Luke 17:22 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

When ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man. — The words express both the backward glance of regret, and the forward look of yearning expectation. The former feeling had been described before, when the disciples were told that the children of the bride-chamber should fast when the Bridegroom should be taken from them (Luke 5:34; Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:19). The latter was expressed by-one of those who were now listening, when he spoke of men as “looking for and eagerly hasting” the coming of the day of God (2 Peter 3:12); by another, when he recorded the cry of the souls beneath the altar, “How long, O Lord?” (Revelation 6:10). It is, we must re member, the disciples, and not the Pharisees, who are now addressed. In the long, weary years of conflict that lay before them, they would often wish that they could be back again in the pleasant days of friendly converse in the old Galilean life, or that they could be carried forward to the day of the final victory. Analogous emotions of both kinds have, of course, been felt by the successors of the disciples in all ages of the Church. They ask, Why the former days were better than the latter? (Ecclesiastes 7:10); they ask also, in half-murmuring impatience, “Why tarry the wheels of His chariots?” (Judges 5:28); sometimes, even in the accents of unbelief, “Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Peter 3:4).