Luke 19:41-44

3 d. Luke 19:41-44. The Lamentations of Jesus.

Jesus has reached the edge of the plateau (ὡς ἤγγισεν); the holy city lies before His view (ἰδὼν τὴν πόλιν). What a day would it be for it, if the bandage fell from its eyes! But what has just passed between Him and the Pharisees present has awakened in His heart the conviction of the insurmountable resistance which He is about to meet. Then Jesus, seized, and, as it were, wrung by the contrast between what is and what might be, breaks out into sobs. ῎Εκλαυσεν, not ἐδάκρυσεν; we have to do with lamentations, with sobbings, not with tears. The words even thou mark a contrast between the population of Jerusalem and that multitude of believers from Galilee and abroad which formed His retinue. Would the inhabitants of Jerusalem but associate themselves with this Messianic festival, their capital would be saved! From that very day would date the glory of Jerusalem, as well as that of its King.

The two words καίγε and σοῦ, omitted by the Alex., have great importance. “ Καίγε, at least in this day, thy last day.” This one day which remains to it would suffice to secure its pardon for all the unbelief of the city, and even for all the blood of the prophets formerly shed within its walls! Does not this word at least suppose previous residences of Jesus at Jerusalem? Σοῦ, added to ἡμέρα (thy day), alludes to the days, now past, of Capernaum, Bethsaïda, and Chorazin. Jesus does not knock indefinitely at the door of a heart or of a people.

In the words, the things which belong to thy peace, Jesus thinks at once of the individual salvation of the inhabitants and of the preservation of the entire city. By submitting to the sovereignty of Jesus, Israel would have been preserved from the spirit of carnal exaltation which led to its ruin.

The apodosis of, Oh if..., is understood, as at Luke 13:9.

By the νῦν δέ, but now, Jesus reverts from this ideal salvation which He has been contemplating to the sad reality. We must beware of taking, with some commentators, as the subject of ἐκρύβη, are hid, the whole of the following clause: “it is concealed from thine eyes that...” The sentence thus read would drag intolerably.

Instead of the days of deliverance and glory, the image of which has just passed before His mind, Jesus sees others approaching, which fill His soul with sadness (Luke 19:43-44). Modern criticism agrees in asserting that this description of the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke includes particulars so precise, that it could only have been given ab eventu. It therefore concludes confidently from this passage that our Gospel was composed after this catastrophe. But in this case we must refuse to allow Jesus any supernatural knowledge, and relegate to the domain of myth or imposture all the facts of evangelical history in which it is implied, e.g., the announcement of Peter's denial, so well attested by the four Gospels. Besides, if it cannot be denied that the destruction of Jerusalem was foreseen and announced by Jesus, as is implied in His foreseeing the siege, is it not evident that all the particulars of the following description must have presented themselves spontaneously to His mind? We know well how Jesus loves to individualize His idea by giving the most concrete details of its realization. Comp. chap. 17 Χάραξ, a palisade of stakes filled in with branches and earth, and generally strengthened by a ditch, behind which the besiegers sheltered themselves. Such a rampart was really constructed by Titus. The Jews burned it in a sally; it was replaced by a wall.

In the LXX. ἐδαφίζειν signifies, to dash on the ground. But in good Greek it signifies, to bring down to the level of the ground. The last sense suits better here, for it applies both to the houses levelled with the ground and to the slaughtered inhabitants. Jesus, like the Zechariah of the O. T. (Zechariah 11) and the Zacharias of the New (Luke 1:68), represents His coming as the last visit of God to His people.

The word καιρός, the favourable time, shows that this visit of God is this day reaching its close.

This account is one of the gems of our Gospel. After those arresting details, Luke does not even mention the entry into the city. The whole interest for him lies in the events which precede. Mark (Mark 11:11) and Matthew (Matthew 21:10) proceed otherwise. The latter sets himself to paint the emotion with which the whole city was seized. Mark (Mark 11:11) describes in a remarkable way the impressions of Jesus on the evening of the day. Accounts so different cannot be derived from the same written source.