We’re going to look at Matthew 24, with comparisons to Mark 13 and Luke 21, which are similar in message to Matthew 24. We will also see some comparisons to Revelation. I’m looking at multiple sources over time, like with Revelation, but fewer of them because I’m just using free pdf commentaries. We may skip some verses if they don’t directly relate to our topic.

Let’s start with a couple versions of the first two verses of Matthew 24:

¹Jesus left the temple area and was going on His way when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. ²But He responded and said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.”   (Matthew 24:1-2; NASB)

¹It came to pass when Jesus went out from the temple, as he was going, his disciples drew near to show him the buildings of the temple.  He said: ²You see all these; truly I say to you that all will be destroyed and there will not be left there one stone upon another.   (Matthew 24:1-2; Hebrew Matthew)

Let’s start with the earliest free reference I could find:

“The meaning of the historical narrative is manifest. As the Lord was leaving the Temple, all the buildings of the Law and the construction of the commandments were destroyed in such a way that nothing could be fulfilled by the Jews. Once the head was removed, all the members fight among themselves.”         [from COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW, by St. Jerome, 420]

Jerome’s take seems to be that in leaving the Temple for the last time, Jesus was pronouncing the judgment upon it. I think that’s a valid point of view. And I think that he’s right, as far as he goes, about “nothing could be fulfilled by the Jews.” What he leaves out is ‘the time of the Gentiles.’ He avoids seeing that the time of the Gentiles will also come to an end eventually.  At that point I believe that God will again be working with the Jews to bring them, as a remnant people, back into the fold. 

As for the head being removed, Jesus was meant to be the head, but was refused. Having not become the head of the Jews, his physical removal could not have caused “fighting”.  Or, perhaps Jerome was referring to the Temple as being “the head” that was removed.  Yet, fighting “among themselves” was hardly the response to that. They were scattered to the four winds; their response was to survive any way they could, while still retaining their religion and identity. To refer to their suffering as “fight[ing] among themselves” seems rather cruel.

Twelve centuries later:

“Never to return more to it. In the ninth, tenth and eleventh Chapters of Ezekiel, God makes diverse removes, and still as he goes out, some judgment comes in: and when he was quite gone, then followed the…calamity in the utter ruin of the City and Temple. 

Before we look at Ezekiel, notice that we can see the influence of St. Jerome here: the focus is on the judgment of the Jews.

¹Then He cried out in my presence with a loud voice, saying, “Come forward, you executioners of the city, each with his weapon of destruction in his hand.” ²And behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with his smashing weapon in his hand; and among them was one man clothed in linen with a scribe’s kit at this waist. And they came in and stood beside the bronze altar. ³Then the glory of the God of Israel ascended from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen at whose waist was the scribe’s kit. ⁴And the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and make a mark on the foreheads of the people who groan and sigh over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst. ⁵But to the others He said in my presence, “Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity and do not spare.  (Ezekiel 9:1-5; NASB)

I need to pause here a moment. The author is saying that Ezekiel is describing the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. Now, I agree that one can read these passages and see that particular destruction in them. The problem is that at the end of chapter 22 it says:

And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God to Chaldea, to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen left me.  (Ezekiel 11:24; NASB)

Ezekiel lived at the time of the Babylonian invasion, and that was what he was foretelling. I’m sure that the Jewish remnant that was scattered across the Roman empire lamented over these passages, but they knew that the passages were originally written to warn the nation of Babylon.

Back to the quote:

“So it was then, and so it was now, according to that, Hos.9.12. 

¹¹As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird — No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception! ¹²Though they bring up their children, Yet I will bereave them of their children until not a person is left. Yes, woe to them indeed when I depart from them!…¹⁴Give to them, Lord — what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dried-up breasts.      (Hosea 9:12,14; NASB)

The quote above is about the coming of the Assyrians, before the Babylonians. The Jewish people were not known for their infertility after the Roman dispersion.

“Woe also to them when I depart from them. So Jer.6.8.”   [from A COMMENTARY UPON THE GOSPELS & ACTS, by John Trapp, 1657]

⁶For this is what the Lord of armies says: “Cut down her trees and pile up an assault ramp against Jerusalem. This is the city to be punished, in whose midst there is only oppression. ⁷As a well keeps its waters fresh, So she keeps fresh her wickedness. Violence and destruction are heard in her; sickness and wounds are constantly before Me. ⁸Be warned, Jerusalem, or I shall be alienated from you, and make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”      (Jeremiah 6:6-8; NASB)

Jeremiah was also prophesying about the Babylonians. While the Romans also besieged Jerusalem, it would have been a second fulfillment of the prophecy, but not the main one. The Romans were allowed to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple because of their rejection of their Messiah, not for “violence and destruction” with “sickness and wounds.” That describes Jerusalem before the Babylonian destruction.

“Mark 13:1; Luke 21:5.

¹As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Teacher, look! What wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” ²And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.”   (Mark 13:1,2; NASB)

⁵And while some were talking about the temple, that it was decorated with beautiful stones and vowed gifts, He said, ⁶“As for these things which you are observing, the days will come when there will not be left one stone upon another, which will not be torn down.”   (Luke 21:5,6; NASB)

“There shall not be left one stone upon another — This was most punctually fulfilled; for after the temple was burnt, Titus, the Roman general, ordered the very foundations of it to be dug up; after which the ground on which it stood was plowed up by Turnus Rufus.”      [from WESLEY’S NOTES ON THE BIBLE, by John Wesley, 18th century]

I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ve been told that all the gold that was on the Temple melted in the fire so that it dripped down between the stones and hardened there. I have no doubt that Titus ordered the foundations “dug up” because that was the kind of thing that the Romans did. But, finding gold between many of the stones would have added a lot more zeal for the soldiers to be sure to pry all the stones apart.

“There shall not be left here one stone] These seem to have been the last words he spoke as he left the temple, into which he never afterwards entered; and, when he got to the mount of Olives, he renewed the discourse…

”This part of our Lord’s prediction was fulfilled in the most literal manner. Josephus says…’Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the whole city and temple…except the three towers, Phaselus, Hippicus, and Mariamne, and a part of the western wall, and these were spared; but, for all the rest of the wall, it was laid so completely even with the ground, by those  who dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.’ Maimonides, a Jewish rabbin…says ‘That the very foundations of the temple were dug up, according to the Roman custom.’ His words are these: ‘On that ninth day of the month Ab, fatal for vengeance, the wicked Turnus Rufus, of the children of Edom, plowed up the temple, and the places round about it, that the saying might be fulfilled, Zion shall be plowed as a field.’”         [from MATTHEW TO ACTS, VOL 1, by Adam Clarke, 1846]

Therefore on account of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, And the mountain of the temple will become high places of a forest.     (Micah 3:12; NASB)

Micah lived about 150 years before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. He prophesied the destruction of Israel and Judah; Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians less than 25 years later. Judah, with Jerusalem, lasted a little over a hundred years after that, but then it too was destroyed. 

This suggests that the idea of prophecies being partially and then fully fulfilled later on would definitely fit this prophecy.

“And, saith Josephus, we may well admire the exactness of the time, for the burning of the temple…happened on the same month and day on which it formerly was burned by the Babylonians.”    I had to find a Jewish source for this as the non-Jewish sources don’t seem interested in this ‘coincidence’.  But, indeed, the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians on the 9th of Av, and the second Temple was noted to have burned on the 9th and 10th of Av. The account on jewishhistory.org quotes Josephus as saying that a Roman soldier threw a torch at one of the many tapestries hanging on the walls, and that while the soldiers tried to extinguish the flames, they were not able to. This happened in the afternoon of the 9th, and the fire burned through the night and all day the 10th. It was so hot that the whole building collapsed. It was also reported that the Jews were also fighting the fire (there was insufficient water to extinguish the fire), and as they realized the futility of it, many jumped into the flames to die with the Temple. Thousands more were noted to have committed suicide after the destruction of the Temple.

[from A CRITICAL COMMENTARY AND PARAPHRASE OF THE OT AND NT AND APOCRYPHA, by Patrick, Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman, 1846]

It’s interesting that the jewishhistory.org version does not mention the dismantling of the stones and the plowing of the site.

“On former occasions, Jerusalem had been restored from time to time, and the Temple had been rebuilt; but He now predicts that the next destruction would be total. 

“…the Mount of Olives. Observe, that the Siege began at the place where this prophecy was delivered,”

I can’t find confirmation of this, though it sounds interesting.

“Observe also, that the Siege began at the time in which this prophecy was uttered, the Passover.”

This is true enough. The Romans let the Passover pilgrims into the city to increase the consumption of food and supplies, but they wouldn’t allow them to leave.

“Observe, likewise, that many hundreds were destroyed by the same death as they were now about to inflict upon Christ, viz. Crucifixion.

This isn’t mentioned in any of the accounts that I’ve read. Those that survived the starvation and battle were taken as slaves. It’s certainly possible that any rebels captured might have been crucified, but that just isn’t discussed.

“Titus, the son and successor of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, regarded himself as the executioner of God’s Judgment on Jerusalem. The destruction of the Temple was a more striking fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy, because is was effected by Roman soldiers in opposition to the orders of Titus, who wished to spare it. And the woes with which Jerusalem was visited were more remarkable, as being brought about by the agency of one who was distinguished for clemency, and was called ‘deliciae human generis’ — Vespasian, his father, who began the Jewish war, seems also to have been specially raised up by God to be the minister of his purposes against Jerusalem; and it is observable that he alone of the Roman Caesars was permitted to bequeath the Empire to his sons.”       [from THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, IN THE ORIGINAL GREEK, by Charles Wordsworth, 1872]

Vespasian was called back to Rome to take the throne after the siege was started. He left his son Titus in charge of the siege.

“1. And Jesus went out from the temple, and departed —This reading [which Alf. adopts, on very strong grounds, though Tisch. and Mey. do not] gives more absolute force to the word departed, as contrasted with as hesat, ver. 3. (He had been in the temple for the last time. V. G.) His discourse, which included mention of the end of the world, was fitly delivered in the open air…To show — It is possible that Jesus had never examined the exterior of the temple, for he had no curiosity. Comp. note on Mark xii.15. 

Are we to pay, or not pay?” But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.”   (Mark 12:15; NASB)

[Note from Mark 12:15 in the same commentary: “That I may see it — The Lord would seem to have then for the first time seen and handled a denarius, or penny.” Wow. This author, however learned and well-known, seems to have missed the point of Christ asking to see the denarius…it was as an illustration only. To not have seen a denarius at that time would have been close to impossible as they were ubiquitous. Also, the denarius was not “a penny” in worth, it was the amount fixed for a day’s wages. Every other coin was measured by the denarius, which may be why the author compared it to a penny, as it is the coin which our coins are measured against, though hardly a day’s wages even in the 19th century. The denarius lost value under Nero who kept recalling them and melting them down and remaking them with less and less silver. Those following him continued the practice until the denarius was no longer worth much at all…at which point it could be compared to our penny.]

“The interior he had examined, deservedly, Mark xi.11.”

And Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple area; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.    (Mark 11:11; NASB)

The “interior” of the Temple area included large, open-to-the-sky courtyards. It’s not as if He was going into a church and missed seeing how the building was constructed.

“The buildings — the different parts of the temple were great buildings in themselves; and their construction was still in progress, (see John ii.20),”

The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and yet You will raise it up in three days?”     (John 2:20; NASB)

I’m not sure why the author thinks that this verse indicates that the building was still under construction. It was started in 516 BC under King Cyrus of Persia and completed under King Darius by the Jews returning from exile in Babylon (see the book of Nehemiah). King Herod expanded and enlarged the Temple in the first century BC, with the dedication (i.e. it was finished) being in November of 18 BC.

“and possibly with unwonted activity from the nearness of the Passover. Of the temple — Destined to destruction…even in that very generation, and a few years after it was completed. 

“…These — How they stand. There shall not be left — Our Lord dissipates the inquisitive thoughts of the disciples by graver ones. One stone upon another — A proverbial expression for utter destruction. The very site of the temple was turned up by the ploughshare.”       [from THE CRITICAL ENGLISH TESTAMENT IN 3 VOLUMES, VOL 1 –  THE GOSPELS, an adaption of Bengel’s Gnomon, edited by W. L. Blackley and James Hawes, 1876]

Bengel’s Gnomon was very well known and respected in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but he definitely went out on a limb pretty frequently. I suspect that people found his ability to think so totally outside the box to be stimulating to their thought processes. 

We’ll end here as the next author, E. W. Bullinger, has a very long quote. Bullinger is from the late 19th and early 20th century and is one of my absolute favorite commentators. He didn’t just look at the microscopic level, but also at the macroscopic level, so the next post will be a great comparison between Matthew, Mark and Luke, with some comparison to Revelation. And Bullinger doesn’t just go out on the proverbial limb, he frequently saws it off…but usually he turns out to be right.