These Things and Those Days (Part 1)
Notes
Like chap. 4, chap. 13 is a collection of Jesus’ teachings and sayings from various occasions that have been gathered by Mark into the present chapter. This is evident from the fact that some of the teachings preserved in Mark 13 appear in entirely different contexts in other Gospels. The absence of the original contexts of the various sayings and their indefiniteness combine to make this one of the most perplexing chapters in the Bible to understand, for readers and interpreters alike.2
the concluding admonitions in the chapter to “watch” (vv. 33–37), indicates that the purpose of the eschatological discourse in Mark 13 is not primarily to provide a timetable or blueprint for the future so much as to exhort readers to faithful discipleship in the present.
It is most reasonably and fruitfully seen as the culmination of Mark’s polemic against the temple begun in chap. 11.
Two further uses of the terminology occur in v. 29 (Gk. tauta) and v. 30 (Gk. tauta panta), indicating that the generation that will not pass away until “all these things have happened” is the generation of the fall of Jerusalem. This linguistic pattern is a clue that Mark intends readers to understand vv. 1–13 and 28–31 with reference to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
Two other blocks of material in the chapter are held in close connection with the destruction of the temple. They are vv. 14–27, the description of the tribulation and subsequent coming of the Son of Man; and vv. 32–36, the reminder of the unknown day and hour of the return of the Son of Man and the consequent reminder to present watchfulness. These two sections are designated by the expression “those days” (vv. 17, 19, 20, 24; or “that day,” v. 32). “Those days” is a stereotype for the eschaton in the prophets (Jer 3:16, 18; 31:29; 33:15; Joel 3:1), and it appears likewise in Mark 13. Chap. 13 is thus constructed according to a twofold scheme of tension and paradox, alternating between the immediate future (related to “these things”) and the end of time (related to “those days”), in which the destruction of the temple and fall of Jerusalem function as a prefigurement and paradigm for the Parousia.
• A1 1–13 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem
• B1 14–27 Tribulation and Parousia
• A2 28–31 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem
• B2 32–37 Parousia and watchfulness
Most importantly, Mark 13 admonishes readers against attempts at constructing timetables and deciphering signs of the Parousia. Disciples are admonished to be alert and watchful (vv. 5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37), reminded that they do not know the time of the end (vv. 33, 35), and warned not to be led astray by even the most obvious signs (vv. 5, 6, 21, 22), for the end is not yet (vv. 7, 13). No one is either encouraged or commended for attempting to be an eschatological code-cracker. That is folly, for even the Son of Man is ignorant of the End (v. 32). The premium of discipleship is placed not on predicting the future but on faithfulness in the present, especially in trials, adversity, and suffering.
THE DESTR
Two further uses of the terminology occur in v. 29 (Gk. tauta) and v. 30 (Gk. tauta panta), indicating that the generation that will not pass away until “all these things have happened” is the generation of the fall of Jerusalem. This linguistic pattern is a clue that Mark intends readers to understand vv. 1–13 and 28–31 with reference to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
Two other blocks of material in the chapter are held in close connection with the destruction of the temple. They are vv. 14–27, the description of the tribulation and subsequent coming of the Son of Man; and vv. 32–36, the reminder of the unknown day and hour of the return of the Son of Man and the consequent reminder to present watchfulness. These two sections are designated by the expression “those days” (vv. 17, 19, 20, 24; or “that day,” v. 32). “Those days” is a stereotype for the eschaton in the prophets (Jer 3:16, 18; 31:29; 33:15; Joel 3:1), and it appears likewise in Mark 13. Chap. 13 is thus constructed according to a twofold scheme of tension and paradox, alternating between the immediate future (related to “these things”) and the end of time (related to “those days”), in which the destruction of the temple and fall of Jerusalem function as a prefigurement and paradigm for the Parousia.
• A1 1–13 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem
• B1 14–27 Tribulation and Parousia
• A2 28–31 End of the temple and fall of Jerusalem
• B2 32–37 Parousia and watchfulness
Most importantly, Mark 13 admonishes readers against attempts at constructing timetables and deciphering signs of the Parousia. Disciples are admonished to be alert and watchful (vv. 5, 9, 23, 33, 35, 37), reminded that they do not know the time of the end (vv. 33, 35), and warned not to be led astray by even the most obvious signs (vv. 5, 6, 21, 22), for the end is not yet (vv. 7, 13). No one is either encouraged or commended for attempting to be an eschatological code-cracker. That is folly, for even the Son of Man is ignorant of the End (v. 32). The premium of discipleship is placed not on predicting the future but on faithfulness in the present, especially in trials, adversity, and suffering.
“As [Jesus] was leaving the temple.” This is more than a physical description. Rather, it symbolizes Jesus’ final and definitive break from the temple. He has thrice predicted his death at the hands of Jewish and Gentile leaders (8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34); he has countermanded the authority of the Sanhedrin (11:27–33), which was located in the temple; and he has challenged each group comprising the Sanhedrin—the Pharisees (12:13–17), Sadducees (12:18–27), and scribes (12:35–40). The temple has been judged and condemned as a “den of robbers” (11:17), symbolized by an accursed and withered fig tree (11:12–22). Jesus’ judgment of the temple was well enough known to his adversaries to play a significant role in his death sentence (14:58; 15:29–30). In v. 1, his footsteps obey his will: Jesus leaves the temple, never to return.
In Jesus’ day the temple had already been under construction fifty years, and was still unfinished. At no place was Herod the Great’s obsession with grandeur and permanence more apparent than in the Jerusalem temple (see further at 11:15 and 12:41). Herod enlarged Solomon’s temple to an esplanade measuring some 325 meters wide by 500 meters long, with a circumference of nearly a mile. The immense thirty-five-acre enclosure could accommodate twelve football fields. The southeast corner of the retaining wall hung some fifteen stories above the ground that sloped down to the Kidron Valley. The blocks of stone used in construction were enormous; Josephus (War 5.189) reports that some were forty cubits (approximately sixty feet) in length. No block that size has been found in the existing foundation, but stones north of Wilson’s Arch measure forty-two feet long, eleven feet high, fourteen feet deep, and weigh over a million pounds. The magnitude of the temple mount and the stones used to construct it exceed in size any other temple in the ancient world.
And this was merely the retaining wall. Above, on the south end of the esplanade, perched the gleaming Royal Portico, “a striking spectacle,” to quote Josephus. The portico was forty-five feet wide and consisted of three aisles supported by four rows of columns. The columns were crowned with Corinthian capitals and rose to a height of forty feet, supporting a cedar-paneled ceiling above. “The thickness of each column was such that it would take three men with outstretched arms touching one another to envelop it,” reports Josephus (Ant. 15.413). In the center of the esplanade stood the sanctuary, which, as ancient writers noted, was shaped like a lion, broader in the front (fifty meters) and narrower in back (thirty meters). It rose to a height of fifty meters and was a visual collage of gold and silver, crimson and purple, radiating the rising sun like a snow-clad mountain. The figures Josephus gives for the blocks of stone in the sanctuary exceed in size even those of the foundation (War 5.222–24). A vast and stupendous complex it was. No wonder the disciples were overwhelmed!
As remarkable as the proportions of the temple is Jesus’ attitude toward it. “ ‘Do you see all these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’ ” Earlier Jesus spoke of “the fig tree withered from the roots” (11:20). The fig tree, as we saw, symbolized the temple. In Jesus’ final judgment of the temple the symbolism is dropped and its destruction is pronounced in concrete terms—stone by stone. The disciples drop their jaws over building blocks, but Jesus dismisses them as stumbling blocks.
Josephus’s lamentation over the destruction of “that splendid city of world-wide renown” forty years later attests to the fulfillment of Jesus’ judgment: “Caesar ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground.… All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely leveled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited” (War 7.3).
In this section Mark directs the teaching of Jesus to events leading up to the destruction of the temple. Jesus’ teaching falls into two parts, each prefaced by an admonition in Greek, blepete (translated by the NIV as “ ‘Watch out’ ” in v. 5, and “ ‘be on your guard’ ” in v. 9). The first admonition concerns false Messiahs and natural and political disasters (vv. 5–8); the second concerns persecutions of Christian believers, with particular emphasis on their “handing over” (Gk. paradidomi), a word that carries double connotations of “betrayal” and “being handed over to the purposes of God.” In both admonitions Jesus warns that the “signs” do not portend the end!
3 The Mount of Olives rises three hundred feet above Jerusalem and is separated from it by the Kidron Valley. From this vantage point Jesus and the disciples have a commanding view of the eastern expanse of the temple mount, and, on top of it, the glimmering facade of the sanctuary. According to the Mishnah, someone “standing on top of the Mount of Olives should be able to look directly into the entrance of the Sanctuary” (m. Mid. 2:4). The summit of the Mount of Olives had earlier been the place from which Jesus began his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (11:1). The description of the Mount of Olives as “opposite the temple” (v. 3) is, in this instance, highly symbolic: just as Jesus immediately before had pronounced judgment on the scribes while sitting “opposite the [temple treasury]” (12:41), now he delivers his final judgment “opposite the temple.” Moreover, he is “sitting,” with the posture of an authoritative teacher. Equally significant is that the Mount of Olives, according to Zech 14:1–8, is the place from which God declares the capture, sacking, and devastation of Jerusalem. Once again Jesus consciously positions himself to assume the role of God.
4–5 Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask Jesus privately, “ ‘Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?’ ”
The first half of the question refers back to the destruction of the temple in v. 2, where “ ‘no stone will be left on another.’ ” The second half of the question about the “ ‘sign that they (Gk. tauta) are all about to be fulfilled’ ” has an eschatological ring to it (Dan 12:6–7). The repetition of tauta (“these things”) shows that this question also refers to the destruction of the temple, but the use of the Greek verb syntelein (NIV, “fulfilled”; so, too, Dan 12:6 LXX), which is often a technical term for the end time, 12 hints that the destruction of the temple is a paradigm of something greater.
The word for “sign” (Gk. sēmeion) is one of the most important words in chap. 13. Thrice in 8:11–12 Jesus was asked by the Pharisees for a sign. He steadfastly refused the request, intimating that it was itself a sign of disbelief rather than faith. The same word is used equally pejoratively here and in v. 22.
Jesus warns that signs deceive and lead astray (Gk. planan, the same word used of the error of the Sadducees in 12:24, 27). Moreover, the “signs” mentioned in vv. 6–13 indicate the opposite of what one would expect—that the end is not yet. The disciples—and believers since—want to know the future, but Jesus directs them unflinchingly to the present: “ ‘Watch out that no one deceives you.’ ” Beginning in v. 5 and continuing throughout the chapter, there is a running admonition against future speculation at the expense of present obedience.
In the years preceding the Jewish Revolt in A.D. 66 several messianic pretenders arose. In the mid-forties Theudas (Acts 5:36) boasted of various signs (including the ability to part the Jordan River) that, according to Josephus, “led many astray” (Ant. 20.97–98). Josephus adds another account about an Egyptian who claimed to be a “prophet” (Gk. goēs, “magician”), who likewise succeeded in deceiving the populace (War 2.261–63).
In the second Jewish revolt (A.D. 132–35), Bar Kokhba made claim to being the Messiah, and his claim swept many devout Jews into the revolt.
The Greek of v. 6 reads simply, “I am,” which is the name for God in the OT (Exod 3:14). “I am” is the same claim Jesus has made of himself (6:50; 14:62). There is thus no material difference between Jesus’ claim and that of impostor claimants.
7–8 Other threats will come from international affairs, wars, and natural calamities that will befall non-believers as well as believers. The litany of woes in these verses could summarize every age perhaps, but they fit the first generation of Christians particularly well. There were fears of war in A.D. 40 when Caligula (Roman emperor, A.D. 37–41) attempted to erect a statue to himself in the temple of Jerusalem. Josephus uses a phrase very similar to 13:7 to describe the rumors of war circulating in Caligula’s day. The rumors of Caligula’s day turned out to be only that, but twenty-five years later total war broke out in A.D. 66 when the Zealot revolt plunged Palestine into a catastrophic defeat by Rome. There were famines during the reign of Claudius (Roman emperor, A.D. 41–54; see Acts 11:28). Earthquakes struck Phrygia in A.D. 61 and leveled Pompey in A.D. 63. The language of vv. 7–8 finds striking parallels in Tacitus’s description particularly of the last years of Nero’s megalomania and the civil wars that followed his suicide in A.D. 68. Not surprisingly, toward the end of the first century Revelation 6 contains a similar list of wars, famine, earthquakes, and persecutions.
The purpose of the litany of woes in 13:8 is not to lure believers into speculations about the end, but to anchor them to watchfulness and faithfulness in the present.
The Book of Acts is a commentary on these verses, for in tribulations (many of which parallel vv. 7–13), the numbers and faith of believers in the early church actually grew. The metaphor of “birth pains” is also instructive, for in Judaism motherhood was the ultimate validation of a woman’s worth, and birth pains ended the disgrace of childlessness. Likewise, the church’s “birth pains” in tribulation will validate rather than annihilate its existence.
9–10 Threats to faith will also come through persecution of believers.
The NIV perhaps overtranslates the Greek phrase blepete de hymeis heatous as “ ‘You must be on guard.’ ” A more fitting translation would be, “You must be clear in your own minds”—with emphasis on “you.” The point is to rid believers of utopian fantasies and remind them that adversity and persecution are not aberrations of the Christian life but rather the norm.
their sufferings will not be without purpose. Suffering and persecution will afford believers unprecedented opportunities to declare their faith before kings, authorities, and rulers (Acts 12:1–3; 23:33; 25:6, 19ff.). Rather than abandoning them in the hour of crisis, God will empower them to witness to the nations.
the persecution of believers (v. 9) provides the context for the proclamation of the gospel to all nations (v. 10). Once again the sufferings and persecutions of believers are not signs of the end, but signs that attend authentic preaching of the gospel!
11 The inevitability of persecution ought not produce anxiety and fear but rather the assurance of God’s presence in the Holy Spirit. Disciples are again reminded that faithfulness does not consist in forecasting the future and determining preemptive responses, but rather in trusting that God will give them grace to complete their service in his name, and indeed will even speak through them in their deepest need. In their first mission the disciples spoke for God (6:7–12), but in their sufferings God will speak through them by the Holy Spirit!
12–13 Persecution will even break up families. Siblings will turn against one another, parents against children, and children against parents, as foretold by the prophet Micah (7:6). In the Jewish world it was the household more than the individual that determined identity and bore witness to God: “ ‘But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD’ ” (Josh 24:15). The breakup of families thus attacks and jeopardizes life and faith at the most intimate and formative level.
It is not impossible that the family betrayals referred to in v. 12 allude not simply to natural families but specifically to Christian families (so 3:33–35), that is, to Christians informing on one another under interrogation.
Describing the Neronian persecution of A.D. 64, Tacitus writes that those who confessed that they were Christians were first arrested, and then on their disclosures, many Christians were further arrested (Ann. 15:44). A generation later, sometime after A.D. 110, Pliny the Younger testifies to the same method of interrogating Christians “who have been denounced”—presumably by fellow Christians (Letter to the Emperor Trajan 10.96).
If believers experience the tragic betrayal (Gk. paradidomi) of fellow believers, then they will share the very experience of Jesus, who was betrayed (Gk. paradidomi) by Judas, one of the family of the Twelve (3:19).
Loyalty to Christ will be odious and loathsome to the world, and believers will be hated (13:13). One again recalls Tacitus’s comment about the Neronian persecution, that Christians were “a class hated for their abominations” (Ann. 15.44; cf. John 15:19).
“ ‘But the one who has endured to the end will be saved’ ” (similarly 4 Ezra 6:25). This promise is a supreme comfort in the midst of trials. Believers are not expected to do what they cannot do (i.e., to prevail over all adversities), but to do the one thing they can do in every crisis—to endure and be steadfast. When they do, they will be saved.
Mark 13:6–13 describes the experience of the church following the ascension of Jesus. The Book of Acts, as we noted, provides a commentary on nearly every verse in this section. That commentary, of course, is not limited to Acts, for the phenomena herein are descriptive in varying degrees of every epoch of church history.
Mark does not give believers a blueprint for the future, but rather confidence in God’s purpose and presence in the interim of the church.
The present warnings repeat and extend Jesus’ call to discipleship in 8:34, “ ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ ” The word for “betray” (Gk. paradidomi), which is used repeatedly of Jesus in Mark (3:19; 9:31; 10:33; and ten times in chaps. 14–15), is now applied to believers (13:9, 11, 12). The hour has come for believers to bear the cross of which Jesus spoke. They bear his cross by standing “ ‘firm to the end’ ” (v. 13; Dan 12:12). The life of faith is not an exemption from adversity but a reliance on the promise of God to bear witness to the gospel in adversity, and to be saved for eternal life through it.