“Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Matthew 23:37-39
Matthew 23 [29.] “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Matthew 23 [37.] “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Matthew 24 [1.] Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all of these things, don’t you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down.”
Meaning:
These words end Jesus’ public teaching in the temple. After pronouncing woes on the scribes and Pharisees and warning that judgment would come on that generation (Matthew 23:29-36), Jesus’ tone changes from rebuke to grief. Luke records the same lament (Luke 13:34-35), and also tells how Jesus “saw the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41).
- “Jerusalem, Jerusalem”
The repeated name expresses deep emotion, like David crying over his son. Jerusalem was the city God had chosen, where his temple stood. Yet it had a long history of rejecting the messengers God sent. The prophet Zechariah was stoned in the temple courts (2 Chronicles 24:21). Now the city was about to reject God’s own Son.
- “How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings”
Jesus speaks as God himself, who had longed for his people over many centuries. The picture of a mother bird covering her young with her wings is a familiar image of God’s protection. “He will cover you with his feathers. Under his wings you will take refuge” (Psalm 91:4). Boaz blessed Ruth by “the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (Ruth 2:12). A hen will spread her wings to shield her chicks from danger, even at the cost of her own life. Jesus would soon give his life to save his people.
- “and you would not!”
God’s love was offered again and again, but it was refused. Jesus’ words show both God’s sincere desire to save and the real responsibility of people who turn him away.
- “Behold, your house is left to you desolate”
“Your house” may mean the temple, the city, or the nation. God had warned through Jeremiah, “But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says Yahweh, that this house shall become a desolation” (Jeremiah 22:5). Ezekiel had seen “Yahweh’s glory” leave the temple before the Babylonians destroyed it (Ezekiel 10:18). Now Jesus himself walks out of the temple (Matthew 24:1-2), and within a generation it was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.
- “until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
These words come from Psalm 118: “Blessed is he who comes in Yahweh’s name!” (Psalm 118:26). Days earlier the crowds had shouted them as Jesus entered Jerusalem (Matthew 21:9). Jesus looks ahead to his return, when his people will welcome him. The prophets foresaw a day when God would pour out “the spirit of grace and of supplication” and “they will look to me whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10). Paul wrote, “a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25-26).
The Significance of Matthew 23:37-39
- The heart of God
Jesus’ lament shows that God takes no pleasure in judgment. Even when he must warn and judge, his heart longs to gather and protect.
- Welcoming the one who comes
The door is still open. Whoever turns to Christ and receives him as the one who comes in the name of the Lord finds shelter under his wings.
Cross-References:
Luke 13:34: “How often I wanted to gather your children together.” Luke’s account.
Psalm 91:4: “Under his wings you will take refuge.” God’s protection.
Psalm 118:26: “Blessed is he who comes in Yahweh’s name!” The welcome of the Messiah.
Conclusion: Jesus grieved over Jerusalem, the city that killed the prophets and was about to reject him. Like a hen with her chicks, he longed to gather and protect its people, but they refused. Their house would be left desolate, yet Jesus pointed to a future day when his people will welcome him, saying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible