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Mat_24:7. Γάρ ] it is not quite the end as yet; for the situation will become still more turbulent and distressing: nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, etc. We have here depicted in colours borrowed from ancient prophecy (Isa_19:2), not only those risings, becoming more and more frequent, which, after a long ferment, culminated in the closing scene of the Jewish war and led to the destruction of Jerusalem, but also those convulsions in nature by which they were accompanied. That this prediction was fulfilled in its general aspects is amply confirmed, above all, by the well-known accounts of Josephus; but we are forbidden by the very nature of genuine prophecy, which cannot and is not meant to be restricted to isolated points, either to assume or try to prove that such and such historical events are special literal fulfilments in concrete of the individual features in the prophetic outlook before us,—although this has been attempted very recently, by Köstlin in particular. As for the Parthian wars and the risings that took place some ten years after in Gaul and Spain, they had no connection whatever with Jerusalem or Judaea. There is as little reason to refer (Wetstein) the πολέμους of Mat_24:6 to the war waged by Asinaeus and Alinaeus against the Parthians (Joseph. Antt. xviii. 9. 1), and the ἀκοὰς πολέμων to the Parthian declaration of war against King Izates of Adiabene (Joseph. Antt. xx. 3. 3), or to explain the latter ( ἀκοὰς πολέμων ) of the struggles for the imperial throne that had broken out after the death of Nero (Hilgenfeld). Jesus, who sees rising before Him the horrors of war and other calamities connected, Mat_24:15, with the coming destruction of Jerusalem, presents a picture of them to the view of His hearers. Comp. 4 Esdr. Mat_13:21; Sohar Chadasch, f. viii. 4 : “Illo tempore bella in mundo excitabuntur; gens erit contra gentem, et urbs contra urbem: angustiae multae contra hostes Israelitarum innovabuntur.” Beresch. Rabba, 42 f., 41. 1 : “Si videris regna contra se invicem insurgentia tunc attende, et adspice pedem Messiae.”
λιμοὶ κ . σεισμοί ] see critical notes. Nor, again, is this feature in the prediction to be restricted to some such special famine as that which occurred during the reign of Claudius (Act_11:28), too early a date for our passage, and to one or two particular cases of earthquake which happened in remote countries, and with which history has made us familiar (such as that in the neighbourhood of Colossae, Oros. Hist. vii. 7, Tacit. Ann. xiv. 27, and that at Pompeii).
κατὰ τόπους ] which is applicable only to σεισμοί , as in Mar_13:8, is to be taken distributively (Bernhardy, p. 240; Kühner, II. 1, p. 414): locatim, travelling from one district to another. The equally grammatical interpretation: in various localities here and there (Grotius, Wetstein, Raphel, Kypke, Baumgarten-Crusius, Köstlin, Bleek), is rather too feeble to suit the extraordinary character of the events referred to. In Mat_24:6-7, Dorner finds merely an embodiment of the thought: “evangelium gladii instar dissecabit male conjuncta, ut vere jungat; naturae autem phaenomena concomitantia quasi depingent motus et turbines in spiritualibus orbibus orturos.”