Our understanding of the Greek New Testament is based almost entirely on English translations, but how would our understanding of the Greek text change if we read it for what it is: as Greek? With The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, we can now get behind the words of the New Testament writers and discover the particular linguistic tasks that inform translation and interpretation.
Vs. 41. And wept.—Not only ἐδἁκρυσεν, as in John 11:35, but έ̓κλαυσεν, with loud voice and words of lamentation. What the cause of these tears is, appears from ἐπ̓ αὐτή and the immediately following words. Again, it is Luke alone who has preserved to us this affecting trait, and it scarcely needs to be mentioned how exactly such a trait fits into the gospel which teaches us in our Lord to know the true and holy Son of Man.
And yet we cannot be surprised that precisely this genuinely and purely human trait, even from of old, has been to many a stumbling-block and scandal. In relation to this, it is noticeable (see Grotius, ad loc.) that the words έ̓κλαυσεν ἐπ̓ αὐτ. in individual ancient manuscripts do not appear; ἐν τοῖς ἀδιορθώτοις ἀντιγράφοις, says, however, Epiphanius, the words are read. “Mutarunt homines temerarii et delicati, quibus flere Christo indignum videbatur.”
Vs. 42. If thou also hadst known.—“Pathetic aposiopesis, and thereby the expression of a fruitless wish.” Meyer. The thou also places the unbelieving inhabitants of Jerusalem in opposition to the disciples of our Lord, who had really considered τὰ πρὸς εἰρήνην, perhaps a delicate allusion to what the name of Jerusalem as City of Peace (Salem) signifies.
The here-designated ημέρα can be no other than what our Lord, vs. 44, calls τὸν καιρὸν τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς. Comp. ch. 1:68. The whole time of the public activity of our Lord in Jerusalem was a respite of two years, which had been prepared for more than twenty centuries, and now, as it were, concentrated itself in the one day on which the Lord entered as King into Jerusalem.
This Jerusalem would have known (έ̓ηως), if it had unanimously rendered homage to its Messiah; but although the Lord here also had found individual believing hearts, yet Jerusalem as a city rejected its King; the ̓Ιουδαῖοι recognized Him not. It was hidden from their eyes who He was, and what a salvation He would bestow. ̓Εκρὐβη according to the righteous counsel of God, Matt. 11:25, 26, but not without their own personal guilt.
Vs. 43. Days shall come.—Vss. 43, 44 is the text of the powerful discourse respecting the destruction of Jerusalem which our Lord, ch. 21:5 seq., two days afterwards delivered before His disciples. The ἡμέραι which are now threatened are the terrible consequences of the fact that the ἡμέρα, vs. 43, has hastened by in vain. ̔́Οτι does not depend on ἐκρύβη, so that thereby the thing that is hidden is indicated (Theophylact), neither is it any strengthening word, in the sense of profecto utique (Starke), but the common signification “for” must be here retained, in the sense that the wish, vs. 42, has thereby a reason given for it, as if the Saviour would say, “I might indeed wish that, &c., for now the things that belong to thy peace remain hidden from thine eyes. Now impends,” &c.
An embankment, χάρακα, masculine.—It is remarkable how our Lord not only in general foretells the destruction of Jerusalem, but also in particular describes the way and method in which this judgment should be accomplished. He announces a formal siege, in which they should avail themselves of all the then usual auxiliaries and should permit themselves all the atrocities which victors have at any time exercised against the vanquished.
First He mentions the χάρμξ, a camp strengthened with palisades and line of circumvallation, in short, a wall such as we actually read in Josephus (De Bell. Jud. 5:6,2; 5:12,2) was thrown up around Jerusalem, but burned by the Jews. Afterwards, in consequence of this structure, περικυκλώσουσίν σε καὶ συνέξουσίν σε πάντοθεν. We may here understand the wall thirty stadia long, which Titus in three days caused to be erected around the city, in place of the burnt χάραξ.
In consequence of this measure the desolation now breaking in upon her and upon her children (ἐδαθιοῦσι) becomes general. This word occurs in a twofold signification: “to level with the earth” and “to dash to the ground” (Ps. 137:9); the first prophesies the fate of the city, the other that of her inhabitants, both being here zeugmatically connected. Finally, the conclusion of all this, no stone remains upon another, so that now, vs. 40, the stones begin to cry out.
This last part of the prophecy was first completely fulfilled after the insurrection of Bar-Cochba in the days of the Emperor Adrian, and this is the terrible result, continuing unto the present day, of this one blinding, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation! In this conclusion, and especially in this continually ascending καί, καί, καί lies a δεινότης orationis, which can be better felt than described
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