This verse is but a further description of the event depicted in the second half of the preceding verse.
And the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. — This was the case (with regard to Judah) in the Chaldæan conquest (2 Kings 25:22). Whether or no this can be interpreted of the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, we leave our readers to decide, after placing before them the following words of Josephus (Bel. Jud. vi. 9, § 2): — “And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired of killing men, yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still remaining alive, Caesar gave orders that they should kill none but those that were in arms and opposed them, but should take the rest alive. But, together with those whom they had orders to slay, they slew the aged and the infirm; but for those that were in their flourishing age, and who might be useful to them, they drove them together into the Temple, and shut them up within the walls of the court of the women, over which Caesar set one of his freedmen, as also Fronto, one of his friends, which last was to determine every one’s fate according to his merits. So this Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the triumph; and as for the rest of the multitude that were above seventeen years old, he put them in bonds, and sent them to the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a great number into the provinces, as a present to them, that they might be destroyed upon their theatres by the sword and by wild beasts; but those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves.” We simply ask, what room is there for a remnant?