Note 71 — Chapter I · RELATION OF JESUS TO THE IDEA OF A SUFFERING AND DYING MESSIAH; HIS DISCOURSES ON HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND SECOND ADVENT.

The attempt to effect a division near the end of the discourse, at xxv. 30, failing, from its rendering much that goes before incapable of explanation; the next expedient is to retreat as far towards the commencement as possible, by considering how far it is inevitable to recognise a relation to the immediate future. The first resting place is after xxiv. 28; for what is said, up to this point, of war and other calamities, of the abomination in the temple, of the necessity for speedy flight, in order to escape unprecedented misery, cannot be divested of a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem without the greatest violence: while what follows concerning the appearance of the Son of Man in the clouds, etc., just as imperatively demands an application to the last day.71 But in the first place, it appears incomprehensible how the enormous interval, which on this explanation also is supposed to fall between the one portion of the discourse and the other, can be introduced between two verses, of all others, which Matthew connects by an adverb expressive of the shortest possible time (εὐθέως). It has been sought to remove this inconvenience by the assertion that εὐθέως does not here signify the quick succession of the one incident on the other, but only the unexpected occurrence of an event, and that consequently, what is here said amounts merely to this: suddenly, at some period (how distant is undetermined) after the calamities attendant on the destruction of Jerusalem, the Messiah will visibly appear. Such an interpretation of εὐθέως is, as Olshausen correctly perceives, merely a desperate resource: but even were it otherwise, it would afford no real aid, since not only does Mark in his parallel passage, v. 24, by the words, in those days, after that tribulation, ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις μετὰ τὴν θλίψιν ἐκείνην, place the events which he proceeds to mention in uninterrupted chronological succession with those which he had before detailed; but also, shortly after this point in each of the narratives (Matt. v. 34 parall.), we find the assurance that all this will be witnessed by the existing generation. As thus the opinion, that from v. 29, everything relates to the return of Christ to judge the world, was threatened with annihilation by v. 34; the word γενεὰ, as the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist72 complains, was put to the torture, that it might cease to bear witness against this mode of division. At one time it is made to signify the Jewish nation;73 at another the adherents of Jesus;74 and of both the one and the other Jesus is supposed to say that it will (how many generations hence being left uncertain) be still in existence on the arrival of that catastrophe. So to explain the verse in question, that it may not contain a determination of time, is even maintained to be necessary on a consideration of the context, v. 35: for as in this Jesus declares it impossible to determine the period of that catastrophe, he cannot immediately before have given such a determination, in the assurance that his cotemporaries would yet live to see all of which he had been speaking. But this alleged necessity so to interpret the word γενεὰ, has long been dissipated by the distinction between an inexact indication of the space of time, beyond which the event will not be deferred (γενεὰ), and the precise determination of the epoch (ἡμέρα καὶ ὥρα) at which it will occur; the former Jesus gives, the latter he declares himself unable to give.75 But the very possibility of interpreting γενεὰ in the above manner vanishes, when it is considered, that in connexion with a verb of time, and without anything to imply a special application, γενεὰ cannot have any other than its original sense: i.e. generation, age; that in a passage aiming to determine the signs of the Messiah’s advent, it would be very unsuitable to introduce a declaration which, instead of giving any information concerning the arrival of that catastrophe, should rather treat of the duration of the Jewish nation, or of the Christian community, of which nothing had previously been said; that, moreover, already at v. 33, in the words ὑμεῖς ὅταν ἴδητε πάντα ταῦτα, γινώσκετε κ.τ.λ., Ye, when ye shall SEE all these things, know, etc., it is presupposed that the parties addressed would witness the approach of the event in question; and lastly, that in another passage (Matt. xvi. 28 parall.) the certainty of living to see the coming of the Son of man is asserted not simply of this generation, γενεὰ αὕτη, but of some standing here, τινες τῶν ὧδε ἑστηκότων, whereby it is shown in the most decisive manner, that in the present passage also, Jesus intended by the above expression the race of his cotemporaries, who were not to have become extinct before that catastrophe should occur.76 Unable to deny this, and yet anxious to separate as widely as possible the end of the world here announced, and the age of Jesus, others would find in the declaration before us nothing more than this: the events hitherto described will begin to be fulfilled in the present age, though their complete fulfilment may yet be deferred many centuries.77 But when already at v. 8 the subject is said to be the beginning of the tribulation, while from v. 14 we have a description of the end of the present period of the world, which that tribulation would introduce, and it is here (v. 34) said, the existing generation shall not pass away, ἕως ἂν πάντα ταῦτα γένηται, until all these things be fulfilled: we must inevitably understand by πάντα ταῦτα, all these things, not merely the beginning, but also the last-mentioned events at the end of the world.