Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 24:7

"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places." — Matthew 24:7 (ASV)

Nation shall rise against nation — Some of the more memorable of these conflicts are recorded by Josephus: one at Seleucia, in which 50,000 Jews are said to have perished (Antiquities 18.9.8–9); others at Caesarea, Scythopolis, Joppa, Ascalon, and Tyre (Wars 2.18); and the memorable conflict between Jews and Greeks at Alexandria, under Caligula, in AD 38, of which we learn from Philo. The whole period was, indeed, marked by tumults of this kind.

Famines — Among these, we know of the one prophesied by Agabus (Acts 11:28), which was felt severely in the ninth year of Claudius, not only in Syria but also in Rome (Josephus, Antiquities 20.2). Suetonius (Claudius, chapter 18) speaks of that emperor's reign as marked by “continual scarcity.”

Pestilences — The word is not found in the best manuscripts, and has probably been inserted from the parallel passage in Luke 21:11. It was, however, the inevitable companion to famine, and the Greek words for the two (λιμὸς and λοιμὸς, limos and loimos) were so similar that the omission may have been a transcription error. A pestilence is recorded as sweeping away 30,000 people at Rome (Suetonius, Nero, 39; Tacitus, Annals 16.13).

Earthquakes, in divers places — Perhaps no period in the world’s history has been so marked by these convulsions as the one that occurred between the Crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem. Josephus records one in Judea (Wars 4.4.5); Tacitus tells of them in Crete, Rome, Apamea, Phrygia, Campania (Annals 12.58; 14.27; 15.22); Seneca (Epistle 91), in AD 58, speaks of them as extending their devastation over Asia (the proconsular province, not the continent), Achaia, Syria, and Macedonia.