Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Matthew 10:23

"But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." — Matthew 10:23 (ASV)

This verse is among the most difficult in the NT. The coming of the Son of Man has been interpreted as Jesus catching up with the disciples after their mission, as the public identification of Jesus as the Messiah through his resurrection and Pentecost, and as the Second Coming of Jesus (often with the “church dispensation” being seen as not in Jesus’ mind here).

The best interpretation, however, sees the “coming of the Son of Man” as his coming in judgment against the Jews, culminating in the sack of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. The coming of the Son of Man refers to the same event as the coming of the kingdom, even though the two expressions are conceptually complementary. Thus the coming of the Son of Man brings in the consummated kingdom (25:31). But the kingdom, as we have seen, comes in stages (12:28). In one sense Jesus was born a king (2:2); in another he has all authority as a result of his passion and resurrection (28:18); and in yet another his kingdom awaits the end. Mingled with this theme of the coming of the kingdom are Jesus’ repeated warnings to the Jews concerning the disaster they are courting by failing to recognize and receive him. His warnings are unique because he himself is the judge and because the messianic reign is now dawning in both blessing and wrath (8:11–12; 21:31–32).

Against this background the coming of the Son of Man in v.23 marks that stage in the coming of the kingdom in which the judgment repeatedly foretold falls on the Jews. With it the temple cultus disappears, and the new wine necessarily takes to new wineskins . The age of the kingdom comes into its own, precisely because so many of the structured foreshadowings of the OT, bound up with the cultus and nation, disappear .

Above all this interpretation makes contextual sense of v.23. The connection is not with v.22 alone but with vv.17–22, which picture the suffering witness of the church in the post-Pentecost period during a time when many of Jesus’ disciples are still bound up with the synagogue. During that period, Jesus says in v.23, his disciples must not use the opposition to justify quitting or bravado. Far from it. When they face persecution, they must take it as no more than a signal for strategic withdrawal to the next city where witness must continue, for the time is short. They will not have finished evangelizing the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes in judgment on Israel.