Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 23:38
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
38. your house ] i. e. Jerusalem, rather than the Temple.
desolate ] Omitted in the Vatican Codex, but too strongly supported to be removed from the text.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Your house – The temple. The house of worship of the Jews. The chief ornament of Jerusalem.
Desolate – About to be desolate or destroyed. To be forsaken as a place of worship, and delivered into the hands of the Romans, and destroyed. See the notes at Matt. 24.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 38. Behold, your house] , the temple: – this is certainly what is meant. It was once the Lord’s temple, God’s OWN house; but now he says, YOUR temple or house – to intimate that God had abandoned it. See Clarke on Mt 23:21; see also Clarke on “Lu 13:35“.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
38. Behold, your housethetemple, beyond all doubt; but their house now, not theLord’s. See on Mt 22:7.
is left unto youdesolatedeserted, that is, of its Divine Inhabitant. But whois that? Hear the next words:
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Behold your house is left unto you desolate. Signifying that the city in which they dwelt, where they had their ceiled houses, and stately palaces, would, in a little time, within the space of forty years, be destroyed, and become a desert; and the temple, formerly the house of God, but now only their’s, and in which they trusted, would be abandoned by God, he would grant his presence no more in it; and the Messiah, the proprietor of it, and who was now in it, would then take his leave of it, and never more return to it; and that also should share the same fate as the city, and at the same time. Our Lord seems to have in view those passages in Jer 12:7 and which the Jewish o writers understood of the temple. The author of the apocryphal the second book of Esdras has much such an expression as this:
“Thus saith the Almighty Lord, Your house is desolate, I will cast you out as the wind doth stubble.” (2 Esdras 1:33)
o Targum & Kimchi in Jer. xii. 7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
38 Lo, your house is left to you desolate. He threatens the destruction of the temple, and the dissolution of the whole frame of civil government. Though they were disfigured by irreligion, crimes, and every kind of infamy, yet they were so blinded by a foolish confidence in the temple, and its outward service, that they thought that God was bound to them; and this was the shield which they had always at hand: “What? Could God depart from that place which he has chosen to be his only habitation in the world? And since he dwells in the midst of us, we must one day be restored.” In short, they looked upon the temple as their invincible fortress, as if they dwelt in the bosom of God. But Christ maintains that it is in vain for them to boast of the presence of God, whom they had driven away by their crimes, and, by calling it their house, (lo, your house is left to you,) he indirectly intimates to them that it is no longer the house of God. The temple had indeed been built on the condition, that at the coming of Christ it would cease to be the abode and residence of Deity; but it would have remained as a remarkable demonstration of the continued grace of God, if its destruction had not been occasioned by the wickedness of the people. It was therefore a dreadful vengeance of God, that the place which Himself had so magnificently adorned was not only forsaken by Him, and ordered to be razed to the foundation, but consigned to the lowest infamy to the end of the world. Let the Romanists now go, and let them proceed, in opposition to the will of God, to build their Tower of Babylon, while they see that the temple of God, which had been built by his authority and at his command, was laid low on account of the crimes of the people.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(38) Your house.The word desolate is omitted in some of the best MSS. The words your house may refer either generally to the whole polity of Israel, or more specifically to the house in which they gloried, the Temple, which was the joy of their hearts. It had been the house of God, but He, as represented by His Son, was now leaving it for ever. It was their house now, not His. We must remember that the words were spoken as our Lord was departing from the Temple (Mat. 24:1), never to reappear there.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
38. Your house is left desolate Jerusalem is pictured as a person whose habitation has been completely desolated and abandoned to the pillager. The house may be an allusion to the temple, in which indeed Jesus uttered the words. It is now not God’s house, but your house.
“Behold, your house is left to you desolate.”
And because they had refused Him there was nowhere else to turn. They were so intense about their possession of God’s house that they could not see beyond it, and the sad consequence would be its desolation. It would both lose its significance and be destroyed, for God had deserted it. Note that it is the desertion that is emphasised here Compare ‘I have forsaken My house, I have cast off My heritage’ (Jer 12:7). It was His earthly dwellingplace no more. (See 1Ki 9:6-9; Isa 64:10-11; Jer 12:7-8. It is quite remarkable how in a resurgent Israel the rebuilding of the Temple has been made impossible by the presence of the Mosque of Omar. Only God could have thought that one out. There is no future for an earthly Temple).
It is of some interest in the light of this chapter to recognise that the later Rabbis when making their declaration about the reason for the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD stated that it was ‘because in it prevailed hatred without cause’. They too recognised that Jerusalem had bought its destruction on itself.
Mat 23:38 f. .] your house is abandoned to your own disposal ; the time for divine help and protection for your city is now gone by! For the meaning, comp. Joseph. Antt. xx. 8. 5. The present implies the tragic and decisive ultimatum . The , which is to be retained on critical grounds (see critical notes), intimates what is to be the final result of this abandonment, viz. the destruction of Jerusalem ( , Mat 24:45 ; Luk 21:20 ); on the proleptic use of the adjective, comp. on Mat 12:13 , and Khner, II. 1, p. 236. According to the context, can only mean , Mat 23:37 (Bleek), in which their children dwell ; not the city and the country at large (de Wette and earlier expositors, in accordance with Psa 69:25 ), nor the whole body of the Jewish people (Keim), nor the temple (Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Calvin, Olearius, Wolf, Michaelis, Kuinoel, Neander, Baumeister in Klaiber’s Stud . II. p. 67 f.; Hofmann, Schriftbew . II. 2, p. 92; Ewald).
Mat 23:39 proceeds to account for this , . . . Were your city any longer to be shielded by the divine protection, I would still linger among you; but I now leave you, and it is certain that henceforth (His presence among them, as He knows, being about to cease with His death, comp. Mat 26:64 ) you will not see me again until my second coming (not: in the destruction of Jerusalem, Wetstein), when I shall appear in the glory of the Messiah, and when, at my approach, you will have saluted ( , dixeritis ) me, whom you have been rejecting, with the Messianic confession , . . . (Mat 21:9 ). This is not to be understood of the conversion of Israel (Rom 11 ; Rev 11 ) in its development down to the second coming (Bengel, Kstlin, Hofmann, Lange, Schegg, Auberlen, Ewald); for Jesus is addressing Jerusalem , and threatening it with the withdrawal of God’s superintending care, and that until the second appearing of Messiah ( ), and hence He cannot have had in view an intervening and regeneration of the city. No; the abandonment of the city on the part of God, which Jesus here announces, is ultimately to lead to her destruction; and then, at His second appearing, which will follow immediately upon the ruin of the city (Mat 24:29 ), His obstinate enemies will be constrained to join in the loyal greeting with which the Messiah will be welcomed (Mat 21:9 ), for the manifestation of His glory will sweep away all doubt and opposition, and force them at last to acknowledge and confess Him to be their Deliverer. A truly tragic feature at the close of this moving address in which Jesus bids farewell to Jerusalem, not with a hope , but with the certainty of ultimate, though sorrowful, victory . Euthymius Zigabenus very justly observes in connection with , . . .: ; , , . Comp. Theophylact, Calvin, Gerhard, Calovius. Wieseler, p. 322, despairing of making sense of the passage, has gone the length of maintaining that some ancient reader of Matthew has inserted it from Luke. This view might seem, no doubt, to be favoured by the use, in the present instance, of , Mat 23:37 , the form in which the word regularly appears in Luke, and for which, on every other occasion, Matthew has ; but it might very easily happen that, in connection with an utterance by Jesus of so remarkable and special a nature, the form given to the name of the city in the fatal words addressed to her would become so stereotyped in the Greek version of the evangelic tradition, that here, in particular, the Greek translator of Matthew would make a point of not altering the form “ ,” which had come to acquire so fixed a character as part of the utterance before us.
REMARK.
It is fair to assume that Christ’s exclamation over Jerusalem presupposes that the capital had repeatedly been the scene of His ministrations, which coincides with the visits on festival occasions recorded by John. Comp. Act 10:39 , and see Holtzmann, p. 440 f.; Weizscker, p. 310. Those who deny this (among them being Hilgenfeld, Keim) must assume, with Eusebius in the Theophan . ( Nova bibl. patr . iv. 127), that by the children of Jerusalem are meant the Jews in general , inasmuch as the capital formed the centre of the nation ; comp. Gal 4:25 . Baur himself (p. 127) cannot help seeing the far-fetched character of this latter supposition, and consequently has recourse to the unwarrantable view that we have before us the words of a prophet speaking in the name of God, words which were first put into the mouth of Jesus in their present form, so that, when they were uttered, would be intended to refer to the whole series of prophets and messengers, who had come in God’s name; just as Origen had already referred them to Moses and the prophets as well, in whom Christ was supposed to have been substantially present; comp. Strauss in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr . 1863, p. 90.
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
Ver. 38. Behold, your house is left, &c. ] City and temple both. God will not always stand men for a sinning stock. They that will not hear his word, shall hear his rod, and feel his sword too. Elisha hath his sword as well as Jehu and Hazael,1Ki 19:171Ki 19:17 , and the one usually precedes the other. They therefore that say, Following of sermons will make men beggars, forget that to take away the gospel from Jerusalem was to leave their houses as well as God’s house desolate.
38, 39. ] This is our Lord’s last and solemn departure from the temple the true (‘motus excedentium Deorum.’ Tacitus).
] no more God’s , but your house said primarily of the temple, then of Jerusalem, and then of the whole land in which ye dwell.
] He did not shew Himself to all the people after His resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses, Act 10:41 .
. ] until that day, the subject of all prophecy, when your repentant people shall turn with true and loyal Hosannas and blessings to greet ‘Him whom they have pierced:’ see Deu 4:30-31 ; Hos 3:4-5 ; Zec 12:10 ; Zec 14:8-11 . Stier well remarks, ‘He who reads not this in the prophets, reads not yet the prophets aright.’
Mat 23:38 . , etc., solemn, sorrowful abandonment of the city to its fate. , spoken to the inhabitants of Israel. ., your house, i.e. , the city, not the temple; the people are conceived of as one family. , wanting in [129] [130] , and omitted by W.H [131] , is not necessary to the sense. The sentence is, indeed, more impressive without it: “Behold your house is abandoned to your care: those who would have saved you giving up further effort”. What will happen left to be imagined; just what expresses desolation.
[129] Codex Vaticanus (sc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.
[130] Codex Regius–eighth century, represents an ancient text, and is often in agreement with and B.
[131] Westcott and Hort.
your . . . you. Very emphatic. At the beginning of the Lord’s ministry it was “My Father’s house” (Joh 2:16); but at the end, after His rejection, it was “your house”.
house: i.e. the Temple, where He was speaking.
is left = is being left. See Mat 24:1.
desolate. Every “house” and every place is “desolate” where Christ is not.
38, 39.] This is our Lords last and solemn departure from the temple-the true (motus excedentium Deorum. Tacitus).
] no more Gods, but your house-said primarily of the temple,-then of Jerusalem,-and then of the whole land in which ye dwell.
] He did not shew Himself to all the people after His resurrection, but only to chosen witnesses, Act 10:41.
.] until that day, the subject of all prophecy, when your repentant people shall turn with true and loyal Hosannas and blessings to greet Him whom they have pierced: see Deu 4:30-31; Hos 3:4-5; Zec 12:10; Zec 14:8-11. Stier well remarks, He who reads not this in the prophets, reads not yet the prophets aright.
Mat 23:38. , , Behold [your house] is left) The present tense twice expressed.[1020] He uttered these words as He was going out of the Temple. See ch. Mat 24:1, and cf. Joh 12:36.- , your house) which is otherwise called the house of the Lord. Thus, in Exo 32:7, God says to Moses, thy people.[1021]-, desolate, or desert) sc. as being left by the Messiah.[1022] Even after His ascension, Christ employed the Temple in a remarkable manner with His disciples. But with regard to Judaism, the Temple now ceased to be what it had been, and for this reason was at length destroyed; see Mat 23:36. The word is often employed with a particular reference.[1023] Thus the Forum is said to be , when no judicial proceedings are being carried on in it.
[1020] This refers to in Mat 23:34.-(I. B.)
[1021] Though on other occasions God said of them, My people.-ED.
[1022] For when the Messiah is absent, there is nothing that is not desolate and deserted.-V. g.
[1023] i.e. To denote the absence of that which constituted the characteristic or excellence of the object under consideration.-(I. B.)
Mat 24:2, 2Ch 7:20, 2Ch 7:21, Psa 69:24, Isa 64:10-12, Jer 7:9-14, Dan 9:26, Zec 11:1, Zec 11:2, Zec 11:6, Zec 14:1, Zec 14:2, Mar 13:14, Luk 13:35, Luk 19:43, Luk 19:44, Luk 21:6, Luk 21:20, Luk 21:24, Act 6:13, Act 6:14
Reciprocal: 1Ch 21:15 – unto Jerusalem Psa 55:9 – I have Psa 69:25 – Let their Pro 1:24 – I have called Ecc 7:16 – destroy thyself Isa 5:9 – Of a truth Jer 5:7 – How shall Lam 3:11 – he hath made Eze 24:13 – because Zec 11:9 – I will Luk 14:24 – General
3:38
Desolate is from EREMOS which Thayer defines, “Solitary, lonely, desolate, uninhabited.” The word is used figuratively and represents Jerusalem as a house that has resisted all attempts to save it. The city had continued in its attitude of wickedness, unmindful of all the offers of mercy that Jesus extended towards her, and he then sadly left her to her fate that was to come in 70 A. D. by the hand of the Romans.
Mat 23:38. Your house, the temple, which is no longer Gods house, but yours. Desolate, a spiritual ruin to be followed by temporal ruin. Our Lord shortly afterwards (chap. Mat 24:1) left the temple, as a sign that this had taken place.
Mat 23:38-39. Behold, your house The temple, which is now your house, not Gods; is left unto you desolate Forsaken of God and his Christ, and sentenced to utter destruction. Our Lord spake this as he was going out of it for the last time. For I say unto you Ye Jews in general, ye men of Jerusalem in particular; shall not see me henceforth , hereafter, as the words signify, Mat 26:64; till After a long interval of desolation and misery, Ye shall say, Blessed, &c. Till ye receive me with joyful and thankful hearts; that is, till your nation is converted: for the state of the nation, and not of a few individuals, is here spoken of, as it is also in the parables of the vineyard and marriage-supper. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, was the cry of the believing multitude when Jesus made his public entry into Jerusalem a few days before. Hence, in predicting their future conversion, he very properly alluded to that exclamation by which so many had expressed their faith in him as the Messiah. This was the last discourse Jesus pronounced in public, and with it his ministry ended. From that moment he abandoned the Jewish nation, gave them over to walk in their own counsels, and devoted them to destruction. Nor were they ever after to be the objects of his care, till the period of their conversion to Christianity should come, which he now foretold, and which also shall be accomplished in its season.
Verse 38
Your house, &c. A desolated house or home is a mournful and striking image of utter and irretrievable ruin.
The house in view is probably the temple (cf. 1Ki 9:7-8). Other views are that it refers to the city, the Davidic dynasty, the nation, or all of the above. Jesus had formerly claimed the temple as His own house (Mat 5:35; Mat 17:25-26; Mat 21:12-16). Now He spoke of it as their house, the house of prayer that they had converted into a den of thieves (Mat 21:13). Jesus and God would leave the temple desolate by removing Jesus’ presence from it. Instead of it becoming the focal point of worship during the messianic kingdom, it would be devoid of Immanuel, God with us, until He returns to it (Mat 1:23; cf. Jer 12:7; Jer 22:5; Eze 43:1-5). Instead of bringing promised rest and blessing to Israel, Messiah would leave her desolate, uninhabited.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)