Hinnom, near Jerusalem, where the filth of the city and the bodies of malefactors were thrown, to be consumed by fire and worms. Hence it was used as a figure for a keen and terrible punishment.

34. Wherefore. The effect, rather than the design of the teachers' being sent, is here expressed.-I send has the sense of the future. I will send.-Prophets, and wise men, and scribes. The Saviour applies Jewish titles to his Apostles, Evangelists, and disciples.-Ye shall kill and crucify, &c. These predictions were literally fulfilled in the early history of Christianity, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles. Stephen was stoned. James was killed by the sword. Some of the other Apostles were imprisoned, scourged, and driven from city to city; and at least four of the Twelve, according to tradition, were crucified.

35. That expresses the consequence, rather than the design. You have reached such a pitch of infatuation and wickedness that the accumulated judgments of Heaven will eventually fall upon you for the slaughter of so many wise and good men. A figurative expression, describing their coming woes. They would be so overwhelming as to seem to atone for all the crimes that had been committed from the creation of the world. Upon the earth, i. e. the land of Judea.-Righteous Abel. Gen. iv. 8.

Zacharias, son of Barachias. He is probably the prophet whose death is related, 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 21. The only material objection is that he is called the son of Jehoiada. Luke does not mention the name of his father. As a solution of the difficulty, we may conjecture that the father of Zechariah had two names, as was frequently the case among the Jews, Barachias and Jehoiada. Thus Matthew is called Levi; Lebbeus, Thaddeus; and Simon, Cephas. Or, it is not wholly improbable that some early transcriber, thinking only of Zechariah the prophet, the son of Barachias, wrote his name instead of that of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, the murdered priest. This supposition may derive some additional strength from the fact that Jerome found Jehoiada in a Hebrew Gospel of the Nazarenes. Between the temple and the altar. This circumstance appears to harmonize with the account of the death of Zechariah in Chronicles. The guilt of the crime was increased, if possible, by the sacred place in which it was committed.

36. All these things shall come upon this generation. As much as to say, that the nation had sunk to such a state of degradation and wickedness, that they would be visited with judgments so overwhelming as would seem to atone for the crimes of all preceding ages. Josephus, one of their coun

trymen, an opposer of the Gospel, bears important, because impartial, testimony to their abandoned condition. He says, that they had carefully imitated, and even exceeded, all the most atrocious deeds of their ancestors. Though, at the time Jesus spoke, his predictions must have seemed highly improbable, yet that generation had not all passed off the stage before all the vials of wrath were poured out upon their doomed city and country.

37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How natural and expressive of deep emotion is this repetition of the word! Can any reader fail to see that every page of the Gospels has some bright signature of truth and reality upon it, and that it would be a miracle of miracles, if these writings were the work of imposture or fanaticism?-Killest the prophets, &c. See notes on verse 35, and chap. xxi. 35, 36.-Thy children. The Jewish people, who often assembled at the holy city in obedience to the law, and who might be appropriately called her children.-Hen gathereth her chickens, &c. A figure full of beauty and pathos, to express his affection and interest for his country, and his earnest efforts to rescue it from impending destruction. 2 Esdras i. 30. Deut. xxxii. 11, 12. He had pleaded with the Jews in the most moving manner; he had urged them to repentance by every motive; he was about to appeal to them by the yet more affecting spectacle of the cross. But all was in vain. They were advancing obstinately towards the precipice of their ruin, and nothing could turn

them aside. Luke xiii. 34, 35. This burst of patriotic lamentation for the coming overthrow of that city, so dear to the Jewish heart, is in striking contrast with the tremendous rebukes he had just administered to the Scribes and Pharisees. It was thus that the two elements of the severe and the gentle mingled harmoniously in his most heroic yet humane spirit, and gave a divine perfection to his character. What power of reproof was joined to the most melting compassion! what magnaninity of soul, to weep over the city that was so soon to ring with the infernal cry, Crucify him, Crucify him, and whose inhabitants would exult at his agonies on the cross, as at some holiday spectacle!

38. Your house is left unto you desolate, i. e. the temple, of which the Jews were excessively proud. Perhaps he directed their attention, by a gesture of the hand and eye, to that glorious edifice, on which Jewish wealth had been lavished without measure, and around which Jewish piety had thrown all its holiest associations, "the Earth's One Sanctuary." He could have said nothing more awful than that that house should be overthrown from pinnacle to foundation. It appears that Jesus now left it for the last time. It might truly be said to be left desolate even now, for it would no more resound with the instructions of him who was greater than the temple, and who carried in himself the Holy of Holies, the Shechinah of the Divine Presence. By some he is understood to say that the Jewish dwell

A

ing-place, i. e. country, would be left desolate.

39. Ye shall not see me, &c. A form of speech is used equivalent to his saying, You will no more have my presence among you; for they would never acknowledge him to be the Messiah.-In the sentence, Blessed is he that cometh, &c., he alludes to the hosannas with which he was saluted on his entrance into Jerusalem, chap. xxi. 9, Ps. cxviii. 25, 26. Or, the sense of the verse may be, that my religion, of which I am the embodiment, will not again be addressed to your attention, till you shall undergo, through the judgments of God, such an alteration in your feelings, that you will gladly say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, i. e. the Christ; till you shall submit to what would once have seemed most humiliating.

Between the different parts of the Gospel narration, as it proceeds, there are many fine and delicate connections, which demonstrate beyond a doubt the truth of the history. We are not expressly told why they invited his attention to the temple at that more than any other time, but the context furnishes the reason, chap. xxiii. 38.

2. See ye not all these things? According to Griesbach, not should be omitted; but it would not essentially affect the meaning. Mark xiii. 2.-Not be left here one stone upon another, &c. We learn from Mark and Luke that the disciples had spoken with particular admiration of the "goodly stones and gifts." Jesus frames his reply accordingly. These very stones, said he, are destined to be scattered in the dust. Josephus states that the temple was built of stones which were white and strong, and that each in its length was 25 cubits, or 37 feet, in its height 12, and its breadth 18 feet.-The prediction of our Lord was not, perhaps, in this verse, designed to be literal, but to express, by a common figure, the utter overthrow of the temple. Yet it is remarkable that the fulfilment was so exact that one stone was not left upon another. Josephus, an eye-witness of the war, and whose history is a running commentary upon this portion of the Gospel narrative, says, that, with the excep

tion of three towers, the wall was thoroughly laid even with the ground, and dug up to the foundation. Other Jewish writers corroborate this account, and state that Terentius Rufus, the Roman general, left in command at Jerusalem after its capture, ploughed up the temple and the places about it; so that that saying was fulfilled, "Zion shall be as a ploughed field.' We have, in this and the subsequent prophecies, an unanswerable proof of the divine foreknowledge and authority of Jesus. No event so disagreeable to the Jews, or so unlikely to happen, could have then been predicted, as the destruction of their temple, "with its glittering masses of white marble and pinnacles of gold." The victor, whoever he might be, would be supposed to be desirous of keeping such a proud trophy of his success. Titus, the conqueror, sought to preserve it; but it was set on fire, in violation of his orders, by one of his soldiers, and could not be extinguished, though the greatest efforts were made to do it. Thus wonderfully were the words of Jesus fulfilled that were uttered forty years before.

3. Mount of Olives. See note on Mat. xxi. 1,2. From that elevation Jerusalem appeared as if lying beneath their feet. It was probably towards night, and the declining sun was brilliantly reflected from the splendid palaces, and from the vast temple towering over all with snowy whiteness.-The disciples

came, i. e. James and John, Peter and Andrew, who enjoyed most of his intimacy and confidence. Mark xiii. 3. Startled by his predictions, they are anxious to learn when they would be fulfilled.-When shall these things be, i. e. the destruction of the temple, verse 2.-End of the world, i. e. the Jewish world or dispensation. They were anxious to know how soon a new kingdom was to be established. Their ambition made them impatient.

4, 5. Jesus warns them against being deceived by false pretenders, who would come in his name, or arrogate to themselves his authority. He here distinctly acknowledges that he was the Messiah.-Christ. Should be the Christ. We are informed in Acts v. 36, 37, viii. 9, 10, xxi. 38, and by Josephus, that such or similar impostors actually appeared and led many into ruin. Simon Magus was called by his deluded followers the Great Power of God. Theudas, Judas of Galilee, Dositheus of Samaria, and an Egyptian, drew away great numbers after them, but they perished with their adherents. Josephus relates, “that in the reign of Claudius, who died about the year 54, the land was overrun with magicians, seducers, and impostors, who drew the people after them in multitudes into solitudes and deserts, to see the signs and miracles which they promised to show by the power of God." It may be here stated, as an interesting fact of history, that there appeared, be

6. Wars, and rumors of wars. The history of those times shows the fulfilment of our Saviour's words. Six years after the death of Christ, the Roman emperor Caligula commanded his statue to be erected in the temple of Jerusalem. The Jews resisted this desecration with the greatest spirit, and a war would have ensued, had not the emperor in the mean time died. In one year and a half, four Roman emperors, Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, suffered violent deaths. The empire was thrown into tremendous convulsions, and its provinces filled with wars and rumors of wars. In Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, many thousands were slain in the most horrible massacres.See that ye be not troubled. They were not to be alarmed by these tumults, for, notwithstanding these events, the final overthrow would not occur immediately.

A

7. Famines, and pestilences. famine was predicted by Agabus in Acts xi. 28, which, according to Suetonius, Tacitus, and Eusebius, took place in the reign of Claudius Cæsar. Josephus, in his Antiquities, b. 20, chap. 2, states that many people died of hunger at Jerusalem. Other famines are also related to have occurred during that period. Pestilences usually succeed famines, and are often produced by them, on account of the scarcity

66.-Earthquakes, in divers places. In the reign of Claudius an earthquake occurred at Rome, one in Crete, and others in Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, and other places. Tacitus mentions, that, in the reign of Nero, the cities of Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Colosse were destroyed, and Pompeii and Campania almost demolished by the same cause. Suetonius mentions one at Rome in the reign of Galba. Thus history, as written by Jewish and heathen authors, bears unanswerable witness to the fulfilment of our Saviour's prophecies.

8. The beginning of sorrows. All the preceding events, terrible as they were, were but the preludes to the woes that would follow, which were to be as overwhelming as ever happened to any nation in the world.

9. One of the features of the coming times would be the persecutions of the Christians, not by

one

nation merely, but by all wherever they existed. Of this fact abundant evidence is furnished in the Acts and the Epistles. The first of the ten Roman persecutions took place under Nero, in whose reign the great Jewish war began.

For my name's sake, i. e. on account of your profession of my religion. Tertullian says, there was nomini prælium, a war against the very naine of Christian. It was a common saying among the heathen,