Luke 10:10-12

“ But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, 11 Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. 12 But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. ” This proclamation, and the symbolical act with which it closes, are solemn events; they will play a part in the judgment of those populations. Καί, this very dust. The dat. ὑμῖν, to you, expresses the idea, “ we return it to you, by shaking it from our feet.” There is the breaking up of every bond of connection (see Luke 9:5). Πλήν indicates, as it always does, a restriction: “Further, we have nothing else to announce to you, excepting that...” In spite of the bad reception, which will undoubtedly prevent the visit of Jesus, this time will nevertheless be to them the decisive epoch. ᾿Εφ᾿ ὑμᾶς, upon you, in the T. R., is a gloss taken from Luke 10:9.

That day may denote the destruction of the Jewish people by the Romans, or the last judgment. The two punishments, the one of which is more national, the other individual, are blended together in this threatening of the Lord, as in that of John the Baptist (Luke 3:9). Yet the idea of the last judgment seems to be the prevailing one, from what follows, Luke 10:14.

This threatening, wherein the full gravity of the present time is revealed, and the deep feeling expressed which Jesus had of the supreme character of His mission, leads the Lord to cast a glance backward at the conduct of the cities whose probation is now concluded, and whose sentence is no longer in suspense. The memory of the awful words which they are about to hear will follow the disciples on their mission, and will impress them with its vast importance.