Mark 13:1-37
1 And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!
2 And Jesus answering said unto him,Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,
4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?
5 And Jesus answering them began to say,Take heed lest any man deceive you:
6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.a
9 But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them.
10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations.
11 But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
12 Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death.
13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:
15 And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house:
16 And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment.
17 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
18 And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.
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.
20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.
21 And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:
22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.
24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:
29 So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
34 For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
35 Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:
36 Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
37 And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.
The Eschatologieal Discourse. The first two verses contain our Lord's prediction of the fall of Jerusalem. To the Jews, such an anticipation would seem blasphemous (cf. Acts 6:14). The discourse that follows does not explicitly develop this prophecy. For the abomination of desolation (Mark 13:14) is only a vague reference to the laying waste of Jerusalem, though it does foreshadow some signal profanation of the Temple. (The phrase comes from Daniel 9:27; Daniel 11:31 *, and means a profanation that provokes horror; cf. also 1Ma_1:54; 1Ma_6:7.) The subject of this, the longest speech attributed to Jesus in Mk., is the signs of the end, rather than of the fall of Jerusalem, though the end of the age and the destruction of the city would be closely associated in the mind of the evangelist. Three stages are indicated. There is first (Mark 13:5) a period of wars and natural calamities. During it the Christians must expect and face persecution. This is followed (Mark 13:14) by the great tribulation, itself heralded by the insult to the Temple. This tribulation will come suddenly and affect the whole country-side of Judæ a. At both stages, false prophets and false Christs will arise and deceive many. Even this is not the end. After that tribulation, the powers of nature shall be shaken, and the Son of Man will appear (Mark 13:24). The conclusion of the chapter enforces the duty of watchfulness, on the double ground that the end is near, and yet that the precise hour is incalculable (Mark 13:28).
That the discourse is composite appears from the parallels (see notes) in Lk. and Mt. In particular, Mark 13:15 f. is given in a better context in Luke 17:31 f. and is not reproduced in Luke 21:21. The genuineness of the discourse as an utterance of Jesus, has been disputed on the following grounds: (a) The setting forth of signs of the end is inconsistent with the reply of Jesus to the Pharisees in Luke 17:20 f. Similarly, the distinguishing of preparatory stages does not fit in with the emphasis on the suddenness of the coming of the Son of Man, which is characteristic of the Lucan passage, nor with the general tone of Mark 13:32. (b) These signs of the end are customary features of Jewish apocalyptic (p. 432). The belief in a great tribulation heralding the Messiah is Rabbinic. The Rabbis had their doctrine of the woes, or birthpangs (Mark 13:8) of Messiah. The characteristics of each stage are based on OT passages; with Mark 13:12 cf. Micah 7:6, with Mark 13:19 cf. Joel 2:2 and Daniel 12:1, and with Mark 13:24 f. cf. Isaiah 13:10; Isaiah 24:23; Ezekiel 32:7. (c) The whole discourse deals with questions raised by the later experience of the Church (so Loisy, pp. 367f.). It has, therefore, been suggested that a Jewish apocalypse, which may be held to have included Mark 13:7 f., Mark 13:12; Mark 13:14; Mark 13:17; Mark 13:24; Mark 13:30, has been edited, together with genuine utterances of Jesus, in order to strengthen the faith of Christians about thirty or forty years after the Crucifixion, when they were perplexed by the delay of the appearing of their Lord. The parenthesis to the reader in Mark 13:14, if it is not a later gloss, suggests that a writing of some kind, not a report of a speech, forms the basis of the chapter. This hypothesis removes many difficulties, e.g. the problem of reconciling Mark 13:30 and Mark 13:32. But we do not know how far Jesus entered into detail as to the events leading up to the end. The prediction of Jerusalem's fall, the anticipation of disaster and tribulation for His own people, the warning against anxiety whether in the presence of war or of persecution, the exhortation of watchfulness, clearly come from Jesus Himself.
Mark 13:32. This is one of Schmiedel's pillar-passages (EBi., col. 1881). A passage admitting a limit to Christ's knowledge must be trustworthy history, according to Schmiedel. Certainly later commentators found the verse difficult. Some Fathers identify the Son with the Church. But Dalman holds that the absolute use of the terms, the Son and the Father, unique in Mk., point to the influence of later theology at least on the wording of the saying (Words of Jesus, p. 194). Whatever the original form of the saying, it belongs with Mark 10:40. [The position in the climax accorded to the Son, above the angels, is specially noteworthy. A. S. P.]