BURKITT: | Mr 13:1-2 | Mr 13:3-4 | Mr 13:5-10 | Mr 13:11-13 | Mr 13:14 | Mr 13:15-18 | Mr 13:19-20 | Mr 13:21-23 | Mr 13v24-27 | Mr 13:28-32 | Mr 13:33-37 |
Reference
19 For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. 20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days. (Mark 13:19-20 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
The dreadful calamities which were coming upon the Jews in general, and Jerusalem in particular, are here foretold by our blessed Saviour, partly from the Roman army without, and partly from the seditions and factions of the zealots within; who committed such outrages and slaughters, that there were no less than a hundred thousand Jews that bought our Saviour for thirty-pence, were now themselves sold thirty for a penny. Now did the temple itself become a sacrifice, a whole burnt offering, and was consumed to ashes.
Yet observe, Christ promises that those days of vengeance should be shortened for the elect’s sake; God had a remnant which he designed should survive that destruction, to be a holy seed; and accordingly, the providence of God so ordered it, that the city was taken in six months, and the whole country depopulated in eighteen.
From whence, observe, How the Lord intermixes some mercy with the extremest misery that does befall a people for their sin on this side of hell. No sinners can say, in this life, that they feel the strikes of justice to the utmost, or that they have judgment without mercy.