Mark 13:19

13:14-23 The Jews in rebelling against the Romans, and in persecuting the Christians, hastened their own ruin apace. Here we have a prediction of that ruin which came upon them within less than forty years after this. Such destruction and desolation, that the like cannot be found in any history. Promises of power to persevere, and cautions against falling away, well agree with each other. But the more we consider these things, the more we shall see abundant cause to flee without delay for refuge to Christ, and to renounce every earthly object, for the salvation of our souls.

For in those days shall be affliction,.... What with the close siege of the Romans; the fury of the zealots, and seditious; the rage of different parties among the Jews themselves; the ravage of the sword, both within and without, together with dreadful plagues and famines: such as was not from the beginning of the creation, which God created, unto this time, neither shall be; of which there never was the like in any age, and cannot be paralleled in any history, since the beginning of time, or the world was made, or any thing in it, down to that period; nor ever will the like befall any one particular nation under the heavens, to the end of the world; See Gill on Matthew 24:21.

Mark 13:19 . ἔσονται γὰρ αἱ ἡμέραι , etc., for (not in those days, but) those days (themselves) shall be a tribulation. So we speak of “evil days,” and in Scotland of the “killing times”.— οἵα οὐ γέγονεν , etc.: a strong statement claiming for the crisis of Israel a unique place of tragic distinction in the whole calamitous experience of the human race, past and to come.— οἵα τοιαύτη , pleonastic, cf. 1 Corinthians 15:48 , 2 Corinthians 10:11 .

19 . in those days ] There is no “in” here properly. Those days shall be affliction , “þe ilke dayes of tribulacioun schulen be suche,” Wyclif. such as was not from the beginning of the creation ] The unexampled atrocities of the siege of Jerusalem are fully described by Josephus. He declares that “the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world , if they be compared to those of the Jews, are not so terrible as theirs were,” “nor did any age ever produce a generation more fruitful in wickedness from the beginning of the world .” The horrors of war and sedition, of famine and pestilence, were such as exceeded all example or conception. The city was densely crowded by the multitudes which had come up to the Passover. Pestilence ensued, and famine followed. The commonest instincts of humanity were forgotten. Acts of violence and cruelty were perpetrated without compunction or remorse, and barbarities enacted which cannot be described. Mothers snatched the food from the mouths of their husbands and children, and one actually killed, roasted, and devoured her infant son. (Comp. Leviticus 26:29 ; Deuteronomy 28:56-57 ). Dead bodies filled the houses and streets of the city, while cruel assassins rifled and mangled with the exultation of fiends.

The besieged devoured even the filth of the streets, and so excessive was the stench that it was necessary to hurl 600,000 corpses over the wall, while 97,000 captives were taken during the war, and more than 1,100,000 perished in the siege. See Josephus, Bell. Jud . vi. 9. 3; Tacitus, Hist . Mark 13:13 ; Milman’s History of the Jews ii. 16; Merivale’s History of the Romans vi. 59.

Verse 19. - For those days shall be tribulation, such as there hath not been the like from the beginning of the creation. These expressions are very remarkable. To begin with, the tribulation would be so unexampled and so severe that the days themselves would be called "tribulation." They would be known ever after as "the tribulation.'" There never had been anything like them, and there never would be again. Neither the Deluge, nor the destruction of the cities of the plain, nor the drowning of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, nor the slaughter of the Canaanites, nor the destruction of Nineveh, or of Babylon, or of other great cities and nations, would be so violent and dreadful as the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus. All this is confirmed by Josephus, who says, speaking of this overthrow, "I do not think that any state ever suffered such things, or any nation within the memory of man." St. Chrysostom assigns the cause of all this to the base and cruel treatment of the Son of God by the Jews. The destruction of their city and their temple, and their continued desolation afterwards, were the lessons by which the Jews were to be taught that the Christ had indeed come, and that this was the Christ whom they had crucified and slain. Mark 13:19

For in {f} those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. (f) This is an idiom which the Hebrews use and it has a great power in it, for it shows us that during that entire time one misery will follow another in such a way as if the time itself was very misery itself. So the prophet Amos says that the day of the Lord will be darkness; Am 5:20.

19. For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be—Such language is not unusual in the Old Testament with reference to tremendous calamities. But it is matter of literal fact that there was crowded into the period of the Jewish war an amount and complication of suffering perhaps unparalleled; as the narrative of Josephus, examined closely and arranged under different heads, would show.