MATTHEW 24:6-8	HEBREW MATTHEW1 24:6-8	HEBREW MATTHEW2 24:6-8	MARK 13:7-9	HEBREW MARK3 13:7-8	LUKE 21:9-11
6. For you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you be not troubled; for all these things must happen, but the end is not yet.	6. As for you, when you hear of wars and a company of hosts, beware lest you become foolish, because all of this will occur, but the end will not be yet.	6. You will hear of wars and moving (or “setting out”) of wars, take heed that you be not terrified, it is obligated (or “necessitated”) that these troubles must come, but it will not yet be the end.	7. And when you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, be not troubled; for these things must be, but the end is not yet.	7. However, when you see great wars, or the beginnings of wars – do not fear, for it is obligated that this happens, but it will not yet be the end.	9. But when you shall hear of wars and seditions, be not terrified: for these things must first take place; but the end is not immediately.
7. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in various places.	7. Nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great tumults, grievous famine, and earthquake in [various] places.	7.One people will rise up against another, and one kingdom against another. And there will be plagues (or “slaughterings”) and earthquakes, and commotion on the earth.	8. For nation will rise agains nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be earthquakes in various places.	8. And peoples (or “nations) will rise up against peoples (or “nations”), and king against king, and there will be shakings (or “earthquakes”) on the earth, and famine,	10.Then he said to them, Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11. And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines, and pestilences; and there will be frightful appearances and great signs from heaven.
8. But all these things are the beginnings of sorrows.	8. All of these are the beginning of suffering.	8. And these things will be the beginnings of the pains (or “sufferings”)	9. These things are the beginnings of sorrows.	and they will be the beginnings of the pains.	N/A

1. HEBREW GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, (Shem-Tov Version), translated by George Howard, Mercer University Press, 1995 ↩︎
2. THE HEBREW GOSPELS FROM SEPHARAD, from the Vatican Library, manuscript Vat. Ebr. 100, Version 2.2, translated by Justin J. Van Rensberg, published in Las Vegas, NV, April 2023 ↩︎
3. Ibid ↩︎

We start with John Calvin again:

“6 For you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. He describes here those commotions only which arose in Judea, for we shall find him soon afterwards saying that the flame will spread much wider. As he had formerly enjoined them to beware lest any man deceived them, so now he bids them meet with courage rumors of wars and wars themselves; for they would be in danger of giving way when surrounded by calamities, especially if they had promised to themselves ease and pleasure.” 

I don’t agree that what is described here is just for Judea. Especially not in Matthew (as opposed to Luke). In the next set of phrases, I think that we will see clearly that Jesus is talking about the end times. But that does not mean that the people of Judea couldn’t or shouldn’t have seen the prophecy as a warning to them to leave Jerusalem with the onset of war. I have no doubt that Jesus intended both meanings.

I like the line: “…especially if they had promised to themselves ease and pleasure.”  People in the west today don’t even realize that they are “promising themselves ease and pleasure.” They just expect it; they see it as “normal”. There certainly are many in the world that can’t promise themselves anything, and they know it. Unfortunately, there are currently those in power in the world who do not want anyone but themselves to see “ease and pleasure” as “normal”. 

“For all these things must take place. He adds this, not for the purpose of assigning a reason, but of warning them that none of these things happened accidentally, or without the providence of God, that they may not uselessly kick against the spur; for nothing has a more powerful efficacy to bring us into subjection, than when we acknowledge that those things which appear to be confused are regulated by the good pleasure of God. True, indeed, God himself never wants proper causes and the best reasons for allowing the world to be disturbed; but as believers ought to acquiesce in his mere good pleasure, Christ reckoned it enough to exhort the disciples to prepare their minds for endurance, and to remain firm, because such is the will of God.”

This is a very powerful paragraph. When I first came to Christ, it came to my mind to write down the phrase “ALL things come from God”, and put it on my refrigerator. This phrase has helped me so much when facing the evil of this world. He is in control. ALL things come from Him. What we perceive as evil, God uses for good for those who love Him.

“But the end is not yet. He now states in plainer terms the threatening which I have already mentioned, that those events which were in themselves truly distressing would be only a sort of preparation for greater calamities; because, when the flame of war has been kindled in Judea, it will spread more widely; for ever since the doctrine of the Gospel was published, a similar ingratitude prevailing among other nations has aroused the wrath of God against them. Hence it happened that, having broken the bond of peace with God, they tore themselves by mutual contentions; having refused to obey the government of God, they yielded to the violence of their enemies; not having permitted themselves to be reconciled to God, they broke out into quarrels with one another; in short, having shut themselves out from the heavenly salvation, they raged against each other, and filled the earth with murders. Knowing how obstinate the malice of the world would be, he again adds, 

“8. But all these things are the beginnings of sorrows. Not that believers, who always have abundant consolations in calamities, should consume themselves with grief, but that they should lay their account with a long exercise of patience. Luke adds likewise earthquakes, and signs from heaven, with respect to which, though we have no authentic history of them, yet it is enough that they were predicted by Christ. The reader will find the rest in Josephus, (Wars of the Jews, VI. 5:3.)”    [from COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE — VOL 3, by John Calvin, 1555] 

Actually, there were some earthquakes in the first century reported by Tacitus and others. We’ll see more about that later on. And, Calvin makes it sound like Matthew didn’t mention earthquakes, but that’s not right: Matthew, Mark and Luke all mentioned the earthquakes. Luke is, however, the only one mentioning the “signs from heaven.”

As for the phrase: “when the flame of war has been kindled in Judea, it will spread more widely”, I’m not sure what Calvin is referring to. He goes on to describe the situation in Judea, but that is not an indication of a “wider spread”. Perhaps there were some wars I’m not aware of; but it seems that Pax Romana was still in force from at least the 1st through 4th centuries. The ‘war’ that Judea experienced was a rebellion that they started against Rome, not a generalized war in the empire. More details about this in the next post.

“Verse 6. See that you be not troubled] Or frighted, as soldiers are by sudden alarm….David was undaunted, Psal.3.3 & 27.3. He looked not downward on the rushing and roaring streams of dangers that ran so swiftly under him, for that would have made him giddy: But steadfastly fastened on the power and promise of God All-sufficient, and was safe.  So at the sack of Ziglag. 1 Sam.30.6.

But you, LORD, are a shield around me, My glory, and the one who lifts my head.  
(Psalm 3:3; NASB)

If an army encamps against me, My heart will not fear; If war arises against me, In spite of this I am confident.  
(Psalm 27:3; NASB)

Also, David was in great distress because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David felt strengthened in the LORD his God.   
(1 Samuel 30:6; NASB)

“Verse 7. For nation shall rise, &c.] See here the woeful effects of refusing Gods free offers of grace. They that would have none of the Gospel of peace, shall have the miseries of war. They that loathed the heavenly Manna, shall be hunger-starved. They that despised the only medicine of their souls, shall be visited with the pestilence. They that would not suffer heart-quake, shall suffer earthquake. Or as that Martyr expressed it: They that trembled not in hearing, shall be crushed to pieces in feeling. As they heap up sin, so they treasure up wrath: as there has been a conjuncture of offenses, so there shall be of their miseries. The black house is at the heels of the red, and the pale of of the black, Rev.6.4. God left not Pharaoh, that sturdy rebel till he had beaten the breath out of his body: nor will he cease pushing men with his plagues, one in the neck of another, till they throw the traitors head over the wall.

And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that people would kill one another; and a large sword was given to him.     (Revelation 6:4; NASB)

The “traitors head over the wall”? Whose head and what wall? I’m not sure I even get this in a metaphorical sense. Pretty graphic though.

“Verse 8. All these are the beginning, &c.] There yet remain far worse matters than war, famine, pestilence, earthquakes. And yet war is as a fire that feeds upon the people, Is.9.19,20. Famine is far worse then that, Lam. 4.9. Pestilence is Gods evil Angel, Psal.78.49,50. Earthquakes are wondrous terrible, and destructive to whole cities, as to Antioch of old, and to Pleurs in Italy…where fifteen hundred men perished together…The holy Martyrs, as Saunders, Bradford, Philpot, &c. The Confessors also that fled for Religion in Q. Mary’s days acknowledged…that that great inundation of misery came justly upon them for their unprofitableness under the means of grace, which they had enjoyed in K. Edward’s days. When I first came to be Pastor at Clavenna…there fell out a grievous pestilence, that in seven months space consumed 1200 persons. Their former Pastor…that man of God, had often foretold such a calamity for their Popery and profaneness: But he could never be believed, till the plague had proved him a true Prophet: and then they remembered his words, and wished they had been warned by him.”    [from COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPELS & ACTS, by John Trapp, 1657] 

¹⁹By the wrath of the LORD of armies the land is burned, And the people are like fuel for the fire; No one spares his brother. ²⁰They devour what is on the right hand but are still hungry, And they eat what is on the left hand, but they are not satisfied; Each of them eats the flesh of his own arm.   
(Isaiah 9:19-20; NASB)

Better off are those killed by the sword Than those killed by hunger; For they waste away, stricken By the lack of the produce of the field.    (Lamentations 4:9; NASB)

⁴⁹He sent His burning anger upon them, Fury and indignation and trouble, A band of destroying angels. ⁵⁰He leveled a path for His anger; He did not spare their souls from death, But turned their lives over to the plague    
(Psalm 78:49-50; NASB)

A diversion about the martyrs that Trapp names.  When Mary, eldest daughter of Henry VII, came to the English throne in 1553, she was succeeding her half-brother Edward VI (only son of Henry), who died at the age of 15; he was crowned at age 9. Edward stalwartly followed his father’s faith, and demanded that the kingdom do the same. Upon discovering that he was terminally ill (probably from TB), he named Lady Jane Grey, a first cousin of both Edward and Mary, to be successor. He did this because she was Protestant, and Mary was determinedly Catholic. This went against the succession outlined by the Parliament years earlier (after Henry, it was to be Edward, Mary and then Elizabeth). When Edward died in 1553, sides drew up for battle between Mary’s and Jane’s supporters, but Jane’s support collapsed and Mary was crowned. 

Mary first executed those who had favored Jane against her for the throne. Lady Jane and her husband were held in prison, as Jane was seen as a pawn in the movement. Later in 1553, another rebellion arose to depose Mary in favor of Jane. The rebellion was put down and resulted in the execution of Jane, her husband, her father, and a number of other prominent people.  

In 1555 the Parliament reinstated the heresy laws, making it legal for England to punish those found guilty of heresy against the Catholic Church. When found guilty, a person was first excommunicated, and then given to the secular authorities to be burned at the stake. 

Trapp was writing a hundred years later, but the horror of Mary’s reign was still fresh in the minds of Trapp’s contemporaries. The first martyr he mentions is Lawrence Saunders who was a Reformed preacher when Mary rose to the throne. Saunders was burned at Coventry in February of 1555. In July of the same year, John Bradford was burned in London; Bradford was also a Reformed preacher. A woman for whom he had written a devotional made for him a special wedding shirt, called the “Shirt of Flame”, in which to be burned, and this dressing of the condemned as a bridegroom subsequently became a common event. Bradford was the one who first said, “There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford”, or “I” as we say it now.

John Philpot was another English Protestant preacher that was burned at the stake in London in 1557. He had earlier traveled abroad, arguing with Catholics in several countries, and narrowly escaping the Inquisition. But, after settling back in England, Mary came to power, and his love for arguing about the faith attracted the attention of the crown. 

Bloody Mary, as she came to be known, was responsible for “many” people being exiled from the kingdom, and an estimated 300 executions (burned at the stake), “including 56 women”, and then thirty other people who died in prison awaiting execution. Protestant clergy (think Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, etc.) were among the persecuted, but “tradesmen were also burned, as well as married men and women, sometimes in unison, ‘youths’ and at least one couple was burned alive with their daughter.”  (Wikipedia) Some of these people were burned in groups of 10 or more.

Mary was in power for just under 5 years before she died (mercifully) in 1558 at the age of 42. She had had frequent menstrual issues and illnesses; shortly after a marriage at age 37 in 1554, she under went a “false” pregnancy (she stopped menstruating and gained weight around the middle) that produced no child. One has to wonder if she didn’t die of cancer of the uterus or ovaries. 

Her younger half-sister became Queen Elizabeth I in 1558;  she took the side of the Reformers and Protestants. 

“The next sign which our Savior gives his disciples of Jerusalem’s destruction, is the many broils and commotions, civil discords and dissensions, that should be found amongst the Jews: famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, fearful sights and signs in the air. And Josephus declares, that there appeared in the air chariots and horses, men skirmishing in the the clouds, and encompassing the city; and that a blazing star, in fashion of a sword, hung over the city for a year together. Learn, 1. That war, pestilence, and famine, are judgments and calamities inflicted by God upon a sinful people for their contempt of Christ and gospel-grace…2. That although these be mighty and terrible judgments, yet are they the forerunners of worse judgments…”   [from EXPOSITORY NOTES WITH PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT, VOL 1, by William Burkitt, 1703] 

Burkitt seems to assume that only the Jews are worthy of God’s wrath. How sad that he cannot see his own people’s problems. He also does not give any examples of how these prophecies were fulfilled; indeed he cannot, because they were not.

I’m not sure what to say about the imaginary sights in the sky reported by Josephus. It seems like such dramatic sights would have been reported in other places as well.

“…Now the prophecy primarily respects the events near at hand, the destruction of Jerusalem, the period of the Jewish church and state, the calling of the Gentiles, and the setting up of Christ’s kingdom in the world; but, as the prophecies of the Old Testament, which have an immediate reference to the affairs of the Jews, and the revolution of their state, yet, under the figure of them, do certainly look further to the gospel-church, and the kingdom of the Messiah, and are so expounded in the New Testament; and such expressions are found in those predictions as are peculiar thereto, and not applicable otherwise; so this prophecy, under the type of Jerusalem’s destruction, looks as far forward as the general judgment; and, as is usual in prophecies, some passages are most applicable to the type, and others to the antitype; and, towards the close, as usual, it point more particularly to the latter: And it is observable, that what Christ here says to his disciples, tends more to engage their caution, then to satisfy their curiosity; more to prepare them for the events that should happen, than to give them a distinct idea of the events themselves…“

What Christ said to His disciples is in a similar vein to the prophecies of the Old Testament. And, like them, what He said was fairly straight-forward; so that as we get closer to the time, the baldness of it becomes clearer and clearer.

“…When wars are, they will be heard: for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise…Even the quiet in the land, and the least inquisitive after new things, cannot but hear the rumors of war. See what comes of refusing the gospel! those that will not hear the messengers of peace, shall be made to hear the messengers of war: God has a sword ready to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, his new covenant. Nation shall rise up against nation, i.e. one part or province of the Jewish nation against another, one city against another, 2 Chron.xv.5,6. and in the same province and city one party or faction shall rise up against another, so that they shall be devoured by, and dashed in pieces against one another, Isa.ix.19,21…“

⁷In those times there was no peace for him who went out or him who came in, because many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. ⁶Nation was crushed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every kind of distress.   
(2 Chronicles 15:5-6; NASB)

¹⁹By the wrath of the LORD of armies the land is burned, And the people are like fuel for the fire; No one spares his brother…²¹Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh, And together they are against Judah. In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away And His hand is still stretched out.   
(Isaiah 9:19,21; NASB)

First of all, the events of 2 Chronicles are far earlier than the first century AD, so I’m not so sure that it really applies here.

Secondly, wars can be noisy. But that doesn’t mean that everyone hears them or even about them. Today, we can tune into many parts of the world and witness their wars first hand. Rumors run rampant on social media. Still, not everyone pays attention.

And again, examples please.

“We must not be troubled, for two reasons:

“(1.) Because we are bid to expect this. The Jews must be punished, ruin must be brought upon them; by this justice of God and the honor of the Redeemer, must be asserted; and therefore all those things must come to pass…God is but performing the thing that is appointed for us, and our inordinate trouble is an interpretive quarrel with that appointment…

“(2.) Because we are still to expect worse: the end is not yet; the end of time is not, and while time lasts we must expect trouble, and that the end of one affliction will be but the beginning of another…

“Thirdly, He foretells other judgments more immediately sent of God, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes…

“Fourthly, He foretells the persecution of his own people and ministers, and a general apostasy and decay in religion thereupon…Then when famines and pestilences prevail, then they shall impute them to the Christians, and make that a presence for prosecuting them…”    [from OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT IN FIVE VOLUMES – VOL 4 MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN, by Matthew Henry, ~1715 (published in 1806 posthumously)]  

Finally, in his fourth point, Henry does admit that the wrath of God is destined for “his own people” as well as the Jews; but, he is kind of making it sound like it won’t be deserved.

That’s all for today. The next quote is pretty long and contentious, so we’ll save it for next time.