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Mat_24:29. Here follows the second portion of the reply of Jesus, in which He intimates what events, following at once on the destruction of Jerusalem, are immediately to precede His second coming (Mat_24:29-33); mentioning at the same time, that however near and certain this latter may be, yet the day and hour of its occurrence cannot be determined, and that it will break unexpectedly upon the world (Mat_24:34-41); this should certainly awaken men to watchfulness and preparedness (Mat_24:42-51), to which end the two parables, Mat_25:1-30, are intended to contribute. The discourse then concludes with a description of the final judgment over which the coming one is to preside (Mat_25:31-46).
εὐθέως δὲ μετὰ τ . θλίψιν τῶν ἡμερ . ἐκ .] but immediately after the distress of those days, immediately after the last ( τὸ τέλος ) of the series of Messianic woes described from Mat_24:15 onwards, and the first of which is to be coincident with the destruction of the temple. For τῶν ἡμερ . ἐκείνων , comp. Mat_24:19; Mat_24:22; and for θλίψιν , Mat_24:21. Ebrard’s explanation of this passage falls to the ground with his erroneous interpretation of Mat_24:23-24, that explanation being as follows: immediately after the unhappy condition of the church (Mat_24:23-28), a condition which is to continue after the destruction of Jerusalem,—it being assumed that the εὐθέως involves the meaning: “nullis aliis intercedentibus indiciis.” It may be observed generally, that a whole host of strange and fanciful interpretations have been given here, in consequence of its having been assumed that Jesus could not possibly have intended to say that His second advent was to follow immediately upon the destruction of Jerusalem. This assumption, however, is contrary to all exegetical rule, considering that Jesus repeatedly makes reference elsewhere (see also Mat_24:34) to His second coming as an event that is near at hand. Among those interpretations may also be classed that of Schott (following such earlier expositors as Hammond and others, who had already taken εὐθέως in the sense of suddenly), who says that Matthew had written ôÌÄúÀàÉí , subito, but that the translator (like the Sept. in the case of Job_5:3) had rendered the expression “minus accurate” by εὐθέως . This is certainly a wonderful supposition, for the simple reason that the ôúàí itself would be a wonderful expression to use if an interval of a thousand years was to intervene. Bengel has contributed to promote this view by his observation that: “Nondum erat tempus revelandi totam seriem rerum futurarum a vastatione Hieros. usque ad consummationem seculi,” and by his paraphrase of the passage: “De iis, quae post pressuram dierum illorum, delendae urbis Jerusalem, evenient proximum, quod in praesenti pro mea conditione commemorandum et pro vestra capacitate expectandum venit, hoc est, quod sol obscurabitur,” etc. Many others, as Wetstein, for example, have been enabled to dispense with gratuitous assumptions of this sort by understanding Mat_24:29 ff. to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, which is supposed to be described therein in the language of prophetic imagery (Kuinoel), and they so understand the verse in spite of the destruction already introduced at Mat_24:15. In this, however, they escape Scylla only to be drawn into Charybdis, and are compelled to have recourse to expedients of a still more hazardous kind in order to explain away the literal advent,[18] which is depicted in language as clear as it is sublime. And yet E. J. Meyer again interprets Mat_24:29-34 of the destruction of Jerusalem, and in such a way as to make it appear that the prediction regarding the final advent is not introduced till Mat_24:35. But this view is at once precluded by the fact that in Mat_24:35 ὁ οὐρανὸς κ . ἡ γῆ παρελεύσεται cannot be regarded as the leading idea, the theme of what follows, but only as a subsidiary thought (v. 18) by way of background for the words οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρέλθ . immediately after (observe, Christ does not say οἱ γὰρ λόγοι , κ . τ . λ ., but οἱ δὲ λόγοι , κ . τ . λ .). Hoelemann, Cremer, Auberlen are right in their interpretation of εὐθέως , but wrong in regarding the time of the culmination of the heathen power—an idea imported from Luk_21:24—as antecedent to the period indicated by εὐθέως . Just as there are those who seek to dispose of the historical difficulty connected with εὐθέως by twisting the sense of what precedes, and by an importation from Luk_21:24, so Dorner seeks to dispose of it by twisting the sense of what comes after.
ὁ ἥλιος σκοτισθ ., κ . τ . λ .] Description of the great catastrophe in the heavens which is to precede the second advent of the Messiah. According to Dorner, our passage is intended as a prophetical delineation of the fall of heathenism, which would follow immediately upon the overthrow of Judaism; and, accordingly, he sees in the mention of the sun, moon, and stars an allusion to the nature-worship of the heathen world, an idea, however, which is refuted at once by Mat_24:34; see E. J. Meyer, p. 125 ff.; Bleek, p. 356; Hofmann, p. 636; Gess, p. 136. Ewald correctly interprets: “While the whole world is being convulsed (Mat_24:29, after Joe_3:3 f.; Isa_34:4; Isa_24:21), the heaven-sent Messiah appears in His glory (according to Dan_7:13) to judge,” etc.
οἱ ἀστέρες πεσοῦνται , κ . τ . λ .] Comp. Isa_34:4. To be understood literally, but not as illustrative of sad times (Hengstenberg on the Revelation; Gerlach, letzte Dinge, p. 102); and yet not in the sense of falling-stars (Fritzsche, Kuinoel), but as meaning: the whole of the stars together. Similarly in the passage in Isaiah just referred to, in accordance with the ancient idea that heaven was a firmament in which the stars were set for the purpose of giving light to the earth (Gen_1:14). The falling of the stars (which is not to be diluted, with Bengel, Paulus, Schott, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Cremer, following the Greek Fathers, so as to mean a mere obscuration) to the earth—which, in accordance with the cosmical views of the time, is the plain and natural sense of εἰς τὴν γῆν (see Rev_6:13)—is, no doubt, impossible as an actual fact, but it need not surprise us to see such an idea introduced into a prophetic picture so grandly poetical as this is,—a picture which it is scarcely fair to measure by the astronomical conceptions of our own day.
αἱ δυνάμεις τῶν οὐρανῶν σαλευθ .] is usually explained of the starry hosts (Isa_34:4; Isa_40:26; Psa_33:6; Deu_4:19; 2Ki_17:16, etc.), which, coming as it does after οἱ ἀστέρες πεσοῦνται , would introduce a tautological feature into the picture. The words should therefore be taken in a general sense: the powers of the heavens (the powers which uphold the heavens, which stretch them out, and produce the phenomena which take place in them, etc.) will be so shaken as to lose their usual stability. Comp. Job_26:11. The interpretation of Olshausen, who follows Jerome, Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, in supposing that the trembling in the world of angels is referred to (Luk_2:13), is inconsistent not merely with σαλευθής ., but also with the whole connection which refers to the domain of physical things. For the plural τῶν οὐρανῶν , comp. Sir_16:16.
This convulsion in the heavens, previous to the Messiah’s descent therefrom, is not as yet to be regarded as the end of the world, but only as a prelude to it; the earth is not destroyed as yet by the celestial commotion referred to (Mat_24:30). The poetical character of the picture does not justify us in regarding the thing so vividly depicted as also belonging merely to the domain of poetry,—all the less that, in the present case, it is not political revolutions (Isa_13:10; Isa_34:4; Eze_32:7 f.; Joe_3:3 f.) that are in view, but the new birth of the world, and the establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom.
[18] Comp. the Old Testament prophecies respecting the day of the coming of Jehovah, Isa_13:9 ff; Isa_34:4; Isa_24:21; Jer_4:23 f.; Eze_32:7 f.; Hag_2:6 f.; Joe_2:10; Joe_3:3 f., Mat_3:15; Zep_1:15; Hag_2:21; Zec_14:6, etc., and the passages from Rabbinical writers in Bertholdt, Christol. § 12; Gfrörer, Gesch. d. Urchrist. I. 2, pp. 195 ff., 219 ff.