Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 19:41

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

41-44. Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.

41. he beheld the city ] The Temple was at that time magnificent with gilding and white marble, which flashed resplendently in the spring sunlight (Jos. B. J. v. 5, 6), and the city was very unlike the crumbling and squalid city of to-day. But that “mass of gold and snow” woke no pride in the Saviour’s heart. Few scenes are more striking than this burst of anguish in the very midst of the exulting procession.

wept over it ] Not merely edakrusen ‘shed silent tears’ as at the grave of Lazarus (Joh 11:35) but eklaasen ‘wept aloud;’ and that although not all the agonies and insults of four days later could wring from Him one tear or sigh.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

He wept over it – Showing his compassion for the guilty city, and his strong sense of the evils that were about to come upon it. See the notes at Mat 23:37-39. As he entered the city he passed over the Mount of Olives. From that mountain there was a full and magnificent view of the city. See the notes at Mat 21:1. The view of the splendid capital – the knowledge of its crimes – the remembrance of the mercies of God toward it – the certainty that it might have been spared if it had received the prophets and himself – the knowledge that it was about to put him, their long-expected Messiah, to death, and for that to be given up to utter desolation – affected his heart, and the triumphant King and Lord of Zion wept! Amid all his prosperity, and all the acclamations of the multitude, the heart of the Redeemer of the world was turned from the tokens of rejoicing to the miseries about to come on a guilty people. Yet they might have been saved. If thou hadst known, says he, even thou, with all thy guilt, the things that make for thy peace; if thou hadst repented, had been righteous, and had received the Messiah; if thou hadst not stained thy hands with the blood of the prophets, and shouldst not with that of the Son of God, then these terrible calamities would not come upon thee. But it is too late. The national wickedness is too great; the cup is full: mercy is exhausted; and Jerusalem, with all her pride and splendor, the glory of her temple, and the pomp of her service, must perish!

For the days shall come … – This took place under Titus, the Roman general, 70 a.d., about thirty years after this was spoken.

Cast a trench about thee – The word trench now means commonly a pit or ditch. When the Bible was translated, it meant also earth thrown up to defend a camp (Johnsons Dictionary). This is the meaning of the original here. It is not a pit or large ditch, but a pile of earth, stones, or wood thrown up to guard a camp, and to defend it from the approach of an enemy. This was done at the siege of Jerusalem. Josephus informs us that Titus, in order that he might compel the city to surrender by famine, built a wall around the whole circumference of the city. This wall was nearly 5 miles in length, and was furnished with thirteen castles or towers. This work was completed with incredible labor in ten days. The professed design of this wall was to keep the city in on every side. Never was a prophecy more strikingly accomplished.

Shall lay thee even with the ground … – This was literally done. Titus caused a plow to pass over the place where the temple stood. See the notes at Matt. 24. All this was done, says Christ, because Jerusalem knew not the time of its visitation – that is, did not know, and would not know, that the Messiah had come. His coming was the time of their merciful visitation. That time had been predicted, and invaluable blessings promised as the result of his advent; but they would not know it. They rejected him, they put him to death, and it was just that they should be destroyed.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Luk 19:41-44

He beheld the city, and wept over it

Christ weeping over Jerusalem

I.

THE EXCLAMATION OF CHRIST, AND HIS TEARS IN THEIR REJECTION TO THE GUILTY CITY.

1. He remembered days of old. On these sinners the object of His mission seemed entirely lost.

2. But with the self-denying love of a patriot, and the grace of a Saviour, He looked beyond His own sufferings, and fixed His eye on theirs. What an appeal to His pity was there I The city was beleaguered and lost–the dwelling of Holiness was laid waste.

3. The sentence is broken and incomplete. It is eloquently completed by the tears, which are the natural language of compassion, and express its intentness beyond all words. What the present might have been!

II. THE BEARING OF THE RECORD ON OURSELVES.

1. There are things which pre-eminently belong to your peace.

2. The period allotted to you for attending to them is definite and brief.

3. Should your day close, and leave you unsaved, your guilt will be great, and your condition remediless.

4. This is a spectacle calling for the profoundest lamentation.

5. The tears of Jesus prow His unextinguished compassion for the guilty. (John Harris.)

The tears of Jesus

I. LOST PRIVILEGES.

Oh, that thou hadst known the things which belong unto thy peace.

II. LOST OPPORTUNITIES.–Even thou in this thy day. Nations and men have their day:

1. Youth.

2. Special occasions, as Confirmation.

3. Religious strivings within our own manifold opportunities, which may be prized and used, or neglected and abused.

III. LOST SOULS.–But now they are hid from thine eyes. (Clerical World.)

Jesus weeping over perishing sinners

I. THAT GOSPEL BLESSINGS ARE CONDUCIVE TO THE PEACE OF MANKIND, They are the things which belong unto our peace. Here let us more particularly observe–

1. What those things are to which our Lord refers. The blessings of grace in this world. Deliverance–from bondage, condemnation, and guilty fears Psa 116:16; Isa 12:1; Psa 34:4); and holiness–both of heart and life (Oba 1:17; Rom 6:22). The blessings of glory in the eternal state. An eternal life of rest, felicity, honour, and security (Rom 2:6-7).

2. How these things are conducive to our peace. They belong unto our peace as they produce sweet tranquillity of mind (Ecc 2:26). This arises from peace with God (Rom 5:1); peace of conscience 2Co 1:12); a peaceable disposition (Jam 3:18,); the joy of victory (Rom 8:37; 1Co 15:37); and the joy of hope Rom 5:2; Rom 14:17). Our text teaches us–

II. THAT THESE BLESSINGS MUST BE KNOWN TO BE ENJOYED. Oh that thou hadst known, etc. The knowledge thus necessary must be–

1. A speculative knowledge; that is, we must have a correct view of them as they are exhibited in Gods Word–For we are naturally without them Rom 3:16-18). We must seek them to obtain them (Job 22:21; Isa 27:5). And we must understand them in order that we may seek them aright: we must understand the nature of them; the necessity of them; and the way to obtain them (Pro 19:2). The knowledge here required must also be–

2. An experimental knowledge. This is evident–From the testimony of inspired apostles (2Co 5:1; 2Co 13:5; 1Jn 5:19). And from the nature of gospel blessings; spiritual sight, liberty, and health, must be experienced to be enjoyed. Our text teaches us–

III. THAT A SEASON IS AFFORDED US FOR ACQUIRING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THESE BLESSINGS.

1. This season is here called our day, because it is the time in which we are called to labour for the blessings of peace (Joh 6:27; Php 2:12-13; 2Pe 3:14).

2. This season is favourable for seeking the things here recommended; for they are set before us (Deu 30:19-20); we have strength promised to seek them with (Isa 40:31); and we have light to seek them in (Joh 12:36). Hence, we should also recollect–

3. This season is limited: it is only a day. Our text also teaches us, with respect to gospel blessings–

IV. THAT IT IS GODS WILL THEY SHOULD BE ENJOYED BY US. This is certain

1. From the wish of Christ–O that thou hadst known, etc. Such a wish we find often repeated by God in His Word, and expressed in the kindest manner; see Deu 5:29; Deu 32:29; Isa 48:18.

2. From the tears of Christ. These demonstrate the sincerity of His wish Deu 32:4); the great importance of godliness (1Ti 4:8); and the dreadful doom of impenitent sinners (Rom 2:8-9).

3. From the visitations of Christ. He visited us by His incarnation; and He still visits us by the strivings of His Spirit, the gifts of His providence, and the ministry of His Word.

V. THAT ALL WHO SEEK THESE BLESSINGS ARIGHT WILL OBTAIN THEM.

VI. THAT THE REJECTION OF THESE BLESSINGS IS PUNISHED WITH DESTRUCTION. (Theological Sketch-book.)

The tears of Jesus

We are told three times of Christ weeping: in this passage; in Joh 11:35; in Heb 5:7.

1. JESUS WEPT IN SYMPATHY WITH OTHERS. At Bethany.

1. It is not sinful to weep under affliction.

2. The mourner may always count on the sympathy of Jesus.

3. When our friends are mourning, we should weep with them.

II. THE TEAR OF JESUS COMPASSION. Text.

1. Observe the privileges which were granted the Jews, and neglected.

2. Observe the sorrow of Jesus for the lost.

III. THE TEARS OF PERSONAL SUFFERING. Probably the Agony in Gethsemane is alluded to in Heb 5:7.

1. Think not that because you suffer you are not chosen.

2. Nor that you are not a Christian because you feel weak. (W. Taylor, D. D.)

The tears of Jesus

I. Our Lord, by His tears over Jerusalem proclaims to us THE DUTY OF LOOKING AT THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD IN THEIR TRUE LIGHT, of estimating all that surrounds us, not as it appears to the hope, the fear, the enthusiasm, the pride of many, but as it is viewed in the sight of God, whose judgment shall alone stand, when the false standards and false excitements of the moment have passed for ever away. His tears speak to us the same lesson which He elsewhere taught in words, Judge not after the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. For there was apparently little to draw forth the tears of our Blessed Lord at that moment. And is it not so now, my brethren? Do we not exult and rejoice in things, and persons, and scenes which would call forth only tears from our Saviour? Oh that we may strive to see things in their true light–that is, in the light of the eternity in which we shall soon find ourselves I oh that we may estimate them, not by the standards of sense and time, but in the true balance of Gods unerring judgment

II. And, secondly, we see, as from other passages of Holy Scripture, THE EXCEEDING SINFULNESS OF SIN, in that sin has the power of calling forth tears from the Saviour in the midst of so much exultation and beauty. Ah! my brethren, nothing is so truly mournful as sin. It is the great evil of life; neither poverty, nor sickness, nor slanderous words, nor the contempt of the world, have any real sting in them apart from this. Take sin away, and the world becomes a Paradise. Take sin away, and the lives of the unfortunate are filled with happiness. It is sin which has cast a blight over existence on every side of us: trace each form of suffering and sorrow around you to its ultimate source, and you will find that source to be sin. Alas! brethren, there are many who come to Church, Sunday after Sunday, and even approach the Holy Communion, and yet know nothing of their own hearts, and the deadly poison of unrepented sin, which dwells within them, and the real peril in which their souls are placed. (S. W.Sheffington, M. A.)

Christ weeping ever Jerusalem

Tears, looked at materially, admit a very ready explanation; they are secreted by a gland, they are drawn from the fluids of the body, and are rounded and brought down by the law of gravitation. The poets give the spiritual meaning, when they call tears the blood of the wounds of the soul, the leaves of the plant of sorrow the hall and rain of lifes winter, the safety valves of the heart under pressure, the vent of anguish-showers blown up by the tempests of the soul. If God had a body He would weep. God does grieve, and ii He had a corporeal nature, tears would not be inconsistent with all the recognized attributes of Deity. There is an eloquence in tears which is irresistible. There is a sacredness in tears which almost forbids the discussion of weeping. There is a dignity in tears which makes them consistent with the utmost intelligence and strength and nobility of character. There are men with hard heads, cold hearts, good digestion, and full purses, who know nothing of tears; but he who values true manhood and spiritual riches will not envy such men. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

1. Jesus wept as a man, as the man Christ Jesus, as the perfect man Christ Jesus. Behold the man. To the utmost extent of human sadness was Jesus grieved, when He beheld the city, and wept over it.

2. Jesus wept as a Jew. The broadest love may be discriminating, and may include strong individual attachments. Jesus was interested in every land and in every race. No land or race was shut out from His heart. But there were special attachments to Palestine, and strong ties to the holy city.

3. Jesus wept as a teacher. Light had come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. And this was the condemnation. He was conscious of a pure heart in His teaching, and He saw the corruption of the human heart in the rejection and contempt of His instructions.

4. Jesus wept as a foreteller, as a prophet. He who was the brightness of the Fathers glory, and the express image of His person, declared the mind and will and heart of God, when, beholding this doomed city, He wept over it.

5. Jesus wept as the Messiah. He was the womans seed promised in Paradise. He was the Shiloh seen by Jacob. He was the prophet revealed to Moses. He was the Prince of peace spoken of by Isaiah. To Him gave all the prophets witness. The law was His shadow. Much was written in the Psalms and prophets concerning Him. His history and character, His words and works, fulfilled various scriptures written by inspired men. His claim to the Messiahship was distinct and full and clear. Yet He was despised and rejected of men. Yet when He came to His own, His own received Him not. This was a sorrow for His Fathers sake. He was the fufilment of His Fathers ancient and oft-repeated promise. He was His Fathers unspeakable gift. What a requital of infinite and eternal love! And this was a sorrow for the peoples sake. Instead of receiving Him they were looking for another. But Jesus knew that theft eyes would fail by looking in vain.

6. Jesus wept as a Saviour. He looked upon those who would not be saved, and wept over them. Measure His sorrow by His knowledge and by His hatred of sin; measure His sorrow by His own freedom from sin; measure His sorrow by the love of His great heart. To see evil, and to be unable to remedy it, is anguish; but to see evil, and to be able and willing to remove it, and to be baffled by the wilfulness and waywardness of the sufferer or of the evil-doer, is anguish keener and deeper still. Jesus knew all this when He beheld the city, and wept over it.

7. Jesus wept as God manifest in flesh. The God grieved and the man wept. The Divine nature does suffer, and these tears reveal the fact. The whole nature of the Christ, the Redeemer of men, was sad, when Jesus on this occasion wept. These tears, then, were the tears of a man, a patriot, a teacher, and a prophet. They were the tears of the Messiah and the Saviour and the God-man. They were both human and divine, tears of pity and patriotism, tears of sympathy and of displeasure, tears of a wounded spirit and of a loving soul. (S. Martin, D. D.)

The tears of Jesus

1. The tears of Jesus Christ are compassionate tears. Like His heavenly Father, He has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth. The office of the Judge is not His willing office. It made Him sorrowful to see men sin. It made Him sorrowful to see men reject the gospel. It made Him sorrowful to see men choose their own misery.

2. Again, the tears of Jesus are admonitory, warning–some have even called them terrible tears. He would not have wept, I think we may say with confidence, merely because a little pain, or a little suffering, or even a little anguish and misery, lay before us. He shrank not from pain: He endured suffering–yea, the death of the Cross. He faced anguish and misery, and flinched not. There was only one thing which Jesus Christ could not endure–or, if He endured it for an hour Himself, certainly could not advise others, nor bear others, to encounter without Him–and that was the real displeasure, the prolonged hiding of the countenance, the actual, terrible, punitive wrath of God. It was because He foresaw that for impenitent, obstinate, obdurate sinners, that He wept these bitter tears. I call them admonitory tears; I will even consent to call them terrific tears. They seem to say to us, Oh, presume not too far!

3. I will add another thing. The tears of Jesus were exemplary tears. As He wept, so ought we to weep. We ought to weep tears of sorrow over our sins. We ought to weep tears of repentance over our past lives, over our many short-comings and backslidings, omissions of good and commissions of evil, lingering rebelling obstinate sins, cold poor languishing dying graces. But more than this. We ought to weep more exactly as He wept. He wept not for Himself: so also, in our place, should we.

4. I will add, without comment, a fourth word–the tears of Jesus Christ are consolatory tears. Yes, this, in all their accents, is the sweet undersong–Jesus Christ cares for us. The tears of Jesus are, above all else,consolatory. They say to us, Provision is made for you. They say to us, It is not of Christ, it is not of God, if you perish. They say to us, Escape for your life–because a better, and a higher, and a happier life is here for you! (Dean Vaughan)

Christ weeping over sinners

I. WHAT OUR LORD DID: He beheld the city, and wept over it.

1. He wept for the sins they had committed, and the evil treatment which He Himself should receive at their hands.

2. He foresaw the calamities which were coming upon them, and desired not the woful day.

3. Spiritual judgments also awaited them, and this was matter of still greater lamentation.

4. The final consequence of all this also affected the compassionate Saviour; namely, their everlasting ruin in the world to come.

II. Consider WHAT OUR LORD SAID AS WELL AS DID, when He came near and beheld the city–If thou hadst known, etc. Here observe–

1. The whole of religion is expressed by knowledge. Not speculative, but such as sanctifies the heart and influences the conduct–the holy wisdom that cometh from above.

2. That which it chiefly concerns us to know is, the things which belong to our peace.

3. There is a limit to which this knowledge is confined. This thy day.

4. When this time is elapsed, our case will be for ever hopeless: Now the things which belong unto thy peace are hid from thine eyes! Improvement.

(1) did Christ weep for sinners; and shall they not weep for themselves? Does not God call us to weeping; and does not our case call for it?

(2) Let us beware of rejecting the gospel, and trifling with our privileges, lest we be given up to final impenitence. Insensibility is the forerunner of destruction:

(3) Let those who are truly acquainted with the things which belong to their peace be thankful, and adore the grace which has made them to differ. (B. Beddome, M. A.)

.

Christ weeping over Jerusalem

I. I observe, in the first place, that THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS, THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHICH IS ESSENTIAL TO YOUR ETERNAL PEACE.

1. It deeply concerns you to know, for example, in what situation you stand, with respect to God and the world to come.

2. Again, it deeply concerns us to know, whether God, by any means, may be reconciled, to those who have set themselves in opposition to His will.

3. Once more, it deeply concerns you to know, what state of mind is required in you, in order that you may profit by the grace and mercy of your dying Saviour.

II. I observe, secondly, that THE SON OF GOD IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DESIROUS THAT WE SHOULD KNOW THESE THINGS.

III. NEVERTHELESS, THE COMPASSION OF CHRIST WILL NOT STOP THE COURSE OF HIS JUSTICE, IF THESE THINGS BE FINALLY DISREGARDED.

1. HOW inexcusable is the thoughtless sinner, who, after all, will not know the things which belong unto his peace!

2. But reflect, on the other hand, how welcome will every returning sinner be! (J. Jowett, M. A.)

The Saviours tears over Jerusalem

The sight of Jerusalem, then, as Jesus was about to enter it, suggested the thought of national misery and degradation. He looked on the Temple, the place where the adorations and sacrifices of successive generations had been offered; it was now profaned. He looked on the city, the metropolis of Judaea, and the scene of high solemnities, and it was peopled by transgressors; was soon to be reduced by the might of a conquering power, its streets to be drenched with blood, and its buildings to be razed. Our Lord might chiefly allude to outward calamity, but can we doubt that the moral state of Jerusalems inhabitants was what gave Him most concern? The doom spoken of descended as an act of vengeance, inflicted by God. But Jesus thought also of a still more pitiable wreck. He reflected on the consequences of unpardoned sin. It was not merely the overthrow of tower and palace, the destruction of what had been for so long a house of prayer; this called not forth an expression of such deep concern. It was principally an idea of the spiritual ruin coming upon such as had transgressed against so much light and warning, and who had resisted such earnest and oft-repeated pleadings.

I. In further speaking from these verses, we may consider, first of all, the words to imply, that the people of Jerusalem HAD ENJOYED A DAY–OF GRACE, NOW DRAWING TO A CLOSE–a time which had not been followed by suitable and adequate improvement.

II. Let us consider our Lords manifestation of feeling and His words on this occasion, as showing THE IMPORTANCE OF IN TIME ATTENDING TO THE THINGS THAT BELONG TO OUR PEACE.

III. It would appear that THERE IS A SET TIME ALLOWED FOR DOING THIS. Though it were true that the spirit of God ceases not to strive with man; though there were not danger of the sinner being wholly given up to his idols, yet to defer so great a work is hazardous and foolish. Is that the best time for turning to God when languor and decay are attacking the frame?

IV. Our Saviours declaration, when He bewailed Jerusalems impenitence, is A PLEDGE OF HIS CONCERN FOR THE STATE OF SINNERS GENERALLY. Observe how long-suffering He was, saying still, Turn ye at My reproof. They had slain His prophets; they were about to shed His blood; they had cast dishonour on the law and appointments of the Most High, provoking Him to anger; yet Jesus sorrow showed the grief that filled His soul. These were the words of One who knew no guile, and to whom iniquity was abhorrent. Be encouraged therefore, O sinner, however many thine iniquities and pungent thy sense of guilt, to seek His favour. (A. R.Bonar, D. D.)

Jesus weeping over sinners

I. SIN IS NO TRIFLE.

II. EVERY MAN HAS HIS DAY OF MERCIFUL VISITATION. But mercy has its limits. The day of grace will close.

III. THE SINNERS DOOM IS SEALED WHEN CHRIST GIVES HIM UP. The die cast salvation beyond reach. Hope gone.

IV. IT IS A LOST SEASON OF MERCY AND OPPORTUNITY THAT WILL SO EMBITTER THE ETERNITY OF THE LOST. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)

Tears on beholding a multitude of men

There is always something heart-moving in the sight of a multitude of men. The Persian Xerxes shed tears as he watched the interminable ranks march past him on the way to Greece. The iron Napoleon once melted as he reviewed the vast army which followed him to his Russian campaign. And when the proudest, sternest, and most unfeeling hearts have shown emotion, what should we expect from the pitiful Son of God? Whenever He saw the multitude, and especially the city multitude, He was moved with compassion. That mass of life, heaving and throbbing like a troubled sea; that ceaseless tramp of eager feet and confused roar of innumerable voices; that measureless volume of mingled hope and despair; that infinitely varied array of faces, old and young, careless and anxious, joyous and miserable,–of laughing girls and broken-hearted widows, of jocund joys and haggard old men, with hungry looks; that incongruous procession of wealth and poverty, of want and superfluity, of rags and velvet, of vulgarity and refinement, of respectability and vice, of plump and well-fed life and vagrant homelessness, of purity and shame, of sweet religious hope and dismal despair, of titled splendour and nameless vagabondism, of feet winged with hope climbing to ambitions goal and of feet hurrying to the dark river to end the tragedy of bitter memories in one last cold plunge; that myriad-headed life, with all its selfish isolations, its fierce loneliness amid the jostling crowd, its every heart knowing its own bitterness or gloating over its own joy, unknown and unsympathized with by its neighbours; that awful race of passion and frenzied quest in which the runners forget that they are immortal souls with Gods image stamped on every face. How was it possible for Him, to whom all souls were dear–all the children of the heavenly Father–how was it possible for Him to look upon that, or think of it, without emotion melting into tears? What man or woman of us can think of it without sharing in its pity and pathetic interest? (J. Greenhough, M. A.)

Christs compassion for the Jewish people

I. INQUIRE WHAT THERE WAS IN THE STATE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, WHICH SO MOVED THE COMPASSION OF OUR LORD. The privileges of the Jewish people were above all lands. They were blessed with a divine theocracy; and to them belonged, amongst other most important privileges, the oracles of God. What could God have done which He had not done for them? The compassion of our Lord was moved, therefore–By their inflexible obstinacy. Theirs was the sin of men who hate the light, lest by it their deeds should be reproved!

2. Inveterate hostility. That greatness and power, when abused, should be hated, would not excite our surprise; but that goodness and mercy, when exercised, should be hated, might well excite our surprise, were it not abundantly proved in their history.

3. By their impending judgments.

II. CONSIDER WHAT THE PRESENT STATE OF THAT PEOPLE CALLS FOR FROM OUR HANDS. (W. Marsh, M. A.)

The tears and lamentations of Jesus

I. First, we are to contemplate OUR LORDS INWARD GRIEF.

1. We note concerning it that it was so intense that it could not be restrained by the occasion. The occasion was one entirely by itself: a brief gleam of sunlight in a cloudy day, a glimpse of summer amid a cruel winter. That must have been deep grief which ran counter to all the demands of the season, and violated, as it were, all the decorum of the occasion, turning a festival into a mourning, a triumph into a lament.

2. The greatness of His grief may be seen, again, by the fact that it overmastered other very natural feelings which might have been, and perhaps were, excited by the occasion. Our Lord stood on the brow of the hill where He could see Jerusalem before Him in all its beauty. What thoughts it awakened in Him! His memory was stronger and quicker than ours, for His mental powers were unimpaired by sin, and He could remember all the great and glorious things which had been spoken of Zion, the city of God. Yet, as He remembered them all, no joy came into His soul because of the victories of David or the pomp of Solomon; temple and tower had lost all charm for Him; the joy of the earth brought no joy to Him, but at the sight of the venerable city and its holy and beautiful house He wept.

3. This great sorrow of His reveals to us the nature of our Lord. How complex is the person of Christ! He foresaw that the city would be destroyed, and though He was divine He wept. While His nature on the one side of it sees the certainty of the doom, the same nature from another side laments the dread necessity.

4. In this our Lord reveals the very heart of God. Did He not say, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father? Here, then, you see the Father Himself, even he who said of old, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn, etc.

5. From a practical lesson, we may remark that this weeping of the Saviour should much encourage men to trust Him. Those who desire His salvation may approach Him without hesitation, for His tears prove His hearty desires for our good.

6. This, too, I think is an admonishment to Christian workers. Never let us speak of the doom of the wicked harshly, flippantly or without holy grief.

7. Let me add that I think the lament of Jesus should instruct all those who would now come to Him as to the manner of their approach. While I appealed to you just now were there any.who said, I would fain come to Jesus, but how shall I come? The answer is,–come with sorrow and with prayer, even as it is written, they shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them. As Jesus meets you so meet Him.

III. We are now to consider our LORDS VERBAL LAMENTATIONS. These are recorded in the following words: Oh that thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

1. First, notice, he laments over the fault by which they perished–Oh that thou hadst known. Ignorance, wilful ignorance, was their ruin.

2. The Lord laments the bliss which they had lost, the peace which could not be theirs. Oh that thou hadst known the things that belong unto thy peace.

3. But our Lord also lamented over the persons who had lost peace. Observe that He says,–Oh that thou hadst known, even thou. Thou art Jerusalem, the favoured city. It is little that Egypt did not know, that Tyre and Sidon did not know, but that thou shouldst not know! Ah, friends, if Jesus were here this morning, He might weep over some of you and say–Oh that thou hadst known, even thou.

4. Our Lord wept because of the opportunity which they had neglected. He said, At least in this thy day. It was such a favoured day: they aforetime had been warned by holy men, but now they had the Son of God Himself to preach to them.

5. The Lord Jesus mourned again because He saw the blindness which had stolen over them. They had shut their eyes so fast that now they could not see: their ears which they had stopped had become dull and heavy; their hearts which they had hardened had waxen gross; so that they could not see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor feel in their hearts, nor be converted that He should heal them. Why, the truth was as plain as the sun in the heavens, and yet they could not see it; and so is the gospel at this hour to many of you, and yet you perceive it not.

6. Lastly, we know that the great flood-gates of Christs grief were pulled up because of the ruin which He foresaw. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The tears of Jesus

Strangely mysterious are these tears! But they were as real as they are mysterious–solemnly and awfully real–the bitterest that ever descended from a grief-stricken countenance. They were the tears of a man, but the expression of Deity; and viewing them in the light of the ancient love and peculiar complacency with which Jerusalem and its inhabitants had been divinely regarded, we may designate them as the tears of disappointed affection. How briny and how many have been such tears, as they have fallen, hot and scalding, from the eyes of broken-hearted weepers! There are the tears of the father, welling up from the depths of parental love, in thinking of his prodigal boy. There are the tears of the mother, wept over a lost daughter–tears that had been less bitter had the green turf received them instead of a memory of shame. Bitter, indeed, are such tears, but not so intensive of sorrow as the tears of Jesus wept over lost souls. I have read somewhere of a traveller who found a fragment of an arch among the ruins of Jerusalem; and by calculating on the principles of architectural construction, he proved that the arch, when complete, must have spanned the gulf that was near the city, and have rested on the other side. That ruined arch, to the eye of that traveller, indicated what it originally was, as contrasted with what it then was. Sin in the soul reveals the same thing. In man, apart from sin, we see what the soul was made to be. In sin we see what the soul is–a noble thing in ruins. It is solemnizing to walk amidst the vestiges of some sacred temple–to pick up here and there fragments of what were once objects of beauty and strength; to see in one place pieces of an antique window; in another, the segment of a colossal pillar; elsewhere, a remnant of tracery work, with bits of rich and curious mosaic. But what must have been the emotions of Jesus, as He stood there before the collapsed powers, and contemplated the desecrated sanctities of human temples!–souls once so fair in beauty, and so glorious in strength, that the Creator looked upon them, and behold, they were very good! Now so completely a wreck that as the Saviour looked, He beheld and wept! How fearful is the power belonging to man! Here we see the Son of God–One whose might and dominion over all material forces, satanic agencies, and physical ailments were absolute. No power stood in His way as a resisting medium save one; and this was a power of resistance that opened the floodgates of soul-sorrow, drew tears from His eyes, and broke forth in the convulsive exclamation: O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! In the light of these tears what awful responsibility is seen to clothe the human spirit! What power of will!–of a will that can resist the Divine will! How often would I, but ye would not! (G. H. Jackson.)

Tears a true mark of manhood

If it really was so, as has been gathered from Epiphanius, that some of the ancient Christians, or persons who bore the name, wished to expunge from the canon of Scripture what is said of the Saviours weeping on these two occasions, as if it had been unworthy of so glorious a Person to shed tears, it was very strange, and betrayed at once a sinful disrespect for the inspired Word of God, a leaning to the doctrines of Stoical pride and apathy, and an ignorance of what constitutes real excellence of human character. It is certainly a mark of imbecility to be given to weep for trifling reasons; but to weep occasionally, and when there is an adequate cause, instead of being a weakness, is perfectly compatible with true courage and manly sense, nay, is, in fact, a trait in the character of the majority of the most heroic and stout-hearted men of whom we read, either in sacred or profane history. As examples of this from Scripture may be mentioned, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, David, Jonathan, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Peter, and Paul. Who more firm than the apostle of the Gentiles?–yet he thus writes to the Philippians, Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction. As for King David, that mighty valiant man, and man of war, the ancestor, and, in some respects, the type of Christ, it is worthy of notice that he wept at the very place were Jesus now wept; for it is thus written, in the account of his fleeing from Jerusalem, on the rebellion of Absalom, David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered; and all the people that were with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up. Nor is it foreign to the defence of this act of weeping, as consonant with the character of the brave, to produce the authority of heathen writers. Homer, then, attributes tears to several of his heroes, Virgil to AEneas, and their respective historians to Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cato, Brutus, Marcellus, and Scipio; and one of the Latin poets says, Nature shows that she gives very tender hearts to mankind, by giving them tears. This is the best part of our disposition or feeling. Beyond a doubt, the tenderness which our Lord now displayed harmonized with, and set off by contrast, the wonderful resolution which animated Him, when He turned not back, but set His face like a flint to what was now before Him. (James Foote, M. A.)

The tears of love

I heard the other day of a bad boy whom his father had often rebuked and chastened, but the lad grew worse. One day he had been stealing, and his father felt deeply humiliated. He talked to the boy, but his warning made no impression; and when he saw his child so callous the good man sat down in his chair and burst out crying, as if his heart would break. The boy stood very indifferent for a time, but at last as he saw the tears falling on the floor, and heard his father sobbing, he cried, Father, dont; father, dont do that: what do you cry for, father? Ah! my boy, he said, I cannot help thinking what will become of you, growing up as you are. You will be a lost man, and the thought of it breaks my heart. Oh, father! he said, pray dont cry. I will be better. Only dont cry, and I will not vex you again. Under God that was the means of breaking down the boys love of evil, and I hope it led to his salvation. Just that is Christ to you. He cannot bear to see you die, and He weeps over you, saying, How often would I have blessed you, and you would not! Oh, by the tears of Jesus, wept over you in effect when He wept over Jerusalem, turn to Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

If thou hadst known, even thou

Christs lament over Jerusalem

Let us observe, briefly, that in our Lords lament over the doomed city there is to be traced a threefold vein of feeling.

1. The tears and words of Jesus Christ are the tears and words of a true patriot, for Jerusalem was the heart and head of the nation. It was, politically speaking, more what Paris is to France than what London is to England, and although Christs ministry had been largely spent in Galilee, we know from St. Johns Gospel that at the great festivals He had laboured often and continuously in the sacred city. It may be thought that there was no place for patriotism in the heart of Jesus Christ–that coming as He did from heaven with a mission to the whole race of men, and with a work to do for each and for all, He could not thus cherish a mere localized and bounded enthusiasm–that, as all had interest in Him, His interest must reciprocally be for all and world-embracing–that as in Him, according to His apostle, there is neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but all are one, so He must have been Himself incapable of that restricted and particular concentration of thought and feeling and action upon the concerns of a single race or district which we practically understand by patriotism. My brethren, there is an element of truth in this. Jesus Christ, although a Jew by birth, belonged by His freedom from local peculiarities to the whole human family. He was, in a higher, more comprehensive, more representative sense than any before Him, human. All that was best, all that was richest in humanity, had its place in Him, and this is, at any rate, one import of the title by which He was commonly wont to speak of Himself as the Son of Man. But His relation to the whole race did not destroy His relation to His country any more than it destroyed His relation to His family–to His mother, to His foster-father, to those first cousins of His who, after the Hebrew manner, are called His brethren. Certainly He subordinated family ties as well as national ties to the claims of the kingdom of God–to His Fathers business as He called it when only twelve years old. But because He kept these lower sympathies, claims, obligations, in their proper place, He did not ignore–He did not disavow them. To Him, as the Son of Mary, His family was dear; to Him, as the Son of David, the history of His country was dear. He would have parted with something of His true and deep humanity had it been otherwise; and therefore when He gazed on the city of His ancestors (for such it was) and saw in vision the Roman conqueror already approaching, and casting up earthworks on that very hill on which He was standing, and then by and by entering the sacred city with fire and sword, nor resting from His work till he had ploughed up the very foundations, till not one stone had been left upon another, His Jewish heart felt a pang of anguish which became tears and words. If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

2. But the lamentation of Christ over Jerusalem had a higher than any political or social meaning. The polity of Israel was not merely a state: it was a church as well. It was the kingdom of God among men. It is this which explains the passionate emotion towards Jerusalem which abounds in the Psalter–the joy in her glory, in her beauty, in her world-wide fame–the enthusiasm which can walk about Zion and go round about her andtell the towers thereof–the anger deep and strong which cannot forget that in the day of Jerusalem it was Edom which joined in the cry for her destruction–the woe which cannot, which will not, be comforted when she lies before the heathen in her ruin and her desolation. It was as a theocratic kingdom–as we should say, a Church–that Jerusalem and the whole Jewish polity was so dear to the religious Jew; and this aspect of the sacred city underlies those words which Jesus spoke on the road from Bethany. Once more. Jerusalem was not merely a country or a church; it was a hive of men and women: it was a home of souls. Among these, to each of these, the Divine Christ had preached, but had preached in vain it was not the threatened architecture of the Herodian temple which drew tears from those Divine eyes. It was not chiefly the tragic ending of a history rich in its interest and its incident. It was the condition, the destiny, the eternal destiny of the individual men and women of that very generation to which Christ had ministered? What of them? They had heard Him; and what were they after hearing Him? Ah! it was over those souls for which He was presently to shed His blood that Jesus wept His tears. It was souls that for Him made up Jerusalem. And it is in this last sense that our Lords words come most closely home to us. Our influence upon our country, upon our portion of the Church, is necessarily very, fractionally small. We are each one as a private soldier in a great army, who has only to obey orders that are given by others; but in our individual capacities it is otherwise. Here as single souls we decide as well as act. Here we are free to make the most of opportunities: we are responsible for doing so. And opportunities come to us as we walk along the path of life, as Christ came to the Jews eighteen centuries ago. They come to us: we see them coming. We know that they are at hand–that they are close upon us. We know–we might know–that they will not be within our reach always–perhaps not to-morrow. It is the time, the solemn time, of our visitation. It is some friend who has brought before us for the first time the true meaning, the true solemnity, the blessedness of life. It is some change of circumstances, some great soul-subduing sorrow which has forced upon us a sense of the transitory nature of all things here below. It is some one truth or series of truths about our Divine Lord, His person, or His work, unknown, or known and rejected before, which has been borne in upon us with a strength and clearness of conviction which we cannot, if we would, possibly mistake, and which involves obedience, action, sacrifice, as its necessary correlatives. It is an atmosphere of new aspirations, of higher thoughts, of longings to be other and better than we are, that has, we know not how, taken possession of us. It is the presence and the breathing, could we only know it, of a heavenly Friend who haunts our spirits that, if we will, He may sanctify them. Christ–in one word–has been abroad by His Spirit in the streets and secret passages of the soul, as of old He was abroad in the by-ways and the temple-courts of Jerusalem; and the question is, Have we welcomed Him?–Have we held Him by the feet, and refused to let Him go except He bless us? We are worse off though we may not trace the deterioration. We have suffered if not without yet assuredly within. We have been tried, and failed; and failure means weakness entailed upon, incorporated into, the system of the soul. (Canon Liddon.)

Tenth Sunday after Trinity

We have here, not only weeping but tearful lamentation, weeping accompanied with voice and words; and the weeper is the God-man, Christ Jesus. Eternal Deity is not an unfeeling Almightiness. He has a heart, and that heart can be touched, and grieved, and moved with compassion, and stirred with emotions.

I. GOD INTENDS GREAT THINGS FOR THOSE TO WHOM HE HAS GIVEN HIS WORD AND ORDINANCES. He had chosen Jerusalem, and set up His temple there, and made it the centre of His most particular dealings with the elect nation, that it might reflect His glory, show forth His praises, and be the crown and rejoicing of the whole earth. The thing meant to be reached and made the everlasting possession of its people, is here summed up by the Saviour in the word peace; not mere rest from disturbance and strife; nor yet only health and well-being, as the word often denotes in the Old Testament; but that which is the subject of Divine promise, the highest results of Gods mercy and favour, the true Messianic blessing of everlasting freedom from the distresses and consequences of sin, and exaltation to near and holy relationship with God and heaven. And great things are meant for us, even the same things of peace which pertained at first to the ancient Jerusalem.

II. THERE IS A DAY OR SEASON WHEREIN TO KNOW AND ATTEND TO THE THINGS THAT RESPECT THIS PEACE. And unto us have their forfeited privileges now descended. This is our day, beaming with all the light and blessings which once belonged to the Jews, only marked by an easier ritual and a better economy (Heb 12:18-24).

III. THE DAY OF GRACE HAS ITS BOUNDARIES OVER WHICH GODS SAVING MERCIES DO NOT FOLLOW THOSE WHO MISIMPROVE THEM. There was a Jewish age which ended in judgment, and the cutting off of those who failed to improve it; and so this present age must also end. The day of grace is limited, on the one side, by the lateness of the period in life at which the gospel comes to a man, and, on the other, by the failure of the faculties necessary to handle and use it. It is also quite possible for ones day of grace to terminate while yet both reason and life continue. There may be a loss of the external means and opportunities of salvation, or such a separation from them, as for ever to prevent our reaching it. And where there has been long and persistent resistance of grace, habitual suppression of religious convictions and feelings, wilful refusal to fulfil known duty, and persevering withstanding of the influences and impulses of the Spirit of God, there is not only a possibility, but great danger of bringing on a state of callous indifference, and incapacitation which puts the offender beyond the reach of salvation.

IV. THE TERMINATION OF THE DAY OF GRACE, WITHOUT HAVING SECURED THE BLESSING FOR WHICH IT WAS INTENDED, IS AN AWFUL CALAMITY. In the case of Jerusalem it brought tears and lamentations from the Son of God. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)

The solicitude of Christ for incorrigible sinners

I. SPECIFY SOME OF THE MORE OBVIOUS CHARACTERISTICS OF INCORRIGIBLE MEN. There are several classes of people who, to say the least, are greatly exposed to unyielding impenitence, and who give fearful indication of final ruin.

1. This may be affirmed of men of a sceptical turn of mind. Such men are very apt never to become pious.

2. Another class of persons who are rarely made the subjects of grace are those of notoriously loose and vicious habits.

3. It may also be remarked, that men who are in the habit of making light of sacred things, and trifling with God, seldom become men of piety. If they can scoff at religion, if they can deride its conscientious disciples, there is little reason to believe they will ever become its disciples themselves.

4. In the same melancholy multitude are likewise found all those who are ardently and eagerly attached to the world.

5. There is another class of men who exhibit fearful symptoms of deep degeneracy, and they are those whose chosen companions are the guilty enemies of God and all righteousness. Men cannot habitually associate with those who are destitute of all moral principle, and have no fear of God before their eyes, without partaking of their character.

6. Those persons also give strong indications of being incorrigible, who have become hardened under religious privileges.

7. Still more hopeless are those who have outlived conviction, and resisted the Holy Spirit.

8. There is one class of persons more whose condition is as hopeless as that of any we have mentioned; I mean, the hypocrite and self-deceiver.

II. We proceed, in the second place, to inquire, WHAT THERE IS IN THE CONDITION OF SUCH PERSONS TO EXCITE THE SYMPATHY AND SOLICITUDE OF CHRIST.

1. Their determined rejection of offered mercy. This is like a dagger to Christs heart.

2. Their perversion of the means of grace.

3. Their utterly depraved character. And now, in conclusion, I cannot forbear remarking, in the first place, how unlike the Spirit of Christ is the apathy of the people of God in view of the perishing condition of impenitent men. Secondly, our subject strongly enforces, the importance of a diligent and anxious improvement of the day and means of salvation. Once more, in view of our subject, we may not avoid the inquiry, Are there none in this assembly towards whom the Saviour is now exercising the same tender compassion, which He exercised over incorrigible Jerusalem? I only add, in the last place, if such are the compassions of Christ towards guilty sinners, what confidence may we have that He will save all that come to Him. (G. Spring, D. D.)

Christ weeping over Jerusalem

I. WHY DID HE WEEP? It has been supposed that the picture of that approaching ruin and desolation which was coming so rapidly upon the unconscious capital, at once appalled and overwhelmed Him. He sketches that picture in strong and rapid strokes Himself (Luk 19:43-44). And that which added to it an element of profoundest gloom, was the unconsciousness of those whom such a doom was threatening. Scarce a soul in Jerusalem seems to have been greatly sensible either of the national decadence or of its own individual peril. Must it not have been this that made Him weep? I do not doubt that it was an element in that Divine and unmatched sorrow. But that sorrow loses its profoundest significance unless we see that it had another and deeper element still. What is it, that in the thought of a wise and good man costs him the deepest pang when he encounters the waywardness and wrong-doing of his own child? Is it merely that, as he looks forward, he sees the inevitable misery which that waywardness will entail? But you may be sure that such a parent is thinking of something else with a keener anguish still. He is thinking, What must the nature be that is so insensible to love and duty and goodness! He is thinking, What are the moral sensibilities of one to whom baseness and ingratitude and wrong-doing are such easy and instinctive things! He is thinking, What have I to hope for from a child whose ruling impulse come out in deeds like these! And even so, I think, it was with Christ. Nay, we are not left to our surmises. His own words tell us what made Him weep: If thou thine eyes. It was this spectacle of human insensibility, of eyes that would not see, and of ears that would not hear, that broke the Saviour down. The love of goodness, the longing for righteousness, the aspiration for nobleness and spiritual emancipation–these were dead in them. And it was this that made Christ weep.

II. And this brings me to that other question suggested by these tears of Christ. WHAT DID THEY MOVE HIM TO DO. Remember, that so far as the Jerusalem of that day was concerned, He Himself intimates the case to have been hopeless. And when that scornful indifference on their part was exchanged at last for a distinctive enmity, with that needless prodigality, as doubtless it seemed even to some of His own disciples, He flung away His life. Flung it away? Aye, but only how soon and how triumphantly to take it again! Such a history is pregnant with lessons for to-day. There are a good many of us, who from the elevation of a thoughtful observation, are looking down on the city in which we live. How fevered and faithless and morally insensible seem multitudes of those who live in it. How can such a one look down on all this and not weep? God forbid that such a spectacle should leave any one of us insensible or unmoved! But when that is said, let us not forget that with Christ weeping was but the prelude and forerunner of working. There were tears first, but then what heroic and untiring toil! I hear men say, no matter what good cause invites their cooperation, It is of no use. Most men are bound to go to the devil; it is the part of wisdom to get out of the way and let them go as quickly as possible; and I brand all such cries, no matter in what tones of complacent hopelessness they may utter themselves, as treason against God and slander against humanity. Faithlessness like this is a denial of God, and of goodness as well. And as such, it is an atheism with which no terms are to be made nor any truce to be kept. For, high above our blinded vision there sits One who, as He once wept over Jerusalem and then died for it, now lives for Jerusalem and for all His wayward children, and who bids us watch and strive with Him for those for whom once He shed His blood! And if He is still watching, even as once He wept over His creatures, God forbid that of any human soul you and I should quite despair! And therefore least of all our own souls. And so, while we weep, whether it be over the evil that is in others or in ourselves, our tears will be rainbows, bright with the promise of an immortal hope. Aye, far above the sorrows and the sins of the city that now is, we shall see the splendours of the New Jerusalem that is yet to be. (Bishop H. C. Potter.)

The sinners day

I. THAT THE SINNER HAS HIS DAY OF MERCY AND HOPE.

1. It is a period of light. Night is the season of darkness.

2. A period of activity. We must work now, or never.

3. An exceedingly limited period. A day. But a step from cradle to tomb.

4. The present period is our day.

II. THIS DAY IS ACCOMPANIED WITH THINGS WHICH BELONG TO THE SINNERS PEACE. By peace here we understand the welfare, the salvation of the sinner. The peace of God is the pledge and earnest of every blessing. Now, in this day we have–

1. The gracious provisions of peace. Christ has made peace by His cross, and before us is the cross lifted up.

2. The invitations and promises of peace belong to this day.

3. The means of obtaining peace belong to this day.

III. THAT IF THESE THINGS ARE NOT KNOWN NOW, IN THIS OUR DAY, THEY WILL BE FOR EVER HIDDEN FROM OUR EYES. Now observe–

1. The future state of the sinner is one of night. As such it is a period of darkness.

2. This state of night will be everlasting.

APPLICATION: We learn–

1. That the sinners present state is one of probation and mercy.

2. That God sincerely desires the salvation of souls.

3. That all who lose their souls do so by their own impenitency. (J. Burns, D. D.)

Christs lamentation over Jerusalem

I. THE EXHIBITION OF CHARACTER WHICH IT GIVES US. Here we perceive–

1. The Saviours deep interest in the state of man.

2. The Saviours compassion to the chief of sinners.

II. The sentiments it conveys.

1. That there are things belonging to a mans peace which it becomes him to know.

2. That there is a day in which a man might know these things.

3. That if this day be wasted these things will be hidden from him. (Essex Remembrancer)

Three times in a nations history

These words, which rang the funeral knell of Jerusalem, tell out in our ears this day a solemn lesson; they tell us that in the history of nations, and also, it may be, in the personal history of individuals, there are three times–a time of grace, a time of blindness, and a time of judgment. This, then, is our subject–the three times in a nations history. When the Redeemer spake, it was for Jerusalem the time of blindness; the time of grace was past; that of judgment was to come.

I. THE TIME OF GRACE. We find it expressed here in three different modes: first, in this thy day; then, the things which belong to thy peace; and thirdly, the time of thy visitation. And from this we understand the meaning of a time of grace; it was Jerusalems time of opportunity. The time in which the Redeemer appeared was that in which faith was almost worn cut. He found men with their faces turned backward to the past, instead of forward to the future. They were as children clinging to the garments of a relation they have lost; life there was not, faith there was not–only the garments of a past belief. He found them groaning under the dominion of Rome; rising up against it, and thinking it their worst evil. The coldest hour of all the night is that which immediately precedes the dawn, and in that darkest hour of Jerusalems night her Light beamed forth; her Wisest and Greatest came in the midst of her, almost unknown, born under the law, to emancipate those who were groaning under the law. His life, the day of His preaching, was Jerusalems time of grace. During that time the Redeemer spake the things which belonged to her peace: but they rejected them and Him. Now, respecting this day of grace we have two remarks to make. First: In this advent of the Redeemer there was nothing outwardly remarkable to the men of that day. And just such as this is Gods visitation to us. Generally, the day of Gods visitation is not a day very remarkable outwardly. Bereavements, sorrows–no doubt in these God speaks; but there are other occasions far more quiet and unobtrusive, but which are yet plainly days of grace. A scruple which others do not see, a doubt coming into the mind respecting some views held sacred by the popular creed, a sense of heart loneliness and solitariness, a feeling of awful misgiving when the future lies open before us, the dread feeling of an eternal godlessness, for men who are living godless lives now–these silent moments unmarked, are the moments in which the Eternal is speaking to our souls. Once more: That day of Jerusalems visitation–her day of grace–was short. A lesson here also for us. A few actions often decide the destiny of individuals, because they give a destination and form to habits; they settle the tone and form of the mind from which there will be in this life no alteration. We say not that God never pleads a long time, but we say this, that sometimes God speaks to a nation or to a man but once. If not heard then, His voice is heard no more.

II. THE TIME OF BLINDNESS. If a man will not see, the law is he shall not see; if he will not do what is right when he knows the right, then right shall become to him wrong, and wrong shall seem to be right.

III. THE TIME OF JUDGMENT. It came in the way of natural consequences. We make a great mistake respecting judgments. Gods judgments are not arbitrary, but the results of natural laws. The historians tell us that Jerusalem owed her ruin to the fanaticism and obstinate blindness of her citizens; from all of which her Redeemer came to emancipate her. Had they understood, Blessed are the boor in spirit, Blessed are the meek, and Blessed are the peacemakers; had they understood that, Jerusalems day of rum might never have come. Is there no such thing as blindness among ourselves? May not this be OUT day of visitation? First, there is among us priestly blindness; the blindness of men who know not that the demands of this age are in advance of those that have gone before. Once more, we look at the blindness of men talking of intellectual enlightenment. It is true that we have more enlightened civilization and comfort. What then? Will that retard our day of judgment? Jerusalem was becoming more enlightened, and Rome was at its most civilized point, when the destroyer was at their gates. Therefore, let us know the day of our visitation. It is not the day of refinement, nor of political liberty, nor of advancing intellect. We must go again in the old, old way; we must return to simpler manners and to a purer life. We want more faith, more love. The life of Christ and the death of Christ must be made the law of our life. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

The things belonging to our peace

I. THERE ARE THINGS WHICH BELONG TO OUR PEACE. Peace has a large signification; it implies not only the inward feeling of the mind, but generally our happiness and welfare. The things which belong to our peace are provided for us and pressed upon our acceptance in the Gospel of Christ. And this peace must be sought for personally by each one on his own behalf. But it concerns his everlasting peace that the sinner should undergo a change of heart.

II. THERE IS A TIME IN WHICH WE MAY SECURE THOSE THINGS THAT MAKE FOR OUR PEACE. Now is that time, and now is the only time. Of to-morrow neither you nor I are secure. Now is the time in which you may seek the Lord, and in which He will be found.

III. THERE IS A TIME WHEN THEY WILL BE FOR EVER HID FROM OUR EYES. There is such a thing as a hard and obdurate heart–there is such a state as final impenitence–there is such a calamitous condition as that of a lost soul. (H. J. Hastings, M. A.)

Christs appeal to the heart

I. THIS THY DAY. The day of thy visitation, the day when Gods goodness and grace were especially near thee; the day of dawning hopes and bright promises; the day which, if it had been welcomed and used aright, might have coloured, ennobled, and redeemed all the rest. It was the day when, as youths, we left our fathers house to take our place in the busy world, when thoughts of duty and honour, of true work and faithful service, were fresh and strong in our breasts, when we were resolved, God helping us, there should be no idle hours, no corrupting habits, no dread secrets which could not be breathed or even thought of in the sanctity of the home, or in the presence of our sister or our mother. Or, it was the day when some heavenly vision of the beauty of goodness, of the sacredness of service, of the helpfulness of prayer, of the nearness of God to your innermost soul, filled your heart with its glow and peace, and you longed and vowed ever to cherish the kindly light, ever to obey the heavenly voice, ever to walk with God, and repose in Him. Or, it was the day when, after some sad fall, or after many reckless, wasted years, you came to yourself, you saw from the very edge the precipice to which you had come, you felt keenly and bitterly the misery of the shame into which you had sunk, and, for the first time, Christs vision of the face and heart of God, of the Father seeking the poor prodigal, brought penitence and hope; when thoughts of Christ, with His words of forgiveness and help and peace, seemed welcome and consoling to you, as rest at last to the sleep less brain, or kindly, gentle care to the fever-stricken patient.

II. IF THOU HADST KNOWN AT LEAST IN THIS THY DAY. Tis one of the sorrows of life that we spend a lifetime in gaining the needful experience. Human experience, says Coleridge, like the stern-lights of a ship at sea, too often only illuminates the faith we have passed over. The youth does not know the value of the school till alter he has left it, or the comfort and charm of the home till it is broken up and he is alone in the world; the man does not know the value of time, or health, or money, or character, till harsh misfortune or his own fault have deprived him of them; we do not fully realize how much we needed the companionship, example, and sympathy of friends till death has snatched them from us. And so with spiritual blessings and opportunities.

III. THE THINGS THAT BELONG ONTO THY PEACE. The life of Christ in the heart. The service of our heavenly Father here and now. (J. T. Stannard.)

Our day of grace

As God dealt with the city of Jerusalem, so He deals with us as individuals. God has given us a day of grace-has given a time wherein to repent of sin and prepare for another world. This day and this period is circumscribed. It is, as it were, a circle described around us; and when we pass over that boundary., then the day of grace is past and gone; the spirit has ceased to strive, and our doom is fixed for ever. I will illustrate this from history. One of the kings of Syria made war upon Egypt, which was at that time an ally of the Roman republic. When the news reached the Roman senate, they despatched into Egypt two senators, one of whom was a dear friend of the king. They went direct to the camp of the Syrian monarch, who came forth to meet them; but the senator, refusing to recognize him as his friend, at once put him upon his choice–to raise the seige and withdraw his army out of Egypt, or to forfeit his friendly relation with Rome, who would at once send forth her legions and compel him. To this he endeavoured to give an equivocal answer: he would consider over it or he would consider of it at another time. But this was not enough for the Romans; the senator, therefore, with the wand he had in his hand, drew a circle around him on the sand where they stood, and demanded his answer and decision ere he left it. He had to make his choice: he decided to withdraw his army, and then the senator extended his hand and recognized his friend. In a similar way God has drawn a circle around us, and demands us to make a choice. That circle is our day of grace. May we, then, to-day, while it is called today, harden not our hearts, lest God should swear in His wrath we shall not enter into His rest! (A. Jones.)

In this thy day

Thy day! If when the sun sets in the west we were not sure whether he would rise on the morrow, oh what an evening it would be! ONE DAY! Thy day! How precious! But if the day is allowed to pass, and the work of the day not done, how terrible the sunset! Jerusalem had her day; the day was passing–it was past. Jerusalem did not know her day, and did not notice that it had passed. Jerusalem, with her day done, was laughing: Jesus, looking on lost Jerusalem, wept. This is not of private interpretation–it is written for our sakes. Our city has a day; ourselves have a day. Throughout this day it is peace–your peace–pressing like the air around us. The night cometh, when that light of life is gone. Men mistake the meaning of Emmanuels tenderness. It is not tenderness to sin, Men are tender to their own sin, treating it as a spoiled child–blaming it in words, but fondling it all the while; and they think that Christ will turn out such an one as themselves. His grief does not indicate a holding back, a hesitating to cast away the wicked. The earnestness with which the Redeemer strove to snatch the brand from the burning, shows that there is a burning for the brand. The tears He shed over Jerusalem do not prove that He will falter and hesitate to lay her even with the ground when her day is done: if He had thought that Jerusalem might escape in her sin, He would not have wept to see her sinning. No preachers are so terrible as the Redeemers tears. (W. Arnot.)

Too late

God forbid that any of you should at the last have the dismay of the Scotchwoman of whom I was reading. One night she could not sleep because of her souls wandering from Christ. She got up and wrote in her diary: One year from now I will attend to the matters of my soul. She retired, but could not sleep. So she arose again, and wrote a better promise in her diary: One month from now I will attend to the matters of my soul. She retired again, but found no sleep, and arose again and wrote: Next week I will attend to the matters of my soul. Then she slept soundly. The next day she went into scenes of gaiety. The following day she was sick, and the middle of next week she died. Delirium lifted from her mind just long enough for her to say: I am a week too late. I am lost! Oh, to be a year too late, or a month too late, or a week too late, or a day too late, or a minute too late, or a second too late, is to be for ever too late. May God Almighty, by His grace, keep us from the wild, awful, crushing catastrophe of a ruined soul. (Dr. Talmage.)

The time of the visitation

Knowing the time of our visitation

I. THE TIME OF OUR VISITATION.

1. The country which has given us birth. We are highly favoured in this respect. We enjoy religious freedom.

2. The dispensation under which we live. Full blaze of gospel sun.

3. The revelation which God has been pleased to give us of His will.

4. The ministry, by which the written Word is explained to the understanding and enforced on the conscience.

II. THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH TIMES OF VISITATION ARE GRANTED. They are granted for purposes of the highest consequence to every one of you.

1. First of all, to be instrumental in accomplishing the conversion of your hearts and lives to God.

2. This entire conversion of your hearts and lives to God, is the foundation of all Christian experience and all Christian practice.

3. And then, as to its final and ultimate object, this time of visitation looks forward to your everlasting salvation; for the work of religion is not only to be begun, and it is not only to be proceeded with, but it is likewise to be perfected.

III. OUR NEGLECT OF THESE OPPORTUNITIES. How is it that, notwithstanding we are all favoured with the means of salvation, and with many loud calls to secure the purposes for which they are given to us–how is it that so many amongst even you are as yet unsaved, and know not the time of your visitation?

1. I suppose that, in reference to some, it is in consequence of your perseverance in the practice of sin.

2. There are others who know net and do not improve the time of their visitation, by reason of their thoughtlessness and inattention to Divine things.

3. There is another reason to be assigned for your not knowing the time of your visitation–and that is, indecision and delay. He that is not with Me, said Christ, is against Me.

4. Then, let me say, further, that all those know not the time of their visitation, who, for any reason whatever, do not come to the Lord Jesus Christ to believe with their hearts unto righteousness.

5. Perhaps I ought to say, there are some who know not the time of their visitation, by reason of their inconstancy and negligence.

IV. In the last place, we ought to look a little at THE JUDGMENT WHICH, SOONER OR LATER, IS SURE TO OVERTAKE ALL THOSE WHO PERSIST IN DISREGARDING THEIR MEANS AND OPPORTUNITIES. (J. Bicknell.)

Divine visitations

The system of the natural world–with all its laws, facts, processes, and events; the system of social life, including the family and civil society; the system of business life, including all proper industries and right occupations, all rightful forms of development, all cares and labours–all these are included in the system of visitations which God employs in His daily education of men, and their treatment and control. In other words, God employs all the apparatus of the natural world, in its results both upon the body and the mind; all the social influences that surround and educate men; all the organizations by which man is drawn out in various industries, and becomes an operative and a creator; all the various events that transpire outside of the mind or its volition, which come up in what we call providences of God; and above all these, the direct gospel system, supervised by Gods personal Spirit. Through all these various influences, God acts upon the human soul; and all these are but parts of Gods one system, for the development, the education, and the elevation of men. The time of Gods visitations has included every period of our lives. They have not been special to youth, to middle life, or to old age. Not only has the Divine economy had respect to the faculties of the soul, but to man as a creature. For example, there are times–and the element of time has entered largely into the system of Divine culture–when they have met us in childhood, with influences appropriate to that period, acting through the easier affections and susceptibilities of early life. I do not believe that there is a man in this house, who, if he were to speak his experience, would not say, I was subject in my boyhood to times of religious depression. They say depression, though they should rather say religious inspiration and elevation. These were awakenings by which they were lifted up from the dull and the obscure of life, and made to feel something of the invisible, and of the power of the world to come. And as childhood goes into boyhood or early manhood, the Divine strivings do not cease. They may change their form; they may cease to act through the same susceptibilities; they may take hold through the developments of the understanding, the speculations of a mans reason, or a different and larger reach of the imagination; but, nevertheless, they take hold still in early manhood and middle life. Gods visitations of mercy not only include every one of the faculties of the human soul, and all the periods of time in which a man lives, but are made to act upon men through every gradation and variation of their condition and history. In other words, we are tried in every possible development of our physical state. We are tried by our disappointments; we are tried by our successes! God heaps mercies upon men, and then takes them all away! He blesses, enriches, and establishes men, and then shuts them up, impoverishes, and subverts them! It is remarkable, in respect to these visitations of God, that they do not follow the telescope; they are rather like comets, that come when they please; for when you search for God, by searching you cannot find Him out. Such thoughts have come to you unbidden, sometimes in your counting-room, or when you were on a journey, or on the sea; sometimes when you have been in your house all alone, your family in the country; sometimes in trouble and adversity; in various ways–often coming, though never twice alike, as if the Divine phases had sought to present, at different times, different aspects to you. And if, all the way along, you had treasured up these times–precious times of great treasure!–if you had treasured them as you have when you have made a good bargain, or gained a new honour; if you had treasured all these interior peculiarities as you have the exterior–you would find them, I think, almost within speaking distance all the way from childhood to manhood; and although you had never such a consecutive view of the whole, yet really all along you have been subject to such impressions! Under such visitations there is brought very near to men such a thought of the other life, of Gods eternal kingdom and their immortality in it, as may produce very serious practical fruits in them. In view of these facts and illustrations of facts, I remark in closing, first, upon the immensity of the influences which men receive for good–the disproportion in this world between the educating influences for good, and those which sometimes we suspect are for evil. For we are apt to think that this great world is all against goodness, and that men are surrounded by such inducements to evil, such temptations of their passions, that there is an impression that man is so neglected and so set upon at disadvantage, that there is scarcely the evidence of his ever being an object of mercy. Contrariwise, it is a truth that man stands in the midst of a world which is one peculiar and complex educating institution, and what is more, educating in the right direction. The gradual growing effect of the course that I have been speaking of, is worthy of a moments attention–the habit of thus resisting the visitation of Gods Spirit upon us. What is the result of having a visitation, and of neglecting it? The general apprehension is, that it offends God, and that man is destroyed vindictively, or penally; but we must look at it more narrowly than that. In the first place, then, I think that it is in respect to our moral susceptibilities as it is in regard to all our senses; they become blunted by repeated perversion. A man can treat his eye in such a way that he shall become blind. He can blunt his hearing so that he shall become deaf. He can injure his tongue so as to have no appreciation of flavours. He can conduct himself so that his whole body may be broken down and destroyed before he is fifty years old. So in respect to a mans moral nature. A mans moral susceptibilities may be so dull, that by the time he is fifty years old, these approaches no longer affect him in this world. Anal the effect is, the gradual diminution of moral susceptibility; so that the conjunctions of circumstances, by which the man shall appear to himself to be surrounded, are less and less frequent, because their effect is less and less apparent. What is the state of such a man? What a terrible condition it is for a man to stand in! Ah! when the day of visitation is passed, what has happened?–not alone in those extreme cases, of men who are hardened past all shame and feeling; but what has happened in other cases, where men are not so incorrigible, and not so hard? Is God so angry at them that He ceases to offer them any more mercy? Does He pass them altogether by? Not at all! Oh, the goodness of God! There is just as much summer in the deserts of Arabia as in our American prairies! The sun and the showers of summer are in both places: but it is a desert in one, and it is a growing, luxuriant prairie in the other. There is just as much summer for a sepulchre as there is for a mansion; but the summer sun brings joy and cheer to those in the populous house, where the father and the mother are happy, and all the children are full of glee and joy; while, as it shines upon the sepulchres roof, everything is solitary, sad, and still, because there are dead mens bones within, which the sunlight can never waken! It is just the same in the moral government of God. There is the same provision of light, of air, of warmth, of raiment, in immense abundance; but all these are conjoined with this one invariable, universal necessity–our own appropriation of them. There is unlimited store of good, yet men will starve if they do not appropriate it to themselves. There is an ocean of air, yet men will suffocate if they refuse to breathe. He is resolute for evil. He has been surrounded by Divine influences, but he has continually resisted them, until he has been hardened by the process–until moral susceptibility has died out of him–until he has disorganized his nature–until he has destroyed himself! And when he passes through the brief period of his life–through its rapid rolling months and years–and rises into the presence of God, he stands in condemnation! Then he will not be able to say one word! The long procession of Gods teachings, which were given to draw him away from his immorality; all the Divine influences that have been visited upon him; all these things will then stand out unmistakably and indisputably; and the man will have nothing to say, except this–I destroyed myself! (H. W. Beecher.)

Times of visitation

1. And first, I would ask you to go back to the period of your youth. Was not that a time of visitation? Do you not remember its freshness, its freedom, its joy?

2. Again: I may speak of those special Divine influences which arc often realized in connection with the services of the sanctuary, and the preaching of Gods Word, as constituting a time of visitation.

3. Yet again: there are times of visitation, in which the individual is more directly concerned, as separate from all around him. It may be in the church, or it may be at home in the quiet chamber, or it may be in neither, but out under the great dome of heaven, and among the scenes of nature.

4. Once more: there are providential events which may be regarded in the light of a time of visitation to those concerned in them. (C. M. Merry.)

The time of visitation

I. WHAT IS A DIVINE VISITATION?

1. The common use of the word associates it with judgment, with judicial infliction of punishment of some sort.

2. Divine visitations are often connected with the purpose of blessing.

3. God visits us, in giving us the fruits of the earth in due season.

4. Visitation means warning. It is in this sense our Lord here describes His own ministry as the visitation of Jerusalem. Partly, no doubt, it was a visitation of judgment, yet more was it a visitation of blessing; it brought with it instruction, grace, pardon. His visitation was also a warning against some besetting sins of a very old and settled religion–against formalism, hypocrisy, insincere use of sacred language, insincere performance of sacred duties; and it was especially a warning to the people of Israel, against their taking a wrong turn in their thoughts and aspirations and efforts in the future before them.

II. WHY SHOULD THE FAILURE TO KNOW THE TIME OF VISITATION VERY OFTEN BE FOLLOWED BY SUCH GREAT CONSEQUENCES?

1. Because such failure implies the decline of spiritual interest, which in those who have had any religious training and opportunities is culpable. To believe sincerely in the living God, who interests Himself in His mortal creatures, is to be on the look-out for tokens of His intervention in the affairs of men; in other words, for His visitations. When a Divine visitation comes, it is a touchstone of the interests of souls: it finds some anxious, expectant, willing to recognize and make the most of it, and others, as our Lord said, whose hearts have waxed gross, and whose ears are dull of hearing, and whose eyes are closed. This insensibility to the approach of God in His life and power wounds the heart of God. We cannot forsake Him for anything else with impunity.

2. If God visits in warning, then to neglect His visitation is to neglect conditions of safety against dangers which are before us So it was now with the Jews. If the Jews had given heed to the teaching of our Saviour the conflict with the Roman authority would never have taken place.

III. THE DIFFICULTY FOR MANY MEN IS TO RECOGNIZE AT THE CRITICAL MOMENT THE FACT THAT GOD IS VISITING THEM. The most vitally important days and weeks in the history of a soul may have little to distinguish them outwardly from other days. It needs the earnest, penetrating recognition of Gods unceasing and loving interest in His creatures to read life aright, whether it be corporate or individual life, to see the moral and spiritual worth of events. It may be said that there is room for a great deal of illusion in this matter of Divine visitation. We may easily think ourselves more important people than we are; we may imagine that the events of our little lives have a meaning and worth which does not belong to them. Is there any test or criterion of His visitation? Well, we have first of all to remember that no human life at any moment is other than an object of the deepest interest to God. He who made, He who redeemed, He who sanctified us, does not think any life too insignificant to be visited by Him. The hairs of your head are all numbered; it is impossible that the Infinite Love should ever despise the work of His own hands, the purchase of His own cross. The only question is, whether we are warranted in thinking that His interest and oversight have at a given time reached a special climax or visitation, having exceptional claims on our attention; and we are justified in thinking that this is the case if the truth which such a visitation enforces is in correspondence with the higher truth which we have learned before, though, perhaps, going beyond it, and if the conduct to which we are impelled or encouraged involves self-denial, involves that which is unwelcome or exacting. (Canon Liddon.)

Divine visitations

1. God visits a nation, when at a critical moment in its history He bids it maintain some imperilled principle, or do some great act of justice. Perhaps the opportunity has been neglected; it passes, and then the sentence of national decline is written on the pale of history, with the added reason: Because thou knowest not, etc.

2. God visits at His own time the several branches of His Church, it may be after long years of apathy and darkness. He visits a church when He raises up in her teachers who insist upon forgotten aspects of truth, who call men from false standards of life; or when He opens great ways of extending His people and of influencing numbers of human beings to seek the things that belong to their peace. If this invitation to better things is set aside, nominally as ii it were the revival of some old superstition, but rather really because it makes an unwelcome demand on the conscience and the will, then the day of visitation passes, and the doom of the church which comes in time is justified in the conscience of its own children: Because, etc.

3. Souls are the units of which nations and churches are composed, and God visits a soul when He brings before it a new range of opportunities. One of yourselves, we will say, has been for years recognizing just so much of religious truth as the people about him, and no more; acting just so far upon the duties which it suggests, and no further; your thought and practice are, as we say, conventional–that is to say, they are determined by the average feeling of those among whom you are thrown in life, and not by any personal sense or grasp of religious principle, of what religious principle is, of what is due to it, of what is due to the Infinite and Everlasting God. And then something occurs which appeals to the soul as nothing has appealed to it before, which puts life, destiny and duty, truth, Holy Scripture, the Cross of Christ, the Person of Christ, the garments of Christ, the Church of Christ, before it in quite a new light. It may be a sentence in a letter: it may be a sudden thought which takes possession of you at the time of prayer; it may be a friend who insists on duties which have hitherto been mere phrases to you; it may be that you suddenly find yourself obliged to decide between two courses–one involving sacrifice more or less painful, and the other the surrender of something which your conscience tells you is right and true, and the having to make a decision puts a strain on your moral being, which is of itself a visitation. Or, one who has been intimately associated with you for many years has died; his death has taught you the emptiness of this passing life, it has put you out of heart with the half-hearted religion of past years; in short, this trial, while it presses heavily on your heart, has gone far to make you quite other than what you were. And this is a visitation. God is speaking to your soul, and much depends on your under standing Him, on your resolving and acting and re-fashioning your life accordingly. Much, I say, depends on this; for be sure that it is very serious to have enjoyed such a religious opportunity and to have neglected it. Divine visitation does not leave us where it found us; it always leaves us better or worse. To have been in contact with truth and grace, and to have put it from us, is to be weaker, poorer, worse off–religiously speaking–than we were. When the Divine visitation of the soul has been rejected, then the day of its enemies has arrived; then the legions of hell encamp all around it, the powers of darkness make sure of their victim. There is such a thing as the last chance in the life of a soul. God knows when it has passed by each of us, but one day certainly all of us do, in whatever way, pass it. (Canon Liddon.)

The visitation of Jerusalem

1. This visitation of Jerusalem by its Monarch was unobtrusive. There was nothing of outward pageantry or of royalty to greet the Son of David; there was no royal livery, no currency bearing the kings image and superscription–all these things had passed into the hands of a foreign conqueror, or in parts of the country, into the hands of princes who had the symbol of independence without its reality. There was not even the amount of circumstance of state which attends the reception of a visitor to some modern institution–a visitor who only represents the majesty of some old prerogative or some earthly throne. As Israels true King visits Jerusalem He always reminds us of a descendant of an ancient family returning in secret to the old home of his race; everything is for him instinct with precious memories; every stone is dear to him, while he himself is forgotten. He wanders about unnoticed, unobserved, or with only such notice as courtesy may accord to a presumed stranger. He is living amid thoughts which arc altogether unshared by the men whom he meets as he moves silently and sadly among the records of the past, and he passes away from sight as he came, with his real station and character generally unrecognized, if, indeed, he is not dismissed as an upstart with contempt and insult. So it was with Jerusalem and its Divine Master. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. It may, indeed, be asked whether the unobtrusive character of His visit does not excuse the ignorance of Jerusalem. But, my brethren, there is ignorance and ignorance. There is the ignorance which we cannot help, which is part of our circumstances in this life, which is imposed on us by Providence, and such ignorance as this, so far as it extends, does efface responsibility. God will never hold a man accountable for knowledge which God knows to be out of his reach; but there is also ignorance, and a great deal of it, in many lives for which we are ourselves responsible, and which would not have embarrassed us now if we had made the best of our opportunities in past times, and just as a man who, being drunk, commits a street outrage is held to be responsible for the outrage which he commits without knowing what he is doing, because he is undoubtedly responsible for getting into this condition of brutal insensibility, so God holds us all to be accountable for an ignorance which He knows to be due to our own neglect. Now this was the case with the men of Jerusalem at that day. Had they studied their prophets earnestly and sincerely, had they refused to surrender themselves to political dreams which flattered their self-love and which coloured all their thoughts and hopes, they would have seen in Jesus of Nazareth the Divine Visitor whose coming Israel had for long ages been expecting. As it was, His approach was too unobtrusive for a generation which looked forward to a visible triumph. Thus they knew not the time of their visitation. And the visitation of Jerusalem was final; it was not to be repeated. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers of the Jewish race by the prophets, in these last days spoke unto them by His Son. Those were His last words to His chosen people, the last probation, the last opportunity; we may reverently say that there was no more after that to be done. Each prophet had contributed something which others could not; each had filled a place in the long series of visitations which no other could fill. Already Jerusalem had been long since once destroyed after a great neglected opportunity. The Book of Jeremiah which we have lately been reading in the daily lessons, is one long and pathetic commentary on the blindness and obstinacy of kings, priests, prophets, and people who preceded the Chaldean invasion, and who rendered it inevitable. And still that ruin, vast, and for the time being, utter as it was, had been followed by a reconstruction, that long and bitter exile by a return. But history will not go on for ever repeating events which contradict probability. One greater visitation awaited Jerusalem, one more utter ruin, and each was to be the last. Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. What is the explanation of that because? What is the connection as between cause and affect which it suggests? Does it mean merely that the Jews, having as a people rejected Christ, were punished by the destruction of their city and temple, but that nothing further can be said about it? That the punishment was independent of the crime, although not excessive, and that it might just as easily as not have been something else than what it was, since the punishment was inflicted from without by the Roman army, which, consisting as it did of brave and disciplined pagans, could have no ideas about the spiritual history or responsibilities of a distant Asiatic race? No, brethren; this is not the full or the true account of the case. Here, as elsewhere, God works by laws which we may trace and which are not generally superseded by agencies of a different character. Jerusalems ignorance of its visitation by the King Messiah, had a great deal to do as cause with effect with Jerusalems ruin. What was the main cause of that ruin? It was, as has been said, that the Jews were under the influence of a false and blind prejudice and ambition. They had made up their minds that their Messiah was to be a political rather than a spiritual king; He was to make Jerusalem the centre of an empire which would hold its own against the legions of Rome; and with this overmastering prejudice in their minds the Jews could not recognize the real Messiah when He came, and the day of their visitation escaped them. Yet it was this same political phrenzy of theirs which ultimately brought them into trouble with the Roman power; and if they had only understood the real meanings of their prejudices, had seen in their Messiah a spiritual monarch, and had accepted Him when He came, the mind of the people would have taken, must have taken, a totally different direction, and the fatal collision with the forces of Rome would never have taken place. (Canon Liddon.)

Illness regarded as Gods visitation

There are two ways of looking at an illness. We may trace it to its second or immediate cause, the infection, the blood-poisoning, the imprudence, the hereditary taint, and there stop; or we may with greater reason look up to Him who is the true Lord of all, the first cause, and who worketh all things by the counsel of His own will; and if we do this last, we must see in an illness a visitation from God. He knows what we want. He sees, it may be, that in us which will never be corrected in the days of rude health and of high spirits; He sees the insensibility to the seriousness of life, to the claims of others, to the true interests of the soul, to the unfathomable love of the Divine Redeemer; and an illness which gives time for prayer, for reflection, for resolution, is a school of discipline. Those who have never had bad health are, it has been truly said, objects of anxiety; those who have had it, and who are none the better for it, are certainly objects of the very deepest concern and compassion. There was a story told many years since of a boat which was getting near the rapids above the Falls of Niagara. The boatmen managed to reach the shore, but, disregarding the advice which was earnestly given them, they put out again into the stream, with the object of crossing to the opposite bank. The current proved too strong for them, and those who had warned them of their danger looked on with a distress which was too great for words while the boat glided down with an ever-increasing speed to the edge of the falls. It is possible, brethren, in what concerns another life, to be in that condition, to have ignored Gods last word of warning, and to be hurrying onwards, under the stress of influences which we cannot any longer resist or control, towards the awful future. Great reason is there for prayer, that at the critical turning-point of our career we may have, in our Lords words, eyes to see and ears to hear, that we may distinguish Gods visitations in life from what is ordinary in it; that we may remember that in every life, even in the most highly favoured, there is sooner or later a visitation which is the last. (Canon Liddon.)

Guilty ignorance

Well–known as these words are, there is in them something, when we think of it, unexpected; something different, apparently, from what we should have looked for. The condemnation of the people seems to be put upon a cause somewhat unlike what we might have thought. The Lord does not say, it is because ye are about to crucify the Lord of Glory; or, because ye have been a sinful and stiff-necked people; or, because by your traditions ye have made the Word of God of none effect; or, because ye are hypocrites, or impenitent: though all these things, and many more, were not only true against the people, but had often been alleged by Himself to their condemnation. He does not, I say, allege any of these broad, overt, intelligible sins in this, the last most solemn, irreversible denunciation of their judgment; but He says, Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation! God had visited His people, and they knew it not I He had come unto His own, and His own had known Him not He does not even say, that they had pretended not to know Him; but, literally and plainly, that they knew Him not. They might have known Him; they ought to have known Him; but He came, and they knew Him not. Let us learn, then, that men may really be quite ignorant of what they are doing, and yet very guilty, and involved in the heaviest condemnation. But, again, are we to suppose that they did not choose to know; that they might, then and there, by a stronger exercise of will, by some more forcible or candid purpose, have known what they thus wilfully were ignorant of? It is possible that they might; but it is by no means certain: that is, it is by no means certain that much disobedience, much inattention to the constant indications of Gods will vouchsafed to them, much neglect of opportunities, had not set them so much out of the way of forming right judgments on such things, as to make it morally impossible, or, at least, in the highest degree unlikely, that they should come to a right knowledge of the nature of our Lord and the sacredness of His mission. No doubt they had, if we may so speak, a great deal to say for themselves, in their firm and persevering rejection of our Lord and His doctrine; not, indeed, a word of real weight or truth, but a great deal which, urged by men in their state of mind, and addressed to men of their state of mind, would appear to be full of force and cogency. Would they not, feeling no doubt of the sacred validity of their own traditions, look upon Him and describe Him as one who made light of the authority of God, and of Moses, and the ancients? May we not easily suppose with what immense effect they would urge the impolicy of giving any heed to our Lords teaching: the impolicy in respect of the Romans; the impolicy in respect of the great impediment which would, by our Lords partial success, be thrown in the way of the true, temporal Messias, so long expected? If we suppose that the actions, which we criticize, appeared to the persons who were about to perform them in the same clear and unquestionable light in which we see them, we at once lose, or rather turn into mischief and hurt, the historical examples: we do exactly what the Jews did, when they said, If we had lived in the times of our fathers, we would not have been partakers in their deeds, and yet filled up the measure of those very fathers, by doing a deed precisely like theirs in kind, though infinitely worse than theirs in degree. We comfort ourselves by condemning them, while we exactly imitate, or even exceed their sins. We, like them–like all mankind–are perpetually called upon to act; often suddenly–often in cases ofgreat and obvious consequence–often in cases apparently slight, but really of most serious and vital importance to us: the same per plexities and bewilderments as I just described, of feeling, of policy, of liberality and candour, of conscience, of foreseen consequences, rise up around us; we act in more or less uncertainty of mind, but our uncertainties often woefully aggravated by our previous misconduct; and there are many to excuse us, many to encourage us, many to take part with us, and yet, in the sight of God, our act is one, it may be, of clear and undoubted sin. But again, the particular thing of which the Jews were in this instance ignorant, was the visitation of God. Christ had come to them, God had visited His people; and they, blinded by all these various kinds of self-deceit, of long continued disobedience, of inveterate hardness of heart, and neglect of lesser indications of Gods will and presence, had not known Him. Now here again is matter of high concern and warning to us all. For we, too, have our visitations of God; if not exactly such as this great one of Christ coming actually in the flesh, for us to worship or to crucify, according as our hearts recognize and know Him, or disown and rebel against Him, yet visitations many, various, and secret. But it by no means follows that we have known them. Some, indeed, may have been so striking as not to be mistaken. But many, perhaps most, perhaps the most searching and important, may have been absolutely unknown to us. And not less than this seems to be plainly taught by our Lord, where, in the 25th of St. Matthew, He describes the actual scene of judgment. The righteous and the wicked alike seem to be amazed to hear of the matters alleged for their acquittal and condemnation. How unexpected, then, may be to us the voice of judgment! (Bishop Moberly.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 41. And wept over it] See Mt 23:37.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Those who of old blotted out this sentence, as thinking that weeping was not becoming Christs perfection, seem to have forgotten that he was perfect man, and a sharer in all the natural infirmities of human nature (if weeping upon the prospect of human miseries deserveth no better name than an infirmity, being an indication of love and compassion). Those who think that it was idle for him to weep for that which he might easily have helped, seem to oblige God to give out of his grace, whether men do what he hath commanded them, and is in their power to do, yea or no. Christ wept over Jerusalem as a man, having compassion for these poor Jews, with respect to the miseries he saw coming upon them; as a minister of the gospel, pitying the people to whom he was primarily sent.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

41-44. when beheld . . .weptCompare La 3:51,”Mine eye affecteth mine heart”; the heart again affectingthe eye. Under this sympathetic law of the relation of mind and body,Jesus, in His beautiful, tender humanity, was constituted even as we.What a contrast to the immediately preceding profound joy! He yieldedHimself alike freely to both. (See on Mt23:37.)

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And when he was come near, he beheld city,…. Of Jerusalem; being now nearer, and in a situation to take a full view of it, he lift up his eyes, and looking wistfully on it, and beholding the grandeur and magnificence of it, the number of the houses, and the stately structures in it, and knowing what calamities, in a few years, would come upon it; with which being affected, as man, he looked upon it,

and wept over it; touched with a tender concern for it, his natural passions moved, and tears fell plentifully from his eyes. This must be understood of Christ merely as man, and is a proof of the truth of his human nature, which had all the natural properties, and even the infirmities of it; and as affected with the temporal ruin of Jerusalem, and as concerned for its temporal welfare; and is not to be improved either against his proper deity, or the doctrines of distinguishing grace, relating to the spiritual and eternal salvation of God’s elect; things that are foreign from the sense of this passage: some ancient Christians, and orthodox too, thinking that this was not so agreeable to Christ, but reflected some weakness and dishonour upon him, expunged this clause concerning his weeping; but we have another instance besides this; see Joh 11:35 and even the Jews themselves cannot think this to be unsuitable to the Messiah, when they represent the Shekinah, and God himself weeping over the destruction of the temple p; and it is particularly q said by them of the Messiah, that he shall weep over the wicked among the Jews, according to Isa 53:5 and they encourage persons to mourn over Jerusalem: they say r whoever does any business on the ninth of Ab, (the day that city was destroyed,) and does not mourn over Jerusalem, shall not see its joy; but whoever does mourn over it, shall see its joy, according to Isa 66:10 s.

p Zohar in Gen. fol. 114. 4. & in Exod. fol. 76. 1. T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 3. 2. Prafat Echa Rabbati, fol. 89. 4. q Zohar in Exod. fol. 85. 2. r T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 30. 2. s T. Bab Bathra, fol. 60. 2. & Caphtor, fol. 118. 2.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Doom of Jerusalem Lamented; The Doom of Jerusalem Foretold.

      41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,   42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.   43 For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,   44 And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.   45 And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought;   46 Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.   47 And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him,   48 And could not find what they might do: for all the people were very attentive to hear him.

      The great Ambassador from heaven is here making his public entry into Jerusalem, not to be respected there, but to be rejected; he knew what a nest of vipers he was throwing himself into, and yet see here two instances of his love to that place and his concern for it.

      I. The tears he shed for the approaching ruin of the city (v. 41): When he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it. Probably, it was when he was coming down the descent of the hill from the mount of Olives, where he had a full view of the city, the large extent of it, and the many stately structures in it, and his eye affected his heart, and his heart his eye again. See here,

      1. What a tender spirit Christ was of; we never read that he laughed, but we often find him in tears. In this very place his father David wept, and those that were with him, though he and they were men of war. There are cases in which it is no disparagement to the stoutest of men to melt into tears.

      2. That Jesus Christ wept in the midst of his triumphs, wept when all about him were rejoicing, to show how little he was elevated with the applause and acclamation of the people. Thus he would teach us to rejoice with trembling, and as though we rejoiced not. If Providence do not stain the beauty of our triumphs, we may ourselves see cause to sully it with our sorrows.

      3. That he wept over Jerusalem. Note, There are cities to be wept over, and none to be more lamented than Jerusalem, that had been the holy city, and the joy of the whole earth, if it be degenerated. But why did Christ weep at the sight of Jerusalem? Was it because “Yonder is the city in which I must be betrayed and bound, scourged and spit upon, condemned and crucified?” No, he himself gives us the reason of his tears.

      (1.) Jerusalem has not improved the day of her opportunities. He wept, and said, If thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, if thou wouldst but yet know, while the gospel is preached to thee, and salvation offered thee by it; if thou wouldest at length bethink thyself, and understand the things that belong to thy peace, the making of thy peace with God, and the securing of thine own spiritual and eternal welfare–but thou dost not know the day of thy visitation, v. 44. The manner of speaking is abrupt: If thou hadst known! O that thou hadst, so some take it; like that O that my people had hearkened unto me,Psa 81:13; Isa 48:18. Or, If thou hadst known, well; like that of the fig-tree, ch. xiii. 9. How happy had it been for thee! Or, “If thou hadst known, thou wouldest have wept for thyself, and I should have no occasion to weep for thee, but should have rejoiced rather.” What he says lays all the blame of Jerusalem’s impending ruin upon herself. Note, [1.] There are things which belong to our peace, which we are all concerned to know and understand; the way how peace is made, the offers made of peace, the terms on which we may have the benefit of peace. The things that belong to our peace are those things that relate to our present and future welfare; these we must know with application. [2.] There is a time of visitation when those things which belong to our peace may be known by us, and known to good purpose. When we enjoy the means of grace in great plenty, and have the word of God powerfully preached to us–when the Spirit strives with us, and our own consciences are startled and awakened–then is the time of visitation, which we are concerned to improve. [3.] With those that have long neglected the time of their visitation, if at length, if at last, in this their day, their eyes be opened, and they bethink themselves, all will be well yet. Those shall not be refused that come into the vineyard at the eleventh hour. [4.] It is the amazing folly of multitudes that enjoy the means of grace, and it will be of fatal consequence to them, that they do not improve the day of their opportunities. The things of their peace are revealed to them, but are not minded or regarded by them; they hide their eyes from them, as if they were not worth taking notice of. They are not aware of the accepted time and the day of salvation, and to let it slip and perish through mere carelessness. None are so blind as those that will not see; nor have any the things of their peace more certainly hidden from their eyes than those that turn their back upon them. [5.] The sin and folly of those that persist in a contempt of gospel grace are a great grief to the Lord Jesus, and should be so to us. He looks with weeping eyes upon lost souls, that continue impenitent, and run headlong upon their own ruin; he had rather that they would turn and live than go on and die, for he is not willing that any should perish.

      (2.) Jerusalem cannot escape the day of her desolation. The things of her peace are now in a manner hidden from her eyes; they will be shortly. Not but that after this the gospel was preached to them by the apostles; all the house of Israel were called to know assuredly that Christ was their peace (Acts ii. 36), and multitudes were convinced and converted. But as to the body of the nation, and the leading part of it, they were sealed up under unbelief; God had given them the spirit of slumber, Rom. xi. 8. They were so prejudiced and enraged against the gospel, and those few that did embrace it then, that nothing less than a miracle of divine grace (like that which converted Paul) would work upon them; and it could not be expected that such a miracle should be wrought, and so they were justly given up to judicial blindness and hardness. The peaceful things are not hidden from the eyes of particular persons; but it is too late to think now of the nation of the Jews, as such, becoming a Christian nation, by embracing Christ. And therefore they are marked for ruin, which Christ here foresees and foretels, as the certain consequence of their rejecting Christ. Note, Neglecting the great salvation of ten brings temporal judgments upon a people; it did so upon Jerusalem in less than forty years after this, when all that Christ here foretold was exactly fulfilled. [1.] The Romans besieged the city, cast a trench about it, compassed it round, and kept their inhabitants in on every side. Josephus relates that Titus ran up a wall in a very short time, which surrounded the city, and cut off all hopes of escaping. [2.] They laid it even with the ground. Titus commanded his soldiers to dig up the city, and the whole compass of it was levelled, except three towers; see Josephus’s history of the wars of the Jews, 5. 356-360; 7. 1. Not only the city, but the citizens were laid even with the ground (thy children within thee), by the cruel slaughters that were made of them: and there was scarcely one stone left upon another. This was for their crucifying Christ; this was because they knew not the day of their visitation. Let other cities and nations take warning.

      II. The zeal he showed for the present purification of the temple. Though it must be destroyed ere long, it does not therefore follow that no care must be taken of it in the mean time.

      1. Christ cleared it of those who profaned it. He went straight to the temple, and began to cast out the buyers and sellers, v. 45. Hereby (though he was represented as an enemy to the temple, and that was the crime laid to his charge before the high priest) he made it to appear that he had a truer love for the temple than they had who had such a veneration for its corban, its treasury, as a sacred thing; for its purity was more its glory than its wealth was. Christ gave reason for his dislodging the temple-merchants, v. 46. The temple is a house of prayer, set apart for communion with God: the buyers and sellers made it a den of thieves by the fraudulent bargains they made there, which was by no means to be suffered, for it would be a distraction to those who came there to pray.

      2. He put it to the best use that ever it was put to, for he taught daily in the temple, v. 47. Note, It is not enough that the corruptions of a church be purged out, but the preaching of the gospel must be encouraged. Now, when Christ preached in the temple, observe here, (1.) How spiteful the church-rulers were against him; how industrious to seek an opportunity, or pretence rather, to do him a mischief (v. 47): The chief priests and scribes, and the chief of the people, the great sanhedrim, that should have attended him, and summoned the people too to attend him, sought to destroy him, and put him to death. (2.) How respectful the common people were to him. They were very attentive to hear him. He spent most of his time in the country, and did not then preach in the temple, but, when he did, the people paid him great respect, attended on his preaching with diligence, and let no opportunity slip of hearing him, attended to it with care, and would not lose a word. Some read it, All the people as they heard him, took his part; and so it comes in very properly as a reason why his enemies could not find what they might do against him; they saw the people ready to fly in their faces if they offered him any violence. Till his hour was come his interest in the common people protected him; but, when his hour was come, the chief priests’ influence upon the common people delivered him up.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Wept (). Ingressive aorist active indicative, burst into tears. Probably audible weeping.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

He drew nigh. “Again the procession advanced. The road descends a slight declivity, and the glimpse of the city is again withdrawn behind the intervening ridge of Olivet. A few moments, and the path mounts again; it climbs a rugged ascent, it reaches a ledge of smooth rock, and in an instant the whole city bursts into view…. It is hardly possible to doubt that this rise and turn of the road was the exact point where the multitude paused again, and He, when he beheld the city, wept over it” (Stanley).

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

JESUS WEPT OVER JERUSALEM V. 41-44

1) “And when he was come near,” (kai hos engisen) “And as he drew near,” to Jerusalem, just overlooking the city from the East, near which He was soon to be crucified and buried, approaching the valley of Kedron, with the valley of Hinnom to the South, and the city towers and palaces before Him.

2) “He beheld the city,” (Won ten polin) “Beholding the city,” the city of peace, took a long last look at it, with its religious rulers having rejected Him, and then plotting His death; See La 3:51. Our Lord, as a man both rejoiced and wept.

3) “And wept over it.” (eklausen ep’ auten) “He wept over it,” wept aloud, being emotionally moved, very deeply, as also recounted Mat 23:37-39; Luk 13:34-35; Heb 4:15-16.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

41. And wept over it. As there was nothing which Christ more ardently desired than to execute the office which the Father had committed to him, and as he knew that the end of his calling was to gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel, (Mat 15:24,) he wished that his coming might bring salvation to all. This was the reason why he was moved with compassion, and wept over the approaching destruction of the city of Jerusalem. For while he reflected that this was the sacred abode which God had chosen, in which the covenant of eternal salvation should dwell — the sanctuary from which salvation would go forth to the whole world, it was impossible that he should not deeply deplore its ruin. And when he saw the people, who had been adopted to the hope of eternal life, perish miserably through their ingratitude and wickedness, we need not wonder if he could not refrain from tears.

As to those who think it strange that Christ should bewail an evil which he had it in his power to remedy, this difficulty is quickly removed. For as he came down from heaven, that, clothed in human flesh, he might be the witness and minister of the salvation which comes from God, so he actually took upon him human feelings, as far as the office which he had undertaken allowed. And it is necessary that we should always give due consideration to the character which he sustains, when he speaks, or when he is employed in accomplishing the salvation of men; as in this passage, in order that he may execute faithfully his Father’s commission, he must necessarily desire that the fruit of the redemption should come to the whole body of the elect people. Since, therefore, he was given to this people as a minister for salvation, it is in accordance with the nature of his office that he should deplore its destruction. He was God, I acknowledge; but on all occasions when it was necessary that he should perform the office of teacher, his divinity rested, and was in a manner concealed, that it might not hinder what belonged to him as Mediator. By this weeping he proved not only that he loved, like a brother, those for whose sake he became man, but also that God made to flow into human nature the Spirit of fatherly love.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

Butlers Comments

SECTION 4

Peace (Luk. 19:41-44)

41 And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it,42saying, Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. 43For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, 44and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.

Luk. 19:41-42 Weeping: The crowds were clamoring, almost in hysteria, shouting loudly, Peace in heaven. . . . They were apparently oblivious to the Lord Himself so taken were they with their own emotions. As He rounded the crest of the Mt. of Olives and the thousand-year-old capitol city of the Jews came into view, He wept. The Greek word eklausen is translated wept but it means much more than tears; it suggests that His whole body was heaving with sobbing. It is the kind of deep, soulful sobbing the human body suffers at the death of a loved one. None of the crowd Seemed to notice except perhaps one of His disciples who gave Luke this eyewitness account later. It is interesting that this particular incident is recorded only by Luke.

Jerusalem (Hebrew, Yerushalom) means, Righteousness Peace. They were shouting Peace in heaven. . . . but they had no idea of what it meant. Peace (in the Hebrew language, shalom) means, soundness, wholeness, well-being. Peace as it relates to God may be experienced by man even in the midst of earthly conflict (cf. Joh. 14:27; Isa. 26:3). Jerusalem was the City of Peace and yet it represented the center of all that stood in opposition to the God of peace. Its people, for the most part, did not know the way of peacenot then, not ever. Isaiah condemned the nation in his day because it did not know the way of peace (cf. Isa. 59:8). This is the city of Gods presence but the frivolous, materialistic-minded mobs, and the self-righteous rulers have taken the kingdoms by violence for themselves. The attitudes of the Jews toward Jesus are so vividly like those of the Jews toward God and His prophets in the days of Jeremiah (cf. Jer. 6:16 ff.) that one should not be surprised at the terrible devastation predicted by Jesus here. Peace, true peace, is not the absence of struggle, discipline or conflict; it is the result of reconciliation and surrender to the will of God by being in Christ (cf. Eph. 2:11-22). This is what the inhabitants of Jerusalem rejected.

Luk. 19:43-44 Warning: Jesus gives a somber and gruesome prediction in a general way here of what will happen to the Jews because of their soon rejection of the Prince of Peace. Later He gives in great detail the same prediction (Luk. 21:5-32; Mat. 23:37 to Mat. 24:35; Mar. 13:1-31). We will deal with this prediction fully in Luk. 21:5-32. Jerusalems enemies (the Romans) would cast up a bank (siege wall) around the city and hem them in. Thousands would starve to death, other thousands would fight and kill one another. Then the Romans would dash many to the ground, including infants as they slaughtered the besieged Jews. Josephus documents the literal fulfillment of Jesus prophecy in 6670 A.D. in his history of the Jews. Titus Vespasian razed Jerusalem so that it looked like a plowed field, and not one stone was left upon another. The crowds seem unaware of this shocking prophecy. His prediction, if heard, would have been considered outrageous and completely out-of-place. Even His own disciples later (Mat. 23:37 to Mat. 24:35) could not believe that not one stone would be left upon another in their beloved Jerusalem. When Jesus said that so they could hear it later, they thought He was talking about the end of the world. To a Jew, the destruction of Jerusalem would be the end of the world. But, as incredible as it seemed, it came to pass to the very letter of the prediction just 40 years after Jesus said it.

All this was to come upon them because they did not know the time of their visitation, The Greek word episkopes means literally, to look upon, care for, exercise oversight. It may be used to denote a visitation from God in judgment (Isa. 10:3 in the LXX episkopes) or a visitation by the Son of man with mercy and redemption (Luk. 1:68; Luk. 1:78; Luk. 7:16; Act. 15:14; Heb. 2:6). God visited man in the Person of His Son, as Man, to exercise oversight for the purpose of accomplishing mans redemption. The prophets of the Jews predicted God would visit man as Man (Isa. 7:14; Mic. 5:2 ff.; Isa. 9:6 ff.; Isa. 11:1-9; etc.). But when that Man came and claimed to be God in the flesh (Joh. 1:14; Joh. 1:18) they accused Him of blasphemy (Joh. 5:18) and plotted to kill Him. He invaded history in a fashion quite contrary to the human concept of how God would come. Gods chosen people had been manipulating the written Law of God, His temple, His priesthood and His creation so long they thought they could manipulate Him. But God in the flesh, Jesus, would not be manipulated. When they rejected Him, He rejected them. They did not know Him because they did not know God (Joh. 5:30-47; Joh. 8:19; Joh. 8:42-47; Joh. 10:31-39; Joh. 14:8-11, etc.). He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not . . . He came to his own home, and his own people received him not, (Joh. 1:10-11). Tragedytragedytragedy! And in spite of documentation by eyewitnesses of the historical reality of visitation by God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, most of the world today does not acknowledge with any personal obligation and responsibilitynot even of praisethat He has visited to bring peace. What is left then for those who pass from this life into the next without personal recognition and responsible commitment to that Visitor? The opposite of peaceeternal rebellion, fragmentation and torment. It is important to notice here Jesus pity never led Him to compromise the truth. In spite of the deep grief which made His whole body shudder with sobbing, He pronounced the terrible truth of Jerusalems doom. Had He known it and kept it to Himself no sane person could call Him compassionate! Pity alone never saved anyone; the compassion which elicits truth spoken and acted is what saves.

Appleburys Comments

Jesus Lament Over Jerusalem
Scripture

Luk. 19:41-44 And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. 43 For the days shall come upon thee, when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, 44 and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Comments

he saw the city and wept over it.What should have been a joyous occasion, for the people were praising Him as King, was a sad one to Jesus. Not the momentary acclaim of the crowds, but the fact that many of these same people who soon would be crying out, Crucify him, crucify him, was in the mind of the Lord. The deep sorrow that disturbed him as He thought of what was going to happen to the City of the Great King caused Him to break forth in sobs that shooks His body. Once before His sorrow had caused Him to break into tears. That was just before He raised Lazarus from the dead (Joh. 11:35). Luke does not mention tears at this time; he told about the agonizing sobs that expressed the Saviors grief.

If thou hadst known.Jesus spoke to the city, meaning, of course, the people of the city. If they had known the things of peace which even then were hid from their eyes, they would have escaped the awful destruction that was coming upon them. If they had listened to the message of the angels song at the time of His birth or to His teaching about the peacemakers or to His pleas for sinners to repent before it was too late, they would have escaped the most terrible punishment ever visited on any city (Mat. 24:21).

This may well indicate the remorse of those who will stand in the Judgment without having made peace through the blood of His cross.

but now they are hid from your eyes.The things of peace were hid from their eyes, for they saw Jesus only as a man who was perverting their nation (Luk. 23:2).

For the days shall come upon thee.Jesus foretold in detail what was coming upon the city. He mentions it briefly here but in detail in Mat. 24:1-34 and Luk. 21:5-32. Escape would be cut off; the people would be crashed to the ground; the city would be completely destroyed. It all happened in 70 A. D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.

became thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.What is meant by visitation? There are two possible interpretations of this passage. In Isa. 10:3, the Hebrew word which is translated in the LXX by the Greek word that Luke uses here means a visitation that results in punishment. This illustrates the fact that the word can be used of the coming of the Judge who rewards the faithful and punishes the wicked. See 1Pe. 2:12 where this might apply. But in Luk. 1:68, it is stated that God visited His people and wrought redemption for them. This was in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The consensus of commentators is that visitation in Luk. 19:44 refers to the redemption which Jerusalem did not accept, just as she did not know the things of peace. But Jesus might have been speaking of the destruction that He was to bring on the city that rejected Him, when He mentioned the time of their visitation.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(41) He beheld the city, and wept over it.This, and the tears over the grave of Lazarus (Joh. 11:35), are the only recorded instances of our Lords tears. It is significant that in the one case they flow from the intensity of personal friendship, in the other from that of the intense love of country which we know as patriotism. Neither element of character could well be wanting in the perfect pattern of a holiness truly human.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

41. Near the city At the moment when descending the summit of Olivet the city appeared in its beauty before him.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And when he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it,’

Then Jesus moved solemnly on towards the city, and as He saw its future He wept over it. His thoughts were full and overflowing. He had no pleasure at the thought of the judgment that was coming on this city because of what they were going to do to Him. There was only the thought of, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’. There is something hugely dramatic about this entry into Jerusalem, with Jesus offering Himself as its King and Messiah, and yet weeping because He knows that it will reject Him and bring on itself its own judgment, even though the final result will be God’s offer of salvation to the world.

For a comparison with the weeping of Jeremiah over what was to happen to the old Jerusalem see Jer 8:18; Jer 8:21; Jer 9:1; Jer 15:5. He too foresaw hope following disaster (Jer 29:10; Jer 31:31-34).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Christ’s lament over Jerusalem:

v. 41. And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it,

v. 42. saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes.

v. 43. For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,

v. 44. and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Jesus continued on His way, accompanied by shouts of “Hosanna!” and songs of praise, until He reached a point opposite the city. And there suddenly He burst into tears, weeping aloud, as one in the depths of grief. Note: The tears of Jesus over the reprobate city of Jerusalem are the best evidence that He is sincere in His redemption for the sins of the whole world, that He wants all men to be saved. If the inhabitants of the capital city had but known, if they had but had the right understanding, if they had not deliberately hardened their hearts! In extraordinary fullness and brightness their day of grace had come upon them, since the Son of God personally had come into their midst and brought the glorious Gospel of their redemption to them. But now the day of grace was drawing to its close, and still the understanding pertaining to their salvation was hidden before their eyes. Because of their unbelief and hard-heartedness the time of grace was rapidly coming to a close, and the salvation which they had foolishly sought by means of works was as far from them as ever. And not only the fact of their unbelief and hard-heartedness caused. the bitter tears of the Lord, but also the fact that He knew the fate of the city, saw the final destruction taking place before the vision of His omniscience. There is a picture of coming ruin before His eyes: Enemies coming upon the city, like hawks upon their prey; they dig trenches and erect walls of palisades all around the capital; they draw an impenetrable ring around her; they enclose her from all sides, leaving not a loophole of escape; they cast the city down to the ground and all her inhabitants within her (raze the city, dash the people to pieces); they do not permit one stone to remain upon the other within her: and all, because Jerusalem and its inhabitants had refused to recognize the time of their visitation, when the Lord came to them in the richness of His mercy and offered full atonement, life, and salvation to all the people of Israel. If anyone despises the visitation of grace that comes upon him in time, when the Word of God is brought to his attention, when he has the use of the means of grace, then the time will come when spiritual blindness will set in, as the penalty of such contempt; and then comes the Judgment. O, that all people to whom the Word of grace is proclaimed, would remember at all times the bitter tears of the Lord over Jerusalem, and know in time the things which belong to their peace!

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

2. The Manifestation of the Glory of the King in Word and Deed (Luk 19:41-48)

41And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, 42Saying, If thou [also] hadst known, even10 thou [om., even thou], at least in this thy day, the things 43which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the [om., the] days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench [embankment] about thee, and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side, 44And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. 45And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold [the sellers] therein, and them that bought [omit these 5 words11]; 46Saying unto them, It is written, [And12] My house is [shall be] the [a] house of prayer (Isa 56:7); but ye have made it a den of thieves 47[robbers]. And he taught [was teaching] daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and [also13] the chief of the people sought to destroy him, 48And could not find what they might do: for all the people were very attentive to hear him [hung, listening, upon him,14 ].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk 19:41. And wept.Not only , as in Joh 11:35, but , with loud voice and words of lamentation. What the cause of these tears is, appears from and the immediately following words. Again, it is Luke alone who has preserved to us this affecting trait, and it scarcely needs to be mentioned how exactly such a trait fits into the gospel which teaches us in our Lord to know the true and holy Son of Man. And yet we cannot be surprised that precisely this genuinely and purely human trait, even from of old, has been to many a stumbling-block and scandal. In relation to this, it is noticeable (see Grotius, ad loc.) that the words . in individual ancient manuscripts do not appear; , says, however, Epiphanius, the words are read. Mutarunt homines temerarii et delicati, quibus flere Christo indignum videbatur.

Luk 19:42. If thou also hadst known.Pathetic aposiopesis, and thereby the expression of a fruitless wish. Meyer. The thou also places the unbelieving inhabitants of Jerusalem in opposition to the disciples of our Lord, who had really considered , perhaps a delicate allusion to what the name of Jerusalem as City of Peace (Salem) signifies. The here-designated can be no other than what our Lord, Luk 19:44, calls . Comp. Luk 1:68. The whole time of the public activity of our Lord in Jerusalem was a respite of two years, which had been prepared for more than twenty centuries, and now, as it were, concentrated itself in the one day on which the Lord entered as King into Jerusalem. This Jerusalem would have known (), if it had unanimously rendered homage to its Messiah; but although the Lord here also had found individual believing hearts, yet Jerusalem as a city rejected its King; the recognized Him not. It was hidden from their eyes who He was, and what a salvation He would bestow. according to the righteous counsel of God, Mat 11:25-26, but not without their own personal guilt.

Luk 19:43. Days shall come.Luk 19:43-44 is the text of the powerful discourse respecting the destruction of Jerusalem which our Lord, Luk 21:5 seq., two days afterwards delivered before His disciples. The which are now threatened are the terrible consequences of the fact that the , Luk 19:43, has hastened by in vain. does not depend on , so that thereby the thing that is hidden is indicated (Theophylact), neither is it any strengthening word, in the sense of profecto utique (Starke), but the common signification for must be here retained, in the sense that the wish, Luk 19:42, has thereby a reason given for it, as if the Saviour would say, I might indeed wish that, &c., for now the things that belong to thy peace remain hidden from thine eyes. Now impends, &c.

An embankment, , masculine.It is remarkable how our Lord not only in general foretells the destruction of Jerusalem, but also in particular describes the way and method in which this judgment should be accomplished. He announces a formal siege, in which they should avail themselves of all the then usual auxiliaries and should permit themselves all the atrocities which victors have at any time exercised against the vanquished. First He mentions the , a camp strengthened with palisades and line of circumvallation, in short, a wall such as we actually read in Josephus (De Bell. Jdg 5:6; Jdg 5:2; Jdg 5:12; Jdg 5:2) was thrown up around Jerusalem, but burned by the Jews. Afterwards, in consequence of this structure, . We may here understand the wall thirty stadia long, which Titus in three days caused to be erected around the city, in place of the burnt . In consequence of this measure the desolation now breaking in upon her and upon her children () becomes general. This word occurs in a twofold signification: to level with the earth and to dash to the ground (Psa 137:9); the first prophesies the fate of the city, the other that of her inhabitants, both being here zeugmatically connected. Finally, the conclusion of all this, no stone remains upon another, so that now, Luk 19:40, the stones begin to cry out. This last part of the prophecy was first completely fulfilled after the insurrection of Bar-Cochba in the days of the Emperor Adrian, and this is the terrible result, continuing unto the present day, of this one blinding, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation! In this conclusion, and especially in this continually ascending , , lies a orationis, which can be better felt than described.

Luk 19:45. And He went into the temple.Comp. the parallels in Matthew and Mark. Luke, who entirely passes over the cursing of the fig-tree, relates also the temple-cleansing only briefly. In fact, he only states the beginning of this symbolical transaction (), while Matthew also notices the successful end (). To him it is especially remarkable that the Saviour begins His last sojourn and converse in the sanctuary with so strong a measure. Respecting the manner of the expulsion also, and for the precise description of the persons expelled, compare Matthew and Mark. The citation from Isa 56:7, Luke has in common with them, while he with Matthew omits the , apparently only for the sake of brevity. As to the question whether the temple-cleansing took place once or twice, comp. Lange, Matthew, p. 376. We also decide for a repetition of the transaction, since the opposite opinion falls into far more difficulties, inasmuch as it must either impeach John or the Synoptics of the greatest inexactness. It agrees entirely with the typical and symbolical character of this transaction, that our Lord began as well as concluded His life therewith. Besides, the circumstances also are so very different that they make identity improbable. As respects now particularly this second temple-cleansing, those who find difficulty in supposing that our Lord, a few days before His death, should have repeated an act which might prepossess or embitter the secular power against Him, may for the same reason account the denunciatory discourse (Matthew 23) as entirely fictitious. That our Saviour did not perform this act at the second Passover, too, is simply to be ascribed to the circumstance that at that Passover He was not at Jerusalem, Joh 6:1-4. Who knows whether, perhaps, after the first temple-cleansing, the abuse thus animadverted upon did not diminish or entirely cease; and on the contrary, the priestly party, out of spite against our Lord and at the same time in order to elicit new opposition, restore it anew on the last feast? Then it would at the same time be explained why His words of rebuke at the second cleansing sound even sharper than at the first. In view of the brevity of the Synoptical relation, we cannot be surprised that neither in the language of our Lord nor in the conduct of those expelled, do we meet with a reminiscence of the previous temple-cleansing. Perhaps, however, the still recollection of the first contributed to weaken opposition at the second.

Luk 19:47. And He was teaching daily.Striking and vivid representation of the state of things in this critical point of time. On the side of our Lord, unshaken courage, composure, and energy of spirit, with which He every day shows Himself publicly, joined with beseeming care for His own security, which moves Him not to pass the night in Jerusalem so long as His hour has not yet come. On the side of His enemies, irreconcilable hatred and thoughts of murder, especially on the part of the worldly aristocracy, which counts itself mortally endangered by Him. On the side of the people, undiminished delight in hearing Him, on which account His enemies, with their base designs, can as yet obtain no handle against the Saviour. The people hang on His lips. The more they hear the more they wish to hear (, cum gen.). As bees on the flowers on which they seek honey, or as young birds on the mouth of the old ones from whom they would have food. Meanwhile His enemies are visibly perplexed. They find not what they shall do to Him. The Saviour and the people alike are for the moment an obstacle to them. Thus is displayed on the one side the might of unarmed innocence, on the other the impotency of armed and resolved malice.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Never man spake like this man (Joh 7:46). This word proved true not only in Jerusalems temple, but also at Jerusalems gate. The eloquence of the words of Jesus is great, that of His silence, perchance, yet greater, but that of His tears passes all description. The tears of the Lord at the grave of Lazarus and those at the entry into Jerusalem have so much analogy, and yet again so much diversity, that the consideration of these relations furnishes admirable contributions towards the knowledge of the person and the character of our Lord. The contrast between this jubilant multitude and the weeping Saviour, between the deepest blindness on the one and the most infallible knowledge on the other side, is so speaking, and moreover so taken from the life, that here also the declaration can be applied: This trait could not have been invented. With right says Augustine, Lacrym Domini, gaudia mundi.

2. Not without reason has there been found at all times in this prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, on the very place where afterwards the Romans pitched their first camp, one of the strongest proofs of the infallible and Divine foreknowledge of Jesus. The comparison of this declaration with the account of Josephus is the work of the apologist. Thereby, at the same time, must not be forgotten what an unhappy result the godless attempt for the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Julian the Apostate had. See Chrysost., Oratio 3 adv. Judos. [Chrysostom says, in substance, that under the impious emperor the Jews were permitted to attempt the rebuilding of the temple, that it might not be said that they could have rebuilt it if they would; but that flames bursting out from the foundations drove them away; while yet the foundations which they had begun remained even in his day as witnesses at once of their purpose and of their impotency to accomplish it. The truth of this account of Chrysostom is, as we know, supported by the testimony of the impartial Ammianus Marcellinus; and all the sneers of Gibbon at this specious and splendid miracle do not render it less certain that Divine Providence, in a wonderful way, took care that the prophecy of the Son of God should not be frustrated. Whether this were a miracle in the sphere of nature or not is a matter of little moment; it is, at all events, an illustrious miracle of Providence.C. C. S.]

3. The holy tears of Jesus show how Gods heart is disposed towards men when they fall into sin and destruction. Even in God we may conceive a compassionate sorrow, only that it is ever at the same time removed again by His eternal love, wisdom, and holiness. In Jesus, these tears over Jerusalem are at the same time tears of high-priestly intercession and mediation, and belong, in so far, to all men. Comp. Heb 5:7. Von Gerlach.

4. Our admiration of the majesty of our Lord increases yet more when we see how He, who certainly knows that He must give up Jerusalem for lost, continues yet, even in the last days of His life, with unwearied and holy zeal to be active in Jerusalem. Even when He knows that the mass will not let itself be saved, He continues to have compassion on the individuals. Precisely for this reason is His love so adorable, that it becomes at no moment weak; and while it weeps the fate of sinners, vehemently burns against sin, but this wrath seeks not itself, but the Fathers honor. At His entry Jesus weeps over the lot of Jerusalem. At His going out He says, Weep not, Luk 23:28.

5. The temple-cleansing is one of the acts of our Lord which have sometimes been elevated too high, sometimes depreciated too low. The former has been the case when men have believed themselves to see here a miracle in the ordinary sense of the word, nay, esteemed it as even greater than, for instance, the miracle of Cana. See Origen, ad h. l.; Jerome, ad Mat 21:15; Lampe in Comment. Against this we have to remember the moral predominance which a personality like that of the Saviour must have had over souls which were so mean and weak as these, and to remember the many examples of similar triumphs of truth and right over the servants of deceit and unrighteousness which we meet with even in profane history. On the other hand, some have in this act, without reason, found occasion to throw suspicion on the moral purity of our Lord, and as it were turned the scourge of small cords against Himself. We have here to call to mind not only the right of the Zealots, but very especially the right of the Son in the house of His Father, and especially to take note of the union of a holy wrath with compassionate love which beams through this act of the Saviour. Shortly after He has wielded the scourge, He stretches out the helping hand, which has but just expelled the rabble, towards cripples and wretched ones; these wretched ones, whom compassion had brought into the temple, the omnipotence of love has healed. Comp. Mat 21:14, and in reference to the first temple-cleansing the interesting section: The Banner on the Mountain, in Baumgartens Geschichte Jesu, Brunswick, 1859, pp. 99111.

6. The temple-cleansing the symbol of the whole life of our Lord, as also of the purpose of His manifestation on earth. See Cyril. Alex. ii.1; Origen, tom. x. p. 16; Augustine, Tract, in Evangel. Joh., and others. Comp. Mal 3:1, and Luk 3:15. An admirable work of art representing the temple-cleansing by Jouvenet.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Behold thy King cometh to thee.How the Lord at His entry into Jerusalem reveals His kingly character: 1. By His tears; 2. by His word; 3. by His deed in the temple.Jesus tears the most beautiful pearls in His crown of glory.Jesus love to an unthankful people and to a native country destined to destruction.Anger at sin and compassion for the sinners united in the Saviour.The King of Israel at the same time the compassionate High-priest.The acceptable time, the day of salvation (2Co 6:2).Whoever despises the one day of salvation has many evil days to expect.The Romans at the siege of Jerusalem the witnesses for the truth of the word of Jesus.Great grace, great blindness, great retribution.The contrast between the last entry of our Lord into Jerusalem and His last departure.The Son in the desecrated house of His Father: 1. How vehement is His wrath; 2. with what dignity He speaks; 3. how graciously He blesses.The Scripture the rule according to which everything in Divine service also must be guided.Yet again will the Lord clear His temple: 1. In the heart; 2. in the house; 3. in the church; 4. in the whole creation.My house is a house of prayer, how this word points us: 1. To inestimable privileges; 2. to holy obligations; 3. to high expectations.The temple of the Lord: 1. Its original destination; 2. its later perversion; 3. its final perfection.It is the best, which through human wickedness is most shamefully corrupted (Rom 7:13).The Passion-week a striking proof of the faithfulness of our Lord to the once uttered principle (Joh 9:4).The remarkable drama which the temple after the entry and the cleansing presents: 1. A throng of hearers eager for salvation; 2. an impotent throng of enemies; 3. over against both the Lord, immaculate, unwearied, fearless.Jesus already triumphant even before His apparent overthrow; His enemies already defeated even before their seeming triumph.

Starke:Langii Op.:The nearer and greater the grace is, the nearer and greater the judgments if it is not received.Zeisius:Consider, O man, what the tears of Jesus have in them, and let them melt thy heart to repentance.There is nothing more to be wept over than the spiritual blindness of man.Hedinger:Blindness comes before destruction.Canstein:Even the time or grace has with God its limitation.Osiander: -When the wrath of God blazes forth, it rages very terribly against the impenitent.Luther:The contemning of the gospel brings lands and cities to destruction.Holiness is the ornament of the house of God (Psa 93:5).Against open abominations there suits a thorough earnestness.Nova Bibl. Tub.:How many in the temple who have murdered their souls by presumptuous sins.Quesnel:The Church is not only a house of prayer, but also a house of instruction.Hardened men will rather inflict mischief on pious preachers than amend themselves.Zeisius:Without Gods will no harm can happen to His faithful servants.Jesus has among the common people more friends than among the chief ones.To hang on Jesus lips and hear Him is good, but not enough.

Heubner:The diverse value of many tears.To every blinded sinner we can exclaim, If thou hadst known!To every one is his time of grace allotted.The sinner has a bandage before his eyes.The fate of our posterity should urge us to repentance.The invincibleness of love.Guard thee against everything which can disturb devotion in others and destroy the soul.The churches the asylums of the truth.Some friends the truth finds ever.

On the Pericope.The sorrow of Jesus at the last view of Jerusalem: 1. Sources; 2. effects.How the tears of Jesus yet speak to us.Great cities as the seat of great corruption.The value of the tears of the Christian.Couard:Jerusalem and the Jewish people: 1. Jerusalems time of grace; 2. Jerusalems hardening; 3. Jerusalems fall.The tears of Christians here below: 1. Tears of joy; 2. tears of repentance; 3. tears of sorrow.Souchon:The knowing of the time of visitation.Palmer:Jerusalems blindness: 1. Near to it is destruction, but no one forebodes it; 2. near to it is salvation, but no one will recognize it.The Saviour: 1. In His tears; 2. in His zeal of fire; 3. how He by both calls us to repentance.Rautenberg:Jesus tears over Jerusalem, tears to awaken: 1. Compassion; 2. terror; 3. affection; 4. consolation.Tholuck:1. These tears a shame to our cold hearts; 2. a rebuke to our light-mindedness; 3. a shaking of our security.Von Kapff:The judgments of the Lord: 1. The judgment of grace; 2. the judgment of wrath; 3. the judgment of cleansing; 4. the judgment of hardening; 5. the judgment of condemnation.Arndt:Jesus the Friend of His country.Van Oosterzee:Jesus tears over Jerusalem: 1. Jerusalems shame; 2. Jesus honor; 3. our joy.The same:The temple-cleansing a type of the Reformation of the sixteenth century; it reminds us: 1. Of the history of the Reformation; 2. of the glory of the Reformation; 3. of the admonitions of the Reformation.On 1. The abuses which the Reformation assailed; the principle to which it did homage; the spirit which it revealed; the reception which it found. On 2. Like the temple-cleansing, so was also the Reformation a restoration of the spiritual worship of God, the revelation of the glory of Christ, the beginning of a new development in the kingdom of God on earth. On 3. the Reformation admonishes those who desecrate the temple to repentance, those who honor the temple to zeal, those who know the Lord of the temple to continual remembrance of His deeds. Comp. Joh 2:22.

Footnotes:

[10]Luk 19:42.We consider ourselves as obliged to retain both and , held as doubtful by Lachmann.

[11]Luk 19:45.The longer reading of the Recepta: , appears to be borrowed from the parallels. [The briefer reading found in B., C, Cod. Sin., L.; accepted by Tischendorf, Meyer, Tregelles, Al-ford.C. C. S.]

[12]Luk 19:46.See Tischendorf, ad locum. [The reading, , …, at the beginning of the citation, for , at the end, is found in B., L., R. Cod. Sin. omits both the copulative and the verb. The reading of Van Oosterzee is that of Tischendorf, Meyer, Tregelles, Alford.C. C. S.]

[13][Luk 19:47.I have inserted also as the briefest way of conveying the force of the separation of the third nominative from the first two.C. C. S.]

[14][Luk 19:48.Revised Version of the American Bible Union.C. C. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 1568
CHRISTS COMPASSION TO LOST SINNERS

Luk 19:41-42. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

IN profane history we are often called upon to admire the actions of conquerors, and of heroes. But most of the feats proposed for our admiration serve rather to evince the depravity of our nature; and are calculated only to excite horror and disgust in a well-instructed mind. Perhaps, of real magnanimity, the world never yet witnessed a more glorious instance than that before us; wherein we behold the Saviour of mankind weeping over his blood-thirsty enemies, and most pathetically lamenting their invincible ignorance and unbelief. To enter fully into the scope of his words, it will be necessary to consider them,

I.

In reference to Jerusalem

The Jews had long been the most favoured nation under heaven
[They had had the oracles of God committed to them, when the rest of the world were left to the suggestions of unenlightened reason. The way of life and salvation was exhibited to them in their daily sacrifices, and more especially in those offered annually on the great day of atonement. They had been taught by a long succession of prophets, who were divinely qualified and commissioned to make known to them the will of God. Above all, they had now been privileged to hear the Messiah himself, and to see all his doctrines confirmed with the most numerous, most stupendous, and most unquestionable miracles. These were such advantages for the obtaining of eternal life as none others ever enjoyed, and such as must have proved effectual, if Satan had not blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts.]
But they were now speedily to be given over to the judgments they had merited
[They had in no respect rendered unto God according to the benefits received from him. On the contrary, they had made void the law, and established their own traditions as of superior obligation. Instead of hearkening to the prophets, they persecuted them unto death: and instead of yielding to the wisdom and authority of the Messiah, they imputed his miracles to a confederacy with the devil, and incessantly plotted to take away his life. Within the space of four days they were to fill up the measure of their iniquities by effecting their murderous purposes: and wrath was in due time to come upon them to the uttermost for all the righteous blood that they had spilled, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Christ and his Apostles. They were to be given up to judicial blindness and obduracy; and the whole nation were to suffer such calamities from the hands of the Romans, as never had been endured by any nation since the foundation of the world: and all this was but an earnest of infinitely heavier judgments, which were to abide upon them for ever and ever.]
Our Lord, foreseeing their impending miseries, was filled with compassion towards them
[He might well have spoken to them in those terms of indignant triumph, Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell? But he had far other thoughts on this occasion: knowing the full extent of the miseries that were coming on them, his bowels yearned over them. Nor did he only pity them as one possessed of human passions, but as their Mediator, who had come from heaven to seek and save them. Perhaps too the thought that he should one day be their Judge, and be necessitated to pass the awful sentence of condemnation on their souls, oppressed, and, for a moment, overwhelmed his spirit. Often had he already travailed, as it were, in birth with them; and now he was about to lay down his life for them. But, except to a little remnant, his efforts would be in vain. With respect to far the greater part of them, the things belonging to their peace were about to be hid from their eyes: yet if even at that hour they would have repented, he would gladly have gathered them, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings. But, alas! they would not; and he foresaw moreover that they never would: and therefore, despairing of ever bringing them to happiness, he looked on them with the tenderest emotions of pity, and with a flood of tears poured forth this pathetic lamentation.]
Nor could the circumstances he was in at all divert his attention from them
[He was surrounded by vast multitudes of people; yet was he not ashamed to stop the procession, and to weep before them all. They were all crying Hosannah to the Son of David; blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest; yet was he deaf to their acclamations and hosannas. He foresaw all the conflicts which he was about to sustain, and the agonies he was speedily to suffer for the satisfying of divine justice; yet was he altogether insensible to his own concerns, and occupied about the welfare of his most inveterate enemies. Who but God could have exercised such magnanimity as this, or manifested such unbounded compassion?]
But, not to confine these things to the Jews, let us consider them further,

II.

In reference to ourselves

Peculiar as these circumstances were, they were both written for our admonition, and intended to represent the compassion which Jesus yet bears towards us.
We, like the Jews, have had a day of grace afforded us
[The things belonging to our peace have been plainly revealed to us, and, we trust, faithfully declared amongst us. The way of acceptance through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, has incessantly been pointed out in the written word, in the offices of our Liturgy, in the administration of the sacraments, and in the preached Gospel. Moreover, the Holy Spirit has often striven with us to bring us to repentance; but, with respect to very many amongst us, the means have hitherto been used in vain. There are yet too many unacquainted with their depravity, and unsolicitous about an interest in the Saviour. Deeply as their eternal peace is involved in these things, they are ignorant of them, if not in theory, at least in their practical and sanctifying efficacy.]
With respect to many, this day of grace is quickly drawing to a close
[Certain it is that, even while we are yet possessing the outward means of grace, the inward power, that alone can render them effectual, may be withdrawn. God plainly warns us that his Spirit shall not alway strive with man: and that by continuing to resist the Holy Ghost, we may not only grieve and vex him, but may ultimately quench his sacred motions. And how inexpressibly dreadful is the state of one, concerning whom God has said, He is joined to idols, let him alone! If once this sentence be pronounced, the things belonging to our peace will be as effectually hidden from our eyes, as if we were cut off out of the land of the living: and we shall live henceforth only to add sin to sin, and to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. But at all events as soon as death comes, our day of grace must terminate; and, if we have lived all our days ignorant of Christ and his salvation, we have then no more hope of mercy than the fallen angels. And how many are there, not only of the aged and infirm, but also of the young and healthy, against whom death has already pointed his dart, and whose speedy dissolution is foreknown to God!]
And may we not suppose that Jesus is now looking, as it were, upon them with tender compassion?
[He has not now indeed the same susceptibility of grief and sorrow which once he had: but does be not long for the salvation of sinners as much as ever? Does lie not look on some, whose day of grace is nearly passed, and say, O that thou mightest know, at least in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace? Does he not behold even the proudest Pharisee, and the most abandoned profligate, and without excluding either of them from his mercy, say, O that thou, even thou, wouldest turn unto me, that I might save thee! Yes surely, his address to every sinner is, Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Let us suppose for a moment that he were to come into this assembly, and to look round about upon us all; what would be the feelings of his benevolent heart? Methinks, when he beheld so many ignorant of his salvation, and perishing in the midst of mercy, he would burst into a flood of tears. A sight of so many, who by disease or accident will soon be hurried into the eternal world, while yet they are unprepared to meet their God; a sight of so many continuing gay and thoughtless, or careful only about this present world, would pierce him with the deepest sorrow, and extort from him a lamentation similar to that before us. Yea, at this moment is he inspecting all our hearts, and, as far as his situation admits of it, is grieved on our account: nor can all the anthems of saints around the throne so occupy his attention, as to make him regardless of our deplorable condition.]

Let us then see the folly of an inconsiderate and careless state

[Perhaps many in that day might wonder at this exercise of Christs compassion, and consider his weeping over the people as a mark of folly and extravagance: and many at this time, if they should behold a servant of Christ expressing a concern for immortal souls in the same way, would laugh at him as a weak enthusiast. But who that knows the value of a soul, and sees in what a delusive security the generality are living, must not confess, that there is just occasion for all the compassion we can exercise, and all the zeal we can put forth? Can we imagine that Jesus would have felt so much, or given such vent to his feelings on this occasion, if there had not been sufficient reason for it. Suppose we knew for certain, that one amongst us had lost his day of grace; would it not become us all to weep over him? Let us then learn to weep for ourselves; and seek the things belonging to our peace, lest they be speedily, and for ever, hid from our eyes.]

Let us also acknowledge the blessedness of a converted state

[If our Lord wept over the ignorant and ungodly, we may well conceive that he would rejoice over those who are divinely instructed, and walking in the way of godliness. Indeed he has represented himself as the shepherd rejoicing over his recovered sheep, and the father over the returning Prodigal. He has even said, He will rejoice over us with joy, he will rest in his love, he will joy over us with singing. Surely then neither is this without a cause: there must be real reason for joy, if Jesus himself rejoice over us. A soul enlightened, sanctified, and saved! O what cause for joy! Who that knows the temporal, and much more the eternal, judgments that fell upon the great body of the Jewish nation, would not incomparably prefer the state of those, who are persecuted unto death, before that of their proud oppressors? Let us then improve this our accepted time, our day of salvation. Let us be earnest in fleeing from the wrath to come, and in laying hold on eternal life: so shall we have reason for triumph, though in the most afflictive circumstances; and shall rejoice for ever in the presence of our God, when all others shall be cast into that lake of fire, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

This view of the Lord Jesus is most lovely and endearing. We behold him here touched with the feelings of our nature, dropping tears over the beloved city, in contemplating her approaching ruin. And to be sure nothing can endear Christ so tenderly to the heart, as when we behold him manifesting the man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. It is blessed to know him, blessed to go to him, blessed to pour out our hearts before him, when the soul is taught by God the Holy Ghost, how much Jesus enters into the concerns of his people, and, from his fellow-feeling, makes their concerns his own. This is to know him as God, to know him as Man, and to draw nigh to him in the union of both.

But who should have thought that this very character of Jesus, of God and Man, in one person, which renders him so dear to his faithful, could have prompted his enemies there from to call his Godhead in question? Who would have believed it possible, had not matter of fact proved it, that the tears which Jesus shed over Jerusalem, when he contemplated her sure ruin as a city, should have been misconstrued, as though Christ lamented over any of his people there, as if they had outlived the day of grace, to whom in numberless instances, (as witness the Jerusalem sinners converted at the day of Pentecost,) the day of grace was not then arrived?

And yet such is the blindness and perversity of men, untaught of God the Holy Ghost, that by putting a wrong construction on the words and actions of Christ, they make that lamentation of Jesus over a beautiful and beloved city, given up to destruction, in a tempora1 way, as if Jesus wept over the people concerning a spiritual ruin; and render the words of Christ as if referring to the everlasting welfare of the people, which only could be meant to the present desolation of the city. If thou hadst known, (saith the Lord,) even thou, (the bloody city of Jerusalem, which hath been the slaughter-house of all the Prophets,) (see Luk 11:31-33 and also Mat 23:34-39 ) the things which Belong to thy peace; but now they are hid from their eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side; and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they, shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not, the time of thy visitation.

Now, let any man read these words of the Lord Jesus, and say, whether these things do not wholly relate to Jerusalem as a city, as a nation given up to ruin. And wherefore? but because she, knew not; nationally considered, the time of her visitation. The Prophets with one voice had foretold of Christ. Christ himself had come in conformity to the whole tenor of prophecy. The nation, nationally considered, had rejected the Lord of Life and Glory; killed the Prophets, and Jesus knew would shortly embrue their hands in his blood. The time of visitation as a city therefore is now over; the rulers as such are given up to an incurable blindness. Had the nation received Christ, as Christ, though only in an outward profession, for no more was, or could have been expected from them; then, as a nation, they would still have remained. Jesus saw this rejection, deplored the awful consequence, and wept over the city, in beholding the whole, in consequence thereof, as given up to destruction. This is the plain and evident meaning of the passage.

But what hath this to do with individuals in relation to their everlasting salvation? Who would from hence draw a conclusion, that an individual of the persons given to Christ by the Father, may out live the day of grace, and the things which might at one season have ministered to his peace, at another be forever hid from his eyes? What hath the peace of a nation, as a nation, to do with the peace of God? Is it not notorious that five thousand of those Jerusalem-sinners, who joined the rabble and the multitude of the people in crucifying Christ, were pricked to the heart on the day of Pentecost, were baptized and sanctified by the Holy Ghost? And yet these were among the persons then in Jerusalem, when our Lord wept over it, and expressed himself in those memorable words. A positive proof that they were not meant in the general destruction. So very plain and palpable is the fact, that Christ’s apostrophe referred wholly to the city, and not to the people. Jesus had many of His there, at the moment when he thus expressed himself; and who, though they, were then insensible of the Lord, yet when the Holy Ghost, according to Christ’s most sure promise, at the day of Pentecost came upon them, were converted and saved.

Reader? I have been the more particular in my view of this passage, because it hath been, and still is, and will be, in the apprehension of, unenlightened free-will men, a favorite portion to bring forward, in justification as they think, to shew that men may outlive the day of grace; but with which those blessed words of our Lord hath nothing to do. And it would be well with such men, whether preachers or hearers, to attend to what our Lord saith in another place on the same subject; and which, if rightly considered, would shew them that such a gracious blessed provision is made for all the Lord’s redeemed ones, that the day of grace can never end with them, until grace hath brought them home, and is consummated in glory. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Joh 6:37 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

33 And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt?

34 And they said, The Lord hath need of him.

35 And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.

36 And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.

37 And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;

38 Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

39 And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.

40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

Ver. 41. He beheld the city ] That common slaughter house of the prophets. Our Lord is said to have been slain at Rome,Rev 11:8Rev 11:8 , because crucified at Jerusalem by the Roman authority.

And wept over it ] Shall not we weep over the ruins of so many fair and flourishing churches, that now lie in the dirt? Christ wept in this day of his solemn inauguration. It shall be in our last triumph only that all tears shall be wiped from our eyes; till then our passions must be mixed, according to the occasions.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

41 44. ] OUR LORD WEEPS OVER JERUSALEM. Peculiar (in this form) to Luke .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

41. ] Our Lord stood on the lower part of the Mount of Olives, whence the view of the city even now is very striking. What a history of divine Love and human ingratitude lay before him!

When He grieved, it was for the hardness of men’s hearts: when He wept, in Bethany and here, it was over the fruits of sin .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Luk 19:41-44 . Jesus weeps at sight of the city and laments its doom . = when, as in many places in Lk. ., He wept aloud, like Peter (Mar 14:72 ). = to shed tears silently; for a group of synonyms with their distinctive meanings vide under in Thayer’s Grimm.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 19:41-44

41When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, 42saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.

43For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, 44and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Luk 19:41 “He saw the city and wept over it” Here we see Jesus expressing human emotions over the tragedy of His rejection by His own people (cf. Luk 13:34-35). The OT conditional promises have been nullified; only judgment remains!

Luk 19:42 “if” This is an incomplete second class conditional sentence (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures, vol. 2, p. 246). The Jewish leadership and most of the population of Jerusalem (“even you”) did not know the significance of Jesus’ coming.

NASB, NRSV”the things which make for peace”

NKJV”the things that make for your peace”

TEV”what is needed for peace”

NJB”the way to peace”

This is a broken, incomplete sentence. Jesus’ emotions over Jerusalem’s coming judgment overwhelms Him! This spiritual peace, peace with God (this is a word play on “Jerusalem,” BDB 436, “possession of peace”) comes only through faith in Christ. Jesus brought this peace if they would have only listened to Him and responded (cf. Isa 48:18). Jesus was not the kind of Messiah they expected, so they rejected Him and by so doing, sealed their physical (destruction of Jerusalem) and spiritual (personal and corporate lostness) doom.

“but now they have been hidden from your eyes” This is an aorist passive indicative. Luke mentioned this in Luk 9:45; Luk 10:21; Luk 18:34. It either denotes a divine blinding (cf. Rom 11:7; Rom 11:25) or an idiom expressing rejection.

Luk 19:43-44 This seems to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem (in five descriptive phrases of OT siege warfare, cf. Jeremiah 6) under the Roman General Titus in A.D. 70, as well as possibly foreshadowing the events of eschatological judgment (cf. Luke 21; Psalms 2; Isa 29:1-4; Ezekiel 38-39; Dan 9:24-27; Zechariah 13-14; Rev 20:7-10).

The Bible is clear that a period of persecution precedes the Second Coming. However, some commentators believe that A.D.70 completely fulfills this prediction. They are called preterists. A good example of this position is John Bray, Matthew 24 Fulfilled.

Other commentators expect a future literal fulfillment affecting the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel. They are called dispensational premillennialists. Two good books are Dispensationalism Today by Charles C. Ryrie (reformed dispensationalism) and Progressive Dispensationalism by Blaising and Bock (progressive dispensationalism). There are also many who are historical premillennialists, like George E. Ladd, who hold to a similar end-time agenda.

This may be a multiple fulfillment prophecy, but I think the NT universalizes the OT prophecies whereby geographical and/or racial Israel is no longer the key to the gospel. The OT prophecies have been fulfilled and now include all people.

Luk 19:43 “the days will come” This was an idiom used of (1) the eschatological coming of the bridegroom (cf. Luk 5:35) and (2) the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Luk 23:29). This idiom is used in the Septuagint of God’s judgment on (a) Eli and his family (cf. 1Sa 2:31) and (b) Hezekiah’s arrogant actions turning into prophecy of Judah’s and the temple’s destruction by Babylon (cf. 2Ki 20:17).

Luk 19:44 “Because you did not recognize” This refers to Luk 19:42 (second class conditional). The Jews should have seen evidence in Jesus’ words and actions that fulfilled OT prophecy. Their cherished traditions blinded them to the truth, however. May God have mercy on all of the fallen race of Adam!

Although Jesus never specifically mentions “the remnant” concept from the OT prophets, in effect, His disciples and followers were this believing prophetic remnant from Israel (cf. “little flock” of Luk 12:32). Even in the OT Israel as a whole was never “right” with YHWH. The “lost” of Luk 19:10 surely includes Israel!

“the time of your visitation” From the OT this time of visitation could be for blessing or judgment (cf. Isa 10:3; Isa 23:17; Isa 24:22; Isa 29:6, episkop in the LXX). In Luk 1:68; Luk 1:78 and 1Pe 2:12 it is a visitation of blessing for believers, but judgment for unbelievers (i.e., the Second Coming). It must be remembered that God’s love and grace spurned turns to God’s wrath of accountability and judgment (cf. the parable of Luk 19:11-27).

NASB”and they will level you to the ground and your children within you”

NKJV”and level you, and your children with you”

NRSV”they will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you”

TEV”they will completely destroy you and the people within your walls”

NJB”they will crush you and the children inside your walls to the ground”

The death of children may be an allusion to Psa 137:8-9, where the very same verb is used in the Septuagint. The verb literally means “to level” (cf. Isa 3:26), but came to mean metaphorically “to dash to the ground” (cf. Hos 10:14; Nah 3:10). This verb occurs only here in the NT. As salvation affected Zaccheus’ family (cf. Luk 19:9), so too, is judgment a corporate experience (i.e., all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, cf. Luk 19:44-45).

I often ponder this corporate aspect of biblical faith, since I have grown up in a western, individual-focused culture. However, the Bible speaks of judgment to the third and fourth generations (cf. Deu 5:9), but covenant loyalty to a thousand generations (cf. Deu 5:10; Deu 7:9)! This has helped me in my confidence that God will work with my children and their children (but this does not eliminate personal choice and consequences).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

come near. Marking the progress.

beheld . . . and = looking on. App-133.

wept = wept aloud. Greek. klaio = to wail. Not dakruo to shed silent tears, as in Joh 11:35.

over. Greek. epi. App-104.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

41-44.] OUR LORD WEEPS OVER JERUSALEM. Peculiar (in this form) to Luke.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Luk 19:41. , having beheld) A new step in His approach to the city. The sight of it moved Him. It was on that very spot afterwards that the Roman siege of the city began. See on Mat 24:15.-[, He wept) Behold before thee the compassionate King, amidst the very shouts of joy raised by His disciples! Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, and yet compels no man by force.-(V. g.) But who shall endure the sword which proceedeth out of His mouth, when He shall appear, borne on the white horse? Rev 19:11, etc.-Harm., p. 446.]- , [over or] concerning it) not [over or] concerning Himself. Comp. ch. Luk 23:28.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

the Doom of the Royal City

Luk 19:41-48

Our Lord loved the city of His race; and when it finally rejected His appeals, He knew that nothing could avert its downfall. Hence His tears! Each nation, city and individual has one day which is the crisis of existence. We cross the equator without knowing it. There is one hour in each God-forsaken life when, as in the Temple before its fall, watchers hear the words, Let us depart, and there is the rustle of wings! Notice that God visits us in mercy before He comes to us in wrath.

It was a startling act when Christ cleansed the Temple for the second time, Joh 2:13, etc. If there had been daily papers in those days, they would have chronicled it in great headlines. Extraordinary that this meek and lowly man should break out so vehemently! But His zeal for Gods house sustained and bore Him along. Let us ask Him to cleanse the temple of our heart.

These priests and scribes had vested interests to conserve, which blinded them to the beauty and glory of Christ. If we place a coin, however valueless, against the eye, it will blind us to the sun.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 30

He Beheld The City And Wept

Among the ancient pagans, there were numerous weeping gods. The dismembered moon goddess of the ancient Mexicans is portrayed as having tears of gold flowing from her eyes. In Joseph Smiths Book of Mormon, he relates his fabrication of a time when Enoch saw God weeping, tears that fell as rain upon the mountains. (Mr Smith must have smoked one too many peace pipes with the Western Indians!)

Of course, we have no regard for pagan idols and the religious myths built around them. But there are three specific passages of holy scripture that portray God our Saviour weeping tears more precious than gold. In these three texts of scripture we see the incarnate God, our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ in tears. Surely, there are things to be observed in the tender heart of our Saviour, both to instruct and comfort us, as we see him weeping.

Joh 11:35

In John 11 we see a wondrous thing. You know the context. Lazarus, a man the Saviour loved, has died. The Lord Jesus has come to raise him from the dead. Lazarus sisters, Martha and Mary, were broken-hearted and weeping.In the company of his bereaved friends at the tomb of Lazarus, we see the Son of God weeping and groaning in himself (Joh 11:32-38).

Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

Jesus wept. That 35th verse is the smallest verse in the entire Bible. Yet, in some respects, it is the largest. Here is our incarnate God weeping with his weeping people. What can this mean? Why has God the Holy Spirit caused these words to be written? What do they teach us?

They teach us that the Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed God and Saviour, is a real man, a man touched with the feeling of our infirmities. His love for Lazarus was great. When they saw him weeping, Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! Oh, how the Son of God loves us!

Though we sorrow not as others who have no hope, Gods people feel pain and sorrow just like other people do. Sorrow does not necessarily imply rebellion against the will of God, or unbelief. The most fragrant flowers are found growing in the soil of sorrow. Were there no tears in our eyes, there could be no rainbow in our souls.

If our God and Saviour is so tender and sympathetic that the sorrows of his friends caused him to weep, how much more we ought to weep with those who weep, and mourn with those who mourn!

Heb 5:7-8

This next passage describes our Saviour in the days of his flesh.

Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.

I have no doubt that this passage has specific reference to our Saviours agony of heart and soul in Gethsemane (Mar 14:34-36). In his time of great heaviness, sorrow, and distress, we find our Lord Jesus in prayer. What an example he sets before us. The first one to whom we should turn in every time of trouble is our heavenly Father. Our God should be the first to hear the words of our complaints. He may or may not relieve our trouble; but it is good for our souls for us to unburden our hearts at the throne of grace. There, and only there will we discover the all-sufficiency of his grace (Heb 4:16; Jas 5:13).

What was the cause of our Lords great heaviness and sorrow in Gethsemane? What was it that crushed our Masters heart? What so greatly disturbed him? It certainly was not the fear of physical pain or the fear of dying. It was not even the fear of dying upon the cross. Our great Saviour came into this world in our flesh that he might die as our Substitute at Calvary.

That which crushed our Saviours heart was the anticipation of being made sin for us. The heavy, heavy burden which crushed his very soul was the enormous load of sin and guilt, the sin and guilt of all Gods elect which was about to be his.

Our Saviours great sorrow was caused by his anticipation of being made sin for us. It was, wrote J. C. Ryle, a sense of the unutterable weight of our sins and transgressions which were then specially laid upon him. He who knew no sin was about to be made sin for us. He who is the only man who really knows what sin is, the only man who sees sin as God sees it was about to become sin. He who is the holy, harmless, undefiled Lamb of God was about to be made a curse for us. The holy Son of God was about to be forsaken by his Father.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, began to be sore amazed, to be in great consternation and astonishment at the sight of all the sins of his people coming upon him; at the black storm of wrath that was gathering thick over him; at the sword of justice which was brandished against him; and at the curses of the righteous law, which, like thunderbolts of vengeance from heaven, were directed at him. No wonder the verse closes by telling us that, in consideration of these things, our Saviour began to be very heavy! That which crushed our Saviours very heart and soul was the very thing for which he came into the world. It was the anticipation of all that he must endure as our Substitute.

The message of holy scripture is Substitution. The Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, our Mediator and Surety died in our place; in the place of Gods elect, as our Substitute. By his own blood, when he was made sin for us, when he was slain in our stead, he satisfied the justice of God for us, magnified his holy law, made it honourable, and purchased for us the complete, everlasting forgiveness of all our sins. He died, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Christ died at Calvary so that God might be both just and the Justifier of all who believe. It is written, By mercy and truth iniquity is purged (Pro 16:6; Rom 3:19-28; Eph 1:7).

Since the Lord Jesus Christ died as the sinners Substitute, since he has met and fully satisfied the justice of God for us, believing sinners have no reason ever to fear condemnation by God, accusation before God, or separation from God (Rom 8:1-4; Rom 8:31-39). Since Christ died for me, I cannot die. If you are in Christ, for you there is no possibility of condemnation by him, accusation before him, or separation from him.

It was the enormous load of our sin and guilt which crushed our Saviours heart in Gethsemane (Isa 53:4-6).

Th enormous load of all my guilt

Was on my Saviour laid,

When he, who knew and did no sin,

For sinners, sin was made!

Awake, O sword, in furious wrath,

Jehovah cried; and he,

(The Lamb of God, my Substitute!),

Was sacrificed for me!

In that same way, by grace and truth,

My ransomed soul is made

The righteousness of God in him,

And I from sin am freed!

This wondrous mystery of grace!

Salvation, full and free,

Shall be the subject of my songs

Throughout eternity!

Luk 19:41-44

Here in Luk 19:41-44, we see the Lord Jesus weeping over the city of Jerusalem.

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Behold the Man Christ Jesus: tender, merciful, gracious, and compassionate! Behold your God, full of compassion! He is gracious, full of compassion (Psa 112:4; Psa 78:38-39; Psa 111:4; Psa 145:8-9).

Here we see the great tenderness and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ toward sinners. When he came near Jerusalem for the last time, he beheld the city and wept over it. He knew the character of the people who lived in Jerusalem. Their cruelty, their self-righteousness, their stubbornness, their obstinate prejudice against the gospel, their pride of heart were all things open to him. He knew that they were plotting to murder him, and that in just a few days their hands would drip with his blood. Yet, he beheld the city and wept.

Why did he weep over the lost and ruined city? His own words in these four verses give us three distinct reasons for his great pity.

The Lord Jesus wept for his countrymen because they were ignorant of the gospel (Luk 19:42).

He wept for them because he knew the judgment that was coming upon them (Luk 19:43).

And he wept over the city because he knew that the judgment they suffered was the result of them despising the time of their visitation (Luk 19:44; Pro 1:23-33; Pro 29:1; Rom 9:1-3; Rom 9:31-33; Rom 10:1-4).

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

The Impenitent City

And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.Luk 19:41-42.

1. The Saviours tears were a startling contrast to the scene of rejoicing to which this incident is appended. It was in the midst of the Triumphal Entry that this occurred, when all were exulting and shouts of hallelujah thrilled the air. The simple pious hearts of the disciples were glad at this evident acceptance of their Master, and they anticipated a speedy capture of Jerusalem itself for Christ, when His cause would lay hold of the whole nation and great and glorious events would ensue. They hardly knew what they expected; but, in any case, it was to be a mighty triumph for Christ, and salvation for Israel. But as the joyful procession swept round the shoulder of the hill, and the fair city gleamed into sight, a hush came over the exulting throng; for the Lord was weeping. He had no bright and futile illusions. A wave of excitement like that which had transported the disciples could not blind Him to the actual facts of the case. He knew that He had lived, and would die, in vain, so far as that hard and proud capital was concerned. He knew that He was rejected of rulers and people; and that ears and hearts were deaf to His message. As He looked at the beautiful city, it was not with pride but with anguish. He knew that city and nation were doomed. They had had their day of visitation, and were still having itbut the sands were fast running out. In compassionate grief He yearned over them still, weeping for their blindness and hardness of heart. What a pathetic scene is here recalled to our imagination! The gay and careless city smiling in the sunlight, with eager crowds of busy men full of their interests and pleasures, full of their great religious celebration about to be keptand the Saviour looking down on it all, weeping. They were throwing away their last chance, following false lights, and dreaming false hopes, seeking false sources of peace, stopping their ears against the voice of wisdom and of love. If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

2. Those who heard Him did not understand. Nevertheless He was right. He saw things as they were, not as they seemed. His was that prophet-power which is not so truly the vision of things future as of things present, a power which is less intellectual than moral, which in the sphere of the spiritual is the equivalent of the scientific faculty in the physical orderthe power of discerning in human history the reign of law, that necessity by which effect follows upon cause, by which evil conduct must bring to pass evil fortune. He saw, and only He, how things really were with Jerusalem and its people, and therefore He saw what must happen to Jerusalem. So to Him the glowing landscape and the city shining on it like a gem were the illusion, and His doom-picture was the reality; the beauty and peace and glory were the mask; the features behind it were pain, horror, desolation. Jesus was right, and all He wept over came to pass in fullest and most bitter measure.

They climbed the Eastern slope

Which leads from Jordan up to Olivet;

And they who earlier dreams could not forget

Were flushed with eager hope.

They gained the crest, and lo!

The marble temple in the sunset gleamed,

And golden light upon its turrets streamed,

As on the stainless snow.

They shout for joy of heart,

But He, the King, looks on as one in grief;

To heart oerburdened weeping brings relief,

The unbidden tear-drops start:

Ah, hadst thou known, een thou

In this thy day the things that make for peace;

Alas! no strivings now can work release.

The night is closing now.

On all thy high estate,

Thy temple-courts and palaces of pride,

Thy pleasant pictures and thy markets wide,

Is written now Too late.

Time was there might have been

The waking up to life of higher mood,

The knowledge of the only Wise and Good,

Within thy portals seen;

But now the past is past,

The last faint light by blackening clouds is hid;

Thy heaped-up sins each hope of grace forbid,

The sky is all oercast;

And soon from out the cloud

Will burst the storm that lays thee low in dust,

Till shrine and palace, homes of hate and lust

Are wrapt in fiery shroud.1 [Note: E. H. Plumptre.]

Let us consider:

I.Jerusalems Day of Privilege.

II.Her Rejection of the Light.

III.The Tears of the Redeemer.

I

The Day of Privilege

1. There are seasons of special privilege. Jesus here speaks of a time of visitation. Properly speaking, that means an overseeing. That is the strict meaning of the original word. It is thus used to describe the office of an Apostle, in the Acts of the Apostles, and the office of a bishop, in St. Pauls First Epistle to Timothy; and, from this employment of the word in Scripture, it has come to be applied to the courtfor such it iswhich from time to time, a bishop is bound by the old law of the Church to hold, in order to review the state of his diocese. But this word is more commonly applied in the Bible to Gods activity than to mans; and a visitation of God is sometimes penal or judicial, and sometimes it is a season of grace and mercy. The day of visitation of which St. Peter speaks, in which the heathen shall glorify God for the good works of Christians, is, we cannot doubt, the day of judgment. And Job uses the Hebrew equivalent to describe the heavy trials which had been sent to test his patience. On the other hand, in the language of Scripture, God visits man in grace and mercyas He did the Israelites in Egypt after Josephs death; as He visited Sarah in one generation, and Hannah in another; as He visited His flock, to use Zechariahs expression, in Babylon. It was such a visitation as this that our Lord had in view. He Himself had held it; and when He spoke it was not yet concluded.

(1) This visitation was unobtrusive.In the Advent of the Redeemer there was nothing outwardly remarkable to the men of that day. It was almost nothing. Of all the historians of that period few indeed are found to mention it. This is a thing which we at this day can scarcely understand; for to us the blessed Advent of our Lord is the brightest page in the worlds history; but to them it was far otherwise. Remember for one moment what the Advent of our Lord was to all outward appearance. He seemed, let it be said reverently, to the rulers of those days, a fanatical freethinker. They heard of His miracles, but they appeared nothing remarkable to them; there was nothing there on which to fasten their attention. They heard that some of the populace had been led away, and now and then, it may be, some of His words reached their ears, but to them they were hard to be understood, full of mystery; or else they roused every evil passion in their hearts, so stern and uncompromising was the morality they taught. They put aside these words in that brief period, and the day of grace passed.

There was nothing of the outward pageant of royalty to greet the son of David. There were no guards, no palace, no throne, no royal livery, no currency bearing the kings image and superscription. All these things had passed into the hands of the foreign conqueror, or, in parts of the country, into the hands of princes who had the semblance of independence without its reality. There was not even the amount of circumstance and state which attends the reception of a visitor to some modern institutiona visitor who only represents the majesty of some old prerogative or of some earthly throne. As He, Israels true King, visits Jerusalem, He almost reminds us of the descendant of an ancient and fallen family returning in secret to the old home of his race. Everything is for him instinct with precious memories. Every stone is dear to him, while he himself is forgotten. He wanders about unnoticed, unobserved, or with only such notice as courtesy may accord to a presumed stranger. He is living amid thoughts which are altogether unshared by men whom he meets, as he moves silently and sadly among the records of the past, and he passes away from sight as he came, with his real station and character generally unrecognized, if indeed he is not dismissed as an upstart with contempt and insult. So it was with Jerusalem and its Divine Visitor. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.1 [Note: H. P. Liddon.]

(2) The day of visitation is limited.Jerusalems day was narrowed up into the short space of three years and a half. After that, God still pleaded with individuals; but the national cause, as a cause, was gone. Jerusalems doom was sealed when Christ pronounced those words.

Here was His last word to the chosen people, the last probation, the last opportunity. We may reverently say that there was no more after that to be done. Each prophet contributed something which others could not; each had filled a place in the long series of visitations which no other could fill. Already, long ago, Jerusalem had been once destroyed, after a great neglect of opportunity. The Book of Jeremiah is one long and pathetic commentary on the blindness and obstinacy of kings, priests, prophets, and people which preceded the Chaldan invasion, and which rendered it inevitable. And still that ruin, vast and, for the time, utter as it was, had been followed by a reconstructionthat long and bitter exile by a return. But history will not go on for ever repeating events which contradict the possibility of change and renewal. One greater visitation awaited Jerusalem; one more utter ruinand each was to be the last.

After the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus no cause of justice, no ministry of truth, no service of ones fellow-men, need despair. Though the People, Religion and the State together triumph over them, beyond the brief day of such a triumph the daysto use a prophetic promise which had often rung through Jerusalemthe days are coming. The centuries, patient ministers of God, are waiting as surely for them as they waited for Christ beyond His Cross. Thus, then, did the City and the Man confront each other: that great Fortress, with her rival and separately entrenched forces, for the moment confederate against Him; that Single Figure, sure of His sufficiency for all their needs, and, though His flesh might shrink from it, conscious that the death which they conspired for Him was His Fathers will in the redemption of mankind. As for the embattled City herself, lifted above her ravines and apparently impregnable, she sat prepared only for the awful siege and destruction which He foresaw; while all her spiritual promises, thronging from centuries of hope and prophecy, ran out from her shining into the West; a sunset to herself, but the dawn of a new day to the world beyond.1 [Note: G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, ii. 578.]

II

The Rejection of the Light

1. The Jews were blind to their opportunity. They knew not the day of their visitation. There is the ignorance we cannot help, which is part of our circumstances in this life, which is imposed on us by Providence. And such ignorance as this, so far as it extends, effaces responsibility. God will never hold a man accountable for knowledge which He knows to be out of his reach. But there is also ignorance, and a great deal of it in many lives, for which we are ourselves responsible, and which would not have embarrassed us now, if we had made the best of our opportunities in past times. And just as a man who, being drunk, is held to be responsible for the outrage which he commits without knowing what he was doing, because he is undoubtedly responsible for getting into this condition of brutal insensibility at all, so God holds us all to be accountable for an ignorance which He knows not to be due to our nature. Now, this was the case with the men of Jerusalem at that day. Had they studied their prophets earnestly and sincerely, had they refused to surrender themselves to political dreams which flattered their self-love, and which coloured all their thoughts and hopes, they would have seen in Jesus of Nazareth the Divine Visitor whose coming Israel had for long ages been expecting.

There is a way of blindness by hardening the heart. Let us not conceal this truth from ourselves. God blinds the eye, but it is in the appointed course of His providential dealings. If a man will not see, the law is he shall not see; if he will not do what is right when he knows the right, then right shall become to him wrong, and wrong shall seem to be right. We read that God hardened Pharaohs heart, that He blinded Israel. It is impossible to look at these cases of blindness without perceiving in them something of Divine action. Even at the moment when the Romans were at their gates, Jerusalem still dreamed of security; and when the battering-ram was at the tower of Antonia, the priests were celebrating, in fancied safety, their daily sacrifices. From the moment when our Master spake, there was deep stillness over her until her destruction; like the strange and unnatural stillness before the thunder-storm, when every breath seems hushed, and every leaf may be almost heard moving in the motionless air; and all this calm and stillness is but the prelude to the moment when the east and west are lighted up with the red flashes, and the whole creation seems to reel. Such was the blindness of that nation which would not know the day of her visitation.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson.]

2. The blindness of the Jews was the blindness of moral indifference. For years they had been sinking into cold spiritual indifference, while they were clinging all the more strongly to the outward formalities of religion. And then came their rejection of Christ, which consummated their ruin. They knew what tithes the poor man must pay into the treasury, but they could not understand a Christ who came to heal the broken-hearted. They knew that Jerusalem was the place where men ought to worship, and that the Samaritans were heretics; they could not understand One who came to give men life and rest in God. It was their cold-hearted indifference that thus blinded their eyes to the mission of Jesus, and it was this that caused them to destroy Him. They had found a Man who said religion was a realitywho spoke in kindling words of a spiritual world, and pointed the weary to an all-present Father; and when they found they could not put to shame a truth that clashed with their cold-heartedness, they hurried Him to the judgment-hall and the cross.

If we go back to the time of the Greeks, and ask what to the Greek mind was the greatest sin, we find that it was insolence. To them insolence meant the failure of a man to realize what was his true attitude to life, to understand that he was bound, if he would be a true man, to face life boldly and fearlessly with all its issues, to think through its problems, to recognize the limits under which his life had to be lived. Still the same thing is needed. We still ask you to look at your life straight, to see what it means, to see what are the things that will destroy it. And we are forced to conclude with the old Greeks that it is insolence which destroys a mans life. What the Greeks called insolence, we call irreverence; and irreverence is at the bottom of it indifference. It means the want of self-sacrifice, of self-restraint, the want of manliness, the want of a desire to think things out, to face life and its issues broadly and courageously.1 [Note: Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, ii. 26.]

3. Such a process of hardening may be very gradual. Little by little we lose our keen delight in God, our warm loyalty to our Saviour, our exquisite pleasure in noble things, our cordial sympathy with spiritual people and their aims; little by little we decline into godlessness and worldliness. There is a growing deadness of nerve, a creeping paralysis which leaves us more and more untouched and unmoved by the high and glorious things of our faith, which renders us more and more careless about the tragic possibilities of life.

Life must be a movementa progress of some kind. We cannot stand stillrise or fall we must. Unless, therefore, we have a restraining power within us conquering those hidden evil tendencies, our life must be gradually sinking. But indifferencethe mere absence of positive Christian earnestnesshas no restraining influence. Not what we are not, but what we are, forms character. We resemble that which we supremely love. That rectitude of life and conduct which is not the result of choice or effort, and which may exist in the absence of temptation, is purely negative, and, unless supported by some earnest positive principle, is in peril when the slumbering evil tendencies are wakened into power by temptation. We may go a step farther, and affirm that spiritual indifference actually prepares the way for open sin. He that is not with me is against me, said Christ, and then followed His parable of the unclean spirit returning in sevenfold might to the empty house. The mere expulsion of evil which leaves the heart vacant and indifferent is a false reformation. Take away corrupt love, and leave the souls chamber empty, and it will come again in gigantic force. Thus indifference is the commencement of a blindfold descent into spiritual ruin.

You have seen the snow-flakes fallingat first they lay like beautiful winter flowers, but gradually they formed an icy crust that hardened and thickened with every snow shower. So, a man may receive the truth of Christ in the freezing atmosphere of cold indifference, until he is girded round with a mass of dead belief which no spiritual influence can penetrate.1 [Note: E. L. Hull.]

4. These Jews knew not the day of their visitation and yet they were always expecting it. Their prophets had foretold it; in their prayers they cried out for it. Even at this very time they were looking for their Messiah. But they had made up their minds as to the way in which the visitation would be made. When at last it came in Gods wayso simply, so quietlythey could not receive it.

How many there are who are still living in carelessness, never really ranging themselves on the side of Christ, never really giving to Him their hearts and souls; and all the time they have a sort of vague idea that some day the Lord will come and visit their hearts! They do not mean to die in their irreligion. They half imagine that suddenly and unexpectedly God will call them and convert them; then the King will enthrone Himself in their hearts, and all will be well; then they must needs give up sin, and delight in religion. So now they are content to wait; till that day it does not matter much, they think, what lives they lead. All the time Jesus is with them; but they know Him not; they know not the time of their visitation; they are expecting a visitation of some strange, sensational, or terrible kind. If some storm or tempest of passion shook their being, they might yield to that; if God were to afflict them by laying them permanently on a bed of sickness, or by taking from them all that makes life dear, they would count that as a visitation of God, and would expect to be converted. Our ordinary language seems to countenance this notion. It is a visitation of God, we say, when a city is smitten with cholera or plague, or when death cannot be accounted for. It would be well for us all if we could realize more fully that, although Gods voice may be heard in the whirlwind and the storm, it is more often heard in the quiet whisper, speaking lovingly to the conscience.

Where are thy moments? Dost thou let them run

Unheeded through times glass? Is thy work done?

Hast thou no duties unfulfilled? Not one

That needs completion?

Thou wouldst not cast thy money to the ground;

Or, if thou didst, perchance it might be found

By one who, schooled in povertys harsh round,

Knew not repletion.

But thy time lost, is lost to all and thee;

Swiftly tis added to eternity,

And for it answerable thou must be;

So have a care.

Gather thy moments, lest they swell to hours;

Stir up thy youthful and still dormant powers;

Now only canst thou plant Heavens fadeless flowers,

Therefore, beware.

III

The Tears of Jesus

He saw the city and wept over it. He weptwept aloud (there had been only silent tears at Bethany, for the two Greek words imply this distinction)He wept aloud as the city of Jerusalem burst on His sight. The spot has been identified by modern travellers, where a turn in the path brings into view the whole city. There stood before Him the City of ten thousand memories, with the morning sunlight blazing on the marble pinnacles and gilded roofs of the Temple buildings; and as He gazed, all the pity within Him over-mastered His human spirit, and He broke into a passion of lamentation, at the sight of the city, which it was too late for Himthe Delivererto save; at the thought of the ruin of the nation, which Hethe Kinghad come to rule. If thou hadst knownOh! that thou hadst knownthe things that belong unto thy peace! As if He had said, Thou art called Jerusalem, which means They shall see peace. Oh that thou wert Jerusalem in truth and hadst known the things that make for thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

The Son of God in tears

The Angels wondering see:

Hast thou no wonder, O my soul?

He shed those tears for thee!

He wept that we might weep,

Might weep our sin and shame,

He wept to shew His love for us,

And bid us love the same.

Then tender be our hearts,

Our eyes in sorrow dim,

Till every tear from every eye

Is wiped away by Him!1 [Note: H. F. Lyte, Poems, 82.]

There is no more moving sight than a strong man in tears. Only the strong can truly weep. Tears are then the overflow of the heart. They come when words are powerless; they go where deeds cannot follow. They are the speech of souls past speaking.2 [Note: R. W. Barbour, Thoughts, 52.]

1. It was not for Himself that He wept. The Saviour quite forgot Himself. Conscious as He was, perfectly conscious, of the terrible suffering and shame which awaited Him, He thought not of it; His whole soul was taken up with the city which lay before Him, glittering in the brilliant light of early morning. The tide of sorrow and regret which that sight set a-flowing submerged all other feelings for the moment. It is proper to man that only one very strong emotion can find room within his breast at the same moment; and our Lord was man, true man, made like unto us in all points, sin alone excepted. So He forgot for the moment all about Himself; His heart went out to the city which lay before Him, and He wept over it.

He measured the worth, or rather He estimated the worthlessness, of those greetings which greeted Him now. He knew that all this joy, this jubilant burst, as it seemed, of a peoples gladness, was but as fire among straw, which blazes up for an instant, and then as quickly expires, leaving nothing but a handful of black ashes behind it. He knew that of this giddy thoughtless multitude, many who now cried, Hosanna; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, would, before one short week was ended, join their voices with the voices of them who exclaimed, Crucify him, crucify him; we have no king but Csar; and He wept, not for Himself, but for them, for the doom which they were preparing for their city, for their children, for themselves.

The contrast was, indeed, terrible between the Jerusalem that rose before Christ in all its beauty, glory, and security, and the Jerusalem which He saw in vision dimly rising on the sky, with the camp of the enemy round about it on every side, hugging it closer and closer in deadly embrace, and the very stockade which the Roman Legions raised around it; then, another scene in the shifting panorama, and the city laid with the ground, and the gory bodies of her children among her ruins; and yet another scene: the silence and desolateness of death by the Hand of Godnot one stone left upon another! We know only too well how literally this vision has become reality; and yet, though uttered as prophecy by Christ, and its reason so clearly stated, Israel to this day knows not the things which belong unto its peace, and the upturned scattered stones of its dispersion are crying out in testimony against it. But to this day, also, do the tears of Christ plead with the Church on Israels behalf, and His words bear within them precious seed of promise.1 [Note: Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 369.]

2. He wept over the doom of the impenitent city that He loved. He foresaw the hour when the Roman army would level its walls, destroy its Temple, and scatter its people through all lands; when the spot that had been so long known as the glory of Juda should be recognized only by its ruins. And to Christ there must have been something profoundly sad in that prospect. For ages Jerusalem had been the home of truth and the temple of the Eternal. For ages its people had been the solitary worshippers and witnesses to the true Lord of men. And the thought that a nation called and chosen of old, a nation whose forefathers had been true to God through perils and captivities, should fall from its high standing through falseness to its Lord, and, shorn of its ancient glory, should wander through the world, crowned with mockery, misery, and scorn, might well fill the heart of the compassionate Christ with sorrow. But yet we cannot suppose that the downfall of Jerusalem and the scattering of its people were the chief objects of His pity. It was the men themselvesthe men of Jerusalem, who, by the rejection of Gods messengers, and of Himself, the greatest of all, were bringing down those calamitiesthat awakened His compassion. He saw other temples than Solomons falling into ruinthe temples of the souls that had spurned His voice; and the ruin of those spirits moved Him to tears.

3. He knew that this dreadful doom might have been averted. There were things which belonged to Jerusalems peace, and which would have secured it, if only she would have known them. They were things which He had brought with Him. The guilty city, the murderess of the prophets, she that had been a provocation almost from her first day until now, might have washed her and made her clean from all that blood and from all that filthiness; she might have become, not in name only, but in deed, the city of peace, if only she would have consented first to be the city of righteousness, to receive aright Him who had come, meek and having salvation, and bringing near to her the things of her everlasting peace. There was no dignity, there was no glory, that might not have been hers. She might have been a name and a praise in all the earth. From that mountain of the Lords house the streams of healing, the waters of the river of life, might have gone forth for the healing of all the bitter waters of the world. But no; she chose rather to be herself the bitterest fountain of all. As she had refused in the times past to hear Gods servants, so now she refused to hear His Son, stopped her ears like the deaf adder, made her heart hard as adamant that she might not hear Him.

4. But He knew that His bitter tears were unavailing now. The desolation of the beloved city was a catastrophe that even the prevailing work of His redemption was powerless to avert. Now they are hid from thine eyes. This is a deliverance which lies beyond the limit even of the salvation which Christ is to accomplish. Thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. All the opportunities afforded by the Divine forbearance to those who slew the prophets, who stoned the messengers, and who were about to kill the heir, and culminating in this day of Messiahs unmistakable claim upon the allegiance of Gods people, had passed unheeded and unused. Now, once and for all, the things that belong to peace are hidden. Jerusalem Christ cannot save. Its destruction He cannot turn away. Therefore, He breaks forth into a passionate lament, like Rachel weeping for her childrenAnd when he drew nigh, he beheld the city, and wept over it.

Jerusalem is the head and heart of the nation, the seat of the religious power in which Israel is personified. Why then must this power be blind and obstinate, angry and offended? Why should these high priests, elders, masters of the Law and guardians of the traditions, these leaders of the chosen people, fail to understand what the simple, the poor, the humble, the despised have comprehended? Why do their minds blaspheme while the minds of the people welcome with acclamations the Chosen One of God? Such thoughts overwhelmed and distracted the soul of Jesus. There is still time for them to acknowledge Him; they can still proclaim Him Messiah, and save Israel, to bestow upon it the peace of God. The unutterable anguish of Jesus is not for His own fate, to that He is resigned; it is the fate of His people and of the city which is on the point of demanding His execution; and this blindness will let loose upon Israel nameless calamities. The hierarchy, which despises the true Messiah, will be carried away by its false patriotism into every excess and every frenzy. It will endeavour in vain to control the people in their feverish impatience for deliverance. The Zealots will provoke implacable warfare, and, in grasping after empty glory and empty liberty, their fanaticism will be the unconscious instrument of the vengeance of God. Jesus knew it; the future was before His eyes; He saw Jerusalem besieged, invested, laid waste with fire and sword, her children slaughtered, and her houses, her monuments, her palaces, her Temple itself levelled with the ground.1 [Note: Father Didon, Jesus Christ, ii. 175.]

5. And yet, in spite of all, He persisted in His endeavours to reclaim the lost. He threw Himself into the work of rousing and alarming Jerusalem, as though its future might instantly be transformed. From the Mount of Olives He descended straightway to the Temple, and the last week of His life was spent in daily intercourse with its chief priests. How vain, as it then appeared, were all His words! How little availed His sternest tones to stir the slumberous pulses of His time! How unmoved (save by a bitter and personal animosity) were the leaders and teachers to whom He spoke! And when that scornful indifference on their part was exchanged at last for a distinctive enmity, with what needless prodigality, as doubtless it seemed even to some of His own disciples, He flung away His life! Flung it away? Yes, but only how soon and how triumphantly to take it again! The defeat of Golgotha meant the victory of the Resurrection. The failure of the cross was the triumph of the Crucified; and, though by living and preaching He could not conquer the indifference or awaken the apathy of Israel, by dying and rising again He did. It was the chief priests who amid the anguish of Calvary were the most scornful spectators and the most relentless foes. It was a great company of the chief priests, who, on the day of Pentecost, scarce fifty days after that dark and bitter Friday, were obedient unto the faith. And thus the tide was turned, and though Jerusalem was not rescued from the vandal hordes of Titus, Jerusalem and Juda alike became the home and the cradle of the infant Church.

The Impenitent City

Literature

Arnot (W.), The Anchor of the Soul, 326.

Black (H.), Edinburgh Sermons, 291.

Bright (W.), The Law of Faith, 141.

Clayton (J. W.), The Genius of God, 120.

Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 78.

Deshon (G.), Sermons for the Ecclesiastical Year, 315, 441.

Farrar (F. W.), The Silence and the Voices of God, 171.

Fraser (J.), Parochial and other Sermons, 40.

Hull (E. L.), Sermons, iii. 181.

Hunt (A. N.), Sermons for the Christian Year, ii. 82.

Hutton (W. H.), A Disciples Religion, 129.

Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., iv. 500.

Leach (C.), Old Yet Ever New, 157.

Lorimer (G. C.), Jesus the Worlds Saviour, 196.

McKim (R. H.), The Gospel in the Christian Year, 223.

Neale (J. M.), Sermons Preached in a Religious House, ii. 357.

Percival (J.), Some Helps for School Life, 61.

Potter (H. C.), Sermons of the City, 15.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, vi. 73.

Ridgeway (C. J.), Social Life, 68.

Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, iv. 287.

Russell (A.), The Light that Lighteth Every Man, 82.

Skrine (J. H.), The Hearts Counsel, 55.

Trench (R. C.), Westminster and other Sermons, 203.

Wilberforce (B.), Feeling after Him, 15.

Williams (W. W.), Resources and Responsibilities, 250.

Winterbotham (R.), Sermons, 466.

Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 251 (J. T. Stannard); xxix. 233 (H. W. Beecher); xxxii. 291 (J. Greenhough); xxxvii. 339 (W. A. Blake); lxxiv. 185 (F. L. Donaldson); Ixxx. 57 (C. S. Macfarland).

Churchmans Pulpit: Tenth Sunday after Trinity, xi. 245 (D. Moore); 247 (J. Vaughan).

Homiletic Review, New Ser., xxxviii. 506 (G. C. Morgan); lviii. 144 (G. C. Beach).

Literary Churchman, xxiv. (1878) 134.

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

and wept: Psa 119:53, Psa 119:136, Psa 119:158, Jer 9:1, Jer 13:17, Jer 17:16, Hos 11:8, Joh 11:35, Rom 9:2, Rom 9:3

Reciprocal: Gen 6:6 – grieved Gen 42:24 – wept Deu 32:29 – O that Jdg 10:16 – his soul Jdg 21:6 – repented them 1Sa 15:11 – it grieved 2Sa 3:32 – lifted 2Sa 15:30 – and wept as he went up 2Ki 8:11 – wept 2Ki 22:19 – wept 2Ch 36:15 – because Ezr 10:1 – weeping Est 8:6 – For how Job 30:25 – Did not I Psa 34:21 – they Psa 35:14 – I behaved Psa 59:10 – let Psa 81:13 – Oh that Psa 137:1 – we wept Psa 139:21 – and am not Isa 15:5 – My heart Isa 28:21 – his strange Isa 42:22 – a people Isa 48:18 – that thou Isa 53:3 – a man Isa 65:2 – spread Jer 4:19 – My bowels Jer 8:21 – the hurt Jer 9:18 – our eyes Jer 30:5 – a voice Lam 1:16 – I weep Lam 3:51 – eye Eze 19:14 – This is Eze 32:18 – wail Dan 7:15 – was grieved Hos 6:4 – what Joe 1:15 – the day of Oba 1:12 – rejoiced Jon 4:5 – till Zec 11:1 – that Zec 11:4 – Feed Zec 13:8 – two Mal 4:6 – lest Mat 12:45 – Even Mat 14:14 – and was Mat 18:31 – they Mat 21:41 – He will Mar 7:34 – he sighed Mar 8:12 – he sighed Mar 10:21 – loved Mar 11:11 – Jesus Mar 12:9 – he will Mar 13:2 – there Luk 13:34 – Jerusalem Luk 20:17 – beheld Joh 5:34 – that Joh 11:48 – and the Act 20:19 – many Act 26:29 – that not 1Co 13:6 – Rejoiceth not 2Co 2:4 – out Phi 3:18 – even

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

WHY JESUS WEPT

And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it.

Luk 19:41

How touching, but how solemn, to think of our Lord weeping! No doubt there were many occasions on which He wept bitterly (Heb 5:7). He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefbut only two instances are recorded (Joh 11:35; Luk 19:41). In each case death was the cause. Natural death had grasped Lazarus, the friend whom Jesus loved. Spiritual death had grasped Jerusalem, the city that He loved. It is of the latter that our passage speaks, and we shall best enter into its teaching by dwelling on the three leading points thrown out by our Lord in reference to Jerusalem

I. Thy day.This is the time when we enjoy the light, and are able to work with all diligence (Joh 9:4). So in spiritual things, the day of salvation is the time of opportunities. The Sun of Righteousness has risen, and sheds light on every hand (Mal 4:2; Joh 8:12; Joh 12:35-36). It is the time for work (Ecc 9:10; Php 2:12). Nothing can be done if the opportunity is lost (Heb 2:3). Such a day of grace Jerusalem enjoyed in having Jesus (Luk 19:9-10; Isa 55:6; Heb 3:7-8).

II. Thy peace.This follows the right use of the day of salvation (Rom 5:1). Only God can bestow it (2Th 3:16). It is the desire of Jesus that all His people should have it (Joh 14:27). And each soul must appropriate it in receiving Jesus (Luk 2:29). He is the peace (Mic 5:5). The Jews would not receive Him (Joh 1:11). They could not see in Him anything to desire (Isa 53:2-3; see Rom 11:8; Rom 11:25). In rejecting Jesus, Jerusalem lost her peace.

III. Thy visitation.God had told the Jews to expect Jesus in many parts of the Old Testament Scriptures (Isa 9:6-7; Dan 9:25; Mal 3:1). But when He came, they were not prepared for Him (Joh 5:16; Joh 7:1). They knew not the day of their visitation (Deu 5:29; Psa 81:13). What, therefore, did it bring? Judicial blindness (Luk 19:42; Act 28:25-27); condemnation (Luk 19:43-44; Joh 3:18-19); and solemn rebuke (Luk 19:45-46; Joh 12:48).

Three things, then, we must lay to heart from this lessonNow is our day (2Co 6:2). Jesus is our peace (Eph 2:14). The day of visitation is coming (Act 17:31). Are we ready?

Bishop Rowley Hill.

Illustration

There, before the Saviours gaze of tears, lay a city, splendid apparently and in peace, destined to enjoy another half century of existence. And the day was a common day; the hour a common hour; no thunder was throbbing in the blue unclouded sky; no deep vows of departing deities were rolling though the golden doors; and yetsoundless to mortal ears in the unrippled air of eternitythe knell of her destiny had begun to toll; and in the voiceless dialect of heaven the fiat of her doom had been pronounced, and in that realm which knoweth, needeth not any light, save the light of God, the sun of her moral existence had gone down while it was yet day. Were her means of grace over? No; not yet. Was her Temple closed? No; not yet. No change was visible in her to mortal eyes. And yet, for her, from this moment even until the end, the accepted time was over, the appointed crisis past; the day of salvation had set into irrevocable night. And if it were so with the favoured city, may it not be so with thee and me? What shall the reed of the desert do, if even the cedar be shattered at a blow? It is not that God loses His mercy, but that we lose our capacity for accepting it; it is not that God hath turned away from us, but that we have utterly paralysed our own power of coming back to Him. Life continues, but it is really death; and on the dead soul in the living body the gates of the eternal tomb have closed.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY

He who came to seek and to save lost sinners could not witness with indifference the sin and ruin of His beloved city.

I. These tears over Jerusalem flowed from His perfect knowledge.Of her obstinacy and impenitence (Luk 19:42; Luk 19:44; Mar 3:5; Mar 8:12; Act 13:45-46). Of her judicial blindness (Mat 13:14-15; Act 28:25-27; Rom 11:8). Of the complete measure of her iniquity (Mat 23:32; 1Th 2:16). Of the awful extent of her loss (Mat 21:43; Rom 11:19-22). Of the irrevocable certainty of her doom (Luk 19:43-44; Mat 23:35-38; Mat 24:1-2; Mat 24:34-35).

II. They were but an index of that heart of love, which caused HimTo leave the bosom of His Father (Php 2:6-7). To suffer the hidings of His countenance (Mat 27:46). To endure the contradiction of sinners against Himself (Mat 22:15; Mat 22:46; Heb 12:3). To support unknown shame and agonies (Isaiah 1, 6; Gal 3:13). To shed His most precious blood (1Jn 3:16).

III. In the spirit of this blessed example, let us learn what our feelings ought to be towards those who neglect this great salvation.We should be deeply concerned for them as St. Paul was (Act 17:16; Rom 9:1-3). We should be earnest in prayer for them, as Moses was (Exo 32:31-32; Deu 10:17-19; Deu 10:22). We should grieve and weep for them, as David and Jeremiah did (Psa 119:136; Jer 9:1; Jer 13:17). We should labour for them, as the Apostles did (2Co 6:4-10). Do I pray for the conversion of my friends, neighbours, for the enemies of Christ and His Gospel (1Ti 2:1)? Do I let my light shine before them (Php 2:15)? Am I careful not to put a stumbling block in their way, by my own misconduct or inconsistency (1Pe 2:16; 1Pe 3:16)? Oh! how inexcusable is my indifference in that which cost my Saviour tears, agonies, and blood! How apt am I to feel disappointment, and even anger, at the hardness or enmity of my fellow-creatures, forgetting that such once was I! Lord, turn these sinful feelings into a holy compassion, that in this, as in every other feature, I may be conformed to the blessed image of Thy dear Son.

Rev. C. Bridges.

Illustration

Let our work for the public weal be accompanied and sanctified and guided by patriotic prayer in public and in private. Do not forget Abrahams intercession for guilty Sodom, and how he was assured that for ten righteous the city would have been spared. Do not forget the Psalmists passionate supplication for the peace of Jerusalem. Our own Book of Common Prayer strikes the right key-notes and puts the right words into our lips. Alas! they sometimesit is to be fearedfail to awaken a responsive echo within our souls. Our so-called State prayers, and our prayers for Parliament, may fall upon listless ears and chilly hearts. Let there be more faithful spiritual concentration, and more holy enthusiasm in these devotions. A little leaven of earnest workers and of devout supplicants may leaven the whole lump. A handful of sincere Christian patriots may be as the salt of the earth, to sweeten and purify the towns, or even the country, in which they live. What wonders have been wrought by single-minded patriotic individuals! Elizabeth Fry reformed our prisons; Florence Nightingale reorganised our hospitals; Wilberforce and Clarkson freed our slaves.

(THIRD OUTLINE)

THE TEARS OF JESUS

I. The tears of Jesus Christ are compassionate tears.Like His Heavenly Father, He has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.

II. The tears of Jesus are admonitory.He would not have wept merely because a little pain, or a little suffering, or even a little anguish and misery, lay before us. There was only one thing which Jesus Christ could not endure, and that was the real displeasure, the prolonged hiding of the countenance, the punitive wrath of God. It was because He foresaw that for impenitent sinners that He wept.

III. The tears of Jesus were exemplary tears.As He wept, so ought we to weep. We ought to weep more exactly as He wept. He wept not for Himself: so also, in our place, should we.

IV. The tears of Jesus Christ are consolatory tears.They say to us, Provision is made for you. They say to us, It is not of Christ, it is not of God, if you perish. They say to us, Escape for your lifebecause a better, and a higher, and a happier life is here for you!

Dean Vaughan.

Illustration

If we think of what it was that evidently caused those tears of Christ over Jerusalem, we emphasise that special danger and that particular sin which, if unchecked and undetected in our midst, will bring its certain judgment on any congregation, town, or country that lies under its hand. There are few places in the Holy Land more movingly pathetic than that corner of the road from Bethany to Jerusalem which circles round the slope of Olivet and gives you in a moment the sudden view of the whole city of Jerusalem. Yet Jesus wept! He wept because the citys doom stood out (in His minds eye) in dismal certainty; He wept because mans fickleness could thus to-day cry Hosannah! and in a few days Crucify!; He wept because that might have been of the great possibility of Israels conversion swept like a mist of tears over His eyes; He wept because the sands of time were running out and the Judge stood before the fast-closed door, and Mercy had already raised her hand to hide her face, and Justice taken up the sword to smite the blow of judgment. And all the while the people knew it not.

(FOURTH OUTLINE)

INDIFFERENCE

The whole picture of the text is the most moving evidence of Gods abiding sorrow for indifference.

I. A real foe.And is not this the sin which seems above all others to be our special foe in this our so-called Christian age and in this so-called Christian land? It would be idle to dispute the fact that this indifference is a real foe with which the Church has to contend to-daya foe of deadly strength, a mighty enemy of the Churchs growth and power. How God has warned us against this danger in His Word!

II. Causes of indifference.How many causes go to make up the sum of mans indifference?

(a) The attitude of the Church. The Church, alas! is not altogether irresponsible. Her voice, so often silent when men expect to hear her speak, her liberality and breadth of sympathy and freedom of opinion almost extending to a dangerous latitudinarianism, seem to give rise to it. And besides this there is her jarring strife of tongues when she is stirred to speakher odium theologicum. And this makes men impatient, and they become further discontented, and then in their despair they stand aside upon the neutral ground of the indifferent.

(b) The attitude of the world. But, on the other hand, a far larger share of this indifference comes from the attitude and action, not of the Church, but of the world. For there must be much that the world cannot square with a religious life.

III. A foe to be fought.Let us recognise and fight as a foe this cowardly indifference. Let us care more, and magnetise with a truer interest the vis inerti of worldliness. Let none of us affect indifference. Live in the things of God and you will grow to care for them. Stop nowhere short of Christ Himself.

IV. Christs care.Above all, remember this: whatever you may feel or may not feel, whatever you may know of all that this world has to teach you, remember that He cares for you. He made you for Himself. He needs you for His work.

Bishop the Hon. E. Carr Glynn.

(FIFTH OUTLINE)

WOES OF A GREAT CITY

No inhabitant of a great city can read this narrative without great searching of heart.

I. City life is one of the great problems of the day, and in London it reaches its most acute shape. A large city is a loveless place; yet it cannot be that salvation for our cities is only to be found in arresting development. City life in itself is distinct from the evils of city life.

II. A city was meant to represent an aggregation of excellences. John set forth in the Apocalypse the ideal of a great city. Yet how far are we removed from that! There is much to deplore in the loss of the old spirit which consecrates work, and in the growth of a spirit of frivolity. A city should represent the ideal of mutual help and co-operation; yet what is there to compare with the isolation of the inhabitants of great cities? And what shall we say of those who are living to prey on their fellow kind? Every Christian man must see to it that negatively he is not a source of harm to, but rather a helper of, others.

III. There is still a beauty belonging to a city which still attracts crowds to visit. It was meant to be a beautiful place. Let us, then, purify our streets, our books, our plays, our life, and we shall see that a city may yet become a joy of the whole earth.

Rev. Canon Newbolt.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

4

See the notes on Mat 23:37-39; Mat 24:1-2. Visitation as used here means “inspection, investigation,” and applies to the time when Jerusalem was to be visited with distress, as an investigation into her history would justify.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

WE learn, firstly, from these verses, how great is the tenderness and compassion of Christ towards sinners. We are told that when He came near Jerusalem for the last time, “He beheld the city and wept over it.” He knew well the character of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Their cruelty, their self-righteousness, their stubbornness, their obstinate prejudice against the truth, their pride of heart were not hidden from Him. He knew well what they were going to do to Himself within a very few days. His unjust judgment, His delivery to the Gentiles, His sufferings, His crucifixion, were all spread out distinctly before His mind’s eye. And yet knowing all this, our Lord pitied Jerusalem! “He beheld the city and wept over it.”

We err greatly if we suppose that Christ cares for none but His own believing people. He cares for all. His heart is wide enough to take an interest in all mankind. His compassion extends to every man, woman, and child on earth. He has a love of general pity for the man who is going on still in wickedness, as well as a love of special affection for the sheep who hear His voice and follow Him. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Hardened sinners are fond of making excuses for their conduct. But they will never be able to say that Christ was not merciful, and was not ready to save.

We know but little of true Christianity, if we do not feel a deep concern about the souls of unconverted people. A lazy indifference about the spiritual state of others, may doubtless save us much trouble. To care nothing whether our neighbors are going to heaven or hell, is no doubt the way of the world. But a man of this spirit is very unlike David, who said, “rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law.” He is very unlike Paul, who said, “I have great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart for my brethren.” (Psa 119:136; Rom 9:2.) Above all, he is very unlike Christ. If Christ felt tenderly about wicked people, the disciples of Christ ought to feel likewise.

We learn, secondly, from these verses, that there is a religious ignorance which is sinful and blameworthy. We read that our Lord denounced judgments on Jerusalem, “because she knew not the time of her visitation.” She might have known that the times of Messiah had fully come, and that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. But she would not know. Her rulers were wilfully ignorant. They would not calmly examine evidences, and impartially consider great plain facts. Her people would not see “the signs of the times.” Therefore judgment was soon to come upon Jerusalem to the uttermost. Her willful ignorance left her without excuse.

The principle laid down by our Lord in this place is deeply important. It contradicts an opinion which is very common in the world. It teaches distinctly that all ignorance is not excusable, and that when men might know truth, but refuse to know it, their guilt is very great in the sight of God. There is a degree of knowledge for which all are responsible, and if from indolence or prejudice we do not attain that knowledge, the want of it will ruin our souls.

Let us impress this great principle deeply on our own hearts. Let us urge it diligently on others, when we speak to them about religion. Let us not flatter ourselves that ignorance will excuse every one who dies in ignorance, and that he will be pardoned because he knew no better!-Did he live up to the light he had? Did he use every means for attaining knowledge? Did he honestly employ every help within his reach, and search industriously after wisdom? These are grave questions. If a man cannot answer them, he will certainly be condemned in the judgment day. A willful ignorance will never be allowed as a plea in a man’s favor. On the contrary, it will rather add to his guilt.

We learn, thirdly, from these verses, that God is sometimes pleased to give men special opportunities and invitations. We are told by our Lord, that Jerusalem “knew not the day of her visitation.” Jerusalem had a special season of mercy and privilege. The Son of God Himself visited her. The mightiest miracles that man had ever seen were wrought around her. The most wonderful preaching that ever was heard was preached within her walls. The days of our Lord’s ministry were days of the clearest calls to repentance and faith that ever any city received. They were calls so marked, peculiar, and unlike any previous calls Jerusalem had received, that it seemed impossible they should be disregarded. But they were disregarded! And our Lord declares that this disregard was one of Jerusalem’s principal sins.

The subject before us is a deep and mysterious one. It requires careful stating and delicate handling, lest we should make one scripture contradict another. There seems no doubt that churches, nations, and even individuals are sometimes visited with special manifestations of God’s presence, and that their neglect of such manifestations is the turning point in their spiritual ruin. Why this should take place in some cases and not in others we cannot tell. Facts, plain facts in history and biography, appear to prove that it is so. The last day will probably show the world, that there were seasons in the lives of many who died in sin, when God drew very near to them, when conscience was peculiarly alive, when there seemed but a step between them and salvation. Those seasons will probably prove to have been what our Lord calls their “day of visitation.” The neglect of such seasons will probably be at last one of the heaviest charges against their souls.

Deep as the subject is, it should teach men one practical lesson. That lesson is the immense importance of not stifling convictions, and not quenching the workings of conscience. He that resists the voice of conscience may be throwing away his last chance of salvation. That warning voice may be God’s “day of visitation.” The neglect of it may fill up the measure of a man’s iniquity, and provoke God to let him alone forever.

We learn, lastly, from these verses, how much Christ disapproves of the profanation of holy things. We read that He cast the buyers and sellers out of the temple, and told them that they had made God’s house “a den of thieves.” He knew how formal and ignorant the ministers of the temple were. He knew how soon the temple and its services were to be destroyed, the veil to be rent, and the priesthood to be ended. But He would have us know that a reverence is due to every place where God is worshiped. The reverence He claimed for the temple, was not for the temple as the house of sacrifice, but as “the house of prayer.”

Let us remember this conduct and language of our Lord, whenever we go to a place of public worship. Christian churches no doubt are not like the Jewish temples. They have neither altars, priesthood, sacrifices, nor symbolical furniture. But they are places where God’s word is read, where Christ is present, and where the Holy Ghost works on souls. These facts ought to make us grave, reverent, solemn and decorous, whenever we enter them. The man who behaves as carelessly in a church as he would in an inn, or a private dwelling, has yet much to learn. He has not the “mind of Christ.”

==================

Notes-

v41.-[Wept over it.] This is a remarkable expression. Gualter and Gerhard call attention to it, as a conclusive argument against the doctrine of reprobation. Christ loves and pities all, even those who are His open enemies. None are hated, though none but believers are finally saved.

Wordsworth remarks, “Christ here proves His twofold nature by shedding tears as man, for what He foretold as God.”

v42.-[If thou hadst known.] The Greek expression so translated is equivalent to saying, “I wish that thou hadst known.”-“Oh that thou hadst known.” It is like Isa 48:18.

[Now they are hid.] Poole remarks, “God will not allow His Spirit always to strive with man, because he is but flesh, not fit to be always waited on by the Majesty of heaven. First, men shut their eyes against the things belonging to their peace, and then God hideth them from them.”

v43.-[The days shall come, &c.] The predictions of this and the following verse were fulfilled with most literal completeness at the siege of Jerusalem under Titus. Not one word failed.

v44.-[The time of thy visitation.] Poole remarks, “God’s visitations are either of wrath, or mercy;-of wrath, Exo 32:34, of mercy, Jer 29:10. It is plain that our Saviour useth the term here in its latter, not its former sense; and that by God’s visitation is meant His visiting them by the prophets, John the Baptist, and Himself.”

v45.-[He went into the temple.] Let it be noted, that our Lord purified the temple from profane uses twice, once at the beginning of His ministry and once at the end. Jerome considers it the greatest miracle that Christ ever wrought.

[Them that sold…and bought.] To account for the presence of those buyers and sellers, we must remember that Jews came to Jerusalem at the passover from every part of the world, and required animals to offer as sacrifices. The buying and selling of these sacrifices, in the outward court of the temple, was doubtless the proceeding which called forth our Lord’s righteous indignation.

We can hardly question that a mighty divine influence must have accompanied our Lord’s action on this occasion. Otherwise it is difficult to understand the apparent ease with which one person succeeded in producing so great an effect on a multitude without resistance.

v46.-[Saying unto them, It is written.] The remark has been made that even in purifying the temple from profane uses, our Lord supports His conduct by a text of Scripture. All reformation of abuses in Churches should be built upon God’s Word.

v47.-[He taught daily in the temple.] The connection between this verse and the preceding one ought not to be overlooked. Our Lord had just called the temple “the house of prayer.” Yet He proceeds to show, by His own example, that it is to be the house of “teaching” as well as praying.

v48.-[Were very attentive.] The Greek word so rendered is remarkable. It is only used in this place in the New Testament. The marginal reading is more literal. They “hanged on him.”

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Luk 19:41. And when he drew nigh, seeing the city. Tradition, assuming that our Lord took the direct road, over the summit of the Mount of Olives, points out the spot as half-way down the western slope. But it is more probable that the road taken was the main or southern one, passing between two peaks (see on Mat 21:2). Comp. Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, p. 187). Jesus has reached the edge of the plateau; the holy city lies before His view. What a day it would be for it, if the bandage fell from its eyes! But what has just passed between Him and the Pharisees present has awakened in His heart the conviction of the insurmountable resistance which He is about to meet. Then Jesus, seized, and, as it were, wrung by the contrast between what is and what might be, breaks out into sobs. (Godet.)

Wept over it. An outburst of grief, not silent tears now, as at the grave of Lazarus (Joh 11:35). Peculiar to Luke.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

No sooner did our Saviour come within the sight and view of the city of Jerusalem, but he burst out into tears, at the consideration of their obstinacy, and willful rejecting of the offers of grace and salvation made unto them; and also he wept to consider of the dreadful judgments that hung over their heads for those sins, even the utter ruin and destruction of their city and temple.

Learn hence,

1. That good men ever have been, and are men of tender and compassionate dispositions, sorrowing not only for their own sufferings, but for others’ calamities.

2. That Christ sheds tears as well as blood for the lost world; Christ wept over Jerusalem, as well as bled for her.

3. That Christ was infinitely more concerned for the salvation of poor sinners, than for his own death and sufferings: not the sight of his own cross, but Jerusalem’s calamities, made him weep.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Luk 19:41-44. He beheld the city and wept over it As he drew nigh he looked on the city, and, notwithstanding he had already met with much ill usage from its inhabitants, and was at this very juncture to be put to death by them, yet, with a divine generosity and benevolence, which nothing can equal, he wept over it, in the view of the surrounding multitude, lifting up his voice and lamenting aloud the calamities which he foresaw were coming upon it. If thou hadst known, at least in this thy day After thou hast neglected so many; thy day The day wherein God still offers thee his blessings; the things which belong unto thy peace And on which thy final happiness depends! but now they are hid from thine eyes God will leave thee in his righteous judgment to this thy chosen ignorance and obstinate perverseness, till it end in thine utter ruin. For the days shall come The time hastens on and will soon arrive; that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee And thou shalt suffer all the hardships of the closest siege. The original phrase is, , which Dr. Campbell renders, will surround thee with a rampart, observing, the word does not occur in any other place in the New Testament, but in some places wherein it occurs in the Septuagint, it has evidently the sense here given it. Indeed, a rampart or mound of earth was always accompanied with a trench or ditch, out of which was dug the earth necessary for raising the rampart. Some expositors have clearly shown that this is a common meaning of the word in Greek authors. Its perfect conformity to the account of that transaction given by the Jewish historian, is an additional argument in its favour. And keep thee in on every side So that, with all thy numerous inhabitants, thou neither shalt be able to resist nor to escape them. To the prophecy here uttered by Jesus, foretelling the principal circumstances of the siege of Jerusalem, the event corresponded most exactly. For, when Titus attacked the city, the Jews defended themselves so obstinately, that he found there was no way to gain his purpose but to compass the city round with a trench and mound. By this means, he kept the besieged in on every side, cut off from them all hope of safety by flight, and consumed them by famine. The work which he undertook was indeed a matter of extreme difficulty, for the wall measured thirty-nine furlongs, or almost five miles, and the towers were thirteen in number, every one of them ten furlongs in compass. Nevertheless, the whole was finished in three days; for, to use the expression of Josephus, the soldiers in performing this work were animated by a divine impetus. Bell., Luk 6:13. And shall lay thee even with the ground Of this circumstance, see the notes on Mat 24:1-2; Mar 13:1-2. The description which Josephus has given of the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, may be considered as a comment upon these prophecies. Bell., Luk 7:18. Thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of Vespasians reign, on the 8th day of September; and having been already five times surprised, it was again finally destroyed. Such was the end of the besieging of Jerusalem, when there was none left to kill, nor any thing remaining for the soldiers to get. Cesar commanded them to destroy the city and temple, only leaving certain towers standing, that were more beautiful than the rest, namely, Phaselus, Hippicos, and Mariamne, and the wall that was on the west side, meaning there to keep a garrison, and that they should be a monument of the prowess of the Romans, who had taken a city so well fortified, as by them it appeared to have been. All the rest of the city they so levelled, answering to our Lords phrase, lay thee even with the ground, that they who had not seen it before, would not believe that ever it had been inhabited. And in the preceding chapter he says, They destroyed the wall, and burned the outward part of the city. Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation Our Lord here assigns the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem and her children. It was because that, when God visited them by his Son, the seed of Abraham and David, the Messiah, they did not know it, but rejected and crucified him. The destruction of the city and of her inhabitants, clearly foreseen by our Lord in all the circumstances thereof, was a scene so affecting, that it moved his tender soul, and made him weep. It seems the miseries of bitterest enemies had more influence to afflict and melt his soul, than the admiration, the acclamations, and hosannas of his friends to elate him with joy. His weeping was a wonderful instance of his humanity, and is so far from lessening the dignity of his character, that it exalts it infinitely. Were it worthwhile, the reader might be put in mind that the historians of Greece and Rome, to aggrandize their heroes, have been at pains to relate occurrences at which they shed tears; but this would be to fall egregiously below the greatness of the subject. Is it possible to have the least relish for goodness, and not be ravished with the man who has such a quick feeling of the miseries of others, as to weep for their misfortunes in the height of his own prosperity, especially if the objects moving his compassion are enemies, and his courage is such as to enable him to look without perturbation on the greatest disasters ready to fall on himself? See Mat 20:18-19. Let wondering mortals, then, behold in this an example of compassion and generosity, infinitely superior to any thing that the heathen world can furnish! an example highly worthy of their admiration and imitation. Macknight.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

3 d. Luk 19:41-44. The Lamentations of Jesus.

Jesus has reached the edge of the plateau ( ); the holy city lies before His view ( ). What a day would it be for it, if the bandage fell from its eyes! But what has just passed between Him and the Pharisees present has awakened in His heart the conviction of the insurmountable resistance which He is about to meet. Then Jesus, seized, and, as it were, wrung by the contrast between what is and what might be, breaks out into sobs. , not ; we have to do with lamentations, with sobbings, not with tears. The words even thou mark a contrast between the population of Jerusalem and that multitude of believers from Galilee and abroad which formed His retinue. Would the inhabitants of Jerusalem but associate themselves with this Messianic festival, their capital would be saved! From that very day would date the glory of Jerusalem, as well as that of its King.

The two words and , omitted by the Alex., have great importance. , at least in this day, thy last day. This one day which remains to it would suffice to secure its pardon for all the unbelief of the city, and even for all the blood of the prophets formerly shed within its walls! Does not this word at least suppose previous residences of Jesus at Jerusalem? , added to (thy day), alludes to the days, now past, of Capernaum, Bethsada, and Chorazin. Jesus does not knock indefinitely at the door of a heart or of a people.

In the words, the things which belong to thy peace, Jesus thinks at once of the individual salvation of the inhabitants and of the preservation of the entire city. By submitting to the sovereignty of Jesus, Israel would have been preserved from the spirit of carnal exaltation which led to its ruin.

The apodosis of, Oh if…, is understood, as at Luk 13:9.

By the , but now, Jesus reverts from this ideal salvation which He has been contemplating to the sad reality. We must beware of taking, with some commentators, as the subject of , are hid, the whole of the following clause: it is concealed from thine eyes that… The sentence thus read would drag intolerably.

Instead of the days of deliverance and glory, the image of which has just passed before His mind, Jesus sees others approaching, which fill His soul with sadness (Luk 19:43-44). Modern criticism agrees in asserting that this description of the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke includes particulars so precise, that it could only have been given ab eventu. It therefore concludes confidently from this passage that our Gospel was composed after this catastrophe. But in this case we must refuse to allow Jesus any supernatural knowledge, and relegate to the domain of myth or imposture all the facts of evangelical history in which it is implied, e.g., the announcement of Peter’s denial, so well attested by the four Gospels. Besides, if it cannot be denied that the destruction of Jerusalem was foreseen and announced by Jesus, as is implied in His foreseeing the siege, is it not evident that all the particulars of the following description must have presented themselves spontaneously to His mind? We know well how Jesus loves to individualize His idea by giving the most concrete details of its realization. Comp. chap. 17, a palisade of stakes filled in with branches and earth, and generally strengthened by a ditch, behind which the besiegers sheltered themselves. Such a rampart was really constructed by Titus. The Jews burned it in a sally; it was replaced by a wall.

In the LXX. signifies, to dash on the ground. But in good Greek it signifies, to bring down to the level of the ground. The last sense suits better here, for it applies both to the houses levelled with the ground and to the slaughtered inhabitants. Jesus, like the Zechariah of the O. T. (Zechariah 11) and the Zacharias of the New (Luk 1:68), represents His coming as the last visit of God to His people.

The word , the favourable time, shows that this visit of God is this day reaching its close.

This account is one of the gems of our Gospel. After those arresting details, Luke does not even mention the entry into the city. The whole interest for him lies in the events which precede. Mark (Mar 11:11) and Matthew (Mat 21:10) proceed otherwise. The latter sets himself to paint the emotion with which the whole city was seized. Mark (Mar 11:11) describes in a remarkable way the impressions of Jesus on the evening of the day. Accounts so different cannot be derived from the same written source.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

Luk 19:41-44. The Fall of Jerusalem Predicted (Lk. only).Cf. the words of Jesus to the daughters of Jerusalem, Luk 23:28-31. The passage takes the place of the withering of the fig-tree narrated by Mk. and Mt., which Lk. has already dealt with in different fashion, Luk 13:6-9. The use of the word bank (Luk 19:43), i.e. rampart, has been held to show that the prediction, if not composed, was at least revised, after the Fall of Jerusalem.

Luk 19:44. You would not understand when God was visiting you (Moffatt); visitation is a neutral term, here denoting the day of opportunity and testing.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

19:41 {9} And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

(9) Christ is not delighted with destruction, no not even of the wicked.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

B. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem 19:41-48

This is a transitional section that bridges Jesus’ approach to the city and His teaching in it. Luke first recorded Jesus weeping over the city from outside its walls because He knew what lay before its people. Then the writer wrote of Jesus cleansing the temple and teaching there.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. Jesus’ sorrow over Jerusalem 19:41-44

This material occurs in no other Gospel. The destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus predicted here was an important event for Luke. It showed God’s judgment on Israel for rejecting His Son and provided evidence that God had turned from working with the Jews primarily and was now working with Gentiles equally. It constitutes an argument for the distinctively new dispensation that resulted from the Jews’ rejection of their Messiah. It also gives a reason for the Christian mission on which Jesus later sent His disciples.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Luke continued to describe Jesus as approaching Jerusalem, His city of destiny. Jesus saw the city in the light of its rejection of His gracious offer of salvation. He foresaw it visited in judgment later since it had rejected His peaceful visit. This is the only place in the Gospels beside Joh 11:35 where we read that Jesus wept (wailed). His compassion is something Luke pointed out frequently. The fate of sinners who reject God’s grace broke Jesus’ heart. Jeremiah also wept over the fate of Jerusalem (Jer 8:18-22; Jer 15:5; Lam.; cf. 2Ki 8:11-12).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)