(2) There shall not be left here one stone upon another.--So Josephus relates that Titus ordered the whole city and the Temple to be dug up, leaving only two or three of the chief towers, so that those who visited it could hardly believe that it had ever been inhabited (Wars, vii. 1). The remains which recent explorations have disinterred belong, all of them, to the substructures of the Temple--its drains, foundations, underground passages, and the like. The words fell on the ears of the disciples, and awed them into silence. It was not till they had crossed the Mount of Olives that even the foremost and most favoured ventured to break it.

Verse 2. - And Jesus said. The best manuscripts and the Revised Version give, but he answered and said. See ye not all these things? Vulgate, Videtis haec omnia? Our Lord, in turn, calls attention to the glorious structure in order to give added emphasis to his weighty denunciation. Not be left here one stone upon another. This prophecy was most literally fulfilled. Recent explorations have shown that not a stone of Herod's temple remains in situ. The orders of Titus, given with regret, for the total demolition of the walls of temple and city, were carried out with cruel exactness, so that, as Josephus testifies ('Bell. Jud.,' 7:01. 1), passers by would not have supposed that the place had ever been inhabited. When the apostate Julian, in the fourth Christian century, endeavoured to cast a slur upon prophecy by rebuilding the city and temple, his design proved to be an ignominious failure, and the sacred shrine has continued to this day a monument of Divine vengeance.

24:1-3 Christ foretells the utter ruin and destruction coming upon the temple. A believing foresight of the defacing of all worldly glory, will help to keep us from admiring it, and overvaluing it. The most beautiful body soon will be food for worms, and the most magnificent building a ruinous heap. See ye not all these things? It will do us good so to see them as to see through them, and see to the end of them. Our Lord having gone with his disciples to the Mount of Olives, he set before them the order of the times concerning the Jews, till the destruction of Jerusalem; and as to men in general till the end of the world.And Jesus said unto them, see ye not all these things?.... "These great buildings", as in Mark; all these goodly stones, so beautiful and large, and so firmly put together:

verily, I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down; or broken, as Munster's Hebrew Gospel reads it: which prediction had a full and remarkable accomplishment; and which is not only attested by Josephus (y), who relates, that both the city and temple were dug up, and laid level with the ground; but also by other Jewish writers; who tell us (z) that

"on the ninth of Ab, a day prepared for punishments, Turnus Rufus the wicked, , "ploughed up the temple", and all round about it, to fulfil what is said, "Zion shall be ploughed as a field".''

Yes, and to fulfil what Christ here says too, that not one stone should be left upon another, which a plough would not admit of.

(y) De Bello Jud. l. 7. c. 7. (z) Maimon. Hilch. Taaniot, c. 5. sect. 3. T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 23. 1. & Gloss. in ib.