Mark 13:19

“For those days will be tribulation such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never shall be.”

Here is the reason for fleeing. For to be caught up in what was to happen would be to suffer the unimaginable. This both limits the tribulation (they can escape from it by fleeing) and stresses its intensity. This was not worldwide tribulation but tribulation restricted to a particular locality. It was initially restricted to in and around Jerusalem and Judaea. Note the phrase ‘and never shall be'. This demonstrates that the tribulation was not to be an indication of the end, and that there was still to be a future following this. The impression is in fact given that time will go on for a considerable period. This is in contrast with Daniel 12:1 where there was to be no future. Then it was ‘even to that same time', with no reference beyond that. There the ‘time of trouble' is also excessive and the worst ever of its kind, but it is of a different kind. It is not one restricted to a doomed city like this. We cannot just equate the two. This tribulation is not specifically the same as that one.

Jesus was here emphasising the dreadfulness of the suffering of those who would be caught up in the final invasion in extreme terms. And the actual accounts given of the siege and capture of Jerusalem, which because of its nature had to be stormed section by section, including the final resistance within the Upper City and the Temple itself, and including the starvation, the sufferings of the people and their dreadful cruelty even to each other, the crucifixions and mutilations of any caught by the Romans, the earlier internecine fighting, and the final decimation, do convey a picture so awful that they are unimaginable, made even worse by the hopeless recognition of the desecration that was coming on their holy city. They were a people doomed by man's inhumanity to man and because of their own sin and their final rejection of God in the crucifixion of Jesus. But it should be noted that they brought it on themselves by their own fanaticism. If only they had listened to Jesus it would never have happened.

Comparison with Daniel 12 and Jeremiah 30:6 suggests that Jesus is using the idea of ‘the time of trouble' to come at the end of time as a pattern on which to mould His description of the destruction of Jerusalem here. But compare also Exodus 9:18; Exodus 10:14; Exodus 11:6; Joel 2:2; Revelation 6:18 which demonstrate the hyperbolic nature of the description.

It should perhaps be pointed out at this stage that things were in reality not even quite as simple as this. It sounds incredible but in the three years in which the final war raged the worst fighting took place between Jewish factions fighting each other without mercy, including in Jerusalem where, even while the enemy were approaching, the inhabitants were busy slaughtering each other. They even destroyed the enormous stores of grain in the city in case a rival party got hold of them which explains why starvation began to take over so quickly. Only the final attack partly united them. It was a case of fanaticism gone mad.

‘From the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never shall be.” Note the stress on the fact that it was God Who ‘created His creation'. He had created it as good, but now this had happened, the culmination of all the evil that had come on the world. Such is the final result of the fall of man.

“For those days will be tribulation such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never shall be.” Initially the tribulation refers to what will happen during the siege itself, and then to the tribulation that will fall on those who survive the siege and are crucified, or are taken into captivity to be sold as slaves or to be led in chains into Jerusalem in the triumph of the victors, but it then includes the tribulation that will continue on after the siege is over, and the initial punishments have been meted out, for all the survivors. Matthew calls it ‘great tribulation'.

Luke amplifies on it in more detail. For he sums up the days following the destruction as follows. ‘And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled' (Luke 21:24). According to Luke, then, Jesus forecast the future that lay ahead after the destruction of the Jerusalem (after the Abomination of Desolation) in terms reminiscent of the previous destruction of the Temple in 587 BC, the carrying away of the Jews captive among the nations, the treading down (ruling by force) of Jerusalem by the Gentiles, and the period of Gentile domination following. Thus their tribulation will continue into exile. These events would all again follow the destruction of Jerusalem and, by implication from the questions asked at the beginning, the destruction of the Temple. This all followed the pattern of the first Exile on which Jesus' words appear to have been based, and would result in a second, permanent exile.

These ‘times of the Gentiles', then of unknown duration, we now know would last 2000 years, but, as far as the disciples listening were concerned, it could have indicated a fairly short period like the ‘seventy years' following the destruction of the Temple in 587 BC (Jeremiah 29:10), although the ‘seventy sevens' of Daniel 9 would have been a reminder that it could be far longer in God's timing. This full glory of this period, and the wonderful truths on which it was based, were unknown to the prophets, a mystery made known to the Christian church (Romans 16:26; 1 Corinthians 2:7). They saw the shadow, but could not appreciate the sun.

Accompanying the times of the Gentiles would come signs in the heavens ‘and on the earth distress of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows, men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken' (Luke 21:26). This may be referring to events taking place during the times of the Gentiles, a description of history as a whole, or to the ending of the times of the Gentiles which would result in the final days of the age, when there would be the time of trouble as depicted in Daniel 12:1, or both. Zechariah 10:11 refers similarly to ‘the sea of affliction' (compare Psalms 65:7; Isaiah 5:30; Isaiah 54:11; Jeremiah 51:42).

Mark on the other hand sums all this up in typical Old Testament apocalyptic language, ‘the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken'. So Mark's language here is covering even more briefly the same events as outlined by Luke. It is saying briefly that for the Jews especially, and for the nations as a whole, there would be extremely eventful times, the length of which is unknown.

To the Jews taken into captivity, and it did happen to them in large numbers, or to those led out to be crucified, the sun would indeed become dark and the moon would not give her light, for they would be living in a darkness so appalling that nothing could bring relief. All that they had hoped and lived for had collapsed. This would be part of ‘the great tribulation' of Matthew 24:21, begun in the battle for Jerusalem and continuing on through time to the present day. The idea of ‘stars falling from heaven' combine with these pictures, and seemingly indicate as well the same as the distress of nations in Luke, unless they are intended to indicate supernatural activity resulting from the downfall of Satan through the cross (Revelation 12:4).

This language is typical of language used in the Old Testament of times of crisis. Compare the parallel in Isaiah 13:10, ‘the sun will be darkened in his going forth, and the moon will not cause her light to shine', which depicts the earth shaking events when the Medes conquered Babylon (Isaiah 13:17). So again at this time there will be earth shaking events, the kind of which history has been full.

The falling of the stars from heaven probably refers to Isaiah 34:4 which in LXX reads ‘all the stars will fall as the leaf falls from the vine and as a leaf from the fig tree', which may represent a slightly different Hebrew text from the Massoretic. Again it was metaphorical language, in this case describing God's judgment on Edom and the nations round about. For them there was not even a glimmer of light.

Otherwise there is no real parallel in Scripture to the stars falling from heaven apart from in Revelation 12:4. Compare Revelation 9:1 and see Luke 10:18. The idea here therefore may alternatively be of the activities of heavenly visitants of the worst kind producing the tumult on earth described by Luke as a result of their defeat on the cross. Compare Daniel 10:12; Daniel 10:20.

Note that Luke 21:26 and Mark 13:24 both end in ‘the powers of the heavens will be shaken' demonstrating that their content up to that point refers to the same events. This phrase too might indicate the activity of heavenly visitants affecting events on earth, or may refer to general tumult which men would see as resulting from portents in the heavens. Having put the ideas in context we will now consider this section in Mark verse by verse.