Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 24:20
But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
20. not in the winter ] when swollen streams, bitter cold and long nights would increase the misery and danger of the fugitives.
on the sabbath day ] when religious scruples might delay the flight. The extent of a Sabbath day’s journey was 2000 cubits. Here, however, the question meets us, how far Jewish observances would affect the Christians. Probably the early Christians observed both the Sabbath and the Lord’s day. But in any case many impediments would arise against flight on the Sabbath day. St Matthew alone records these words of warning.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
But pray ye … – The destruction was certainly coming. It could not be prevented; yet it was right to pray for a mitigation of the circumstances, that it might be as mild as possible. So we know that calamity is before us; sickness, pain, bereavement, and death are in our path; yet, though we know that these things must come upon us, it is right to pray that they may come in as mild a manner as may be consistent with the will of God. We must die, but it is right to pray that the pains of our dying may be neither long nor severe.
In the winter – On account of the cold, storms, etc. To be turned then from home, and compelled to take up an abode in caverns, would be a double calamity.
Neither on the sabbath-day – Long journeys were prohibited by the law on the Sabbath, Exo 16:29. The law of Moses did not mention the distance to which persons might go on the Sabbath, but most of the Jews maintained that it should not be more than 2000 cubits. Some supposed that it was 7 furlongs, or nearly a mile. This distance was allowed in order that they might go to their places of worship. Most of them held that it was not lawful to go further, under any circumstances of war or affliction. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray that their flight might not be on the Sabbath, because, if they should not go farther than a Sabbath-days journey, they would not be beyond the reach of danger, and if they did, they would be exposed to the charge of violating the law. It should be added that it was almost impracticable to travel in Judea on that day, as the gates of the cities were usually closed, Neh 13:19-22.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mat 24:20
Not in the winter.
Winter and how to meet it
The winter season is especially full of temptation, because of the long evenings allowing such full swing for evil indulgences. You can hardly expect a young man to go into his room and sit there from seven to eleven oclock in the evening, reading Morleys Dutch Republic or John Fosters Essays. It would be a very beautiful thing for him to do, but he will not do it. Then the winter has especial temptations in the fact that many homes are peculiarly unattractive at this season. In the summer months the young man can sit out on the steps, or he can have a bouquet in the vase on the mantel, or, the evenings being so short, soon after gaslight he wants to retire, anyhow. But there are many parents who do not understand how to make the long winter evenings attractive to their children.
A good use of winter nights
Employ these long nights of December, January, and February in high pursuits, in intelligent socialities, in innocent amusements, in Christian work. Do not waste this winter, for soon you will have seen your last snow shower and have gone up into the companionship of Him Whose raiment is white as snow, whiter than any fuller on earth could whiten it. For all Christian hearts the winter nights of earth will end in the June morning of heaven. The river of life from under the throne never freezes over. The foliage of lifes tree is never frost-bitten. The festivities, the hilarities, the family greetings of earthly Christmas times will give way to larger reunion and brighter lights and sweeter garlands and mightier joy in the great holiday of heaven! (Dr. Talmage.)
Winter dissipation
This season is not only a test of ones physical endurance, but in our great cities is a test of moral character. A vast number of people have by one winter of dissipation been destroyed and for ever. Seated in our homes on some stormy night, the winds howling outside, we imagine the shipping helplessly driven on the coast, but any winter night, if our ears were good enough, we could hear the crash of a thousand moral shipwrecks. There are many people who come to our city on the 1st of September who will be blasted by the 1st of March. At this season of the year temptations are especially rampant. Now that the long winter evenings have come there are many who will employ them in high pursuits, in intellectual socialities, in Christian work, in the strengthening and ennobling of moral character, and this winter to many of you will be the brightest and the best in all of your lives, and in anticipation I congratulate you. But to others it may not have such effect, and I charge you, my beloved, look out where you spend your winter nights. (Dr. Talmage.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 20. But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter] For the hardness of the season, the badness of the roads, the shortness of the days, and the length of the nights, will all be great impediments to your flight. Rabbi Tanchum observes, “that the favour of God was particularly manifested in the destruction of the first temple, in not obliging the Jews to go out in the winter, but in the summer.” See the place in Lightfoot.
Neither on the Sabbath-day] That you may not raise the indignation of the Jews by travelling on that day, and so suffer that death out of the city which you had endeavoured to escape from within. Besides, on the Sabbath-days the Jews not only kept within doors, but the gates of all the cities and towns in every place were kept shut and barred; so that their flight should be on a Sabbath, they could not expect admission into any place of security in the land.
Our Lord had ordered his followers to make their escape from Jerusalem when they should see it encompassed with armies; but how could this be done? God took care to provide amply for this. In the twelfth year of Nero, Cestius Gallus, the president of Syria, came against Jerusalem with a powerful army. He might, says Josephus, WAR, b. ii. c. 19, have assaulted and taken the city, and thereby put an end to the war; but without any just reason, and contrary to the expectation of all, he raised the siege and departed. Josephus remarks, that after Cestius Gallus had raised the siege, “many of the principal Jewish people, , forsook the city, as men do a sinking ship.” Vespasian was deputed in the room of Cestius Gallus, who, having subdued all the country, prepared to besiege Jerusalem, and invested it on every side. But the news of Nero’s death, and soon after that of Galba, and the disturbances that followed, and the civil wars between Otho and Vitellius, held Vespasian and his son Titus in suspense. Thus the city was not actually besieged in form till after Vespasian was confirmed in the empire, and Titus was appointed to command the forces in Judea. It was in those incidental delays that the Christians, and indeed several others, provided for their own safety, by flight. In Lu 19:43, our Lord says of Jerusalem, Thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side. Accordingly, Titus, having made several assaults without success, resolved to surround the city with a wall, which was, with incredible speed, completed in three days! The wall was thirty-nine furlongs in length, and was strengthened with thirteen forts at proper distances, so that all hope of safety was cut off; none could make his escape from the city, and no provisions could be brought into it. See Josephus, WAR, book v. c. 12.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter,…. When days are short, and unfit for long journeys, and roads are bad, and sometimes not passable, through large snows, or floods of water; and when to dwell in desert places, and lodge in mountains, must be very uncomfortable: wherefore Christ directs to pray to God, who has the disposal of all events, and of the timing of them, that he would so order things in the course of his providence, that their flight might not be in such a season of the year, when travelling would be very difficult and troublesome. Dr. Lightfoot observes, from a Jewish writer h, that it is remarked as a favour of God in the destruction of the first temple, that it happened in the summer, and not in winter; whose words are these:
“God vouchsafed a great favour to Israel, for they ought to have gone out of the land on the tenth day of the month Tebeth; as he saith Eze 24:2 “son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day”: what then did the Lord, holy and blessed? If they shall now go out in the winter, (saith he,) they will all die; therefore he prolonged the time to them, and carried them away in summer.”
And since therefore they received such a favour from him at the destruction of the first temple, there was encouragement to pray to him, that they might be indulged with the like favour when Jerusalem should be besieged again:
neither on the sabbath day: the word “day” is not in the Greek text; and some i have been of opinion, that the “sabbatical year”, or the seventh year, is meant, when no fruits would be found in the fields, and a great scarcity of provisions among people; who would not have a sufficiency, and much less any to spare to strangers fleeing from their native places; but rather the sabbath day, or “day of the sabbath”, as the Persic version reads it, is designed; and Beza says, four of his copies read it in the genitive case: and so four of Stephens’s. And the reason why our Lord put them on praying, that their flight might not be on the sabbath day, was, because he knew not only that the Jews, who believed not in him, would not suffer them to travel on a sabbath day more than two thousand cubits; which, according to their traditions k, was a sabbath day’s journey; and which would not be sufficient for their flight to put them out of danger; but also, that those that did believe in him, particularly the Jerusalem Jews, would be all of them fond of the law of Moses, and scrupulous of violating any part of it, and especially that of the sabbath; see Ac 21:20. And though the Jews did allow, that the sabbath might be violated where life was in danger, and that it was lawful to defend themselves against an enemy on the sabbath day; yet this did not universally obtain; and it was made a question of, after the time of Christ, whether it was lawful to flee from danger on the sabbath day; of which take the following account l.
“Our Rabbins teach, that he that is pursued by Gentiles, or by thieves, may profane the sabbath for the sake of saving his life: and so we find of David, when Saul sought to slay him, he fled from him, and escaped. Our Rabbins say, that it happened that evil writings (or edicts) came from the government to the great men of Tzippore; and they went, and said to R. Eleazar ben Prata, evil edicts are come to us from the government, what dost thou say? , “shall we flee?” and he was afraid to say to them “flee”; but he said to them with a nod, why do you ask me? go and ask Jacob, and Moses, and David; as it is written, of Jacob, Ho 12:12 “and Jacob fled”; and so of Moses, Ex 2:15 “and Moses fled”; and so of David, 1Sa 19:18 “and David fled, and escaped”: and he (God) says, Isa 26:20 “come my people, enter into thy chambers”.”
From whence, it is plain, it was a question with the doctors in Tzippore, which was a town in Galilee, where there was an university, whether it was lawful to flee on the sabbath day or not; and though the Rabbi they applied to was of opinion it was lawful, yet he was fearful of speaking out his sense plainly, and therefore delivered it by signs and hints. Now our Lord’s meaning, in putting them on this petition, was, not to prevent the violation of the seventh day sabbath, or on account of the sacredness of it, which he knew would be abolished, and was abolished before this time; but he says this with respect to the opinion of the Jews, and “Judaizing” Christians, who, taking that day to be sacred, and fleeing on it unlawful, would find a difficulty with themselves, and others, to make their escape; otherwise it was as lawful to flee and travel on that day, as in the winter season; though both, for different reasons, incommodious.
h Taachuma, fol. 57. 2. i Vid. Reland. Antiq. Heb. par. 4. c. 10. sect. 1. & Hammond in loc. k Maimon. Hilch. Sabbat, c. 27. sect. 1. l Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 23. fol. 231. 4.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In winter nor on a sabbath (, genitive of time, , locative of time). In winter because of the rough weather. On a sabbath because some would hesitate to make such a journey on the sabbath. Josephus in his Wars gives the best illustration of the horrors foretold by Jesus in verse 21.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
(20) Pray ye that your flight . . .Rules were given for flight where the conditions lay within their own power. Other incidents which lay outside their will might lawfully be the subjects of their prayers. It is characteristic of St. Matthew, as writing for Jews, that he alone records the words nor on the Sabbath day. Living as the Christians of Juda did in the strict observance of the Law, they would either be hindered by their own scruples from going beyond a Sabbath days journey (about one English mile), which would be insufficient to place them out of the reach of danger, or would find impedimentsgates shut, and the likefrom the Sabbath observance of others.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. In the winter Or season of storms, when you or your family may perish from the inclemency. On the Sabbath The gates of Jewish cities were shut on the Sabbath, and so their flight might be arrested.
Neh 13:19-22. The Jews might hinder them by requiring them to travel no more than a Sabbath day’s journey, which was but five furlongs.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“And pray you that your flight be not in the winter, nor on a sabbath,”
They were also to pray that this flight might not be required in the winter, when the roads would be difficult to travel on, and when conditions in the mountains would be at their worst. Nor on the sabbath, which would restrict how far a pious Jew would be able to travel on that day. While the sabbath regulation could probably be set aside where all agreed that flight was necessary, the thought here is that it is probably not the majority view, so that the emergency regulations would not be seen as applying. It would be felt that they should remain to defend the city. Or the thought might be that the gates of the city might no be opened on the Sabbath.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 24:20. But pray ye that your flight be not, &c. “Pray that these evils be not further aggravated by the concurrence of other natural and moral evils, such as the inclemencies of the seasons, and your own scruples: Pray that your flight be not in the winter; for the hardness of the season, the badness of the roads, and the shortness of the days, will all be great impediments to your flight; neither on the Sabbath-day; that you may not raise the indignation of the Jews by travelling on that day, nor be hindered from doing it by your own scruples.” This seems to be spoken a good deal in condescension to the Jewish scruples, a Sabbath-day’s journey among the Jews being but abouta mile; and consequently insufficient for the security of their lives who fled. It has been observed, (on Psa 147:16 and Ezr 10:9.) that the winters are very cold in the Holy Land. St. Jerome speaks of the cold of that country, as frequently too severe to be borne by those who might be glad to secrete themselves for fear of their lives; and, in his letter to Algasia, he thus understands, as to the literal sense, the direction of our Lord here given to his disciples; the severity of the cold being such, as would not permit them toconceal themselves in the deserts. Agreeable to this, and at the same time a lively comment on these words of our Lord, is the account which William of Tyre gives of the state of Saladine’s troops after their defeat in the neighbourhood of Ascalon. “They for haste threw away their armour and cloaths, [vestium genera quaelibet; that is to say, their hykes and burnooses, described by Dr. Shaw, p. 226 which they found entangled them, and retarded their flight] but so sunk under the cold, with want of food, tediousness of the ways, and greatness of the fatigue, that they were daily taken captives in the woods, mountains, and wilderness; and sometimes threw themselves in the way of their enemies, rather than perish with cold and hunger.” See the Observations on Sacred Scripture, p. 15. As our Saviour cautioned his disciples to fly when they should see Jerusalem encompassed with armies; so was it very providentiallyordered that Jerusalem should be compassed with armies, and yet that they should have such favourable opportunities of making their escape. In the 12th year of Nero, Cestius Gallus came against Jerusalem with a powerful army; and though, if he had assaulted the city, he might have taken it, and have put an end to the war; yet, without any apparent reason, and contrary to every one’s expectation, he raised the siege. Vespasian, who succeeded him in the command, invested the city on all sides; but the news of Nero’s death, and soon after of Galba’s, caused him to suspend his operations against Jerusalem; and the city was not actually besieged in form, till Vespasian was confirmed in the empire, and Titus was sent to command the forces in Judea. These incidental delays were very opportune for the Christians, and those who had thoughts of retreating and providing for their safety. See Bishop Newton.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 24:20 . ] Object of the command, and therefore its purport; Mar 14:35 ; Col 1:9 .
] without , as in Mat 12:1 ; Winer, p. 205 [E. T. 274]. On the Sabbath the rest and the solemnities enjoined by the law, as well as the short distance allowed for a Sabbath-day’s journey (2000 yards, according to Exo 16:29 ; see Lightfoot on Luk 24:50 ; Act 1:12 ; Schoettgen, p. 406), could not but interfere with the necessary haste, unless one were prepared in the circumstances to ignore all such enactments. Taken by themselves, the words seem, no doubt, to be inconsistent with Jesus’ own liberal views regarding the Sabbath (Mat 12:1 ff.; Joh 5:17 ; Joh 7:22 ); but he is speaking from the standpoint of His disciples , such a standpoint as they occupied at the time He addressed them , and which was destined to be outgrown only in the course of a later development of ideas (Rom 14:5 ; Col 2:6 ). As in the case of , what is here said is simply with a view to everything being avoided calculated to interfere with their hasty flight. Comp. Mat 10:23 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
Ver. 20. But pray ye ] Christ saith not, Fight ye, but Pray ye. To fight it boots not; for God hath resolved the land’s ruin: but prayers are bombardae et instrumenta bellica Christianorum, as Luther hath it, the great guns and artillery of Christians, whereby they may batter heaven, and make a breach upon God himself. Flectitur iratus voce rogante Deus. Something God will yield to the prayers of his people, even when he seems most bitterly bent, and unchangeably resolved against them. Christ here bids them pray, that their flight fall not out “in the winter,” when the days are short, ways foul, and all less fit for such a purpose. a “Nor on the Sabbath;” when though it were lawful enough, yet it would be so much the mere uncomfortable. This they were bidden to pray over thirty years before the city was besieged. Aud they had what they prayed for. Their flight was not in winter, for the siege began about Easter, and the city was taken in September. Neither was it on the Sabbath day, as we have cause to believe; for when Christ bids us pray for anything, it is sure he means to bestow it. As when we bid our children ask us this or that, it is because we mean to give it to them.
a . Hyems, . Bruma, q. , i.e. . Becman.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mat 24:20 . , etc. ( with subjunctive instead of infinitive as often in N. T. after verbs of exhorting, etc.), pray that your flight be not in winter ( , gen. time in wh.) or on the Sabbath ( , dat., pt. of time). The Sabbatarianism of this sentence is a sure sign that it was not uttered by Jesus, but emanated from a Jewish source, say many, e.g. , Weizscker ( Untersuchungen , p. 124), Weiffenbach ( Wiederkunftsgedanke , i., p. 103) approving. But Jesus could feel even for Sabbatarians, if they were honest, as for those who, like John’s disciples, fasted .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
be = happen.
on. Greek. en. App-103.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 24:20. , pray ye) Many things are rendered less grievous in answer to the prayers of the righteous. They did pray, and their flight did not take place in the winter.-, winter, or cold and tempestuous weather) Not merely the time of the year, but the state of the weather, seems to be intended by this word; see ch. Mat 16:3.[1046] The event certainly occurred in spring; cf. Mat 24:18 concerning the field.-, on the Sabbath day) Not because it would have been unlawful to flee or carry burdens on the Sabbath day, especially for Christians, but because it is peculiarly miserable on that day, which is given to joy, to break off the rites of religious worship and flee, and because, being less prepared for flight, each hinders the other in attempting it by crowding the doors of synagogues or the gates of cities much more than when they are in the country or in private houses. Ptolemy Lagus, according to Josephus, took Jerusalem by surprise on the Sabbath day: Ant. xii. 1. In fine, punishments which happened to the Jews on the Sabbath day were more grievous than others: see Hainlin Chronol. Explan. fol. 19, 20. Their enemies also were more truculent on that day than on any other, from hatred of the Sabbath. At the time when sin is at its height, punishment arrives; cf. Hos 4:7. The observance of the Sabbath did not wholly expire before the destruction of the temple.
[1046] Where the word is rendered in E. V. foul weather. This signification is frequent in classical authors.
The Portuguese word inverno has the same double force.-(I. B.)
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
neither: Exo 16:29, Act 1:12
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
4:20
Wintry weather would not be convenient time to travel. Neither on the sabbath day. The law of Moses has nothing to say about a “Sabbath-Day’s Journey,” but that was a tradition of the Jews based on a strained interpretation of Exo 16:29 and Jos 3:4. On that ground the pious Jews in the time of Christ thought it was wrong to travel more than two thousand cubits on the sab-bath day. A person attempting to go further on that day would be hindered by these Jews who would seek to punish him for what they thought was a violation of the law. Jesus was not endorsing the tradition, but he knew it would be an obstacle against speedy traveling and hence expressed the prayerful wish on behalf of his disciples.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
[That your flight be not in the winter.] R. Tanchum observes a favour of God in the destruction of the first Temple, that it happened in the summer, not in winter. For thus he: “God vouch-safed a great favour to Israel; for they ought to have gone out of the land on the tenth day of the month Tebeth, as he saith, ‘Son of man, mark this day; for on this very day,’ etc. What then did the Lord, holy and blessed? ‘If they shall now go out in the winter,’ saith he, ‘they will all die’: therefore he prolonged the time to them, and carried them away in summer.”
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 24:20. Pray ye. The trying events were distinctly predicted, yet prayer is just as distinctly enjoined.
Not in the winter, which would not only make it more disagreeable, but might prevent their fleeing far enough.
On a Sabbath. On the Jewish Sabbath. On that day the gates of the cities were usually closed (Neh 13:19-22), besides travelling on that day would expose them still more to Jewish fanaticism. The Jewish Christians, up to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, observed the Jewish Sabbath, and might scruple to travel more than the Sabbath days journey (about an English mile). Our Lords anxiety is not for the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, but for His people.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Mat 24:20-21. But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter For the inclemency of the season, the badness of the roads, the shortness of the days, will all be great impediments to your flight: neither on the sabbath day That you may not raise the indignation of the Jews by travelling on that day, and so meet with that death out of the city which you had endeavoured to escape by removing from it. Besides, many of them would have scrupled to travel far on that day; the Jews thinking it unlawful to walk above two thousand paces, (two miles,) on the sabbath day. In the parallel place in Mark, this latter clause, about the sabbath day, is not mentioned. For then shall be great tribulation Never had words a more sad or full accomplishment than these: for the miseries which befell this people about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, were such as no history can parallel. Within the city the fury of the opposite factions was so great that they filled all places, and even the temple itself, with continual slaughters. Nay, to such a pitch did their madness arise, that they destroyed the very granaries of corn which should have sustained them, and burned the magazines of arms which should have defended them. By these means, when the siege had lasted but two months, the famine began to rage, and at length reduced them to such straits, that the barbarities which they practised are not to be imagined; see Josephus, Bell., Mat 6:11. Even the mothers ate their own children, ibid., Mat 7:8. In short, from the beginning of the siege to the taking of the city, there were slain by faction, by famine, by pestilence, and by the enemy, no less than one million one hundred thousand in Jerusalem. So that, as Josephus himself observes, in his preface to his history of this war: If all the calamities which the world, from the beginning, hath seen, were compared with those of the Jews, they would appear inferior. And again, in another place he says, To speak in brief, no other city ever suffered such things, as no generation from the beginning of the world was ever more fruitful of wickedness. And that the peculiar hand of Providence was visible in this destruction of the nation, the same author affirms. For, having described the vast multitudes of people that were in Jerusalem when it was besieged, he says, Bell., Mat 7:17, This multitude was assembled together from other places, and was there, by the providence of God, shut up. as it were, in a prison. Besides, he tells us that Titus himself took notice that the Jews were urged on by God himself to their destruction.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
24:20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the {h} sabbath day:
(h) It was not lawful to take a journey on the sabbath day; Josephus, book 13.