Luke 21:11 - Exposition

Great earthquakes . These seem to have been very frequent during the period; we hear of them in Palestine, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Crete, Syria. Famines and pestilences . The Jewish and pagan historians of this time—Josephus, Suetonius, Taecitus, and others—enumerate several memorable instances of these scourges in this eventful time. Fearful sights and great signs . Among the former may be especially enumerated the foul and terrible scenes connected with the proceedings of the Zealots (see Josephus,, Bell. Jud.,' 4.3. § 7; v. 6. § 1, etc.). Among the great signs "would be the rumor of monstrous births; the cry, 'Woe! woe!' for seven and a half years of the peasant Jesus, son of Hanan; the voice and sound of departing guardian-angels; and the sudden opening of the vast brazen temple gate which required twenty men to move it" (Farrar).