It is evident that the Pharisees and lawyers durst not answer the question, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? If they said, “Yes,” they condemned their own tradition. If they said, “No,” they were unable to sustain their answer by fair argument. Hence they remained silent. And when Jesus had healed the man, he asked a second question equally embarrassing: Which of you shall have an ox fall into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath? They could not answer him again to these things. It is apparent that our Lord’s argument with the Pharisees from time to time relative to the Sabbath had satisfied them at last that silence relative to their traditions was wiser than speech. In his public teaching the Saviour declared that the weightier matters of the law were judgment, mercy, and faith;[278] and his long-continued and powerful effort in behalf of the Sabbath, was to vindicate it as a merciful institution, and to rid it of Pharisaic traditions, by which it was perverted from its original purpose. Those who oppose the Sabbath are here guilty of unfairness in two particulars: 1. They represent these Pharisaic rigors as actually belonging to the Sabbatic institution. By this means they turn the minds of men against the Sabbath. 2. And having done this they represent the effort of the Saviour to set aside those traditions as directed to the overthrow of the Sabbath itself.
And now we come to the Saviour’s memorable discourse upon the mount of Olives, on the very eve of his crucifixion, in which for the last time he mentions the Sabbath:—
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: let him which is on the house-top not come down to take anything out of his house; neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day; for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”[279]
In this language our Lord brings to view the dreadful calamities of the Jewish people, and the destruction of their city and temple as predicted by Daniel the prophet;[280] and his watchful care over his people as their Lord leads him to point out their means of escape.
1. He gives them a token by which they should know when this terrible overthrow was immediately impending. It was “the abomination of desolation” standing “in the holy place;” or, as expressed by Luke, the token was “Jerusalem compassed with armies.”[281] The fulfillment of this sign is recorded by the historian Josephus. After stating that Cestius, the Roman commander, at the commencement of the contest between the Jews and the Romans, encompassed the city of Jerusalem with an army, he adds:—
“Who, had he but continued the siege a little longer, had certainly taken the city; but it was, I suppose, owing to the aversion God had already at the city and the sanctuary, that he was hindered from putting an end to the war that very day. It then happened that Cestius was not conscious either how the besieged despaired of success, nor how courageous the people were for him; and so he recalled his soldiers from the place, and by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he retired from the city, without any reason in the world.”[282]
2. This sign being seen, the disciples were to know that the desolation of Jerusalem was nigh. “Then,” says Christ, “let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” Josephus records the fulfillment of this injunction:—
“After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most eminent of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to sink.”[283]
Eusebius also relates its fulfillment:—
“The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella. Here, those that believed in Christ, having removed from Jerusalem, as if holy men had entirely abandoned the royal city itself, and the whole land of Judea; the divine justice for their crimes against Christ and his apostles, finally overtook them, totally destroying the whole generation of these evil-doers from the earth.”[284]