Luke 21:8-19

The Signs which are not such. “ But He said, Take heed that ye be not deceived; for many shall come in my name, saying, I am he, and the time draweth near. Go ye not therefore after them. 9. And when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified; for these things must first come to pass; but the end cometh not so speedily. 10. Then said He unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11. And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, as well as great and terrible signs from heaven. 12. But above all, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, bringing you before kings and rulers for my name's sake. 13. But it shall turn to you for a testimony. 14. Settle it, therefore, in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer. 15. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. 16. And ye shall be betrayed even by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death; 17. And ye shall be hated of all for my name's sake; 18. And there shall not an hair of your head perish. 19. In your patience save ye your lives. ”

The sign to which the question of the apostle refers is not indicated till Luke 21:20. The signs Luke 21:8-19 are enumerated solely to put believers on their guard against the decisive value which they might be led to ascribe to them. The vulgar are inclined to look on certain extraordinary events in nature or society as the evidences of some approaching catastrophe. Many events of this kind will happen, Jesus means to say, but without your being warranted yet to conclude that the great event is near, and so to take measures precipitately. The seduction of which Matthew and Mark speak is that which shall be practised by the false Messiahs. The meaning is probably the same in Luke (γάρ). History, it is true, does not attest the presence of false Messiahs before the destruction of Jerusalem. And those who are most embarrassed by this fact are just our modern critics, who see in this discourse nothing but a prophecy ab eventu. They suppose that the author alludes to such men as Judas the Galilean, the Egyptian (Acts 21), Theudas, and others, prudently described by Josephus as mere heads of parties, but who really put forth Messianic pretensions. This assertion is hard to prove. For our part, who see in this discourse a real prophecy, we think that Jesus meant to put believers on their guard against false teachers, such as Simon the magician, of whom there may have been a great number at this period, though he is the only one of whom profane history speaks.

The μὴ πτοηθῆναι, not to let themselves be terrified (Luke 21:9), refers to the temptation to a premature emigration. Comp. the opposite Luke 21:21. Further, it must not be concluded from the political convulsions which shall shake the East that the destruction of Jerusalem is now near.

Jesus had uttered in substance His whole thought in those few words; and He might have passed immediately to the contrast ὅταν δέ, but when (Luke 21:20). Yet He developes the same idea more at length, Luke 21:10-19. Hence the words in which Luke expressly resumes his report: Then said He unto them (Luke 21:10). This passage, Luke 21:10-19, might therefore have been inserted here by Luke as a fragment borrowed from a separate document differing from the source whence he took the rest of the discourse.

We should not take the words ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς as a parenthetical proposition, and connect τότε with ἐγερθήσεται : “Then said He unto them, One nation shall rise.” According to the analogy of Luke's style, we should rather translate: “ Then said He unto them, One nation...” When to great political commotions there are added certain physical phenomena, the imagination is carried away, and the people become prophets. Jesus puts the Church of Palestine on its guard against this tendency (Luke 21:11). It is well known that the times which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem were signalized in the East by many calamities, particularly by a dreadful famine which took place under Claudius, and by the earthquake which destroyed Laodicea, Hierapolis, etc., in 67 or 68. By the signs from heaven we are to understand meteors, auroras, eclipses, etc., phenomena to which the vulgar readily attach a prophetic significance.

One of those events which contribute most to inflame fanaticism in a religious community is persecution; thus are connected Luke 21:12-13. Those which are announced will arise either from the Jews (synagogues), like that marked by the martyrdoms of Stephen and James, or from the Gentiles (kings and rulers), like that to which Paul was exposed in Palestine, or that raised by Nero at Rome.

In the phrase, before all these, the πρό (before) refers to the importance of this sign, not to its time. Meyer denies that πρό can have this meaning; but Passow's dictionary cites a host of examples for it. It is, besides, the only meaning which suits the context. If πρό here signified before, why not speak of the persecutions before the preceding signs? What Jesus means by this word is, that among all those signs, this is the one which might most easily throw His disciples out of the calm attitude in which they ought to persevere. We have translated the passive ἀγομένους by the active (bringing). It is hardly possible to render the passive form into English. Holtzmann thinks that Luke here traces after the event, though in the form of prophecy, the picture of those persecutions to which St. Paul was exposed. Can we suppose an evangelist, to whom Jesus is the object of faith, allowing himself deliberately thus to put words into His mouth after his fancy?

Bleek applies the word testimony (Luke 21:13) to that which will accrue to the apostles from this proof of their fidelity. It is more natural, having in view the connection with Luke 21:14-15 (therefore, Luke 21:14), to understand by it what they shall themselves render on occasion of their persecution. This idea falls back again into the Be not terrified: “All that will only end in giving you the opportunity of glorifying me!” It is the same with Luke 21:14-15, the object of which is to inspire them with the most entire tranquillity of soul in the carrying out of their mission. Jesus charges Himself with everything: ἐγὼ δώσω, I will give.

The mouth is here the emblem of the perfect ease with which they shall become the organs of the wisdom of Jesus, without the least preparation. The term ἀντειπεῖν, gainsay, refers to the fact that their adversaries shall find it impossible to make any valid reply to the defence of the disciples; the word resist, to the powerlessness to answer when the disciples, assuming the offensive, shall attack them with the sword of the gospel. In the Alex. reading, which places ἀντιστῆναι first, we must explain ἤ in the sense of or even.

To official persecution there shall be added the sufferings of domestic enmity. The name of Jesus will open up a gulf between them and their nearest. Luke 21:17 is almost identical with John 15:21. But even in that case there will be no ground for disquiet. The time will not yet have come for them to quit the accursed city and land. Luke 21:18: “ There shall not an hair of your head perish,” seems to contradict the close of Luke 21:16: “ some of you shall perish. ” This contradiction is explained by the general point of view from which we explain this piece: There shall, indeed, be some individual believers who shall perish in the persecution, but the Christian community of Palestine as a whole shall escape the extermination which will overtake the Jewish people. Their condition is indicated in Luke 21:19, where this piece is resumed. It is one of patience, that is to say, peaceful waiting for the divine signal, without being drawn aside either by the appeals of a false patriotism or by persecution, or by false signs and anti-Christian seductions. The fut. κτήσεσθε in A. B. is probably a correction of the aor. κτήσασθε (T. R.). The imper. signifies: “Embrace the means which seem the way to lose everything..., and ye shall save yourselves.” Κτᾶσθαι does not mean to possess (Ostervald), but to acquire. The word suggests that of Jeremiah, I will give thee thy life for a prey. And now at length comes the contrast: the time when it will be necessary to leave the passive attitude for that of action (ὅταν δέ, but when, Luke 21:20).