Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [the city] that kills the prophets and stones those that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Jerusalem is the city where God had drawn nearest to people, and it is the city that killed the messengers He sent. Here, in the middle of severe warnings, He speaks like a mother bird — and this love meets a flat refusal.
Chapter 23 has just piled up charge after charge against the religious leaders. What follows is not triumph but sorrow:
This closing note is sweet and sad beyond words. It gives its character to the whole sentence He has passed. How hopeless that condition must be, when divine power, righteousness and love can only unite in mourning over the stubborn human heart!
Two forces were pressing on Him as He spoke, and neither one touched His love:
He was free in His love. Not all the cunning of Herod, nor all the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, could turn aside the grace that filled His heart. It was grace even to those who did not love Him... He has His own cross before Him.
The phrase "how often" reaches back over centuries. That tells you who is speaking. A man of that generation could not claim to have appealed to Jerusalem again and again:
Notice how the divine person of the Lord comes out here: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered... and you were not willing!" Now a prophet could not say this. Though Christ was a prophet, it 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."
Jerusalem had the highest religious privilege, and that is what makes its record so dark:
Of all enemies, which are so deadly as religious enemies — those whose hearts are far from God, though they draw near with their lips and hold the place of the highest religious privilege! Such was Jerusalem. They had the prophets, but they killed them. God sent them messengers tirelessly, but they stoned them. And now the great prophet, the Messiah, Jehovah Himself, stood among them in divine love — what would they not do to Him!
In Luke's record of these words, Jesus has just called Herod a fox. The contrast is the point:
If Herod was a fox, then He pictures Himself as a hen. The hen cares and protects; the fox attacks and spoils. They had rejected the hen and had become the prey of the fox.
Two wills meet in this sentence, and everything turns on the collision between them:
Here lay the deep secret: "I would." This was the heart of God. "You would not." This was the heart of Israel. He was forced away — but not without leaving a word that is the precious basis of hope for the brighter days ahead, when the glory will return and Jerusalem will welcome her King: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
The refusal is where responsibility sits. It is not God's failure, and not a defeat forced on Him:
Man's damnation is from himself. "You would not" is the sorrowful complaint of the One who came to save... If it is man's contrary will that ruins him, what purpose of God does that defeat? Did He purpose to save all despite man's will? That He would have all men to be saved is the vindication of His heart.
God's patience had run its whole course. This verse is what His love sounds like as it leaves:
"How often would I have gathered" was now the word of God's love and favour taking its leave, and it left with reluctance. Yet nothing could take that love out of the heart where it was stored, and nothing could reach it to alter it. If sin could drive it in there and shut it up, it still lived there untouched, blessed and perfect in its very nature. No sin or failure could get in to spoil that perfection or lessen its power. Such is God — such must He be known to us in Christ.
That refusal has an immediate result in the next breath — the temple stops being called His and is left to them. But the story does not stop at desolation. Commentators consistently read what follows as an interval, not an ending: Israel will yet see their King, when a repentant remnant welcomes Him with "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
- Sender. "How often" reaches back over centuries. The speaker is not just a prophet — He is the One who sent them, and none but Jehovah could gather Israel.
- Shelter. He offers Himself as the hen that shelters her brood, against Herod the fox that attacks and spoils. They rejected the hen and became the fox's prey.
- Refusal. "I would" is the heart of God. "You would not" is the heart of Israel. The ruin is man's own, not a defeat of God's purpose.
- Sorrow. Divine power, righteousness and love can only unite in mourning. He speaks this grace with His own cross before Him.
- Steadfastness. The love departs reluctantly but is not altered by the rejection — sin can shut it up, never spoil it, and it will bring Him back when they say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate;
Jesus ends His words to Jerusalem's leaders by handing the temple back to them. Three questions follow: whose house was it, what made it empty, and does the emptiness last?
Earlier in the same gospel Jesus had claimed the temple as His own. The pronoun changes here, and commentators point to two causes behind that change.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, at the start of His public ministry, He claimed the temple as His Father's House (John 2:16). Even near the end of His life on earth, despite all the hypocrisy and evil, He still calls the temple "My House". But as He mourns over the city of Jerusalem, He says, "See, your house is left to you desolate" (Matt. 21:13; 23:38). The temple still carried the name of God's house, but it had lost its true character. It lost it because of what people allowed inside it, and because they rejected the Son of God.
The word "desolate" is not first about rubble. It describes what happens when the Owner walks out — and that is what He does next.
The Jews had defiled it in many ways. They made it a house of trade (John 2) and a den of robbers (Matt. 21). Yet He still called it His Father's house, and He kept treating it as such, until at last He judged it and said, "See, your house is left to you desolate." (Matt. 23:38.) At once we read that "Jesus left the temple and was going away." Until that moment, despite the abuses and corruption that had grown up around it, He had borne with His people and regarded the temple as His Father's house. But now He had judged the house and the people, and His own departure left it desolate.
Nothing about the building changed. The priests carried on; the temple stayed splendid. One writer sets that against a poor upper room where God's presence rested.
The temple was splendid, yet it was left desolate (Matt. 23:38). The priests were very busy, but it was all hollow; the substance was gone. In the upper room (Acts 2:2) the Spirit was the glory. By comparison it was a poor place, but it was the scene of God's presence. The dove had its home there.
Losing God's presence was not the end of it. The building itself came down.
One thing set Israel apart from all other nations: God's house stood among them. There God lived. From that house praise was to rise to God, and testimony was to flow out to the world. That house was a physical building — "a house … made with hands". Men corrupted it, turning the house of praise into a house of trade and a den of robbers. The Father's house became the house of corrupt Israel, so God abandoned it and left it desolate. The Gentiles then threw it down, until not one stone stood on another (Matthew 23:38; Matthew 24:2).
The next verse adds one word that stops the judgment short of being final: "until".
See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see Me again" — does He say "for ever"? No — "you will not see Me again, until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." Do these words not imply that a time will come when Israel will say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord"? And that when they say it, they will see once more the Lord they had rejected, the Lord who had been absent until then?
One writer sets this beside Christ's words to the church at Laodicea, where He stands outside and knocks.
The next verse shows the position the state of Laodicea has forced Him to take: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." The church on earth is God's dwelling by the Spirit, yet here we find Christ outside, driven there by the condition it has fallen into. He has not yet carried out judgment. He has not yet spat it out of His mouth. But He has taken His place outside. Matthew shows the same thing. As soon as He judged the temple and Judaism with the words, "See, your house is left to you desolate," He "left the temple and was going away."
- Yours — the pronoun carries the verdict. He had called it My Father's house; now He hands it back, because of what they allowed inside it and because they refused the Son.
- Empty — desolation began with a departure, not a demolition; He judged the house, then walked out of it.
- Hollow — the priests stayed busy and the temple stayed splendid, but the substance was gone. God's presence settled instead in a plain upper room.
- Ruined — the house of praise had become a den of robbers, so God left it to be thrown down. Not one stone stood on another.
- Until — He does not say "for ever". The sentence runs until Jerusalem's heart changes and welcomes the One who comes in the Lord's name.
for I say unto you, Ye shall in no wise see me henceforth until ye say, Blessed [be] he that comes in the name of [the] Lord.
Jesus has just pronounced woe after woe on the religious leaders. His closing word to them is severe — but it turns on "until," and everything depends on what that small word carries.
The chapter is one long list of woes, so the last line stands out.
He who began with "Blessed, blessed," now ends with "Woe, woe." But even here, in declaring the inevitable retribution, He cannot close without a door of hope in the last verse (39).
Everything turns on whether the Lord set an end to this absence. One writer tests the sentence by putting the other word in its place:
"For I tell you, you will not see Me again" — does He say, "for ever"? No — "you will not see Me again, until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." Do not these words mean that the time will come when Israel will say this? And that when they say it, they will see again the Lord they had rejected, absent from them till then?
He left Israel, and He left His disciples. The two departures were not the same, and the difference shows in how He left each.
As for Israel, the Lord's present absence is judicial — and rightly so, because it was Israel's unbelief and sin that caused it. When the Lord left Israel He turned His back on their city. He left it desolate, saying, "Behold, your house is left to you desolate." He hid His face from them. But when He left His church, He left them with His hands lifted up, blessing them (Luke 24:51). His face was toward them. The one action was judicial, the other gracious.
The greeting He waits for is not a polite compliment. It owns whose name He came in — the very thing they had refused.
Here we have the decisive word: "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" (Jehovah); and this is the indication of their spiritual condition. He had had to say of them: "I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him." (John 5:43.) Sadly, their hostility was against God Himself. With the desperate stubbornness of a heart set on its own desires, they both saw and hated "Him and His Father." (John 15:24.)
Crowds had shouted these very words days earlier as He rode into Jerusalem. That makes His words sound strange — until you weigh what the shout was worth.
When the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on the colt of a donkey, the crowds cried, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" (Matt. 21:9). But that was the result of a sudden gust of enthusiasm, and had no lasting significance, as what followed showed. Within a week He was crucified. The Lord knew their excited cry was worthless. So a little later He said, "You will not see Me again, until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." The Psalm speaks of the moment when they will see Him again, and utter the cry of welcome with full truth and sincerity.
The men listening that day never said these words, so the promise must reach beyond them.
Here is a positive judgment passed, and upon the nation as such. He is not speaking of separate people, for He does not say to separate people, "you will not see Me again." So it must be the nation, or at least a remnant of it, and at a time still to come, that will say to Jesus, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." The chief priests themselves have never said it. On the contrary, their words were, "Away with Him, crucify Him." It is a quotation from Psalm 118, remarkable for foretelling the rejection of the One who would be acknowledged at a later time.
The order matters. The welcome is not the result of seeing Him; it is the condition of seeing Him.
Here we have the condition of blessing for the Jews. Seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord are sought in vain for them as a people. This lasts until they repent and turn again for the blotting out of their sins. So the Lord had shown when He bowed to their rejection of Him and declared their house left to them desolate. Whenever their heart shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
- Cause — Israel's own unbelief and sin brought this on. Their house is left to them desolate, and toward them His absence is judicial; toward His disciples He left with hands raised in blessing.
- Limit — He did not say "never." "Until" sets a boundary on the desolation. It keeps a door of hope open at the end of a chapter of woes.
- Condition — Repentance comes first. They must say it before they see Him; when their heart turns, the veil lifts.
- Content — The words come from Psalm 118. Owning Him as coming in the name of the Lord reverses the refusal of John 5:43.
- Contrast — The shout at His entry into Jerusalem was enthusiasm that collapsed within a week. The cry He waits for is sincere, and it is still future — from the nation, or at least a remnant of it.