Luke 19:42

If thou hadst known. "As I know," says S. Gregory (hom. 39), Bede and others. Because I am come to thee as thy Messiah, for thy salvation, to save thee, and bring thee everlasting blessing, according to the words of Zech. ix. If thou hadst known what is for thy good, salvation, and happiness, namely, penitence and faith in Me, which I have taught thee these three years past, thou wouldst weep, as I do, for thy past blindness and obstinacy. Euthymius supplies, "Thou wouldst in no wise perish." Others say, "Thou wouldst bear thyself otherwise; listen to Me, and believe in Me." The Syriac has, "If thou hadst known the things that are for thy peace and salvation in this thy day." The Arabic. "If thou hadst known, even thou, and in this thy day, how much peace there was for thee in it." Peace, in Hebrew, means prosperity, safety, happiness, every good, both of body and soul.

It is an aposopiopesis, showing the profound passion of grief and indignation in Christ, for He upbraids the ungrateful city with its unbelief, obstinacy, and ingratitude. This feeling in Christ was so strong that it choked His voice, and compelled Him to be silent, as by aposopiopesis. "For those who weep," says Euthymius, "break off their words abruptly, from the strength of their feelings." There is again great passion "pathos," in the words; "Even thou, 0 daughter of Zion, by Me so beloved, so honoured, so enriched: for thee have I come from heaven to earth, for thee was I born at Bethlehem, for thee have I lived thirty-four years in continued labour, suffering, poverty. For three years have I taught and preached in thy towns and villages; I have healed thy lepers, thy sick, thy possessed; I have restored thy dead to life. Thou, therefore, daughter of Jerusalem, why dost thou not return the love of one who so loves thee, but scornest and destroyest Him as an enemy? It will come, it will come shortly, that great day of the Lord, in which thou will too late confess thy unbelief and lament thy blindness. This is thy day, in which thou vainly exultest in thy wealth, thy luxury, thy pomps. But My day shall come, yea, the day of the Lord, in which He will most grievously punish thee, and utterly root thee out, and in which thou shalt pour forth the inconsolable and never ceasing tears of most bitter anguish." Similar is the passion of Christ to the traitor Judas. Psa 5:13.

In trope, S. Gregory in his 39th Homily says, "The perverse soul, which delights in the passing day, here meets its day. The soul, that is, to which present things are peace, because, while it takes pleasure in temporal prosperity: while it is elevated by honour while it is dissolved in the pleasures of sense, while it is terrified by no thoughts of a punishment to come, it has peace in its day, although in one to come it will meet with heavy condemnation. For it will be afflicted when the righteous rejoice, and all that was lately for its peace will be turned into the bitterness of contention. For it will begin to be at strife with itself, and to question itself, as to why it had not feared the condemnation to come, and had shut the eyes of its soul to the prospect of the evils to come.

But now they are hid from Divine eyes. Because (de Industria) thou wouldst not know, says Titus. And Eusebius, in the Catena, "Christ makes known His coming for the peace of the world, and when they would not receive that peace, it was hidden from them." The Incarnation of Christ, His preaching, His passion, His resurrection, were hidden from the Jews. Equally so their own perfidy, blindness, ingratitude, and therefore their punishment and destruction by Titus. "For," says S. Gregory, "if we saw the evils that are impending, we should not rejoice in present prosperity." Again, in figure, "The perverse soul, while it loses itself in the enjoyments of the present life, what does it but walk with closed eyes into the fire?" Hence it is well written, In the day of good things be not unmindful of the evil. And S. Paul, "Let those that rejoice be as those that rejoice not." For if there is any joy in the present time, it should be so felt, as that the bitterness of the future judgment should never be absent from the thoughts, for while the reverent mind is pierced by fear of the final punishment, in proportion to its present rejoicing will the wrath hereafter be tempered. Ver.43. For the days shall come. The Greek reads, "Thy enemies shall cast up a bank about thee and compass thee round." The Arabic, "The days shall come in which thine enemies shall throw down thy standards, and shall surround thee." How truly Christ foretold this appears from Josephus, who in Bk. vi. Chap. 37, of his "Wars of the Jews," says that Titus and the Romans erected three mounds round Jerusalem, and, in the space of only three days, surrounded the whole city with a wall of 39 stadia, so that there should be neither exit nor passage for any one. Christ alludes to Isaiah 29:1-2, "Woe to Ariel," &c. For Jerusalem, which before was strong and unconquered, was, as it were, Ariel that is, the Lion of God, now deserted by me, and given over to destruction by the Romans, and to become, as it were, the ram of justice, and the sacrifice of divine vengeance. So Eusebius, S. Cyril and Theodoret on Isaiah xxix. I.

And keep thee in on every side. To such a pitch of famine, and to such straits shalt thou be reduced that mothers shall devour even their own children. Josephus, "Wars of the Jews " chap. xiv. and following.