Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the [city] that kills the prophets and stones those that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen her brood under her wings, and ye would not.
Herod wants Jesus dead, and Jesus knows it — yet He keeps walking toward Jerusalem. Who can say He longed to gather a whole nation under His wings, and how could a city refuse Him?
Jesus aims this lament at one city. God had come closest to people there, and there the hatred of His messengers had hardened into a habit. One writer shows Him walking straight into that hatred, then weeping for the people who would kill Him:
He knew where He was going. He went not to escape Herod, but to meet the hatred of man where it had always shown itself most — the place where God had drawn nearest to men through past generations. Jerusalem had a fanatical hatred of the prophets that would be jealous if any of them died elsewhere. Then, with a sob of anguish for His murderers, He turns where His heart draws Him.
"How often would I have gathered" is not the language of a messenger sent by God. It is the language of the One who sent them. Commentators see the deity of Christ shining out here, right in the middle of His humble path:
Notice how the divine person of the Lord comes out here. A prophet could not say this. Though Christ was a prophet, that is true, still He was more than a prophet. He was Jehovah; for none but Jehovah could gather Israel. As it is said, "He who scattered Israel will gather him." Israel had rejected Jehovah while they stood under responsibility to Him; but Jehovah will own them when He comes in grace. The moment He said, I must die, since you reject Me, Jehovah shone out at once.
The picture is an everyday one: a farmyard bird calling her chicks in. What it stands for is not everyday at all:
In Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 the picture is the farmyard hen and her well-known care for her chicks. It shows how the Lord would have gathered the Jews under His almighty and loving protection. But, sadly, they would not!
The image was already familiar to anyone who prayed the Psalms, where sheltering wings are the standing picture of refuge in God:
"In the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge"; "I will trust in the covert of Your wings"; "in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice" — these are expressions we have met elsewhere in the Psalms. What difficulty, then, is there in seeing Israel here under such shelter? And from the New Testament comes one sweet, moving word which clasps this from the other side: "How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not!"
One writer sets the offer beside the refusal, line by line:
He longed to gather them beneath His sheltering wing; but they would not nestle there. They preferred the wings of the archenemy to the wings of Jehovah. He had opened His heart to receive them; but they would not trust Him. All day long He had stretched out His hands to them; but they would not have Him.
So the end of the verse shows no failure in His power. It shows the strength of their own will:
He was then more than a prophet — the Lord Jehovah. He was able to gather them. And His love showed its divine source and character: again and again He had been willing to gather the children of Jerusalem together. He could have been their Shield and exceeding great Reward, but they would not. There is no blessing that the will of man cannot shut its eyes to and reject.
Those two words look back over centuries, not months. One writer counts three earlier times when God tried to bless the nation, starting with the escape from Egypt:
Three times before, at the end of a whole period of God's dealings with them, He had already tried to bless Israel. He would have gathered them as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and they would not. I believe these are the times He points to in His lament over Jerusalem in the words "how often": first, the Exodus; second, the dedication of the temple by Solomon; and third, the return from Babylon under Nehemiah.
Here the One who announces judgment is weeping over those He warns. One writer draws out what this asks of us:
Here we see the spirit of our Master, when at the end of that age He had to foretell the doom of those who refused Him. We need to drink into this spirit. Our lot is cast in the closing days of another era. Our business is to win people out of the world. We shall not do that unless we first keep ourselves clear of it and its spirit. Then we go on to gain the beautiful spirit of compassion which shone to perfection in our Master.
- Who gathers: No prophet could say "I would have gathered." Only Jehovah gathers Israel. The speaker is God Himself, standing in the city that is about to kill Him.
- How often: The words look back over centuries. One commentator counts three earlier tries to bless the nation: the escape from Egypt, Solomon's temple, and the return from Babylon.
- How He gathers: Like a hen calling her chicks. His almighty protection came in the gentlest form.
- Why they refused: His power did not fail. They would not come in. There is no blessing the will of man cannot shut its eyes to and reject.
- What it leaves us: Our Master foretold doom while grieving over the doomed. We are to drink in that same compassion as we call people out of the world.
Behold, your house is left unto you; and I say unto you, that ye shall not see me until it come that ye say, Blessed [is] he that comes in the name of [the] Lord.
The Lord's last public word over Jerusalem holds a judgment and a promise together. He hands the city back its own temple and withdraws Himself from its sight. Then He names what will end the separation — the day they greet Him in the words of Psalm 118.
(Older translations read "your house is left to you desolate." The writers below use that wording.)
The word "your" carries the sting. He had called this house His Father's. Now He calls it theirs.
Jerusalem boasted of the beautiful house that stood in her midst. Jesus had earlier spoken of it as "My Father's house"; now He disowns it as "your house," and He leaves it to them desolate and empty. Jerusalem had missed her opportunity. She will not see her Messiah again until the cry of Psalm 118:26 is heard, and that cry will not come from her lips until the day He returns.
The word points to a presence that had already gone and had not come back.
"Left desolate," because the visible glory has not appeared there since the Babylonian captivity. It will not appear again until the Lord comes in power... The house was desolate. The divine presence had not taken possession of it since the prophet saw, in a vision, the cloud of glory leave the temple and the city (Ezekiel 10:4; 11:23). The glory will return to the temple by the same way it left. Ezekiel saw that too, in a vision (43:2). Until then the Lord will not dwell in the city, nor live in the house again.
Matthew records almost the same lament over Jerusalem. Did Luke put it in the wrong place?
We believe the Lord spoke this lamentation twice — the first time as Luke records it, the last when He was at Jerusalem just before His crucifixion. Saying it twice fits the love He speaks of, and the sorrow of heart He shows.
The desolation is not the last word. Notice who gives Israel the change of heart that ends it. (The older Bible this writer used prints "Jehovah" where the ESV has "the Lord.")
The Lord does not say, Your house is left to you desolate, and therefore you will never see Me again. No. He says, "You will not see Me until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of Jehovah." As Jehovah He can give the answer in grace. When He gives repentance to Israel, He will send Jesus — the One the heavens have received until then.
What has to change first is the heart.
They would see Jesus no more until they were humbled in heart and called Him blessed. He was the One they were waiting for, and the One they were now rejecting. In short, they would not see Him until their hearts were ready. Desire comes before His appearing; peace comes after it.
The people standing in front of Him that day are not the people who will speak the welcome. The promise runs down the generations.
The Lord told the Jews that they would not see Him until the time came when they would say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" (Luke 13:35). The people He was speaking to will never say these words, but the nation will — at least the remnant of their descendants.
He sends them back to their own Scriptures for the greeting they will one day mean.
Our Saviour plainly carries them back to the ancient Scriptures. He applies to them that word written in the 118th Psalm, which looks for Israel to be blessed — blessed in the coming of the One the builders rejected... Jerusalem is not forsaken for ever. He left her to herself, to her sin and shame in refusing Him. Yet He Himself is our guarantee that this same people and city will look for Him and welcome Him. What a proof that God has in no way abandoned His people, and that He will make good every word He has spoken about them!
The next chapter sets the opposite picture beside this one.
At the end of Luke 13 the Lord has to say of that privileged nation, "Your house is left to you desolate." How good it is to read in Luke 14 the beautiful words, "that My house may be filled."
- Disowned — "My Father's house" becomes "your house"; the change of pronoun is the judgment.
- Emptied — desolate means the presence of God is gone. It left in Ezekiel's vision, and it will return the same way it left.
- Until — the judgment has an end. Christ Himself sets it, and it is a word of grace.
- Desire first — repentance and longing come before the appearing: peace follows, desire precedes.
- Welcomed — the greeting comes from Psalm 118, spoken by their descendants and not by those who heard Him. The city that refused Him will one day call Him blessed.