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Verse 37

Jesus concludes His fearful indictment with a dirge of doom, and a lament over the beloved city. For more than half a year, His mind had turned toward Jerusalem, and three times He had broken out in lamentation:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!' "

Here is a passionate lament of love. The beautiful city and beloved Temple would soon be places of desolation. The broken-hearted Messiah pours out His soul in prophetic lamentation over His own, to whom He came and who received him not. He would have given them shelter, rest, and divine protection under the wings of His heavenly Shekinah; but they would not; He was to leave the courts of their Temple, before the approaching hour of the setting sun, never more to return. Israel would not see Him again until His second coming in Messianic glory, when they would say: "Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord."

How fearfully the prophecy of destruction was fulfilled! In a few brief years the Roman legions of the Emperor Titus utterly destroyed the city and its glorious Temple. Over a million Jews perished in the siege in a few days, and a hundred thousand more were taken away in captivity.