Matthew 24:28

28. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles It is perfectly obvious that this verse stands in isolation, having no clear connection with what precedes or follows. The for which commences this verse clearly refers to nothing in Matthew 24:27; while in our harmonizing below its reference is natural and convincing.

We may suggest that this arises from the fact that the sentence is but a part, which Matthew has preserved, of a passage which Luke presents more fully; in which the long train of calamities which succeeds the downfall of Jerusalem is briefly sketched, in order to present a contrast with the rapid consummation of the end.

If, in the usual manner of the harmonists, we incorporate Matthew and Luke together in this passage, it will read thus: “There shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword; for wheresoever the carcass is, there shall the eagles be gathered together. And they shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” On this passage we may remark,

1. That it traces with great clearness the sad train of wars which succeed the “these things” of the apostles’ question. Massacres and slaughters there would be at various periods, wherever the Roman army could find with its standard eagles a body of Jews, as an eagle finds a carcass; the dispersion through nations; the subjection of Jerusalem until a time of latter-day restoration.

2 . The eagles are no doubt in some sense an allusion to the images of eagles which were upon the standards of the Roman armies. Yet not directly. It would be more correct perhaps to say that the adoption of the eagles by armies for their standard, and the adoption of the term by our Lord to designate the pitiless enemy falling upon his prey, are founded in the same natural symbol. Yet the coincidence is of the most striking character.

3 . “Jerusalem shall be trodden down” is a phrase of the most abject subjection; but history furnishes its complete fulfillment. “The times of the Gentiles” are the times of Gentile pre-eminence in the kingdom of God. It is the period of the more exclusive Gentile Churchdom, lasting during the casting off of Israel until her restoration.

4 . This brings us to the very millennial threshhold, when Israel is restored, and ages of Gospel reign commence. These millennial ages terminate in the tribulation of those days, and an immediate judgment, as described in the twenty-ninth verse.

5 . This passage, as above harmonized, furnishes the first member of the contrast of which the second member is furnished in Matthew 24:29-31.

29. Immediately after the tribulation of those days The words those days here refer to the latter days, implied in the passage in Luke above quoted, of which Matthew has preserved but a fragment. The those days of this verse, then, are the days of the great period of which the eagles and the carcass in the preceding verse are a fragmentary symbol. This symbol is a broken label of the whole period between the downfall and the advent, Luke supplying the condensed remainder of the label. The contrast lies between the slow expansion of that period and the suddenness of the advent to break and close it. Immediately, suddenly, after the “tribulation” following the those days of the treading down of Jerusalem, and the fulness of the Gentiles, shall the advent take place.

We have already shown that a tribulation before the judgment was a doctrine of the Jews, as well as that of the Scripture. See the note on Mark 13:24-27.

Thus the tribulation and destruction of Jerusalem, and the tribulation and judgment day, are parallel if not mutually typical.

This view is sustained by the parallel passage in Mark. His words are: “In those days, after that tribulation.” This language is inconsistent with the idea that the judgment immediately succeeds the tribulation of Jerusalem’s downfall.

The judgment is broadly described as being in those days after the Jerusalem tribulation. The those days of Mark may, by perspective, be made to cover the entire time of the dispersion, as described by Luke. So Bengel, and so Mr. Wesley has rendered Mark’s words. And we may here remark that the common interpretation, which makes Matthew 24:29 figurative, has no countenance from Mr. Wesley. His comment is thus on Mark 13:24: “But in those days Which immediately preceded the end of the world. After that tribulation Above described.” We may add that the translators of our version have omitted the word but or and before the word “immediately” in Matthew 24:29. Combining then the words of both Mark and Matthew, we should have: “But in those days, after that tribulation and immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened,” etc. The whole contrast, then, of the paragraph would be as follows: “There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, for wheresoever the carcass is there shall the eagles be gathered together. And they shall be led away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. But in those days after that tribulation, and immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon,” etc.

This precise verbal adjustment, however, of Matthew and Mark, though apparently satisfactory, need not be insisted upon as necessary to our interpretation of the general passage.

Those who find it difficult to extend our Lord’s discourse over “a chasm” of centuries may be aided by the following points:

1 . Our supplementary note, p. 301, shows that the leap of thought and language over the chasm of time to the judgment day is required in a whole class of passages; and will show, too, the principle upon which the leap is taken.

2 . Our Lord’s words were intentionally susceptible of expansion and contraction so far as time was concerned, on the very principle that the true extension of time was even to himself unknown. He specifies events, not periods; events of unknown duration. How long or short should be the “fall by the edge of the sword,” or the “captivity among all the nations,” or the “times of the Gentiles,” or the later “tribulation of those days,” or the time in which the “gospel should be preached to all nations” before the final tribulation, he does not say. “Immediately after ” this train of events the advent will take place; but the length of that train, like the whole scale of ante-judgment chronology, is professedly unknown.