Matthew 23:38

Mat 23:38-39. Behold, your house — The temple, which is now your house, not God’s; is left unto you desolate — Forsaken of God and his Christ, and sentenced to utter destruction. Our Lord spake this as he was going out of it for the last time. For I say unto you — Ye Jews in general, ye men of Jerusalem in particular; shall not see me henceforth — Απ’ αρτι, hereafter, as the words signify, Mat 26:64; till — After a long interval of desolation and misery, Ye shall say, Blessed, &c. — Till ye receive me with joyful and thankful hearts; that is, till your nation is converted: for the state of the nation, and not of a few individuals, is here spoken of, as it is also in the parables of the vineyard and marriage-supper. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, was the cry of the believing multitude when Jesus made his public entry into Jerusalem a few days before. Hence, in predicting their future conversion, he very properly alluded to that exclamation by which so many had expressed their faith in him as the Messiah. This was the last discourse Jesus pronounced in public, and with it his ministry ended. From that moment he abandoned the Jewish nation, gave them over to walk in their own counsels, and devoted them to destruction. Nor were they ever after to be the objects of his care, till the period of their conversion to Christianity should come, which he now foretold, and which also shall be accomplished in its season.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23:38 your house is abandoned and desolate: God would withdraw his presence from the Temple (Ezek 10:18-19; 11:22-23; cp. Matt 1:23), and both the Temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed.

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

Mat 23:38. Ἰδοὺ, ἀφίεται, Behold [your house] is left) The present tense twice expressed.[1020] He uttered these words as He was going out of the Temple. See ch. Mat 24:1, and cf. Joh 12:36.—Ὁ ΟἾΚΟς ὙΜῶΝ, your house) which is otherwise called the house of the Lord. Thus, in Exo 32:7, God says to Moses, thy people.[1021]—ἔρημος, desolate, or desert) sc. as being left by the Messiah.[1022] Even after His ascension, Christ employed the Temple in a remarkable manner with His disciples. But with regard to Judaism, the Temple now ceased to be what it had been, and for this reason was at length destroyed; see Mat 23:36. The word ἜΡΗΜΟς is often employed with a particular reference.[1023] Thus the Forum is said to be ἜΡΗΜΟΝ, when no judicial proceedings are being carried on in it.

[1020] This refers to ἀποστέλλω in Mat 23:34.—(I. B.)

[1021] Though on other occasions God said of them, “My people.”—ED.

[1022] For when the Messiah is absent, there is nothing that is not desolate and deserted.—V. g.

[1023] i.e. To denote the absence of that which constituted the characteristic or excellence of the object under consideration.—(I. B.)

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_23:38 f. Ἀφίεται ὑμῖν ὁ οἶκος ὑμ.] your house is abandoned to your own disposal; the time for divine help and protection for your city is now gone by! For the meaning, comp. Joseph. Antt. xx. 8. 5. The present implies the tragic and decisive ultimatum. The ἔρημος, which is to be retained on critical grounds (see critical notes), intimates what is to be the final result of this abandonment, viz. the destruction of Jerusalem (ἐρήμωσις, Mat_24:45; Luk_21:20); on the proleptic use of the adjective, comp. on Mat_12:13, and Kühner, II. 1, p. 236. According to the context, ὁ οἶκος ὑμῶν can only mean Ἱερουσαλήμ, Mat_23:37 (Bleek), in which their children dwell; not the city and the country at large (de Wette and earlier expositors, in accordance with Psa_69:25), nor the whole body of the Jewish people (Keim), nor the temple (Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Calvin, Olearius, Wolf, Michaelis, Kuinoel, Neander, Baumeister in Klaibers Stud. II. p. 67 f.; Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 92; Ewald).

Mat_23:39 proceeds to account for this ἀφίεται ὑμῖν, κ.τ.λ. Were your city any longer to be shielded by the divine protection, I would still linger among you; but I now leave you, and it is certain that henceforth (His presence among them, as He knows, being about to cease with His death, comp. Mat_26:64) you will not see me again until my second coming (not: in the destruction of Jerusalem, Wetstein), when I shall appear in the glory of the Messiah, and when, at my approach, you will have saluted (εἴπητε, dixeritis) me, whom you have been rejecting, with the Messianic confession εὐλογημένος, κ.τ.λ. (Mat_21:9). This is not to be understood of the conversion of Israel (Romans 11; Revelation 11) in its development down to the second coming (Bengel, Köstlin, Hofmann, Lange, Schegg, Auberlen, Ewald); for Jesus is addressing Jerusalem, and threatening it with the withdrawal of Gods superintending care, and that until the second appearing of Messiah (ὁ ἐρχόμενος), and hence He cannot have had in view an intervening μετάνοια and regeneration of the city. No; the abandonment of the city on the part of God, which Jesus here announces, is ultimately to lead to her destruction; and then, at His second appearing, which will follow immediately upon the ruin of the city (Mat_24:29), His obstinate enemies will be constrained to join in the loyal greeting with which the Messiah will be welcomed (Mat_21:9), for the manifestation of His glory will sweep away all doubt and opposition, and force them at last to acknowledge and confess Him to be their Deliverer. A truly tragic feature at the close of this moving address in which Jesus bids farewell to Jerusalem, not with a hope, but with the certainty of ultimate, though sorrowful, victory. Euthymius Zigabenus very justly observes in connection with ἕως ἂν εἴπητε, κ.τ.λ.: καὶ πότε τοῦτο εἴπωσιν; ἑκόντες μὲν οὐδέποτε· ἄκοντες δὲ κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν τῆς δευτέρας αὐτοῦ παρουσίας, ὅταν ἥξει μετὰ δυνάμεως καὶ δόξης πολλῆς, ὅταν οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς ὄφελος τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως. Comp. Theophylact, Calvin, Gerhard, Calovius. Wieseler, p. 322, despairing of making sense of the passage, has gone the length of maintaining that some ancient reader of Matthew has inserted it from Luke. This view might seem, no doubt, to be favoured by the use, in the present instance, of Ἱερουσαλήμ, Mat_23:37, the form in which the word regularly appears in Luke, and for which, on every other occasion, Matthew has Ἱεροσόλυμα; but it might very easily happen that, in connection with an utterance by Jesus of so remarkable and special a nature, the form given to the name of the city in the fatal words addressed to her would become so stereotyped in the Greek version of the evangelic tradition, that here, in particular, the Greek translator of Matthew would make a point of not altering the form Ἱερουσαλήμ, which had come to acquire so fixed a character as part of the utterance before us.

REMARK.

It is fair to assume that Christs exclamation over Jerusalem presupposes that the capital had repeatedly been the scene of His ministrations, which coincides with the visits on festival occasions recorded by John. Comp. Act_10:39, and see Holtzmann, p. 440 f.; Weizsäcker, p. 310. Those who deny this (among them being Hilgenfeld, Keim) must assume, with Eusebius in the Theophan. (Nova bibl. patr. iv. 127), that by the children of Jerusalem are meant the Jews in general, inasmuch as the capital formed the centre of the nation; comp. Gal_4:25. Baur himself (p. 127) cannot help seeing the far-fetched character of this latter supposition, and consequently has recourse to the unwarrantable view that we have before us the words of a prophet speaking in the name of God,words which were first put into the mouth of Jesus in their present form, so that, when they were uttered, ποσάκις would be intended to refer to the whole series of prophets and messengers, who had come in Gods name; just as Origen had already referred them to Moses and the prophets as well, in whom Christ was supposed to have been substantially present; comp. Strauss in Hilgenfelds Zeitschr. 1863, p. 90.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 23:38 . ἰδοὺ , etc., solemn, sorrowful abandonment of the city to its fate. ἀφίεται ὑμῖν , spoken to the inhabitants of Israel. ὁ οἶκος ὑ ., your house, i.e. , the city, not the temple; the people are conceived of as one family. ἔρημος , wanting in [129] [130] , and omitted by W.H [131] , is not necessary to the sense. The sentence is, indeed, more impressive without it: “Behold your house is abandoned to your care: those who would have saved you giving up further effort”. What will happen left to be imagined; just what ἔρημος expresses desolation.

[129] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[130] Codex Regius--eighth century, represents an ancient text, and is often in agreement with א and B.

[131] Westcott and Hort.

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

Behold, your house--the temple, beyond all doubt; but their house now, not the Lord's. See on Mat 22:7.

is left unto you desolate--deserted, that is, of its Divine Inhabitant. But who is that? Hear the next words:

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 38. Behold, your house] Ο οικος, the temple: - this is certainly what is meant. It was once the Lord's temple, God's OWN house; but now he says, YOUR temple or house - to intimate that God had abandoned it. See Clarke on Mt 23:21; see also Clarke on "Lu 13:35".

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(38) Your house.—The word “desolate” is omitted in some of the best MSS. The words “your house” may refer either generally to the whole polity of Israel, or more specifically to the “house” in which they gloried, the Temple, which was the joy of their hearts. It had been the house of God, but He, as represented by His Son, was now leaving it for ever. It was their house now, not His. We must remember that the words were spoken as our Lord was “departing from the Temple” (Mat_24:1), never to reappear there.

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

38. your house] i. e. Jerusalem, rather than the Temple.

desolate] Omitted in the Vatican Codex, but too strongly supported to be removed from the text.

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.

For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth,.... Meaning in a very little time after the passover, from the time of his crucifixion and death; otherwise they saw him many times after this, as in the palace of the high priest, in Pilate's judgment hall, and on the cross; but not after his resurrection. This shows the reason of their house being desolate, and in what sense it should be so, and immediately became so; namely, by being then directly, and ever after, destitute of his presence: and though they might afterwards seek for, and expect the Messiah in it, yet they would never be able to see him, nor throughout their long captivity: till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; that is, until the time comes, that the fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in, and all Israel shall be saved, the Jews shall be converted, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; when they shall readily and cheerfully say these words to Christ, who will then appear in his glory; which they were now displeased at in the multitude that followed him, and the children in the temple. Though some think this is said by way of threatening, since the rest that is spoken to them by Christ is of that sort, and regards the men of that generation; and is given as a reason of their house being left desolate: and the sense is, that they should never see him with joy and pleasure; since, though they would be obliged to confess that he was Lord and Christ, they would never say the above words to him in faith, and holy reverence of him. The Cambridge exemplar of Beza's, and the Persic versions, read, "in the name of God."

Next: Matthew Chapter 24

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

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Ver. 38. Behold, your house is left, &c.] City and temple both. God will not always stand men for a sinning stock. They that will not hear his word, shall hear his rod, and feel his sword too. Elisha hath his sword as well as Jehu and Hazael, 1Ki 19:17, and the one usually precedes the other. They therefore that say, Following of sermons will make men beggars, forget that to take away the gospel from Jerusalem was to leave their houses as well as God’s house desolate.

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.

Your house - The temple. The house of worship of the Jews. The chief ornament of Jerusalem.

Desolate - About to be desolate or destroyed. To be forsaken as a place of worship, and delivered into the hands of the Romans, and destroyed. See the notes at Matt. 24.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Behold, your house. Their house shall be deprived of the protection of the God of heaven. He it was that had hitherto preserved them, and he also would inflict upon them those very severe judgments they so much dreaded. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxxv.)

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).

38. Your house is left… desolate — Jerusalem is pictured as a person whose habitation has been completely desolated and abandoned to the pillager. The house may be an allusion to the temple, in which indeed Jesus uttered the words. It is now not God’s house, but your house.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Your house. The temple or Jerusalem, no longer God"s habitation. This betokens not only Christ"s solemn departure from the sacred precincts; but the withdrawal of God"s Spirit from the Jewish Church and nation. Unto you. Henceforward ye shall have it all to yourselves; my Father and I forsake it; we give it up altogether to you. Desolate. The word is omitted by some few uncials, but retained by a, C, D, etc., most cursives, the Vulgate, etc. The protecting wing is withdrawn, the Divine presence removed, and the house is indeed deserted (erhmov); (comp. Psa_59:2-5 Jer_12:7)

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

Behold your house - The temple, which is now your house, not God's: Is left unto you - Our Lord spake this as he was going out of it for the last time: Desolate - Forsaken of God and his Christ, and sentenced to utter destruction.

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

38. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. This was the consequence of refusing to come to Christ. The temple is the house meant. God will abandon it and leave it desolate. He will no longer accept its worship.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

38. ὁ οἶκος ὑμῶν, i.e. Jerusalem, rather than the Temple. ὑμῶν, ‘yours,’ no longer God’s.

ἔρημος. Omitted in the Vatican Codex, but too strongly supported to be removed from the text.

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.

38. Behold your house is left to you.] So Luk 13:35.

(L)

38. ὁ οἶκος ὑμῶν] א C D al add ἓρημος; cf. Jer 22:5 εἰς ἐρήμωσιν ἕσται ὁ οἶκος οὖτος. Omit B. L ff2 S1.

ἀφίεται ὑμῖν ὁ οἶκος ὑμῶν] ὁ οἶκος may mean either the city or the temple. For the latter, cf. Jer 26:6 “Them will I make this house” (cf. v. 3 “the court of the Lord’s house”) “like Shiloh;” Apoc. Bar 8:2 “He who kept the house” (cf. 1 “from the interior of the temple”) “has forsaken it.” For the former, cf. Jer 12:7 “I have forsaken My house”; 22:5 “This house shall become a desolation. For thus saith the Lord concerning the house of the King of Judah.” Enoch 8950., 51, “they forsook that their house”; 55 “He forsook that their house and tower.” See Charles’ note on 50. The two meanings seem here to be combined, “Your city and Temple are abandoned by God, and given up to desolation.” For the idea of the abandonment of a doomed city by the divine power which protected it, cf. the story told in Jos. Wars, vi. 299, of the priests who, before the capture of the city by Titus, heard a sound as of a multitude, saying, “Let us go hence.” Cf. also Apoc. Bar 8:1, 2, and Tacitus, Hist. v. 13.

E editorial passages.

L the Matthæan Logia.

B. Babylonian Talmud.

DB. Dictionary of the Bible (Hastings).

M the Second Gospel.

Dalm. Dalman.

al i.e. with other uncial MSS.

S Syriac version: Sinaitic MS.

S Syriac version: Curetonian.

1 Rel. Beweg. pp. 32 f.

Jos. Josephus.

Exp. Times Expository Times.

O quotations from the Old Testament borrowed from a collection of Messianic prophecies. See pp.61 f.

1 If this be so, the thought here is much the same as that which Mt. (15:10-20) has read into Mar 7:14-23. There it is “Eating meat with unwashen hands will not defile you if you are morally clean”; here it is if “Eating from vessels which are ceremonially unclean will not defile you, if the food has been honestly obtained.”

Bab. Babylonian Talmud.

LXX. The Septuagint Version.

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