follow them indicated by the signs, are distinct from each other), but to the beginnings, which are compared with the fig-tree, in contradistinction to the summer itself, i.e. the approaching king dom of God. Those things having been fulfilled which are described from ver. 4 to ver. 28, room wras made for the king dom of God, which would grow stronger and stronger, in one continuous progress. The beginnings, after all hindrances had been removed, were equivalent to the whole.1 Furthermore, in St Matthew and St Mark, ra.\Jra (these) is in each case con trasted with lx£/^g (that) in ver. 36, with the following sense : THESE all which concern Jerusalem shall come to pass before this generation passes away ; but of THAT (remoter and last) day (of judgment) knoweth no one, etc. This observation facilitates the interpretation of the whole of this discourse. St Luke also con trasts with each other raDra, these, and sxgwj, that. See Gnomon on Luke xxi. 36. — yivuaxsri, ye know, Indicative) : Cf. ver. 32, or know ye, Imperative. — £//;)$, near) sc. the thing itself is. — IT/ 6vpais, at the doors) i.e. extremely near.
34. Ttvea, generation) sc. an age of men. This notion, which agrees with the event, corresponds most properly with the question, when ? etc., proposed in ver, 3 ; cf. ver. 15, 20, ch. xxiii. 36 ; Luke xxiii. 38. From the date of this prediction to the destruction of Jerusalem was a space of forty years, and from the true year of our Lord's nativity to that event was a space of about seventy-five years. The Jews, however (as, for example, in Seder Olam), reckon seventy-five years as one generation, and the words, a\j ^ <ra.ps\6rl) u shall not pass aicay" intimate that the greater part of that generation, but not the whole of it, should have passed away before all the events indi cated should have come to pass. The prediction is true with respect to either the forty or the seventy-five years.2 So accu rately did the Evangelist describe it many years before the event took place.
1 Sc. Were tantamount to a pledge that the whole would be accomplished.