Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Luke 17:22

"And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it." — Luke 17:22 (ASV)

Jesus continues the emphasis on the suddenness of the kingdom’s coming. “One of the days” probably refers to the initiation of the reign of the coming Son of Man (i.e., “his day” in v.24, or “the Day of the Lord”; cf. Amos 8:11, 13 for similar interchange of “days” and “day”). When that day arrives, his coming will be obvious, “like the lightning”; thus rumors of seeing him in various places cannot be true.

The inclusion of the passion prediction (v.25) is natural in Luke, who stresses the order of suffering before glory (cf. 24:26, 46; Acts 17:3). “This generation” may obliquely refer back to the Pharisees. More broadly it refers to Jesus’ contemporaries, elsewhere called by him “unbelieving and perverse” (9:41) and “wicked” (11:29).