Luke 17:33-37 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it The sense of this and the following verses is, Yet, as great as the danger will be, do not seek to save your lives by violating your consciences; if you do, you will surely lose them; whereas, if you should lose them for my sake, you shall be repaid with life everlasting. But the most probable way of preserving them now is to be always ready to give them up: a peculiar providence shall then watch over you, and put a difference between you and other men. Two men shall be in one bed, &c. See on Matthew 24:40-41. The minds of your enemies shall be so overruled by God, that, in cases where two persons are equally in their power, one of them shall be carried off, and the other left to make his escape. And they said, Where, Lord, shall all these things happen? And he said, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered As eagles find out, and gather round a carcass, so, wherever wicked men are, the judgments of God will pursue them; and particularly in whatever part of the land any number of the unbelieving Jews are, there will the Romans, the executioners of the divine vengeance upon this nation, be gathered together to destroy them. The expression is proverbial, and will appear to have been beautifully applied, when it is remembered, that the Romans bore in their standards the figure of an eagle; and that a certain kind of eagle, called περκνοπτερων, [ black winged] mentioned by Aristotle, Hist. Ani., Luke 9:32, is found to feed on carcasses. Macknight.