Mark 13:19

Mar_13:19

For in those days shall be affliction.

Afflictions Gods hired labourers

Afflictions are Gods hired labourers, to break the clods and plough the land. (Anon.)

Trouble a lever

Trouble is often the lever in Gods hand to raise us up to heaven. (Anon.)

Sorrow an instructor

Has it never occurred to us when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish to teach them to sing? (Jean Paul.)

Troubled waters

The angel troubled the waters, which then cured those who stepped in; it is also Christs manner to trouble our souls first, and then to come with healing in His wings. (R. Sibbes.)

Tears

Tears often prove the telescope by which men see far into heaven. (H. W. Beecher.)

Tuned by trouble

Men think God is destroying them because He is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord sounds the concert pitch; but it is not to break it, but to use it tunefully, that he stretches the string upon the musical rack. (H. W. Beecher.)

Trouble a test

Men pray to be made men in Christ Jesus, and think in some miraculous way it will be given to them; but God says, I will try My child, and see if he is sincere; and so He lays a burden upon him, and says, Now stand up under it; and asks, Where are now thy resources? If the ambitious ore dreads the furnace, the forge, the anvil, the rasp, and the file, it should never desire to be made a sword. Man is the iron, and God is the smith; and we are always either in the forge or on the anvil. God is shaping us for higher things. (H. W. Beecher.)

Extraordinary afflictions

are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions. (Matthew Henry.)

The fall of Jerusalem a unique calamity

One might explain this language on the principle of that graphic hyperbolism that pervaded, to so large an extent, the speech of all peoples. It is quite common, in many languages at least, if not in all, to say of any very extraordinary affliction, it is the greatest possible. Superlatives are often employed, when there is really no definite intention of asserting a perfectly absolute prominence. It is at the same time, however, worthy of consideration, whether there was not, in this catastrophe of the Jews, a minglement of elements, physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, which was so unique as to render the anguish, consequent on the overthrow of Jerusalem, unprecedented, and incapable of repetition. Many peoples have been vanquished. Often have surviving populations been peeled, and scattered or led captive. Often have capital cities been stormed and sacked. But the case of the Jews was peculiar. They were convinced that they were the favourites of heaven. They regarded their capital as the City of the Great King, and the predestined Mistress of the world. Their Temple was to them the one House of God. It could not be dispensed with in the world. Hence they expected, up to the last moment, that the Lords arm must needs conspicuously interpose in the extremity of their necessity, to smite the beleaguering hosts and rescue the beloved place and people. When one mingles the elements of such thoughts and feelings, and their effects, with the effects of the utter social disorganization that prevailed, and consequently with the unutterable physical woes that preceded and succeeded the capture of the Temple, it is easy to see that the tribulation endured may have had an edge of agony which never was before in the history of any people, and which will never be again. (J. Morison, D. D.)

Affliction such as never was and never shall be

At the siege of Jerusalem, Milman says, Every kind feeling, love, respect, natural affection, were extinct through the all-absorbing want. Wives would snatch the last morsel from husbands, children from parents, mothers from children … If a house was closed, they supposed that eating was going on, and they burst in and squeezed the crumbs from the mouths and throats of those who were swallowing them. Old men were scourged till they surrendered the food to which their hands clung desperately. Children were seized as they hung upon the miserable morsels they had got, whirled round and dashed upon the pavement … The most loathsome and disgusting food was sold at an enormous price. They gnawed their belts and shoes. Chopped hay and shoots of trees sold at high prices.

Destruction of Jerusalem

It is worth any mans while to read the story of the destruction of Jerusalem as it is told by Josephus: it is the most harrowing of all records written by human pen; it remains the tragedy of tragedies; there never was and there never will be anything comparable to it: the people died of famine and of pestilence, and fell by thousands beneath the swords of their own countrymen. Women devoured the flesh of their own children, and men raged against each other with the fury of beasts. All ills seemed to meet in that doomed city, it was filled within with horrors and surrounded without by terrors. Portents amazed the sky both day and night. There was no escape, neither would the frenzied people accept of mercy. The city itself was the banqueting hall of death. Josephus says: All hope of escaping was now cut off from the Jews, together with their liberty of going out of the city. Then did the famine widen its progress, and devour the people by whole houses and families: the upper rooms were full of women and infants that were dying by famine, and the lanes of the city were full of the dead bodies of the aged; the children, also, and the young men wandered about the market places like shadows, all swelled with the famine, and fell down dead wheresoever their misery seized them. For a time the dead were buried; but afterwards, when they could not do that, they had them cast down from the wall into the valleys beneath. When Titus, on going his rounds along these valleys, saw them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them, he gave a groan, and spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to witness this was not his doing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13:19 greater anguish in those days than at any time since God created the world: Such hyperbole is common in Semitic expression; it heightens the terror of that horrible time and should not be taken as an exact statistical analysis of how this suffering ranks alongside other disasters. • And it will never be so great again: The events of 13:14-23 would not bring history to an end; history would continue after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mar 13:19 . ἔσονται γὰρ αἱ ἡμέραι , etc., for (not in those days, but) those days (themselves) shall be a tribulation. So we speak of “evil days,” and in Scotland of the “killing times”. οἵα οὐ γέγονεν , etc.: a strong statement claiming for the crisis of Israel a unique place of tragic distinction in the whole calamitous experience of the human race, past and to come. οἵα τοιαύτη , pleonastic, cf. 1Co 15:48 , 2Co 10:11 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This is a kind of speech which the Hebrews use, and it hath a great force in it, for it giveth us to understand that in all that time one misery shall so follow upon another, as if the time itself were very misery itself: So the Prophet Amos, 5:20 saith, that the day of the Lord shall be darkness.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(19) From the beginning of the creation which God created.—Note the fuller form which replaces St. Matthew’s “from the beginning of the world.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. in those days] There is no “in” here properly. Those days shall be affliction, “þe ilke dayes of tribulacioun schulen be suche,” Wyclif.

such as was not from the beginning of the creation] The unexampled atrocities of the siege of Jerusalem are fully described by Josephus. He declares that “the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to those of the Jews, are not so terrible as theirs were,” “nor did any age ever produce a generation more fruitful in wickedness from the beginning of the world.” The horrors of war and sedition, of famine and pestilence, were such as exceeded all example or conception. The city was densely crowded by the multitudes which had come up to the Passover. Pestilence ensued, and famine followed. The commonest instincts of humanity were forgotten. Acts of violence and cruelty were perpetrated without compunction or remorse, and barbarities enacted which cannot be described. Mothers snatched the food from the mouths of their husbands and children, and one actually killed, roasted, and devoured her infant son. (Comp. Lev_26:29; Deu_28:56-57). Dead bodies filled the houses and streets of the city, while cruel assassins rifled and mangled with the exultation of fiends. The besieged devoured even the filth of the streets, and so excessive was the stench that it was necessary to hurl 600,000 corpses over the wall, while 97,000 captives were taken during the war, and more than 1,100,000 perished in the siege. See Josephus, Bell. Jud. vi. 9. 3; Tacitus, Hist. Mar_13:13; Milman’s History of the Jews ii. 16; Merivale’s History of the Romans vi. 59.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And then if any man shall say to you,.... During those days of tribulation and affliction, or when shortened and at an end:

lo! here is Christ, or lo! he is there; the Messiah has appeared in such or in such a place, to deliver you from your national distresses and calamities, and from the Roman yoke and bondage:

believe him not; give no credit to such a report, for the reason following; See Gill on Mat 24:23.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

19 For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.

Ver. 19. For in those days shall be affliction] Gr. "Those days shall be affliction," as if the very time were nothing else but affliction in itself. {See Trapp on "Mat 24:21"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jospehus, the Jewish historian, relates the calamities that befell unhappy Jerusalem, about thirty-seven years after the death of Jesus Christ, which verified to the very letter the prediction: there shall be such tribulations as were not from the beginning. (St. Augustine)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

For those days shall be tribulation, such as there hath not been the like from the beginning of the creation. These expressions are very remarkable. To begin with, the tribulation would be so unexampled and so severe that the days themselves would be called "tribulation." They would be known ever after as "the tribulation. There never had been anything like them, and there never would be again. Neither the Deluge, nor the destruction of the cities of the plain, nor the drowning of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, nor the slaughter of the Canaanites, nor the destruction of Nineveh, or of Babylon, or of other great cities and nations, would be so violent and dreadful as the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus. All this is confirmed by Josephus, who says, speaking of this overthrow, "I do not think that any state ever suffered such things, or any nation within the memory of man." St. Chrysostom assigns the cause of all this to the base and cruel treatment of the Son of God by the Jews. The destruction of their city and their temple, and their continued desolation afterwards, were the lessons by which the Jews were to be taught that the Christ had indeed come, and that this was the Christ whom they had crucified and slain.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation - May it not be doubted, whether this be yet fully accomplished? Is not much of this affliction still to come?

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

affliction

tribulation. Cf. Mat 24:21 See "Tribulation."; Psa 2:5; Rev 7:14

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The dreadful calamities which were coming upon the Jews in general, and Jerusalem in particular, are here foretold by our blessed Saviour, partly from the Roman army without, and partly from the seditions and factions of the zealots within; who committed such outrages and slaughters, that there were no less than an hundred thousand Jews that bought our Saviour for thirty-pence, were now themselves sold thirty for a penny. Now did the temple itself become a sacrifice, a whole burnt-offering, and was consumed to ashes.

Yet observe, Christ promises that those days of vengeance should be shortened for the elect’s sake; God had a remnant which he designed should survive that destruction, to be an holy seed; and accordingly the providence of God so ordered it, that the city was taken in six months, and the whole country depopulated in eighteen.

From whence, observe, How the Lord intermixes some mercy with the extremest misery that doth befal a people for their sin on this side hell. No sinners can say, in this life, that they feel the strikes of justice to the utmost, or that they have judgement without mercy.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. θλίψις. See on Mar 4:17. The word is appropriate here as indicating the pressure of the siege; but there is no need to expand the meaning into “one prolonged tribulation.” As often in Mk, the sentence is quite intelligible, but is rather awkwardly expressed; tribulation such as there has not been such. Blass 50. 2, 4. Josephus (Preface to B.J. 4) says that in his estimate the calamities of the Jews exceeded those of all mankind from the beginning of the world. Cf. Exo 9:18; Deu 4:32.

οὐ μὴ γένηται. And assuredly never shall be; see on Mar 13:2. The Lord looks forward into the limitless future. Cf. Dan 12:1; Jer 30:7; 1Ma 9:27: Assumption of Moses viii. 1. These current phrases look to the past, but Christ includes the ages to come.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. ἔσονται γὰρ αἱ ἡμέραι ἐκ. θλίψις—for those days will be tribulation, instead of a time of tribulation. Wetstein translates the expression, one prolonged calamity. οἵα οὐ γέγονε τοιαύτη—literally, such as there has not been such.2

ἢν, instead of ἧς, after κτίσεως, Tisch. Treg. WH. א BC * L 28.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The creation which God created. Note the peculiar amplification, and compare verse 20, the elect or chosen whom he chose.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.