Lk 19:41-44 Lament of Jerusalem

Jesus saw the city and wept over it. Jesus must love his country very much. He not only loves his Father and cares for people but also has a heart for his country. In fact, he will “die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish” (Jn 11:50). In a way, he is not only a religious figure but also a nationalist.

We should be nationalists, too. The downfall of a country starts when her citizens no longer care for her, when they can no longer be proud of her. I do not enjoy jokes that degrade our country and our people. I feel sorry for her because of the rape that corrupt politicians commit against her. I am enraged by the sorry state of many Filipinos languishing in poverty. And we can do more than weep for her.

I have met a number of foreigners who have made the Philippines their adopted home. They love this country. Maybe they see something in her that we take for granted.

Assignment: Read, pass, and do the book: 12 Little Things You Can Do For Your Country by Atty. Alex Lacson.

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Luke 19:41 when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it

“According to tradition, when these words (Luke 19:41-42) were spoken, Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives, opposite a point in the walls surrounding Jerusalem a few yards south of the Gate Beautiful. From this spot one may behold a beautiful view of that historic city.

“It is wonderfully picturesque, with its quaint, flat-roofed houses, church towers, and mosque domes covering the four hills on which Jerusalem is built. The view is impressive even now; it must have been inspiring when Jesus beheld it in all its Herodian splendor.

 “But it was the inhabitants of the city, not the beautiful buildings or the commanding view that the Savior saw through tear bedimmed eyes when he cried: ‘If thou hadst known . . . the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.’ (Luke 19:42.) He saw the people divided into conflicting and contending sects, each professing more holiness and righteousness than the other and all closing their eyes to the truth.” (David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1944, Afternoon Meeting 78.)

Luke 19:43 thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round 

“In the spring of 70 (A. D.)…Titus ordered a siege wall constructed around the city to starve out its defenders—a tactic that was particularly effective because many supplies had been destroyed in the previous months of fighting.” (Galbraith, Ogden, and Skinner, Jerusalem: The Eternal City, 214-215)

“The warning to all to flee from Jerusalem and Judea to the mountains when the armies would begin to surround the city was so generally heeded by members of the Church, that according to the early Church writers not one Christian perished in the awful siege (see Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., book iii, ch. 5)…As to the unprecedented horrors of the siege, which culminated in the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, see Josephus, Wars vi, chaps. 3 and 4. That historian estimates the number slain in Jerusalem alone as 1,100,000 and in other cities and rural parts a third as many more. For details see Josephus, Wars ii, chaps. 18, 20; iii, 2, 7, 8, 9; iv, 1, 2, 7, 8, 9; vii, 6, 9, 11. Many tens of thousands were taken captive, to be afterward sold into slavery, or to be slain by wild beasts, or in gladiatorial combat in the arena for the amusement of Roman spectators.

 “In the course of the siege, a wall was constructed about the entire city, thus fulfilling the Lord’s prediction (Luke 19:43), ‘thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee,’ in which, by the admittedly better translation, ‘bank,’ or ‘palisade’ should appear instead of ‘trench.’ In September A.D. 70 the city fell into the hands of the Romans; and its destruction was afterward made so thorough that its site was plowed up. Jerusalem was ‘trodden down of the Gentiles,’ and ever since has been under Gentile dominion, and so shall continue to be ‘until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.’ (Luke 21:24.)” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 545)

Luke 19:43-44 thine enemies…shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee

 “The Romans brought their machines against the wall…yet did the Romans overcome them by their number and by their strength; and, what was the principal thing of all, by going cheerfully about their work, while the Jews were quite dejected, and become weak. Now as soon as a part of the wall was battered down, and certain of the towers yielded to the impression of the battering rams, those that opposed themselves fled away…when those that came running before the rest told them that the western wall was entirely overthrown…they fell upon their face, and greatly lamented their own mad conduct; and their nerves were so terribly loosed, that they could not flee away…

 “So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they both placed their ensigns upon the towers, and made joyful acclamations for the victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much lighter than its beginning; for when they had gotten upon the last wall, without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an unusual solitude could mean. But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city with their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook without and set fire to the houses whither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is, of such as died by the famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without touching any thing. But although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men’s blood.” (Josephus as taken from Latter-day Commentary on the New Testament: The Four Gospels, by Pinegar, Bassett, and Earl, p. 285-286)