Luke 21:29-33 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Behold the fig-tree Christ spake this in the spring, just before the passover; when all the trees were budding on the mount of Olives, where they then were. When they now shoot forth, ye know of your own selves Though none teach you; that summer is now nigh at hand See note on Matthew 24:32-35. So when ye see these things, know that the kingdom of God is nigh The destruction of the Jewish city, temple, and religion, to make way for the establishment of the gospel dispensation, and the advancement of my kingdom. Verily, this generation shall not pass, &c., till all be fulfilled Greek, εως αν παντα γενηται, till all things be effected, all that has been spoken of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the overthrow of the Jewish constitution in church and state, to which things the question, Luke 21:7, relates; and which is treated of from the eighth to the twenty-fourth verse; in other words, till every article of this prophecy is accomplished. Our Lord, on other occasions, spake of his own coming, as what was to happen in that age. See Mark 9:1; and Matthew 26:64. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away You may expect a dissolution of the frame of nature sooner than the least iota of this prophecy to fail of being fulfilled, within the time I have just now mentioned. This is the most astonishing part of the whole, for it determines the time of the completion of all the particulars mentioned, to the lives of the men of the age then in being; and it determines this, not simply, but with an asseveration, both to make the disciples attentive, and to strike future ages with admiration, when they should read this prophecy, and see every circumstance of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish state, with its consequences, even in the remotest ages, clearly foretold, and the time in which it was to happen precisely marked. Thus our Lord, in the fullest manner, showed the greatness of his own foreknowledge, and, by consequence, demonstrated the divinity of his mission. For, as the Jewish nation was at this time in the most flourishing state, the events here foretold were altogether improbable. Besides, the circumstances of the destruction are very numerous and surprisingly particular, and the language in which the whole is conceived is without the least ambiguity. It is, therefore, a prophecy of such a kind as could, not possibly be forged by an impostor; and every thinking person, who compares the events with this prediction, must do violence to his conscience if he do not acknowledge Jesus to be a prophet commissioned of God. It appears, however, that our Lord's disciples did not then understand any part of this prophecy; which is the more to be wondered at, as it was both plain and particular, and had been delivered once before, Luke 17:20. Probably they applied all the dreadful passages of it to the heathen nations, especially the Romans, whose ambition they thought would lead them to oppose the erection of their Master's kingdom, with all the forces of their empire. See Macknight. An observation of Mr. West's, relating to the authors by whom this prophecy, so plain and circumstantial, is recorded, is worthy of the reader's particular attention, namely, that Matthew and Mark were incontestably dead before the events here predicted took place, as Luke also probably might be; and as for John, the only evangelist who survived them, it is remarkable that he says nothing of them, lest any should say the prophecy was forged after the events happened. See West on the Resurrection, p. 393.