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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Matthew 24:9 - 24:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted - Rather, Then they will deliver you up to affliction, εις θλιψιν. By a bold figure of speech, affliction is here personified. They are to be delivered into affliction’s own hand, to be harassed by all the modes of inventive torture.
Ye shall be hated of all nations - Both Jew and Gentile will unite in persecuting and tormenting you. Perhaps παντων των εθνων means all the Gentiles, as in the parallel places in Mar 13:9-11, and in Luk 21:12-15, the Jewish persecution is mentioned distinctly. Ye shall be delivered up to Councils and be beaten in Synagogues, and ye shall stand before governors and kings for my name’s sake - be not anxiously careful beforehand what ye shall speak - for ye are not the speakers, but the Holy Spirit will speak by you - I will give you utterance and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to contradict or resist. We need go no farther than the Acts of the Apostles for the completion of these particulars. Some were delivered to councils, as Peter and John, Act 4:5. Some were brought before rulers and kings, as Paul before Gallio, Act 18:12, before Felix, Acts 24, before Festus and Agrippa, Acts 25. Some had utterance and wisdom which their adversaries were not able to resist: so Stephen, Act 6:10, and Paul, who made even Felix himself tremble, Act 24:25. Some were imprisoned, as Peter and John, Act 4:3. Some were beaten, as Paul and Silas, Act 16:23. Some were put to death, as Stephen, Act 7:59, and James the brother of John, Act 12:2. But if we look beyond the book of the Acts of the Apostles, to the bloody persecutions under Nero, we shall find these predictions still more amply fulfilled: in these, numberless Christians fell, besides those two champions of the faith Peter and Paul. And it was, as says Tertullian, nominis praelium, a war against the very name of Christ; for he who was called Christian had committed crime enough, in bearing the name, to be put to death. So true were our Savior’s words, that they should be hated of all men for his Name’s sake.
But they were not only to be hated by the Gentiles, but they were to be betrayed by apostates.