saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, even at least in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes;
Jerusalem is cheering as its King rides in, and the King is the only one crying. Everything turns on one word — peace. It was offered, refused, and now hidden from sight.
The joy around Him and the grief in Him run in opposite directions. One writer notes which word Luke chooses for this weeping.
Now comes a striking contrast. As they approached the city the disciples rejoiced and shouted blessings on the King. The King Himself wept over the city! In John 11:35, the word used shows silent tears. Here the word used shows loud grief, both seen and heard. Jerusalem did not know the things that belonged to her peace, so peace on earth was impossible at that time. The Lord foresaw and predicted her violent destruction at the hands of the Romans, which came about forty years later.
He weeps over the city that is about to kill Him, and He already sees what will follow.
But here we have another scene, His weeping over that very city that was about to cast Him out and crucify Him. It is a truth for us to treasure in our hearts. In divine grace He wept over guilty Jerusalem, which was giving up its own mercies and rejecting its own Saviour — the Lord God. He predicts that the city will be left desolate and destroyed, because it did not know the time when God came to visit it.
The city was not short of a desire for peace. It was short of sight.
He wept, for Jerusalem was not prepared to receive Him: it was ignorant of the things that belonged to its peace. The same is true of the world today. Men wanted peace, but they were too blind to see what peace requires. Those requirements were centered in the person of the Lord Jesus, the Prince of peace. Unbelief hid them from Israel's eyes.
The irony sits in the city's own name.
This was especially true of the city of Jerusalem. Its name means the city of peace, but how false to her name that city has been until now.
On that day pardon was still possible.
Oh, "Would that you, even you, had known" — all would have been pardoned then — "on this day" — what a day for Israel! Her sin had piled up, and grace piled up too, because of that very sin and because of the divine tenderness. But, alas, it only added to the sorrows of Jesus, if not of Jerusalem, His beloved. Now they were hidden from their eyes.
"But now" divides the verse in two. One writer marks where the line falls.
As long as He lived, that is, until the last entry into Jerusalem, the people could still repent. The words "But now they are hidden from your eyes" close it.
The warning He goes on to give came true in full. Yet the tone never hardens.
Every word of the warning came true exactly in the siege by Titus. But what grace shone out of that heart, so loaded with grief for the people! Blindly, and to their own ruin, they were refusing the very One who wept over them, in a love both truly divine and perfectly human.
Another writer names the choice the city faced.
This was the alternative, which His lament over the city brings fully out: it was the Saviour or the destroyer, Christ or the dreaded and hated Roman. In fact, they had already made their choice, and nothing remained but to leave them to it. But the Judge weeps as He gives sentence.
The verse does not stay in the first century. One writer turns it on readers now.
They had been given the chance to learn the things that belonged to their peace, but these were "now hidden from their eyes." Note that ignorance is the ground of its condemnation. That is a solemn warning to anyone who chooses to stay ignorant now. Many will even plead ignorance as a ground of forgiveness. But God takes pains to enlighten, so pleading ignorance is only proof of the most glaring stubbornness.
- Visit — God came to His city in person; the whole verdict hung on Jerusalem not knowing the time of that visit.
- Peace — the things that make for peace were centered in one person, the Prince of peace, standing outside a city named for peace.
- Grace — where sin piled highest, grace piled higher still; pardon stayed open right up to that last entry.
- Closed — "but now" shuts the door; the Judge passes sentence in tears, not in anger.
- You — ignorance was the charge, so "I didn't know" is no shelter when God has taken trouble to make things plain.
for days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall make a palisaded mound about thee, and shall close thee around, and keep thee in on every side,
The King has just entered His own capital to cheers, and now He looks at the city and pictures the army that will one day surround it. He speaks in tears, which leaves two questions: did this happen, and why did it have to?
The prediction is unusual in that the one who makes it is weeping while He makes it. One writer sets the exactness of the outcome side by side with the heart of the Speaker.
Every word of the warning was exactly fulfilled in the siege of Titus. But what grace shone out of that heart! He was overwhelmed with grief for a people who were blindly refusing, to their own ruin, the very One who wept over them. He wept in a love at once truly divine and perfectly human.
The barricade, the encircling, the hemming in on every side — these were not vague images of trouble. A history of the Roman assault records how the decision was reached. (Older translations render the ESV's "set up a barricade" as "cast a trench," which is the wording quoted here.)
The Romans discussed three plans: to storm the city at once, to repair the works and rebuild the siege engines, or to blockade the city and starve it into surrender. They chose the last, and set the whole army to work "to cast a trench" around the city. But the siege was long and difficult. It lasted from the spring till September.
The sentence does not end at verse 43. It runs on to name the cause: the city did not know the time of its visitation. One writer explains what the phrase means here, and what it means elsewhere in Scripture.
The words in Luke 19:44, "the time of your visitation," undoubtedly mean the day of grace for Jerusalem. That grace came through the presence and testimony of our blessed Lord. It was the opportunity for blessing, and this is why the Lord laments... When, however, we come to Peter's words, "the day of visitation," the thought is rather that of judgment, and not of grace.
Verse 42 names what would have brought Jerusalem peace. Verse 43 says what came instead.
Men wanted peace, but were so blinded that they did not recognise what peace required. These things centred in the person of the Lord Jesus, the Prince of peace. But because of unbelief the things necessary for peace were hidden from Israel's eyes (v.42). Prophetically the Lord pronounced on Jerusalem the terrible alternative to peace. Its enemies would make it their prey, and subject it to oppression, siege and destruction.
Commentators differ here. Kelly, quoted above, treats the words as fully discharged in the Roman siege. Another writer reads them as having a further stage still ahead.
Those days did come. Yet I admit the Lord's prophecy was only partly fulfilled, and that it will have a fuller accomplishment later on. If you want to read a dark and bloody page of history, sit down and read the account of the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus. You will look on horrors that will strike to the very bottom of your soul. Only that time of terrible tribulation still to come will exceed them.
Some read what happened to Jerusalem as a pattern, not a one-off event.
Jerusalem is only a sample of the world in general. Because Christ was rejected, the world will have to go through a very different history than if it had been prepared for Him... The world is not prepared for Him, and the earth must pass to its rest through the judgments that will cleanse it of its defilements.
One writer turns the ground of that sentence — not knowing — on readers today.
They had had the opportunity of learning the things that belonged to their peace, but these were "now hidden from their eyes"... And note, ignorance is the ground of its condemnation. That is a solemn warning to those who remain willingly ignorant now.
- Visitation. "The time of your visitation" means Jerusalem's day of grace. The Lord's own presence and testimony gave the city its chance of blessing.
- Blindness. What made for peace was centred in Christ Himself. Unbelief hid it, and the barricade came in place of the peace they refused.
- Barricade. The words were not just images. The Romans chose blockade over assault, and set the whole army to work casting a trench around the city.
- Fulfilment. Every word came true in the siege of Titus. Commentators differ on whether that siege completed the prophecy, or points on to a greater tribulation still ahead.
- Warning. Ignorance was the ground of the city's condemnation. That makes it a warning to anyone who stays willingly ignorant while grace is still speaking.
and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children in thee; and shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone because thou knewest not the season of thy visitation.
Crowds have just welcomed the King into Jerusalem. Now He tells the city what is coming, and why. The sentence falls on a single charge — she did not recognise the moment God came to her.
The word "visitation" does not mean the same thing everywhere. Here it points to opportunity, not doom.
In Luke 19:44, "The time of your visitation" certainly means the day of grace for Jerusalem. That grace came through the presence and testimony of our blessed Lord. It was the opportunity for blessing. This is why the Lord laments: "If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes." But when we come to Peter's words, "The day of visitation," the thought is judgment, not grace.
The visit was God's own coming in the Person of Jesus. Not knowing it cost Jerusalem more than a blessing.
It is the hour of her visitation, and she has not known it. If only she had, even now, listened to the call of the testimony of her God! She is given up into the hands of the Gentiles, her enemies, who will not leave her one stone upon another. In other words, she did not know this visitation of God in grace in the Person of Jesus. So she is set aside. The testimony goes no further, and she gives place to a new order of things.
The verse is a verdict, yet the One who announces it weeps as He speaks.
This was the alternative, which His lament over the city brings fully out: it was the Saviour or the destroyer, Christ or the dreaded and hated Roman. In fact, they had already made their choice, and could only be left to it. But the Judge weeps as He gives sentence. She and her children within her would be destroyed — not a stone left upon a stone.
Darby weighs what that day could have been for Israel.
Oh, "If you had known, at least," all would have been pardoned then — "in this your day" — what a day for Israel! For if all her sin was piled up, all grace was piled up too... but now they were hidden from their eyes. The joy and acclamation of His disciples was right, yet it gave occasion to the tears of Jesus rather than wiping them away. All as to Jerusalem hung on this: "You did not know the time of your visitation."
The warning was not vague. Roman armies under Titus later besieged the city.
Every word of the warning came true to the letter in the siege of Titus. But what grace shone out of that heart, overwhelmed with grief for the people! They were blindly refusing, to their own ruin, the very One who wept over them in a love that was truly divine and perfectly human.
The charge is ignorance. That is what makes it a warning for people now.
They had the opportunity to learn the things that belonged to their peace, but these were "now hidden from their eyes." So the Lord, still yearning over darkened Jerusalem, speaks ahead of time as Judge and pronounces her doom. And note, ignorance is the ground of its condemnation, which is a solemn warning to those who remain willingly ignorant now. There are many like this. They will even plead ignorance as the ground of forgiveness. But God takes pains to enlighten them, so such a plea is only evidence of the most glaring stubbornness.
The ruins are held up as evidence that a window of opportunity really can close.
It was said of Jerusalem that she did not know the time of her visitation (Luke 19:44). Her capture by the Romans, and the desolation that followed, are standing witnesses of her folly in that respect.
The ruin of the city is not the end of her story.
He now sees it as lost to Him, and soon to be laid level with the ground, because she had not known this, the time of her visitation!... The people would not see Him among them again, offering Himself to them as their King, until by repentance and faith they learn to join with His disciples in calling Him "Blessed."
- Visit — "The time of your visitation" was Jerusalem's day of grace. God Himself stood among them in Christ, offering peace.
- Blindness — The charge was not that she fought the visit. She never recognised it, and not knowing was the ground of her condemnation.
- Tears — The Judge passes sentence weeping; the same love that announces the ruin had come to prevent it.
- Ruins — Every word came true under Titus: the city levelled, her children with her, not one stone left standing.
- Return — Being set aside is not the end: the city that missed His visit will yet greet Him as blessed.
And entering into the temple, he began to cast out those that sold and bought in it,
Two acts stand side by side here. The Lord weeps over Jerusalem, and then walks into the temple and clears it out. The scene raises two questions. What was God's house meant to be? And by what right does this Man say so?
The weeping and the clearing belong together. One writer asks what the Lord found in the people He had just wept over:
Next we have, not the cursing of the fig tree, but the spirit of grace in the Lord's weeping over the city. God's purposes will surely be carried out, but we ought also to know His real tenderness in Jesus. Those tears were not in vain, whatever it looked like. It was the time of Jerusalem's visitation, but she did not know it… But what did He find in the people? See verses 45, 46. God declares His house to be one of prayer; men — the Jews — had made it a den of thieves. It was a terrible moral estimate, but this is the true way to judge: that is, having God's word, to take the facts as they are.
He clears the temple as its owner. The words He uses mark the difference from the earlier cleansing in John:
"The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple," Malachi (3:1) had written… It was His house, and He claimed the right to cleanse it. He quoted Isaiah 56:7, and for its condition He pointed to Jeremiah 7:11… He had cleansed it once before (John 2:14-16), at the start of His ministry. Now He did it again at the close. The first time He acted as Son. He declared that the house was His Father's: "Do not make My Father's house a house of trade." This time He cleansed it as Jehovah Himself: "My house," He said. He had entered Jerusalem as Messiah; He visited the temple as Jehovah.
The name "house of prayer" says something about the God who lives there. And it is the Word that tells us so:
The Word of God tells what His house is in His mind. It is a house of prayer, where man is in touch with a God of love — where he finds a home with Him, and a refuge in his need and distress. This may have been known only in part, but the Lord who knew the Father's heart knew it to be such. To Him it was a house of prayer. So it is to the spiritual mind — to the one who fears God and so knows the Lord's secret; God's house takes its character from Himself.
Behind the Lord's two phrases stand two prophets, and the second names a condition the nation had refused to meet:
Jesus then enters the temple, ready to fulfil the promise the Lord made through Isaiah (Isaiah 56). That promise had a condition: the people were to keep equity and do justice. He would then have raised the house to a place of honour and glory, fit to be a house of prayer for all people. Instead He finds that they had made it a den of robbers, as the Lord had said through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:11). They had refused to change their ways and their doings… They had trusted in lying words while keeping up all the outward forms of religion. They came into the house of God as though it were their own place, and all the while filled their hearts with their covetousness.
One writer notes what the Lord leans on at the very moment He clears the traders out:
Jerome saw in this act of our Lord the greatest miracle He ever worked. We need not agree with him. But there is profit in noticing this. Even at such a moment His energy was unstoppable. His angry rebuke of their irreverence threw that unworthy trade out of the holy courts. Yet He uses the written Word as His ground and warrant, as He always does.
One writer brings the scene into the present, and points on to a final clearing:
Merchandise, however, had invaded its holy precincts then, and it does so even more widely now. They made it a den of thieves. The Lord "drove out those who sold in it and those who bought." One day He will "send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
- Tears first. The clearing of the temple follows the weeping over the city. Grace comes before the verdict, and the tears were not wasted.
- His house. In John He cleansed it as Son, calling it His Father's house. Here He calls it "My house." He enters the city as Messiah and the temple as Jehovah.
- His character. "House of prayer" describes the God who lives there: a place of contact with a God of love, a home and a refuge in need.
- Their theft. Isaiah's promise came with a condition: real justice. Instead they kept the outward forms of religion while their hearts were full of greed.
- His warrant. Even at His most forceful He stands on the written Word. And one day, He warns, He will clear the same trade out of His kingdom for good.
saying to them, It is written, My house is a house of prayer, but *ye* have made it a den of robbers.
Jesus drives the traders out of the temple courts, and He explains the act with two lines from Scripture. The verse leaves two questions: why does He call the temple "My house," and what is a house of prayer for?
Commentators note a shift in how Jesus speaks of the temple. Early in His ministry He cleared it as the Son, and called it His Father's house. Here at the end He speaks as the Lord of the house itself.
It was His house, and He claimed the right to cleanse it. He quoted Isaiah 56:7, and described its condition in the words of Jeremiah 7:11... The first time He cleansed it He acted as Son, and declared that the house was His Father's: "Do not make my Father's house a house of trade." Now He cleansed it as Jehovah Himself. He had entered Jerusalem as Messiah; He visited the temple as Jehovah.
That claim raised a question about His right to act.
The house was Jehovah's. The Lord did not come from Aaron's priestly family. By what right then did He take it on Himself to drive out the traders and overturn the money-changers' tables?... Who had ever acted as the Lord did? Who had ever applied the prophet's language to himself?
He does not only act. Even in the middle of the confrontation, He grounds what He does in a written text.
Jerome saw in our Lord's act the greatest miracle He ever worked. We need not agree with him. Still, it is worth noticing what He does at such a moment. Unstoppable power went with His angry rebuke of their irreverence, and threw that unworthy trading out of the sacred courts. Yet He uses, as always, the written Word as His ground and warrant.
The phrase describes what God is like, and so what His house is for.
The Word of God tells us what His house is in His mind. It is a house of prayer. There man is in fellowship with a God of love. There he finds a home with Him, and a refuge in his need and distress. People may have understood this only in part. But the Lord, who knew the Father's heart, knew the house to be such. To Him it was a house of prayer. So it is to the spiritual mind... God's house has its character from Himself.
The words Jesus quotes reach past Israel. One writer ties that width to the holiness Jesus was defending.
He kept God's house holy. He kept it holy as Jehovah's house, not as a convenience for Jewish pride. And as Jehovah's house, His Father's house, it had all its wide claim and value in His eyes: a house of prayer for all nations. The holiness of God's house is what widens it. Holiness makes it truly God's house, His claim is over all, and it is a claim of grace.
The word Jesus uses is strong. The same Greek word names the robbers in the story of the good Samaritan, and the two men crucified beside Him (Morrish Bible Dictionary). The damage fell on the very people the house was meant to welcome.
The house of the Lord was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations. It was just a den of thieves. Any stranger who came up there looking for God was cheated when he bought the sacrifices he needed. So he would be driven away from the true God instead of drawn to Him. The men who held authority in the house were potential murderers, as verse 47 shows. So it had become a stronghold of murderers as well as a den of thieves. No wonder God swept it away by the Romans forty years later.
Writers apply this warning to the present, not only to Israel's past.
God approaches men through that House, and man can approach God there. Religious professionals had corrupted it into a means of feeding their greed. What the leaders in Israel did, leaders in the Christian assembly can do too, but for the grace of God... The same greed that corrupted the House of God at Jerusalem has pushed its way into the spiritual House of God, and it corrupts there too.
Cleaning the house did not soften the men who ran it. Verse 47 records what came next.
The Word of God from His lips especially reached men's consciences. The religious leaders, having long rejected Him, not only lost all right feeling but were given over to a murderous hatred that would soon be satisfied. This is always how the world proves itself when faced with the light of God; and the perfect love of God in Christ only provoked it the more.
- Owner. He says "My house," not "the house." He cleanses it as the Lord of the place, and no one had ever spoken or acted like that before.
- Purpose. God's house takes its character from God: a place of fellowship with a God of love, and a refuge in need.
- Reach. Because it is truly God's house, its claim is over all nations — its holiness is what makes it wide, not narrow.
- Ruin. Trade turned that welcome into a swindle, so the outsider seeking God was driven off instead of drawn in.
- Repeat. God swept the ruined temple away, yet the same greed can still push its way into God's spiritual house today.