Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Matthew 24:20 - 24:20
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat 24:20. Προσεύχεσθε, pray ye) Many things are rendered less grievous in answer to the prayers of the righteous. They did pray, and their flight did not take place in the winter.-χειμῶνος, winter, or cold and tempestuous weather) Not merely the time of the year, but the state of the weather, seems to be intended by this word; see ch. Mat 16:3.[1046] The event certainly occurred in spring; cf. Mat 24:18 concerning the field.-Σαββάτῳ, on the Sabbath day) Not because it would have been unlawful to flee or carry burdens on the Sabbath day, especially for Christians, but because it is peculiarly miserable on that day, which is given to joy, to break off the rites of religious worship and flee, and because, being less prepared for flight, each hinders the other in attempting it by crowding the doors of synagogues or the gates of cities much more than when they are in the country or in private houses. Ptolemy Lagus, according to Josephus, took Jerusalem by surprise on the Sabbath day: Ant. xii. 1. In fine, punishments which happened to the Jews on the Sabbath day were more grievous than others: see Hainlin Chronol. Explan. fol. 19, 20. Their enemies also were more truculent on that day than on any other, from hatred of the Sabbath. At the time when sin is at its height, punishment arrives; cf. Hos 4:7. The observance of the Sabbath did not wholly expire before the destruction of the temple.
[1046] Where the word χειμὼν is rendered in E. V. foul weather. This signification is frequent in classical authors.
The Portuguese word inverno has the same double force.-(I. B.)