The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 432

doubtless being disperl!OO on all eidea, capture of Jeruee.lem e.t 1,000,000, the neuaol plundering, burning, and elaying. Return pcpulation being le.rgely inoreased by the baok. He who WBB working in the fields mflux of pilgrims etteuding the Feeet of the only partially clad wu not to go to hia Pe.saover, and by thousands of fugitives who bouee to fetch the rest of hie garments, but had flocked in from the country (Joeeph1111; io me.ke good his flight juet e.e he waa. He • Bell. Jud.,' vi. 9. 8). He adds that 97,006 would naturally lay ae:ide hie heavy burnou1 were carried away oaptive during and after while engaged in work, but all ooneidera- the war. Suoh u W1UI not . . . nor ever ah&ll tione of propriety and comfort were to be be (Dau. xii. l ). This is not mere hyperbole, pnt aeide at the present emergency. The but sober fact. Josephus (' Bell. Jud.,' warning wae to be regarded equally by Procem. 4) himself bears similar testimony: those in doom or out of doom, at home or " Of a.II the cities under the dominion ot abroad. Rome, ours we.s onoe the most happy, &nlil Ver. 19.-Woe unto them that are with afterwards the most utterly miserable. For ohild ! The Lord, while he connsele flight, the misfortunes of all the nations upon earth h&R a word of compassion for those poor that have ever happened, if they are com- mothers who are foroed to have recourse pared with the CB!amities to which the Jews thereto. The cironmstancee mentioned were expoeed, will, in my opinion, fall fe.r would impede flight and greatly increase short." Chrysoetom sums up the matter danger and distress. The enfferinge of thus: " Wheuoe CBme there thus upon them mothers and children in the siege are wrath from God intolerable, and more sore narrated by the historian, and even snch than all that had befallen aforetime, not iJl horrors as are indicated in Dent. xxvi.ii. Judma only, but in any pa.rt of the world? 53-56 were not unknown (see Josephus, Is it not quite olear that it wu for the deed • Bell. Jud.,' v. 10. 8; vi. 8. 4; Euaebina, of the croee and fur this rejection? Mark, • Hist. E~• iii 6. 7). I pray thee, the exceeding greatness of the Ver. 20.-Pray ye tha.t, eta. (rpo,n6x•rr9, ilia, when not only compared with the time tva). He bids them pray to and worship before, they appear more grievous, but also God, in order that he may give them a with all the time to oome. For not in all favourable time for flight. The clane.e the world, neither in all time that is past, introduced with the final partiole doee not and that is to oome, shall any one be able directly denote the sabjeot of the petition, to eay snob ills have been. And very natur- as our version giv1111 the impression, but ally; for neither had any man perpetrated, rather the aim of the petitioners (Morison). not of thee.a that evf'r have been, nor those liot ill the winter. He spake of personal to come hereafter, a deed 10 wicked and hindrances in the le.at verse ; here he horrible"(' Hom.,' in loo.). The "affliction" speaks of external circumstances over which spoken ofrefera not only to bodily sufferings, man has no control, except by prayer. The but to that anguish of mind occasioned by weather in winter, which means the rainy acute apprehension and expectation of season, might render the roads impaeeable, danger, such as wu felt in the days before and wonld, of coDrBe, prevent any hope of the Flood, and at the time of the opp:resaion obtaiuing food by the wayside from corn- of Antiochns Epiphanea. field or fruit tree. The sabb&th day, Ver. 22.-Exoept those d&y1 1honld be which precluded any work or the ne.e of ahortened (',co1'~/¼611rrav, had beBn •llorl- beast of burden, and restricted a journey ened). In the midst of wrath God thinks on, to something le~ than a mile. We mnat mercy. He providentially ordained that remember that until the final catastrophe the d&ys of vengeance should not be in- the Christiana observed such Mosaic re- definitely prolonged ; the siege wu practi- strictions (e.ee Exod. xvi. 29; Acta i 12). cally of short duration, the country we.e not .A flight for such & short distance would wholly overrun and desolated (comp. 2 have been of no avail under the imperions Kings xiii. 23). The natural causes that circumstancea which rendered escape e.d- combined to produce this shortening of the "risable. siege have been recounted by commentators. Ver. 21.-!'or then. Jeeus gives the TLese were-the divided counselsoftheJews reason why thia precipitate flight (vers.16- themeelvee, the voluntary surrender of part& 20) wa11 nmdered necessary at the moment of the fortifications, the fierce factions in the apoken of in ver. 15. Great tribulation. The city, the destruction of magazines of pro- miseries snfi'ered in the siege of Jernaalem visions by calamitous fire, the suddenuees of were atnpendotJL To the skilful and fieroe the arrival of Titus, and the fa.et that th& att&cb of the Romans from without were walls ho.d never been strengthened as Herod, added from within diJ'e famine and pesti- Agrippa had intended. There ~hould _no lence, disll8Illlions, violence, and oontinual flesh be saved; i.e. the whole Jewish nation bloodshed and murder. Josephus estimatca would have been annihilated. For the· the number of those who fell in the siege and elect' ■ aake. At the intercession of the.  ell. xx1v. 1-51.] TUE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTIIEW. 4.31