Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not
pass
Not the generation of men in general; as if the sense was, that
mankind should not cease, until the accomplishment of these
things; nor the generation, or people of the Jews, who should
continue to be a people, until all were fulfilled; nor the
generation of Christians; as if the meaning was, that there
should be always a set of Christians, or believers in Christ in
the world, until all these events came to pass; but it respects
that present age, or generation of men then living in it; and the
sense is, that all the men of that age should not die, but some
should live till all these things were
fulfilled;
see ( Matthew
16:28 ) as many did, and as there is reason to believe they
might, and must, since all these things had their accomplishment,
in and about forty years after this: and certain it is, that
John, one of the disciples of Christ, outlived the time by many
years; and, as Dr. Lightfoot observes, many of the Jewish doctors
now living, when Christ spoke these words, lived until the city
was destroyed; as Rabban Simeon, who perished with it, R.
Jochanan ben Zaccai, who outlived it, R. Zadoch, R. Ishmael, and
others: this is a full and clear proof, that not anything that is
said before, relates to the second coming of Christ, the day of
judgment, and end of the world; but that all belong to the coming
of the son of man, in the destruction of Jerusalem, and to the
end of the Jewish state.