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Luk_19:42. If thou also hadst known.—“Pathetic aposiopesis, and thereby the expression of a fruitless wish.” Meyer. The thou also places the unbelieving inhabitants of Jerusalem in opposition to the disciples of our Lord, who had really considered ôὰ ðñὸò åἰñÞíçí , perhaps a delicate allusion to what the name of Jerusalem as City of Peace (Salem) signifies. The here-designated çìÝñá can be no other than what our Lord, Luk_19:44, calls ôὸí êáéñὸí ôῆò ἐðéóêïðῆò . Comp. Luk_1:68. The whole time of the public activity of our Lord in Jerusalem was a respite of two years, which had been prepared for more than twenty centuries, and now, as it were, concentrated itself in the one day on which the Lord entered as King into Jerusalem. This Jerusalem would have known ( Ý ̓ çùò ), if it had unanimously rendered homage to its Messiah; but although the Lord here also had found individual believing hearts, yet Jerusalem as a city rejected its King; the ̓ Éïõäáῖïé recognized Him not. It was hidden from their eyes who He was, and what a salvation He would bestow. ̓ Åêñὐâç according to the righteous counsel of God, Mat_11:25-26, but not without their own personal guilt.
Luk_19:43. Days shall come.—Luk_19:43-44 is the text of the powerful discourse respecting the destruction of Jerusalem which our Lord, Luk_21:5 seq., two days afterwards delivered before His disciples. The ἡìÝñáé which are now threatened are the terrible consequences of the fact that the ἡìÝñá , Luk_19:43, has hastened by in vain. ̔́ Ïôé does not depend on ἐêñýâç , so that thereby the thing that is hidden is indicated (Theophylact), neither is it any strengthening word, in the sense of profecto utique (Starke), but the common signification “for” must be here retained, in the sense that the wish, Luk_19:42, has thereby a reason given for it, as if the Saviour would say, “I might indeed wish that, &c., for now the things that belong to thy peace remain hidden from thine eyes. Now impends,” &c.
An embankment, ÷Üñáêá , masculine.—It is remarkable how our Lord not only in general foretells the destruction of Jerusalem, but also in particular describes the way and method in which this judgment should be accomplished. He announces a formal siege, in which they should avail themselves of all the then usual auxiliaries and should permit themselves all the atrocities which victors have at any time exercised against the vanquished. First He mentions the ÷Üñìî , a camp strengthened with palisades and line of circumvallation, in short, a wall such as we actually read in Josephus (De Bell. Jdg_5:6; Jdg_5:2; Jdg_5:12; Jdg_5:2) was thrown up around Jerusalem, but burned by the Jews. Afterwards, in consequence of this structure, ðåñéêõêëþóïõóßí óå êáὶ óõíÝîïõóßí óå ðÜíôïèåí . We may here understand the wall thirty stadia long, which Titus in three days caused to be erected around the city, in place of the burnt ÷Üñáî . In consequence of this measure the desolation now breaking in upon her and upon her children ( ἐäáèéïῦóé ) becomes general. This word occurs in a twofold signification: “to level with the earth” and “to dash to the ground” (Psa_137:9); the first prophesies the fate of the city, the other that of her inhabitants, both being here zeugmatically connected. Finally, the conclusion of all this, no stone remains upon another, so that now, Luk_19:40, the stones begin to cry out. This last part of the prophecy was first completely fulfilled after the insurrection of Bar-Cochba in the days of the Emperor Adrian, and this is the terrible result, continuing unto the present day, of this one blinding, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation! In this conclusion, and especially in this continually ascending êáß , êáß , êáß lies a äåéíüôçò orationis, which can be better felt than described.
Luk_19:45. And He went into the temple.—Comp. the parallels in Matthew and Mark. Luke, who entirely passes over the cursing of the fig-tree, relates also the temple-cleansing only briefly. In fact, he only states the beginning of this symbolical transaction ( Þ ̓ ñîáôï ), while Matthew also notices the successful end ( åîÝâáëåí ). To him it is especially remarkable that the Saviour begins His last sojourn and converse in the sanctuary with so strong a measure. Respecting the manner of the expulsion also, and for the precise description of the persons expelled, compare Matthew and Mark. The citation from Isa_56:7, Luke has in common with them, while he with Matthew omits the ðᾶóéí ôïῖò Ý ̓ èíåóéí , apparently only for the sake of brevity. As to the question whether the temple-cleansing took place once or twice, comp. Lange, Matthew, p. 376. We also decide for a repetition of the transaction, since the opposite opinion falls into far more difficulties, inasmuch as it must either impeach John or the Synoptics of the greatest inexactness. It agrees entirely with the typical and symbolical character of this transaction, that our Lord began as well as concluded His life therewith. Besides, the circumstances also are so very different that they make identity improbable. As respects now particularly this second temple-cleansing, those who find difficulty in supposing that our Lord, a few days before His death, should have repeated an act which might prepossess or embitter the secular power against Him, may for the same reason account the denunciatory discourse (Matthew 23) as entirely fictitious. That our Saviour did not perform this act at the second Passover, too, is simply to be ascribed to the circumstance that at that Passover He was not at Jerusalem, Joh_6:1-4. Who knows whether, perhaps, after the first temple-cleansing, the abuse thus animadverted upon did not diminish or entirely cease; and on the contrary, the priestly party, out of spite against our Lord and at the same time in order to elicit new opposition, restore it anew on the last feast? Then it would at the same time be explained why His words of rebuke at the second cleansing sound even sharper than at the first. In view of the brevity of the Synoptical relation, we cannot be surprised that neither in the language of our Lord nor in the conduct of those expelled, do we meet with a reminiscence of the previous temple-cleansing. Perhaps, however, the still recollection of the first contributed to weaken opposition at the second.
Luk_19:47. And He was teaching daily.—Striking and vivid representation of the state of things in this critical point of time. On the side of our Lord, unshaken courage, composure, and energy of spirit, with which He every day shows Himself publicly, joined with beseeming care for His own security, which moves Him not to pass the night in Jerusalem so long as His hour has not yet come. On the side of His enemies, irreconcilable hatred and thoughts of murder, especially on the part of the worldly aristocracy, which counts itself mortally endangered by Him. On the side of the people, undiminished delight in hearing Him, on which account His enemies, with their base designs, can as yet obtain no handle against the Saviour. The people hang on His lips. The more they hear the more they wish to hear ( ἐîåêñÝìáôï , cum gen.). “As bees on the flowers on which they seek honey, or as young birds on the mouth of the old ones from whom they would have food.” Meanwhile His enemies are visibly perplexed. They find not what they shall do to Him. The Saviour and the people alike are for the moment an obstacle to them. Thus is displayed on the one side the might of unarmed innocence, on the other the impotency of armed and resolved malice.
2. Not without reason has there been found at all times in this prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, on the very place where afterwards the Romans pitched their first camp, one of the strongest proofs of the infallible and Divine foreknowledge of Jesus. The comparison of this declaration with the account of Josephus is the work of the apologist. Thereby, at the same time, must not be forgotten what an unhappy result the godless attempt for the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Julian the Apostate had. See Chrysost., Oratio 3 adv. Judœos. [Chrysostom says, in substance, that under the impious emperor the Jews were permitted to attempt the rebuilding of the temple, that it might not be said that they could have rebuilt it if they would; but that flames bursting out from the foundations drove them away; while yet the foundations which they had begun remained even in his day as witnesses at once of their purpose and of their impotency to accomplish it. The truth of this account of Chrysostom is, as we know, supported by the testimony of the impartial Ammianus Marcellinus; and all the sneers of Gibbon at this “specious and splendid miracle” do not render it less certain that Divine Providence, in a wonderful way, took care that the prophecy of the Son of God should not be frustrated. Whether this were a miracle in the sphere of nature or not is a matter of little moment; it is, at all events, an illustrious miracle of Providence.—C. C. S.]
3. “The holy tears of Jesus show how God’s heart is disposed towards men when they fall into sin and destruction. Even in God we may conceive a compassionate sorrow, only that it is ever at the same time removed again by His eternal love, wisdom, and holiness. In Jesus, these tears over Jerusalem are at the same time tears of high-priestly intercession and mediation, and belong, in so far, to all men. Comp. Heb_5:7.” Von Gerlach.
4. Our admiration of the majesty of our Lord increases yet more when we see how He, who certainly knows that He must give up Jerusalem for lost, continues yet, even in the last days of His life, with unwearied and holy zeal to be active in Jerusalem. Even when He knows that the mass will not let itself be saved, He continues to have compassion on the individuals. Precisely for this reason is His love so adorable, that it becomes at no moment weak; and while it weeps the fate of sinners, vehemently burns against sin, but this wrath seeks not itself, but the Father’s honor. At His entry Jesus weeps over the lot of Jerusalem. At His going out He says, Weep not, Luk_23:28.
5. The temple-cleansing is one of the acts of our Lord which have sometimes been elevated too high, sometimes depreciated too low. The former has been the case when men have believed themselves to see here a miracle in the ordinary sense of the word, nay, esteemed it as even greater than, for instance, the miracle of Cana. See Origen, ad h. l.; Jerome, ad Mat_21:15; Lampe in Comment. Against this we have to remember the moral predominance which a personality like that of the Saviour must have had over souls which were so mean and weak as these, and to remember the many examples of similar triumphs of truth and right over the servants of deceit and unrighteousness which we meet with even in profane history. On the other hand, some have in this act, without reason, found occasion to throw suspicion on the moral purity of our Lord, and as it were turned the scourge of small cords against Himself. We have here to call to mind not only the right of the Zealots, but very especially the right of the Son in the house of His Father, and especially to take note of the union of a holy wrath with compassionate love which beams through this act of the Saviour. Shortly after He has wielded the scourge, He stretches out the helping hand, which has but just expelled the rabble, towards cripples and wretched ones; these wretched ones, whom compassion had brought into the temple, the omnipotence of love has healed. Comp. Mat_21:14, and in reference to the first temple-cleansing the interesting section: The Banner on the Mountain, in Baumgarten’s Geschichte Jesu, Brunswick, 1859, pp. 99–111.
6. The temple-cleansing the symbol of the whole life of our Lord, as also of the purpose of His manifestation on earth. See Cyril. Alex. ii.1; Origen, tom. x. p. 16; Augustine, Tract, in Evangel. Joh., and others. Comp. Mal_3:1, and Luk_3:15. An admirable work of art representing the temple-cleansing by Jouvenet.
Starke:—Langii Op.:—The nearer and greater the grace is, the nearer and greater the judgments if it is not received.—Zeisius:—Consider, O man, what the tears of Jesus have in them, and let them melt thy heart to repentance.—There is nothing more to be wept over than the spiritual blindness of man.—Hedinger:—Blindness comes before destruction.—Canstein:—Even the time or grace has with God its limitation.—Osiander: -When the wrath of God blazes forth, it rages very terribly against the impenitent.—Luther:—The contemning of the gospel brings lands and cities to destruction.—Holiness is the ornament of the house of God (Psa_93:5).—Against open abominations there suits a thorough earnestness.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—How many in the temple who have murdered their souls by presumptuous sins.—Quesnel:—The Church is not only a house of prayer, but also a house of instruction.—Hardened men will rather inflict mischief on pious preachers than amend themselves.—Zeisius:—Without God’s will no harm can happen to His faithful servants.—Jesus has among the common people more friends than among the chief ones.—To hang on Jesus’ lips and hear Him is good, but not enough.
Heubner:—The diverse value of many tears.—To every blinded sinner we can exclaim, If thou hadst known!—To every one is his time of grace allotted.—The sinner has a bandage before his eyes.—The fate of our posterity should urge us to repentance.—The invincibleness of love.—Guard thee against everything which can disturb devotion in others and destroy the soul.—The churches the asylums of the truth.—Some friends the truth finds ever.
On the Pericope.—The sorrow of Jesus at the last view of Jerusalem: 1. Sources; 2. effects.—How the tears of Jesus yet speak to us.—Great cities as the seat of great corruption.—The value of the tears of the Christian.—Couard:—Jerusalem and the Jewish people: 1. Jerusalem’s time of grace; 2. Jerusalem’s hardening; 3. Jerusalem’s fall.—The tears of Christians here below: 1. Tears of joy; 2. tears of repentance; 3. tears of sorrow.—Souchon:—The knowing of the time of visitation.—Palmer:—Jerusalem’s blindness: 1. Near to it is destruction, but no one forebodes it; 2. near to it is salvation, but no one will recognize it.—The Saviour: 1. In His tears; 2. in His zeal of fire; 3. how He by both calls us to repentance.—Rautenberg:—Jesus’ tears over Jerusalem, tears to awaken: 1. Compassion; 2. terror; 3. affection; 4. consolation.—Tholuck:—1. These tears a shame to our cold hearts; 2. a rebuke to our light-mindedness; 3. a shaking of our security.—Von Kapff:—The judgments of the Lord: 1. The judgment of grace; 2. the judgment of wrath; 3. the judgment of cleansing; 4. the judgment of hardening; 5. the judgment of condemnation.—Arndt:—Jesus the Friend of His country.—Van Oosterzee:—Jesus’ tears over Jerusalem: 1. Jerusalem’s shame; 2. Jesus’ honor; 3. our joy.—The same:—The temple-cleansing a type of the Reformation of the sixteenth century; it reminds us: 1. Of the history of the Reformation; 2. of the glory of the Reformation; 3. of the admonitions of the Reformation.—On 1. The abuses which the Reformation assailed; the principle to which it did homage; the spirit which it revealed; the reception which it found. On 2. Like the temple-cleansing, so was also the Reformation a restoration of the spiritual worship of God, the revelation of the glory of Christ, the beginning of a new development in the kingdom of God on earth. On 3. the Reformation admonishes those who desecrate the temple to repentance, those who honor the temple to zeal, those who know the Lord of the temple to continual remembrance of His deeds. Comp. Joh_2:22.
Footnotes:
Luk_19:42.—We consider ourselves as obliged to retain both êáßãå and óïõ , held as doubtful by Lachmann.
Luk_19:45.—The longer reading of the Recepta: ôïὺò ðùëïῦíôáò ἐí áὐôῷ êáὶ ôïὺò ἀãïñÜæïíôáò , appears to be borrowed from the parallels. [The briefer reading found in B., C, Cod. Sin., L.; accepted by Tischendorf, Meyer, Tregelles, Al-ford.—C. C. S.]
Luk_19:46.—See Tischendorf, ad locum. [The reading, êáé åóôáé , ê . ô . ë ., at the beginning of the citation, for åóôéí , at the end, is found in B., L., R. Cod. Sin. omits both the copulative and the verb. The reading of Van Oosterzee is that of Tischendorf, Meyer, Tregelles, Alford.—C. C. S.]
[Luk_19:47.—I have inserted “also” as the briefest way of conveying the force of the separation of the third nominative from the first two.—C. C. S.]
[Luk_19:48.—Revised Version of the American Bible Union.—C. C. S.]