Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 24:6

"And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for [these things] must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet." — Matthew 24:6 (ASV)

You will hear...—Literally, you will be about to hear—a kind of double future, or possibly an example of the transition between the older future tense and the use of an auxiliary verb.

Wars and rumors—Luke adds “commotions.” The forty years that intervened before the destruction of Jerusalem were full of these in all directions; however, we may probably think of the words as referring especially to wars, actual or threatened, that affected the Jews—for example, those we read about under Caligula, Claudius, and Nero (Josephus, Antiquities 20.1, 6). The title that the historian gave to his second book, “The Wars of the Jews,” is sufficiently suggestive. As the years passed on, the watchword, Be not troubled, must have kept believers in Christ calm in the midst of agitation. They were not to think that the end was to follow at once upon the wars that were preparing the way for it.