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Mat_24:22. And unless those days had been shortened, those, namely, of the θλίψις μεγάλη (Mat_24:29), etc. This is to be understood of the reduction of the number of the days over which, but for this shortening, the θλίψις would have extended, not of the curtailing of the length of the day (Fritzsche),—a thought of which Lightfoot quotes an example from Rabbinical literature (comp. the converse of this, Jos_10:13), which, seeing that there is a considerable number of days, would be to introduce an element of a very extraordinary character into the usual ideas connected with the acceleration of the advent (1Co_7:29). Rather comp. the similar idea, which in Barnab. iv. is ascribed to Enoch.
ἐσώθη ] used here with reference to the saving of the life (Mat_8:25, Mat_27:40; Mat_27:42; Mat_27:49, and frequently); Euthymius Zigabenus: οὐκ ἂν ὑπεξέφυγε τὸν θάνατον . Hofmann incorrectly explains: saved from denying the Lord.
πᾶσα σάρξ ] every flesh, i.e. every mortal man (see on Act_2:16), would not be rescued, i.e. would have perished. Comp. for the position of the negative, Fritzsche, Diss. II. on 2 Cor. p. 24 f. The limitation of πᾶσα σάρξ to the Jews and Christians belonging to town or country who are found in immediate contact with the theatre of war, is justified by the context. The ἐκλεκτοί are included, but it is not these alone who are meant (Hofmann).
The aorist ἐκολοβ . conveys the idea that the shortening was resolved upon in the counsels of the divine compassion (Mar_13:20), and its relation to the aorist ἐσώθη in the apodosis is this. had the shortening of the period over which the calamities were to extend not taken place, this would have involved the utter destruction of all flesh. The future κολοβωθής . again conveys the idea that the actual shortening is being effected, and therefore that the case supposed, with the melancholy consequences involved in it, has been averted.
διὰ δὲ τοὺς ἐκλεκτούς ] for sake of the chosen (for the Messianic kingdom), in order that they might be preserved for the approaching advent. That in seeking to save the righteous, God purposely adopts a course by which He may save others at the same time, is evident from Gen_18:13 ff. But the ἐκλεκτοί (see on Mat_22:14) are those who, at the time of the destruction of the capital, are believers in Christ, and are found persevering in their faith in Him (Mat_24:13); not the future credituri as well (Jahn in Bengel’s Archiv. II. 1; Schott, Opusc. II. p. 205 ff.; Lange, following Augustine, Calovius), which latter view is precluded by the εὐθέως of Mat_24:29.
There is a certain solemnity in the repetition of the same words κολοβ . αἱ ἡμέραι ἐκεῖναι . Ebrard lays stress upon the fact, as he supposes, that our passage describes a calamity “cui finis sit imponendus, et quae ab aetate paulo saltem feliciore sit excipienda,” and accordingly infers that the idea of the immediate end of the world is thereby excluded. But the aetas paulo saltem felicior, or the supposition that there is any interval at all between the θλίψις μεγάλη and Mat_24:29, is foreign to the text; but the end of the above-mentioned disaster is to take place in order that what is stated at Mat_24:29 may follow it at once.