Matthew 22:7

7. Wroth Wrathful. After the preachers of the Gospel had proclaimed the doctrines of their risen Saviour, amid the bitterest contempt and persecution, for near forty years after his death, the iniquities of the Jews became full, God in his providence sent the Romans, who destroyed their city, removed the apparatus of their Church, and annihilated their state. Of this series of judgments we have here a brief but vivid picture, which is more fully, but scarce more clearly, filled out in chap. xxiv, than it is here outlined. Sent forth his armies Perhaps God sent out his angelic armies to accomplish the sentence of his justice upon the guilty city and race. (Revelation 19:14.) But the armies of Vespasian and Titus, as being instruments of God’s vengeance, may be called his armies. Of the movements of even wicked men, he may so avail himself as to accomplish his own righteous purposes without any merit on their part, or any approval or compulsion or inevitable causation or decree on his. So God says, Isaiah 10:5: “O Assyrian, rod of mine anger.” Jeremiah 25:9: “Nebuchadnezzar my servant.” Their city It was once the king’s city; it is now the city of the murderers, and the armies that destroyed it are reckoned as his.