And shall lay thee even with the ground. — See Note on Matthew 24:2. What is there said of the Temple, is here repeated of the city as a whole, and describes a general demolition of everything that could be demolished. So Josephus (Wars, viii. 1, § 1) describes the work as being done so effectively that, with the exception of one or two towers and part of the walls, the fortifications were so laid even with the ground that there was nothing left to make those that came thither believe that that part of the city had been inhabited.
The time of thy visitation. — The phrase is not found in any other Gospel. The idea of “visitation” presents two aspects, one of pardon (Luke 1:68; Luke 1:78; Luke 7:16), the other of chastisement (1 Peter 2:12). In both, however, the act of “visiting” implied looking after, caring for, and so a purpose of mercy. Modern usage — especially, perhaps, the common legal phrase of a man’s dying by the “visitation of God,” of sickness being “His visitation” — has given undue prominence to the latter thought. Here it appears to include both. The Christ had visited it first with a message of peace. Then came the discipline of suffering, and Jerusalem knew not how to make a right use of either.