What is the huge deal here about the Son of Man coming on the clouds and what does it tell us about the identity of Yeshua/Jesus? And fig trees again? Did the fig tree growers association have an endorsement deal with the writers or is there a deeper meaning to be found here?
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24 “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Oh boy, you know it’s going to be good when we start out with the very loaded word, “but”, at the beginning of a sentence. It means that we have to time travel backward to what went before it, which we will do in a bit. This week, we will be talking about a lot of apocalyptic phrases that are easily misunderstood and abused. We went through this in part for the Excursus program, which was episode #120. But now we are going to take all that imagery language and actually look at it in this context so there will be some review and some new material. And, we’re going to be referring to Isaiah, a lot, because Mark quotes and refers to Isaiah more than all the other prophets combined which shouldn’t shock us because Mark does portray Yeshua/Jesus as the Yahweh-Warrior, Arm of the Lord, and Suffering Servant figure of Isaiah, which is why I taught so extensively on Isaiah 40-56 before we started this series. And we will be talking about the historical context of the Coming in the Clouds, a term that gets thrown around a lot in Christian rapture circles but, when understood as an actual theophany—a visible appearance of deity, gives us an entirely different meaning that they would have understood.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have six years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.
24 “But in those days, after that tribulation…”
Let’s stop right there. “In those days” and “after that tribulation” are referring to what? The exact same event that they have been discussing since verse 2—the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem. And if you have been following along, you’ve been hearing a lot about the severe tribulation of the times. Jewish revolutionaries and bandits slaughtered more of their own people than the Romans ever dreamed of. Starvation, mock trials, execution of political rivals, you name it. Remember, when Yeshua lowered the boom on that, they asked two questions—“when will it happen” and “what will be the signs that it is about to happen.” Yeshua has never diverted away from that subject. He’s still answering their questions in language that they are going to be familiar with but we need to work at it. They grew up hearing this stuff and knew the gist of it. We make a lot of assumptions and really read a ton into it that they wouldn’t have seen and we cannot forget that they were the primary audience and not us. We’re eavesdroppers. Eavesdroppers who speak not only a foreign language but also a different cultural language as well. When we see phrases like “in those days” or ”in that day” we are looking at judgment language due to the current apostacy of the people in some way or another. In that day and at that time means that Yahweh is acting in a definitive way in history. When Yahweh decrees that His people will be a certain type of people—or rather, when Yahweh declares through one of His prophets that in those days such and such will be true it is not a time to wait for Him to take action. Yahweh is declaring His desire and we are to live in it and toward it, or else. Also, Yahweh never declares a destruction that cannot be avoided—even when it is couched in absolutes. Never. If everyone turns and does what is right, from the top down, it just won’t happen. When we see in those days, it means the Kingdom of Heaven has been forced to intervene and that is never the best option. Nothing is ever set in stone, not exactly, because we always see Yahweh willing to accept repentance when He finds it. IF the leadership, after the resurrection, had changed their tune and had installed Yeshua as King in the Temple, then it would never have been destroyed. So, with predictions, we have to understand that they never represent what God wants but what God is driven to do.
Jer 3 15 “‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. 16 And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again. 17 At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. 18 In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.
Now, a prophecy like this—there was never any reason why it couldn’t have been at least imperfectly fulfilled in absolutely any generation. Yahweh is always willing to give His people loyal shepherds if their hearts are set on that. He is always willing to multiply and prosper His people. Jerusalem always could have been the Lord’s throne. All nations could always have been gathered to it. But there’s that stubbornness. It is now and will find its fulfillment in Yeshua, God’s perfect image, because we humans don’t even try without that divine infilling. You could say we are hovering in a “here but not yet” mode.
Jer 31 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Zech 8 23 Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”
And although you can say, “Well, this is clearly about the reign of Yeshua and the last days/end times” it would be correct but if you were to say that the last days/end times refers to the future that would not be reflective of Scripture. The world has been living in the last days/end times ever since Heaven invaded earth in the person of Yeshua and began to implement the reign of the Heavens, which will someday take over the entire earth. Right now we have been in the birth pangs for a long time as it is a painful process, the birthing of this worldwide dominion of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. I guess we could say that the end times were, are and shall be.
24 “But in those days, after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
We’ve already covered “in those days” and as that refers to Yahweh acting decisively for judgment (which is a neutral term, not necessarily negative). The next phraselet says, “after that tribulation.” What tribulation is that? Although many travel through time in order to link it up with Revelation 7:14 which refers to a great tribulation where many saints have been martyred and make that into a future seven or three and a half year time period, the tribulation being spoken of here is simply the destruction of the Temple, Jerusalem and much of the land of Israel by the Romans between the years of 66 and 70 CE. Remember, we cannot remove this from the immediate context of verse 3 with the question as to when the prophesied destruction of the Temple in verse 2, would occur and what would be the signs. And there hasn’t been a single useful sign given. Indeed, “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies”—that isn’t a useful sign either—you had to be long since gone.
The prophetic language of the sun being darkened, moon not shining, stars falling and powers shaken—this is figurative language that signifies abject terror and confusion. If we try to make it literal, we are taking it out of the context of the original audience. The sense of it is cosmic, and not scientific, and by cosmic I mean dealing with how earthly things look “behind the veil” in terms of apocalyptic imagery. If you have read second temple period apocalypses like Enoch or Revelation, then you see this over the top language referring to how things would look to us if we could see them from the throne room and not obscured here. Everything is described in these earthshattering and cataclysmic terms and that’s actually an excellent example. If I told you that I had an earthshattering announcement to make tomorrow, you wouldn’t call me a liar unless of course I was just going to tell everyone that I am getting a pet parakeet. You would know that I am not making a prophetic announcement that the earth will, in fact, be shattering. It’s an expression that to us means a major upheaval. And even that is ironic because upheaval refers to the earth’s crust being forced upward due to earthquake. Every culture has these terms that describe major events in terms of cataclysms. The Bible is no different—why should it be? These were functional cultural expressions for impending disaster. When we take them scientifically seriously is when the trouble happens.
These were all the same terms used previously for the fall of Babylon in the 6th century—did the sun and moon and stars implode at that time? No. It’s judgment language. Just, imagine if this was happening—think of the unimaginable panic, shock and alarm—that’s what this language is describing. The cosmic terms are important because, as with the fall of Babylon, this is divine judgment against a corrupted institution that was meant to foster worship and care for the least of these and draw the nations but instead became a business compromised with prejudice, greed and corruption. And these are worse than idolatry. What else does this language tell us? This is a picture of suddenness. All of a sudden, destruction is raining down upon them. But what is the cause of this destruction? He hasn’t told them about that yet. Sure, I have been blabbing about it but He hasn’t been yet. That’s about to change.
26 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
What is it that they see? The Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory but what the heck does that mean? Three things here—the Son of Man, the biblical phenomena of what coming in the clouds actually means, and also what It is to come with both great power and glory. This is another instance where being unfamiliar with the language of the rest of the Bible leads people to ideas that this is describing a rapture. Let’s tackle Son of Man first because it has been a while. The Son of Man is mentioned fourteen times in this Gospel. I think we did an entire teaching on this for part one of this series, that’s how important this is. Although the Son of Man reference goes back to Daniel 7:14, it is never used as a title until Yeshua (or the narrator) uses it to describe why He has the legitimate authority to forgive sins on earth, as we saw in chapter 2 and the healing of the paralytic. After that, it is often invoked when Yeshua’s authority to do something is challenged on legal grounds (well, more on traditional grounds, actually) or He is describing His fate, aka His mission.
Son of Man seems to be Yeshua’s preferred self-designation instead of Messiah and the reasoning is not difficult to grasp. By the first century, Maschiach, translated as Messiah and meaning anointed one (same meaning as Christos in the Greek), in terms of THE Maschiach and not as one of many maschiach spoken of in Scripture, had become so loaded a term that if He had used it to describe Himself, there would have just been way too much baggage attached. To most first century Jews, the Maschiach was the coming conquering heir of King David who would destroy Rome’s armies and put the Jews back on top as in the days of David and Solomon. To give an analogy—it is hard now to use the word myth to describe the creation account even though it is the proper term. To modern people, myth now means fairy tale. But that is not the correct definition—a myth is merely (according to Merriam-Webster) “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.” As such, an awful lot of the Bible that cannot be proven historically qualifies, whether it is true or not. Notice that the definition says “ostensibly historical”—and the word “ostensibly” means that it is claimed true but cannot be proven. Like the flood and the creation story are presented as factual but cannot possibly be proven and especially in the case of the flood where there is not any scientific evidence for alluvial flood deposits in all of the world but only here and there, and only 68 world-wide flood accounts exist in different cultures, making up only a bit more than 1% of would cultures.
Now, if I was to walk into the Creation Museum and call the flood account a myth, there might be violence because people won’t appreciate the nuance of the term myth any more than if I said “Yeshua was gay” meaning happy, like at the festivals, there might also be violence. Definitions don’t matter, perception does—sadly. They won’t care what I was saying, they would care how it sounded. And if you forgot why I even brought this up, it’s because the term Messiah had become like that. It no longer simply meant “anointed one”—it meant a whole host of pre-conceived expectations as you all know if you have been following this series from the beginning. Yeshua repeatedly had to divest His young disciples of their Messianic expectations. Which brings us to the Son of Man, a more vague term from Daniel 7 describing the human in the throne room of God who was given His own throne and was therefore more than human. Starting in verse 13, let’s look at that:
“I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”
Why do I say “more than human”? Because mere humans do not come on the clouds of Heaven in Scripture—Yahweh does, in judgment. Throughout Scripture, “coming in the clouds” speaks of a visitation of judgment which, of course, can be good or bad. We aren’t literally talking about real clouds–this is apocalyptic symbolism for a cosmic event (something that happens on the divine side of things that we can only see the results of). Let’s look at Isaiah 19:1 “A prophecy against Egypt: See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.´ The coming in the clouds here is specifically associated with a visitation that brought civil war upon Egypt, later in Nahum 1:3, we see another visitation mentioning clouds against Ninevah: “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” Obviously, this is not literal but it is specifically a divine function. When Yeshua claims that the Son of Man will come on the clouds, He is making a High Christological claim. If you are unfamiliar with that term, high and low Christology refer to claims made in Scripture that either focus on Yeshua as the divine Son of God (aka High Christology) or as Yeshua the human (aka low Christology) but don’t get the idea that you have to choose one or the other. The Gospels very much support both although John is very, very much focused on High Christology. So anyway, this is another case where Yeshua is making not only a Messianic claim but a claim to be divine—it’s just hidden to us because we aren’t as familiar with the lingo.
Coming with great power and glory isn’t too hard to explain and again hearkens back to Daniel 7 where the Son of Man comes on the clouds and is given a throne and an everlasting dominion—and He is coming on the clouds because this is a judgment, a vindication of His wrongful execution and rightful claim to not only the throne of David but also to His claims of being the Messiah. Coming in the clouds means that the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE was not at the hands of the Romans but was every bit as much at the hands of Yahweh as the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple under the Babylonians. Like the Babylonians, who were the world’s greatest superpower of their age, the Romans are likewise simply tools in the hands of Yahweh to enact His judgment against the corrupted Temple and the leadership of His people. And the disciples are being warned that when they see this happening, there will be no reprieve because by that point it will be too late. This is judgment against an institution and the leadership, not against an entire people group. After all, the Jews in the Parthian Empire—not like anything happened to them.
When the Temple was destroyed and over the course of the three wars against the Romans where the Jewish hopes of restoring Jerusalem and becoming an independent power again under a conquering Messiah were finally destroyed when they were expelled in 135 CE and Jerusalem was finally converted to a fully realized pagan city dedicated to Jupiter. There can be no Jewish Kingdom, under God, unless it is under Messiah. Yahweh loves His people far too much to allow it, which is why the current state of Israel is contested. And don’t mistake this for dispensationalism because I don’t believe that a reformed Israel will usher in any sort of Antichrist. That is a relatively new belief historically that has caused nothing but grief for real people in the Middle East and a lot of bad fruit among believers who are pushing for it to happen just to try and force their imagined timetable. And I know that makes people mad. Great book by a woman named Barbara Rossing that everyone should read called The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. She got her doctorate from Harvard and she is a professor at LST in Chicago. I recommend this book a lot and always get people coming back to me raving about how much they loved it.
27 And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
Again, this is often assumed to be rapture language but the context here is coming in the clouds in judgment for the purpose of the vindication of the Messiah and for those with ears to hear, an entire generation later, to realize the error of the previous generation’s leadership and repent and declare Yeshua as Messiah. We have to keep coming back to that. So, we have the Son of Man sending out the angels—and, this might not actually mean angels because that word simply means messengers. But still, who can send out angels or messengers except for Yahweh? No one. Although I have seen folks in Charismatic and Pentecostal situations being pretty presumptuous and ordering angels around like slaves but I don’t think the angels are listening. And who has “elect” to gather? Again, no mere human! But what does this mean? And what is the meaning of “the four winds?” It’s an idiom meaning something like, “from north, south, east and west.” From the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven just means everyone who qualifies no matter who they are. It’s an idiom and to make it mean that people are in Heaven waiting to be gathered is also a big stretch.
We see a pattern in Scripture where gathering is what happens to God’s people when they repent and are either physically or spiritually regathered after being scattered.
“And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, 2 and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. (Deut 30:1-3)
Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!” (Psalm 50:3-5)
I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (Is 43:6-7)
Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. (Jer 32:37-41)
Now, the Romans, they are going to be scattering the Judeans as well as the Galileans who took refuge in Jerusalem and in the Temple but at the same time, Yeshua is saying that He will be gathering. That is really significant that these things are happening at the same time. The Romans cannot scatter those who have been gathered because it isn’t a physical thing but a spiritual thing. Also, Yeshua’s followers, according to Eusebius, fled to Pella and were spared. As the Romans were destroying city and Temple, Yeshua was continuing to build a spiritual Temple where Yahweh could be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth.
So, if I were to restate these last two verses the way I see it, in 21st century language to get the sense of what I believe He is communicating, I would say “And then they will see the judgment of the Son of Man as the Romans destroy the city and sanctuary, and He will be vindicated gloriously and shown to be wrongfully condemned, and as the Romans scatter, the Son of Man will send out His messengers to the ends of the earth and they will preach His Gospel from one end of the earth to the other so that the elect can be gathered together as one Body.”
Now that you are appropriately scandalized by my take on those verses, seemingly out of nowhere, we get this unexpected parable from Yeshua. And as you might recall, only some parables are announced but a parable is a story that conveys a deeper message than is immediately obvious. It can be a straight parable or an allegory.
28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
I told it all at once before breaking it up because there is a lot to see here in four short verses. Still, the context is the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem. The subject still has not changed. I want to start with the last line because if misused, it will change the whole meaning.
31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
This is not actually a promise that the Heaven and Earth will one day pass away—this is actually an oath formula. We see similar oaths elsewhere both in the Bible and in other literature: “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt 5:19). We also have this from I Sam 14:39 “For as the Lord lives who saves Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.” Now, because these are oaths, it does not mean that they are predictive. They are promises. For Yeshua to make reference to Heaven and earth passing away, that isn’t the salient feature of this oath. The enduring nature of what Yeshua is saying, that’s the important thing. We might, in modern times, say something like “Everyone else’s mom may stop loving their kids but I will never stop loving you.” That’s the sense here—you wouldn’t be predicting that people will stop loving their kids, you are just declaring your eternal love for your kid. But because of how it is worded and how it sounds to us in a society where we don’t really do oaths or recognize oath formulas, we are more inclined to take it as predictive and BOOM, our minds are on some future tribulation again. But because of the content of what was said before it, we know that this is still referring to the destruction of the Temple. In the same way, when Saul foolishly swears on the existence of Yahweh that he will kill whoever disobeyed his directive not to eat until he had his revenge, his failure to kill his son (at the begging of his troops not to, because he was going to do it) was not indicative of the non-existence of Yahweh. It was an oath formula, and not predictive. Yeshua is saying here, “What I am telling you is absolutely true.”
28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.
Now, the fig tree is, biblically, a symbol of blessing and also traditionally tied to the reign of the Messiah. The fig tree is actually deciduous, and most trees native to Israel are not, meaning it sheds its leaves every year. Other trees, like the olive, pine and cedar which are native, are evergreen, keeping their leaves all year around. They grow to be about 20-30 ft tall, so they are really huge. In addition, they are one of the “seven species” that were part of the milk and honey promises—along with wheat, barley, dates, grapes, pomegranates, and olives. Fig tree motifs were carved into the walls of the Holy of Holies. As far as verses considered by the Rabbis to prophesy the golden age of Messiah:
And Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beersheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon. (I Kings 4:25)
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. (Micah 4:1-4)
9 For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua (aka Yeshua, the High Priest), on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. 10 In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.” (Zech 3:9-10)
And so, they had all of these verses linking the fig tree to the prosperity of the future Messianic age but what happens when the Messiah is instead rejected and killed? Remember that all predictive prophecy is conditional. At the first coming, Messiah was rejected and so the golden age did not happen the way they assumed it would because He wasn’t the kind of Messiah they wanted—goodness, in our honest moments we have to admit that He wouldn’t have been the Messiah we wanted either if we were them. But our failures aren’t the last word because Yahweh is determined to see His Messiah enthroned as King—it will happen.
When does the branch become tender and the fig tree go into leaf? Around the Passover season. And so that is when you know that theros, the summer harvest, is near. It’s a difficult word because it is only translated as summer in Bibles but from the way the word is used in the Septuagint, three hundred years before is more related to the harvest. So, when you see the tree getting ready to produce fruit, you know the summer harvest season is near. That’s the parable and now He will interpret it.
29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.
What are these things? Yeshua has been talking about what the signs are not—not earthquakes, not wars, not rumors of wars, not famines, not the persecutions—they are just the normal budding out of the tree months before the harvest comes. But, back to last week, when you see the abomination which causes desolation, which should be a neutral term in Greek but is twice now purposefully referred to with a male pronoun, then the time for the harvest of Jerusalem and the Temple has come. Things would be ramping up politically and violently in the years leading up to the destruction and it would be increasingly obvious. There were no surprises.
30 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Another oath formula here, that this generation would not die out before it happened. It would happen within forty years. Which it did. If it is referring to anything else, like the tribulation, then it didn’t happen and Yeshua’s oath was empty.
