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LUKE 21:23 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Luke 21:22Luke 21:24
“But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.”
How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people — the pregnant and nursing mothers: the most vulnerable in the flight from the besieged city. Great distress (anagkē megalē, great necessity): the word for the extreme pressure of the siege. Wrath against this people communicates the divine judgment being executed through the Roman armies.

Church Fathers on Luke 21:23

Hitherto our Lord had been speaking of those things which were to come to pass for forty years, the end not yet coming. He now describes the very end itself of the desolation, which was accomplished by the Roman army; as it is said, And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed, &c.

Bede · 8th century

By the desolation of Jerusalem, He means that it was never again to be set up, or its legal rites to be reestablished, so that no one should expect, after the coming siege and desolation, any restoration to take place, as there was in the time of the Persian king, Antiochus the Great, and Pompey.

Eusebius of Caesarea · 4th century

These words of our Lord, Luke has here related to show, that the abomination of desolation which was prophesied by Daniel, and of which Matthew and Mark had spoken, was fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem.

Augustine · 4th century
Read all 17 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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