Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 24:1 (NA 2019)
Article: The Interpretation Of Matthew 10:23b
Author: Ryan E. Meyer

DBSJ 24 (2019) p. 45

The Interpretation Of Matthew 10:23b

Ryan E. Meyer1

Introduction

ὅταν δὲ διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ πόλει ταύτῃ, φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἑτέραν· ἀμὴν γὰρ λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ τελέσητε τὰς πόλεις τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (Matt 10:23).2

When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Matt 10:23).3

Our Lord’s enigmatic statement given to his twelve disciples in Matthew 10:23 has become one of the most well-known cruces interpretum in the Gospels, especially in the area of Jesus’s eschatology. For the skeptic, it indicates that Jesus of Nazareth was capable of error. In his essay, Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell, pointed to this verse (along with Matt 16:28) as evidence that the Christ presented in the Gospels was “not so wise as some other people have been…certainly not superlatively wise,” because Christ believed that his Second Coming would occur before the death of the current generation.4 In biblical studies, the verse is probably more well-known because Albert Schweitzer used it as the basis for his “thoroughgoing eschatology.” When Jesus sends out the Twelve in Matthew 10, he, according to Schweitzer, “does not expect to see them back in the present age,” for his eschatological kingdom would come before the Twelve “completed a hasty journey through the cities of Israel to announce it.”5 When Jesus

DBSJ 24 (2019) p. 46

realized his mistake, Schweitzer argued, he concluded that the Messianic Woes (or what Schweitzer called “the Affliction”) which were necessary to bring in the kingdom would have to be fulfilled through his own suffering.6

This study will assume that Jesus’s prophecy was, or will be, fulfilled as he intended it, since as the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth was incapable of error.7 Furthermore, we will agree with Moore that ...