Matthew 23:38

38 Lo, left desolate to you is your house

Matthew 23:38 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 23:38

Behold your house is left unto you desolate.
] Signifying that the city in which they dwelt, where they had their ceiled houses, and stately palaces, would, in a little time, within the space of forty years, be destroyed, and become a desert; and the temple, formerly the house of God, but now only their's, and in which they trusted, would be abandoned by God, he would grant his presence no more in it; and the Messiah, the proprietor of it, and who was now in it, would then take his leave of it, and never more return to it; and that also should share the same fate as the city, and at the same time. Our Lord seems to have in view those passages in ( Jeremiah 12:7 ) ( 22:5 ) and which the Jewish F15 writers understood of the temple. The author of the apocryphal the second book of Esdras has much such an expression as this: ``Thus saith the Almighty Lord, Your house is desolate, I will cast you out as the wind doth stubble.'' (2 Esdras 1:33)


FOOTNOTES:

F15 Targum & Kimchi in Jer. xii. 7.

Matthew 23:38 In-Context

36 verily I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation
37 `Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that art killing the prophets, and stoning those sent unto thee, how often did I will to gather thy children together, as a hen doth gather her own chickens under the wings, and ye did not will.
38 Lo, left desolate to you is your house
39 for I say to you, ye may not see me henceforth, till ye may say, Blessed [is] he who is coming in the name of the Lord.'
Young's Literal Translation is in the public domain.