Verse 2
All the things to which Jesus pointed the disciples were the buildings that they had just pointed out to Him. He then prefaced an important revelation with a characteristic emphatic introduction: "Truly I say to you," or "I tell you the truth." Jesus forecast the destruction of the temple complex that Herod the Great had begun building about 20 B.C. and was not complete until A.D. 64. He used Old Testament language (Jeremiah 26:6; Jeremiah 26:18; Micah 3:12; cf. Matthew 23:38; Matthew 26:61; Luke 23:28-31).
"This statement is given with great force because of the aorist passive subjunctive of the verb ’to leave’ with the double negative ou me (translated ’not’)." [Note: Toussaint, Behold the . . ., p. 268.]
"The temple was made of huge stones, some of them many tons in size, carved out in the stone quarries underneath the city of Jerusalem. Such large stones could be dislodged only through deliberate force. The sad fulfillment was to come in A.D. 70, only six years after the temple was completed, when the Roman soldiers deliberately destroyed the temple, prying off stones one by one and casting them into the valley below." [Note: Walvoord, Matthew: . . ., p. 180.]
". . . the Roman destruction of Herod’s temple in A.D. 70 was so complete that all that now remains is part of the substructure of the temple precincts, not of the temple buildings themselves." [Note: France, The Gospel . . ., p. 888.]
Be the first to react on this!
