The Olivet Discourse (13:1–37)

As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” (13:1). The highest walls of the temple mount reached 165 feet. Philo reports that Marcus Agrippa, the grandfather of the emperor Gaius (Caligula), visited Jerusalem and could talk of nothing else “but praise for the sanctuary and all that pertained to it.”288 The wonderful buildings elicited pride and a sense of security because of the conviction that the temple was the place where God dwelt: “This is my resting place for ever” (Ps. 132:14). What the disciples did not see was that this temple was like a barren fig tree.

MODEL OF THE JERUSALEM TEMPLE

Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down (13:2). We get a glimpse of the devastation wrought by the Roman army’s destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 from the imprint of arches burnt into the bedrock foundations of chambers adjoining the southern retaining wall, east of the Triple Gate. The Ritmeyers explain:

The limestone ashlars used in the Herodian construction can be reduced to powder when exposed to very high temperatures. The Roman soldiers must have put brushwood inside the chambers and the blaze created when this was set alight would have caused the arches to collapse. The street that was carried by these arches also collapsed. Before the arches collapsed, the fire burnt into the back wall of the chambers, leaving the imprint of the arches as evocative testimony to the dreadful inferno.289

HEROD’S TEMPLE

20 B.C.–A.D. 70—Aerial view showing outer courts

Dimensions are stated in history (Josephus and the Mishnah) but are subject to interpretation, and all drawings vary.

“MASSIVE STONES” OF THE TEMPLE

The western wall (“the wailing wall”) of the temple with massive stones from the platform of the Herodian temple.

Josephus on the Magnificence of the Temple

With pride Josephus describes the former glory of the temple:

Now the exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes as from solar rays. To approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white…. Some of the stones in the building were forty-five cubits in length, five in height and six in breadth.A-37

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple (13:3). According to Ezekiel 11:23, the glory of the Lord retreats from a corrupt Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives (see Zech. 14:4). The Mount of Olives was severely deforested by the Romans during their siege of Jerusalem.290 In Jesus’ day, its groves of pines and olives offered pleasant seclusion.

Many will come in my name, claiming, “I am he,” and will deceive many (13:6). Jesus warns of a procession of impostors to come (see also 13:21–22). Josephus claimed that what incited the nation to war against Rome more than anything else was “an ambiguous oracle” found “in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that one from their country would become ruler of the world.”291 He himself concluded that it referred not to some Jewish leader but to the Roman general Vespasian and castigates those whom he claimed were worse than the violent revolutionaries:

Another group of scoundrels, in act less criminal but in intention more evil…. Cheats and deceivers, claiming inspiration, they schemed to bring about revolutionary changes by inducing the mob to act as if possessed and by leading them out into the wild country on the pretence that there God would give them signs of approaching freedom.292

REFLECTIONS

Jesus does not answer the disciples’ questions about the signs and timing of the consummation of the age, but gives instructions on how to discern false signs, punctuated by warnings not to be fooled. The emphasis does not fall on what to know but on how to know. Geddert concludes, “The disciple is not called to eliminate his ignorance of the timing of the End, he is called to cope with it, and respond to it appropriately.”A-38

Jesus warns that God’s cause will meet with greater and greater resistance from the powers of evil until the end. “The eschatological drama will run its course, scene by scene. But the actors on the stage have only vague clues about where they are precisely in the play. Only the stage director knows. He has given the actors instructions about what to do and what to say when they see certain things happen. But that is it. They know how the play ends, but they do not know when the curtain will fall.”A-39

In the second century, Simon was designated the Messiah by R. Akiba, who dubbed him Bar Cochba, “son of the star.” After his defeat, later rabbis called him Bar Cosiba, “son of the lie.”

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come (13:7). Jesus’ warning is exactly the opposite of what is found in 4 Ezra 9:1–6. In that text, “earthquakes, tumult of peoples, intrigues of nations, wavering of leaders, confusion of princes” are signs of the end. Jesus says that such things are not true signs of the end, and they should not cause panic when they occur. They are to be expected along with the persecution that will inevitably befall his followers (13:9–11).

MASADA

Roman ramp built up for the assault on Masada in A.D. 70.

When you see “the abomination that causes desolation” standing where it does not belong (13:14). “Abomination” refers to what is detestable and rejected by God. It is either an abomination (filth) that causes horror (such as pagan idols, Deut. 29:17) or an appalling sacrilege that makes desolate.293 The warning relates to events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem. It will be useless to flee to some mountain refuge at the end of the ages. Those who do will have no time to retrieve precious possessions, even essentials, such as cloaks.

If the abomination refers to something before the Jewish revolt, Gaius Caligula commanded that his statue be erected in the temple. Petronius, the legate of Syria, however, stalled in carrying out the order, and Gaius’s assassination prevented a confrontation.294 If it refers to something during the revolt, the Zealots who occupied the temple precincts committed multiple sacrileges.295 If it refers to something after the revolt, Josephus reports that after the Romans captured Jerusalem, the soldiers set up their standards in the temple and sacrificed to them, and the general Titus stood in the Most Holy Place.296 But what good will flight do at this point? If it refers to none of these things, it applies to anything or anyone who seeks to usurp God’s place, and the flight should be understood metaphorically.297

Let the reader understand (13:14). This direction may be some kind of interpretive hint for an esoteric reading of Daniel, or it may be an aside for the one who publicly reads Mark’s Gospel to the assembly.298 Today, personal copies of the Bible are widely available, and many read their Bibles privately. This was not the case in Mark’s day, an age of limited literacy. His Gospel would have been read publicly.

Note that the “abomination that causes desolation” is a neuter noun. Good grammar requires the participle “standing” also be neuter, but it is masculine. The aside instructs the one reading the Greek text not to correct the masculine participle with a neuter noun out of some mistaken grammatical sensitivity. What Mark has written, he has written deliberately. The masculine participle makes the abomination refer to a person. Best likens it to our modern sic, which is placed after a word that seems odd or misspelled: “But when you see that thing, the abomination of desolation, standing where he [sic] should not be….”299

Let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains (13:14). Eusebius reports:

But before the war, the people of the Church of Jerusalem were bidden in an oracle given by revelation to men worthy of it to depart from the city and to dwell in a city of Perea called Pella. To it those who believed in Christ migrated from Jerusalem. Once the holy men had completely left the Jews and all Judea, the justice of God at last overtook them, since they had committed such transgressions against Christ and all his apostles. Divine justice completely blotted out that impious generation among men.300

By contrast, Josephus tells of numerous prophets who deluded the people by encouraging them to wait for God’s help and to seek refuge in the supposedly inviolate temple court.301

Dio Chrysostom expresses amazement at the Jewish resistance to the very end during the revolt:

The Jews resisted [Titus] with more ardor than ever, as if it were a kind of windfall [an unexpected piece of luck] to fall fighting against a foe far outnumbering them; they were not overcome until a part of the Temple had caught fire. Then some impaled themselves voluntarily on the swords of the Romans, others slew each other, others did away with themselves or leaped into the flames. They all believed, especially the last, that it was not a disaster but victory, salvation, and happiness to perish together with the Temple.302

MEMORIAL OF THE 10^TH ROMAN LEGION

The pillar commemorates Legio X Fretensis, a key army involved in the attack on Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple.

Let no one on the roof of his house go down or enter the house to take anything out (13:15). Since Palestinian roofs were flat, they served as an extra room of the house. People used them to dry produce (Josh. 2:6), to sleep on during the hot summer months (1 Sam. 9:25), to wile away the hours in talk, and to pray in private (Acts 10:9).

Pray that this will not take place in winter (13:18). Winter is the time of heavy rains in Palestine, flooding roads and wadis.303 Gadarene refugees during the first revolt sought shelter in Jericho but could not cross the swollen Jordan and were slain by the Romans.304 Winter travel is also hazardous if people are to traverse mountain passes.

Because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning (13:19). All wars bring in their wake horrible suffering. Josephus narrates a lurid tale of terrible famine and a prominent woman cannibalizing her son during the last stages of the siege of Jerusalem as an “act unparalleled in the history whether of Greeks or barbarians and as horrible to relate as it is incredible to hear.”305 Sensationalized stories of cannibalism are not an uncommon feature of siege stories, and this account probably has no factual basis. Josephus simply wanted to convey the horrifying distress that was real.

REFLECTIONS

Jesus calls his disciples to place their trust only in him and his words and to abandon their cherished heritage and false trust in the protection of what is now a spiritually bankrupt temple. God will not save it from destruction. Flight is better than fighting for a lost and unworthy cause. Sadly, Israel fought three wars in A.D. 66–70 (74), 115–17, and 132–35, spurred by nationalistic hopes centered on the temple, until the Romans finally expelled them from Jerusalem and made it an entirely forbidden city to Jews. Christians today should be wary of tethering their hopes to nationalistic aspirations or crusades.

His description of the terrible inferno that engulfed the city can be verified archaeologically. The Roman soldiers set fire to the temple and the city and plundered and slaughtered the remaining inhabitants so that “the ground was nowhere visible through the corpses; but the soldiers had to clamber over heaps of bodies in pursuit of the fugitives.”306 The basement of a house in the upper city of Jerusalem was excavated in 1970 and designated the “burnt house” because of the massive amount of ash and soot. Since the coins discovered in the ruins included those minted by the rebels in A.D. 67, 68, and 69 and none is after 70, the conflagration that destroyed this house was caused when the Romans burned the Upper City.307 Josephus vividly recounts the events (see comments on 13:2).308

REMAINS OF THE ROMAN DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM

The skeletal remains of a woman’s severed arm found in the charred ruins of a first-century Jewish home in Jerusalem.

Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near (13:28). The fig tree was one of the few deciduous trees in Palestine. Its leafing out is a harbinger of summer. In Isaiah 28:4, the first ripe fig of summer is an image for Israel’s defenselessness, and the basket of summer fruit in Amos 8:1–2 is an image of judgment.

I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened (13:30). Josephus laments the fate of Jerusalem at the end of the war. He writes that it was “a city undeserving of these great misfortunes” except that “she produced a generation such as that which caused her overthrow.”309

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away (13:31). This saying affirms the validity of Jesus’ prophecy, but the passing away of heaven and earth may not refer to the crumbling of the material universe. It may refer allusively to the temple, which was understood not only as the meeting point of heaven and earth but a miniature replica of heaven and earth.310 This idea is found in Psalm 78:69, which pictures God as building the sanctuary like the high heavens and the earth. If this reading is correct, it reinforces Jesus’ prediction of the temple’s destruction (13:2).

It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch (13:34). This last parable in Mark picks up on the phrase “right at the door” (13:29). Literally, it reads that the master “gives authority to his slaves, to each one his work.” This phrasing matches a papyrus fragment in which a master writes to a slave: “Since for some time you have been my slave-girl, I give you authority henceforth to go wherever you wish without being accused by me.”311

REFLECTIONS

The key element in the parable is that the servants have no prior warning when the master of the house will return. They must be vigilant, which means “patient waiting at one’s post, not speculation about how much longer the delay will be.”A-40 Unceasing vigilance means that Christians will not fall apart when earthly disasters strike, nor will they become spiritually lethargic when others are heralding “peace and safety” (1 Thess. 5:3).