The Desolate Temple
Before his final departure from the Temple, Jesus fielded challenges from the “scribes and Pharisees.” These were confrontations that set the stage for his arrest and trial, as well as his execution by the Romans. As he left the building, he pronounced its impending judgment and destruction.
Jesus came
into conflict with the religious authorities of Israel, most often, the scribes
and Pharisees. From start to finish, priests, scribes, Herodians, Sadducees,
and Pharisees resisted him.
In the
end, the high priest and his compatriots conspired in his judicial. After his arrival
in Jerusalem, these confrontations took place in and around the Temple.
The gospel
of Matthew includes a lengthy denunciation by Jesus of the “scribes and
Pharisees” that culminates in a judicial pronouncement on the Temple. It
includes literary links to his subsequent teachings given on the Mount of
Olives, and to Daniel’s prophecy of the “abomination that desolates.”
COMING DESOLATION
- (Matthew 23:36-38) – “Verily, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Jerusalem! Jerusalem! that slays the prophets and stones them that have been sent to her, how often would I have gathered your children like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate.”
Outwardly,
the Pharisees appear righteous but “within they were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Their practices render them ritually unclean.
They adorn
the tombs of the prophets, claiming that if they were alive in the “days of
our fathers” they would not have slain them. But their very boast affirms
their descent from the men who murdered Yahweh’s prophets.
He then warns
Israel’s religious leaders to “fill up the measure of your fathers.” This
alludes to Daniel’s prophecy of the “seventy weeks” that “consummated
transgression and summed up sin.” And so, in the plot to murder the
Messiah, the sins of the nation reach their zenith, and its destruction becomes
inevitable – (Daniel 9:24).
The Mosaic Law warns that “desolation” will result if the nation breaks its covenant. Yahweh will “desolate” its sanctuaries and land because “they despise my judgments and abhor my statutes.”
In the
Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, these warnings use the
Greek verb erémoō for “desolate” - (Leviticus 26:22-35 [“and
your ways will become DESOLATE”]).
In Christ’s
pronouncement, “desolation” translates the same Greek term used by him on
the Mount of Olives for the “abomination of desolation” or erémōsis.
It is related to the Greek verb erémoō, “to desolate.”
And the
noun erémōsis is the same term used several times in the Septuagint
version of Daniel for the “abomination of desolation.” This is not
coincidental. Jesus wants his audience to take note of these scriptural allusions - (Daniel
8:13, 9:27, 11:31, Matthew 24:15).
YOUR HOUSE
This
judgment will leave their house “desolate.” In this context, “house”
refers to the Temple building. The sense of the Greek term rendered “desolate”
does not point directly to its destruction, but to its abandonment.
And ironically, that is precisely what Jesus does when he departs from it for the last time. His departure represents the abandonment of the Temple by God, whose presence will no longer dwell there.
And this
judicial sentence is on the “generation” of Israel that heard but rejected
Jesus. Though it might include future generations, the words are addressed to “that
generation,” the one contemporary with Jesus that refused to accept him as
the Messiah of Israel.
The
warning of this coming “desolation” is developed further in the
subsequent discourse on the Mount of Olives, especially in Christ’s warning to
his disciples to flee Jerusalem when they see the “abomination of desolation.”
