The Daughters of Jerusalem Video

An Easter video on the YouTube channel.

This is a reworking of the Stations of the Cross video I did for RBC.

The Transcript

WELCOME to the outrageously popular CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIST channel, where reason and sound exegesis are used to highlight faulty doctrine and practice in the contemporary, English-speaking Church. The title of this video is “The Daughters of Jerusalem in Luke 23.” The verses we’ll be dealing with are 27 to 31.

As this passage is one of the so-called “Stations of the Cross,” it’s bound to be mentioned in plenty of sermons and bible studies at this time of year. Unfortunately, few if any of these presentations will deal with the actual context of this text. Which is all the encouragement I need. Okay, Let’s begin.

The event in our passage occurs right after Simon of Cyrene is made to carry Jesus’ cross. Luke mentions that there were women following the procession, “mourning and lamenting” over Jesus – these women were not his followers from Galilee, because, later in verse 23:49, his Galilean followers are mentioned standing at a distance watching the proceedings. Rather, as we learn from the Babylonian Talmud, these local women were likely there to watch the executions and to provide opiates for the condemned men as an extra-biblical religious act of service.

We then read that Jesus turns to these women, whom he calls “Daughters of Jerusalem,” and tells them to save their tears for themselves and their children, because, a tragic cultural reversal is coming where the blessed women in Jerusalem will be those who never had children. That the coming situation will be so horrific that the women of the city will, in language reminiscent of Hosea 10:8, beg the mountains to fall on them, and the hills to swallow them up.

So, what is the meaning of this passage?

As I’m sure all of you know, the Gospel of Luke is one of the three Synoptic Gospels. And as all good students of the Bible know, whenever you’re studying a Synoptic Gospel passage, you should always check to see if there are parallel passages in the other two Gospels.

Well, as it turns out, this passage is peculiar to Luke’s Gospel – meaning, there are no explicit parallels in Mark and Matthew, and that, for some reason, this incident was of particular interest to the third Evangelist. Now, what might that be?

Well, the theme of the passage appears to be one of the main themes in the Gospel of Luke, the judgement of unrighteous Jerusalem – the city of which Jesus says back in chapter 13, “that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! … Behold, your house is forsaken.” A good question to ask then is, “Is there anything about that theme that Luke does differently to Matthew and Mark?”

Well, as a matter of fact there is something. In DeSilva’s Introduction to the New Testament, we read that

Luke’s Gospel … is the most explicit of all three Synoptic Gospels concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. The changes made by Luke from Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ eschatological discourse all move in the direction of bringing Jesus’ words closer in line with the events of 70 C.E. By examining the Gospel parallels closely … we can see that Luke clarifies what Mark and Matthew cryptically called the “abomination of desolation” (Mt 24:15//Mk 13:14). Luke interprets this saying of Jesus as a reference to the siege of Jerusalem (rather than, say, a desecration of the temple): “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Lk 21:20 NRSV). Where Matthew and Mark refer to “great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until now” (Mt 24:21//Mk 13:19), Luke writes: “they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Lk 21:24 NRSV). What Matthew and Mark leave as a general prediction of suffering, Luke now specifies as the suffering of those who endure the siege of Jerusalem and its aftermath.

Here is the full paragraph of predictions of suffering during the coming siege of Jerusalem found in Luke 21:20–22.

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfil all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.

There are two things to note here in relation to our passage: One, women who are pregnant or nursing infants will be especially distressed. And two, that Jesus gives his hearers a way to escape the carnage if they should find themselves in Jerusalem when “armies surround it” – by fleeing to the mountains.

The first thing is relevant in that the mother-infant language of the prophecy in our passage in chapter 23 loudly echoes the mother-infant language in the passage prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem in chapter 21. This strongly suggests that the subject of the two prophecies is the same coming event – the destruction of the entire city of Jerusalem less than 40 years later in AD 70 at the hands of the Romans.

The second thing is relevant in that we know from early Church historians that the faithful Christians who were in Jerusalem when it was “surrounded by armies” did in fact head for the hills, just as Jesus advised them to do. But wait, how could they run to the hills if the city was completely besieged by the Romans? Well, there were actually two sieges of Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman War – an earlier, unsuccessful one in AD 67, and then a final successful one in AD 70. The unsuccessful one was abandoned after only a few weeks, and this gave the Christians in the city the opportunity to flee – which they did – to a town called Pella south of the Sea of Galilee in present day Jordan.

Which brings us back to our passage and the “Women of Jerusalem.” Given that these women were not his followers, they were merely mourning him as a religious duty, and not as the innocently condemned Messiah, it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus is calling them out for their faithless hypocrisy, and numbering them with the condemned, unrighteous inhabitants of Jerusalem who will perish in the divine destruction to come.

That is the actual context and meaning of this passage.

Thanks for watching and God bless.