Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Matthew 24:21

"for then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be." — Matthew 24:21 (ASV)

“For” introduces the reason for flight in vv.17–20: “great distress” (GK 3489 & 2568) and unprecedented suffering (cf. Daniel 12:1; Revelation 7:14). The savagery, slaughter, disease, and famine would be monstrous, “unequaled from the beginning of the world until now,” and, according to Jesus, “never to be equaled again.” There have been greater numbers of deaths—six million in the Nazi death camps, mostly Jews, and an estimated twenty million under Stalin—but never so high a percentage of a great city’s population so thoroughly and painfully exterminated and enslaved as during the Fall of Jerusalem. From such distress Jesus’ followers were to flee. Jesus’ comment in v.21 that such “great distress” is never to be equaled implies that it cannot refer to the Tribulation at the end of the age; for if what happens next is the Millennium or the new heaven and the new earth, it seems inane to say that such “great distress” will not take place again. At the same time, by these remarks Jesus finishes his description of Jerusalem.