What does "those days" mean in Matthew 24:19?

"The word "woe," though frequently denunciatory, as in the last clause, is not always so, but is also commiserative, as in Matthew 24:19, Mark 13:17, Luke 21:23, Revelation 8:13; Revelation 12:12.

It is plain from verse 15 that the Lord addresses the disciples as being representative of the remnant of Israel, for the erection of "the abomination of desolation" is even now still future, yet He says "when ye therefore shall see this standing in the holy place, let those in Judea flee to the mountains. Daniel 9:27 and 12:11 are to be compared here, and connected with Rev.13:14-15. The abomination that results in desolation is idolatry introduced by the anti-christ into the holy place, the temple in Jerusalem, which will take place at the middle of Daniel's seventieth week, and which will result immediately in the three and a half years of "great tribulation." This image to the beast (the head of the revived Roman empire) will be a direct challenge to God, for it gives Rome God's place of Protector of Israel. God will therefore send "a desolator," the king of the north, to overflow the land of Israel with a sudden thrust as of a whirlwind (Dan.11:40).

One on a housetop is warned not to try to save anything from his house, but to escape immediately. If in the field, one ought not to return to his home even for necessary clothing. Such will be the rapidity of the attack. Pregnant women or mothers With nursing babies, unable to travel quickly, will be exposed to great suffering. They are told to pray that they should not be compelled to flee in the winter, nor on the Sabbath day, when travel was limited to a few miles. Of course the cities of Judah, particularly Jerusalem, will be the object of attack.

Ver. 17. From the top of the house there would be a stairway outside leading to the court below. All these verses show the urgent necessity of flight, and withal the Lord's tenderness and gracious consideration for his people in this the time of Jacob's trouble! How greater would be their difficulties if having infants in that hour of urgency and distress! And the Lord, foreseeing all, bids them to pray for the absence of hindrances to their flight (ver. 20). Oh, how He cares! This prayer will be beforehand. From Dan. 12. we see there will be wise ones who shall instruct others in righteousness (ver. 3) for "the wise shall understand" (ver. 10); so when they see this coming they will pray that it be not in the winter when the ravines have rushing torrents, making escape dangerous. Here the Lord prepares them, and assuredly we also can profit thereby. No doubt the reference to the Sabbath is to the Sabbath-day's journey when thus restricted they would be likely to be overtaken. There is no reference in the O.T. to a sabbath day's journey, but there is in the N.T., and it has the Lord's sanction.

Then He shows them "then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time no nor ever shall be." When the Lord quotes scripture further light is given. Indeed we may say that always in the N.T. when there is a quotation from the O.T. additional light is given. So here the Lord goes beyond Daniel by adding "nor ever shall be." It will never be repeated. It will be the most trying experience any nation has ever had. There is that idolatry and they will be forced to have the mark of the beast either openly or secretly. They must be identified with it either publicly or privately, or be put to death, shut off from all the privileges of society. Whatever pressure we are subjected to, there will be far worse coming, and it ought to keep us from grumbling. The Christian is told his afflictions are accomplished in his brethren in the world. If we are pressed and tried, it is quite natural for us to think no one was ever tried like this! There is a hymn. I don't go with at all "All these sorrows past endurance, Follow us through life." He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able. I have no doubt when we are tried we have lessons to learn, and I am sure we all have to own how God has been very patient with us, for we have been very poor scholars.

But here, the enemy is in the midst, the saints are the objects of special enmity, and there must be no delay: "And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days; but pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Here it is plain that Jews under the full rigor of Jewish law are contemplated.

289 Verse 15. The Lord comes now, in the course of His prophecy, to the moment predicted by Daniel, when the abomination which makes desolate would be set up in the place that the throne of God ought to occupy. There would then be, as we have seen, a time of testimony in Israel, which would reach to the ends of the world to all nations; the servants of the Lord were to possess their souls in patience, and, although hated of all, to persevere unto the end. But for those who should be in Judea, the moment would come when an idol (for this is the meaning of the word "abomination would be set up in the holy place. This idol is called the desolating idol; because the confidence placed in it, and the public affront given to God, would bring about the desolation of the people and of the holy place. When it should be placed there, the faithful ones in Judea were to flee unto the mountains. The Lord uses many figures to shew the urgency of the case. He who might be upon the housetop was not to come down to take anything out of his house; he who might be in the fields was not to return back to fetch his garments; the moment would be so terrible, that it would only be a question of flight. But God ever thinks of His own. They were to pray, the Lord said, that their flight might not take place in winter, nor on the sabbath-day. When their time of tribulation - unparalleled in the history of the world - has come, God will consider the temperature most suitable for the flight, and also the conscientious spirit that would stop the faithful soul on a sabbath-day.

This passage clearly shews us that in all this it is a question of the Jews, and of Jerusalem and the neighbourhood. It is the last half-week of Daniel, "a time of distress for Jacob," but he would be delivered out of it. But woe to the women with child, and to those that give suck in those days, though in times of peace such things would be subjects for joy to Jewish women: there should be a tribulation such as never had been. But the heart of the Lord thinks of all the difficulties, of all the dangers of His own. For the sake of His elect He will shorten those days, for otherwise no flesh should be saved; and in point of fact it will but be a misery prolonged according to man's will, for in three years and a half all will be ended.

Carrying this back to our chapter, the sight of the desolating idol in the holy place is the signal for flight. "Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains" (ver. 16). There is no thought of a sign to Christians as such, but to Jewish disciples in the holy land; and this that they may instantly retire from the scene of danger. "Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days!" (vers. 17-19.) It has been tried to find in this the warning on which some fled to Pella in the interval after the Roman lieutenant surrounded the city, and before the final sack under the victorious commander. But this arises from confounding Luke 21:20-24 with Matt. 24:15-21; whereas they are demonstrably distinct, spite of a measure of analogy between them. It perfectly fell within the province given of the Spirit to the great Gentile Evangelist to notice the past Roman siege, as well as the present supremacy of the nations which tread down Jerusalem till their times are fulfilled. Matthew, however, had his own proper task in giving the grand future crisis, at least from verse 15. And it is evident that as the abomination in the holy place differs widely from armies compassing Jerusalem, so there was ample space for the most leisurely departure from the menaced city (yes, for the most impeded and infirm of either sex to go) after Cestius Gallus withdrew. I conclude, therefore, that by Matthew our Lord gives us what bears on the time of the end; by Luke, what refers to the past, and the present too, cursorily, as well as the future. Matthew, for instance, could not speak, like Luke, of Jerusalem being trodden down of the Gentiles, because he is here occupied only with the horrors which immediately precede Israel's blessing and deliverance. Luke has both an earlier and a later time of trouble: Matthew, from verse 15, confines himself to this latter time.

At the time of the end the abomination of desolation, spoken of in Daniel 12:11, is to be found in the holy place, and Jerusalem is in question, as verse 16 shows. Evidently there again will be a temple with its holy place at the time of the end, to be desecrated by this supremely abominable idolatry. At this time will be fulfilled the prophecy of Matt. 12:43-45: the evil spirit of idolatry will enter into the people with seven-fold force, and the mass of them will accept this abomination standing in the holy place — most probably "the image of the beast," spoken of in Revelation 13:14-15. Because of this crowning iniquity desolation will fall upon them in the government of God. Now the setting up of this abomination is to be the signal to the godly that the predicted great tribulation is begun, and that their safety lies in flight from Jerusalem and Judaea, where the furnace of affliction will be at its hottest. The Lord was speaking to His disciples, who at that moment were just godly Israelites surrounding their Messiah on earth, though presently they were to be built into the foundation of the church that was to be. Hence at that moment they represented, not the church, but the godly remnant of Israel, still carefully observing the law of the sabbath (verse 20), and many of them located in Judaea. Instant flight was to be their course. This agrees with what is set forth symbolically in Revelation 12:6.

The great tribulation is wholly unprecedented and never to be equalled, let alone surpassed. This the Lord states in verse 21; and the reason of it is, that as the book of Revelation shows, it will be a time of infliction of wrath from heaven — the outpouring of the vials of judgment. It will not be merely a case of men afflicting men, or a nation scourging other nations, as we see so strikingly today, but of God scourging the nations as He settles His accounts with them. Wrath from God is "revealed from heaven" (Rom. 1:18), though not yet executed, and as far as the nations are concerned it will fall at this time. Nations as such are only found in this world; they do not exist beyond the grave, though the men composing them do.

There will be elect souls on earth during the tribulation and for their sake it will be cut short, as verse 22 tells us: as it says in Romans 9:28. the Lord will make "a short work … upon the earth," and this in order that a remnant may be saved. Today God is dispensing mercy through the Gospel, and He has made a very lengthy work of it, extending to nineteen centuries: when He dispenses wrath He will make swift work, cutting it short in righteousness. A brief three and a half years will cover it, as other scriptures show. Thus the goodness of God will be manifested both in mercy and in wrath.

In Matthew 24 the Lord Himself refers to it: "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." There again we have the same time, the Lord quoting the very passage of Daniel just cited. It is quite plain that He is speaking only of Jews, because they are supposed to be connected with the temple, and they are told to pray that their flight be not on the sabbath day, in which case they could not go beyond a sabbath day's journey, nor in winter. In either case there would be a hindrance to their flight, whether on God's part, or in the circumstances of the season. We have the same thing referred to in Mark, but Luke seems to speak in a more general way.

"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whose reads, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Here we pause to remark, that it cannot be of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans long ago, that our Lord speaks. He quotes from the prophet Daniel, and speaks, as Daniel had long before written, of a time of tribulation unequalled by any other. Turn to Daniel 12:1, and you will find that this time of unequalled trouble is not when Jerusalem is destroyed and the Jews dispersed, BUT WHEN THEY ARE DELIVERED. "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which stands for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: AND AT THAT TIME THY PEOPLE SHALL BE DELIVERED, every one that shall be found written in the book." We intreat our anti-millenarian brethren to look fairly at this passage. Does it not speak of a time of trouble unequalled by any that has preceded it? Does it not declare that at that time Daniel's people shall be delivered, not destroyed? How, then, can our Lord be speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, when He says that there shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, NO, NOR EVER SHALL BE! If the tribulation unequalled by any before it, or any after it, took place eighteen centuries ago, when Jerusalem was destroyed, how can Daniel speak of a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, and say that at that time his people shall be delivered? Unless we make Daniel and our Lord flatly and irreconcilably contradict each other, we must allow that it is of the same unequalled tribulation that they speak, and that it did not take place at the destruction of Jerusalem, but that it is yet to come to pass, when Daniel's people, the Jews, are to be delivered. Let us now proceed with our Lord's words. An attempt is made by Mr. B. C. Young, in his "Short Arguments about the Millennium," to set aside the force of the above texts. "A comparison," he says, "of two portions of God's word, where a like phraseology is found, will show the fallacy" of the argument - he means the argument above stated. "Of Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, we find it written, 'He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.' (2 Kings 18:5.) Of Josiah, a successor in the same kingdom, it is recorded, "And like unto him was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul … neither after him arose there any like him." (2 Kings 23:25.) On these passages Mr. Y. reasons, to show that if the texts quoted above prove there can be but one unequalled tribulation, these two passages prove that Josiah and Hezekiah were the same man! He then says, "The truth appears to be, that the language is hyperbole, with perhaps a proverbial cast. It is a strong mode of expressing the severe troubles of the several times, and the unusual piety of the two kings." But what resemblance is there between the two cases? Neither passage quoted by Mr. Y. contains any prediction at all; the others are prophecies in the strictest sense of the word. Besides, there is no real discrepancy between the two passages from 2 Kings; no, nor any such appearance of it as to render requisite a resort to hyperbole by way of explanation. It is not for the same qualities that the two kings are said to be unrivalled by any before or after them. One is said to be so for his trust in God, which had surely been tried as in the case of no other king of Judah; the other for the heartiness with which he turned to the Lord. Each was unequalled in his own line of excellence; so that there is nothing whatever in the two passages thus put together, on which to frame such an argument as that resorted to by Mr. Y. The texts on the unequalled tribulation remain untouched, as a proof of that for which they are adduced.

The language of verse 19 shows that the Lord had the great tribulation in view, and the earlier verses show that its centre and most intense fury is found in Judaea. Verses 15 and 16 would indicate that it will set in with great suddenness. Instant flight will be the only way of escape for those who fear God. Its ferocity will be such that if it were permitted to run a lengthy course it would mean extermination. For the elect's sake it will not be permitted to continue, but will be cut short by the advent of Christ. From Daniel 9:27 we gather that the tribulation will commence, when the head of the revived Roman empire causes "the sacrifice and the oblation to cease," in the midst of the last seven years. This being so, there will be only three and a half years to run before the Lord Jesus puts an end to it by His glorious appearing.