and they shall gather His elect of the several nations, from the four corners of heaven: so that God shall not want a Church, although that ancient people of His be rejected and cast off: but that ancient Jewish Church being destroyed, a new Church shall be called out of the Gentiles." But though something like this appears to be the primary sense of the verse, in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem, no one can fail to see that the language swells beyond any gathering of a human family into a Church upon earth, and forces the thoughts onward to that gathering of the Church "at the last trump," to meet the Lord in the air, which is to wind up the present scene. Still, this is not, in our judgment, the direct subject of the prediction; for Mar 13:28 limits the whole prediction to the generation then existing.
When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves--"its leaves."
know that it--"the kingdom of God" (Luk 21:31).
is nigh, even at the doors--that is, the full manifestation of it; for till then it admitted of no full development. In Luke (Luk 21:28) the following words precede these: "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh"--their redemption, in the first instance certainly, from Jewish oppression (Th1 2:14-16; Luk 11:52): but in the highest sense of these words, redemption from all the oppressions and miseries of the present state at the second appearing of the Lord Jesus.
Warnings to Prepare for the Coming of Christ Suggested by the Foregoing Prophecy (Mar 13:32-37).
It will be observed that, in the foregoing prophecy, as our Lord approaches the crisis of the day of vengeance on Jerusalem and redemption for the Church--at which stage the analogy between that and the day of final vengeance and redemption waxes more striking--His language rises and swells beyond all temporal and partial vengeance, beyond all earthly deliverances and enlargements, and ushers us resistlessly into the scenes of the final day. Accordingly, in these six concluding verses it is manifest that preparation for "THAT DAY" is what our Lord designs to inculcate.
knoweth no man--literally, no one.
no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father--This very remarkable statement regarding "the Son" is peculiar to Mark. Whether it means that the Son was not at that time in possession of the knowledge referred to, or simply that it was not among the things which He had received to communicate--has been matter of much controversy even among the firmest believers in the proper Divinity of Christ. In the latter sense it was taken by some of the most eminent of the ancient Fathers, and by LUTHER, MELANCTHON, and most of the older Lutherans; and it is so taken by BENGEL, LANGE, WEBSTER and WILKINSON, CHRYSOSTOM and others understood it to mean that as man our Lord was ignorant of this. It is taken literally by CALVIN, GROTIUS, DE WETTE, MEYER, FRITZSCHE, STIER, ALFORD, and ALEXANDER.
and commanded the porter--the gatekeeper.
to watch--pointing to the official duty of the ministers of religion to give warning of approaching danger to the people.
I say unto all, Watch--anticipating and requiring the diffusion of His teaching by them among all His disciples, and its perpetuation through all time.