When you hear of wars and disturbances, don’t be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end won’t come immediately.”
Parallel Translations
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When you hear of wars and disturbances, don’t be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end won’t come immediately.”
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But when ye heare of warre and of dissencion: be not afrayd. For these thinges must fyrst come: but the ende foloweth not by and by.
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And when ye heare of warres and seditions, be not afraid: for these things must first come, but the ende foloweth not by and by.
Cross-references (5)
Passages linked to Luke 21:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Luke 21:28 But when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.”
- Matthew 24:6-8 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren’t troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.
- Mark 13:7-8 “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be troubled. For those must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines and troubles. These things are the beginning of birth pains.
- Isaiah 51:12-13 “I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass? Have you forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth? Do you live in fear continually all day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepares to destroy? Where is the fury of the oppressor?
- Luke 21:18-19 And not a hair of your head will perish. “By your endurance you will win your lives.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The true Temple of God is built up even…
The true Temple of God is built up even in the midst of incredible tumults, and most sharp miseries, through invincible patience, so that the end thereof cannot be but most happy.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 9 But when ye shall hear of wars and…
9 But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.
Ver. 9. See Mat 24:6, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain See Poole on "Mat 24:6-7", and See Poole on…
See Poole on "Mat 24:6-7", and See Poole on "Mar 13:8". Time is the best interpreter of prophecies: what shall be seen of these before the end of the world we are yet to observe, but the destruction of Jerusalem is past many hundreds of years since. What commotions were before that, we must learn out of civil historians, who tell us of divers. Josephus telleth us of an insurrection made by those of Judea against the Samaritans, Romans, and Syrians; and of the Romans against the Jews, to the destruction of twenty thousand Jews: as also of those of Scythopolis, who destroyed of the Jews thirteen thousand; of the Ascalonites, who destroyed of them two thousand five hundred; of those of Alexandria, who destroyed of them fifty thousand; of those of Damascus, who slew of them ten thousand. They tell us also of many more seditions, during the government of Felix, Festus, Albinus, Florus, &c.
The text speaks further of earthquakes; the Greek word signifieth no more than concussions and shakings, but historians tell us of several earthquakes that happened (though not in Judea) before the destruction of Jerusalem; one at Rome, in Nero’s time; another in Asia, which destroyed three cities, &c.
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For famines, we read of one in Scripture prophesied of by Agabus, Act 11:28. Twelve years after Christ’s death, there was another in Greece; and four years after, at Rome.
For the fearful sights, and great signs from heaven, Josephus tells us of a comet, which for a year together in the form of a sword pointed over the city; a light that shined in the night in the temple, and made it as bright as if it had been noon day. He tells us also of a neat beast bringing forth a lamb in the midst of the temple; of the strange opening of the gates of the temple; of visions of chariots and armed men; of a voice heard in the temple, inviting those who were there to be gone; as also of a man (whom he names) who for seven years and five months together before the siege went about crying, Woe, woe to Jerusalem! And could with no punishments (which they thought fit to inflict) be restrained, &c. These were great signs both from heaven and earth.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions,....…
But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions,.... Or seditions and tumults; "wars" may design the wars of the Romans, against the Jews; and the "commotions", or seditions, the internal troubles among themselves:
be not terrified; as if the destruction of the nation, city, and temple, would be at once:
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for these things must first come to pass, but the end is not by and by; or "immediately". The Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions leave out this last word, and read, as in See Gill on Mat 24:6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Commotions - Intestine broils; civil wars.
Commotions - Intestine broils; civil wars.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. Commotions] Seditions and civil dissensions, with which…
Verse 9. Commotions] Seditions and civil dissensions, with which no people were more agitated than the Jews.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain not terrified--(See Luk 21:19; Isa 8:11-14).
not terrified--(See Luk 21:19; Isa 8:11-14).
end not by and by--or immediately, not yet (Mat 24:6; Mar 13:7): that is, "Worse must come before all is over."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 9. By and by—This phrase, which by a singular…
9. By and by—This phrase, which by a singular reverse of meaning now signifies after a while, meant in the old English of our translators, immediately.
Jerusalem’s destruction, and the dispersion of the Jewish races, 10-32.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. wars and commotions] The best comment on the…
9. wars and commotions] The best comment on the primary fulfilment of this Discourse is the Jewish War of Josephus, and the Annals and History of Tacitus (Ann. xii. 38, xv. 22, xvi. 13), whose narrative is full of earthquakes, wars, crimes, violences and pollutions, and who describes the period which he is narrating as one which was “rich in calamities, horrible with battles, rent with seditions, savage even in peace itself.” The main difficulties of our Lord’s Prophecy vanish when we bear in mind (i) that Prophecy is like a landscape in which time and space are subordinated to eternal relations, and in which events look like hills seen chain behind chain which to the distant spectator appear as one; and (ii) that in the necessarily condensed and varying reports of the Evangelists, sometimes the primary fulfilment (which is shewn most decisively and irrefragably by Luk_21:32 to be the Fall of Jerusalem), sometimes the ultimate fulfilment is predominant. The Fall of Jerusalem was the Close of that Aeon and a symbol of the Final End (telos). This appears most clearly in the report of St Luke.
commotions] akatastasias, conditions of instability and rottenness, the opposite to peace. 1Co_14:33; Jas_3:16. Such commotions were the massacre of 20,000 Jews in their fight with the Gentiles at Caesarea; the assassinations or suicides of Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; the civil wars, &c.
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be not terrified] The Greek word is the exact equivalent of our English word ‘be not scared,’ Luk_24:37; 1Pe_3:6; Pro_3:25.
but the end is not by and by] Rather, but not immediately is the end. For ‘by and by’ see Luk_17:7; Mat_13:21; Mar_6:25. The words are most important as a warning against the same eschatological excitement which St Paul discourages in 2 Thess. (“The end is not yet,” Mat_24:6; Mar_13:7.) The things which ‘must first come to pass’ before the final end were (1) physical disturbances—which so often synchronise with historic crises, as Niebuhr has observed; (2) persecutions; (3) apostasy; (4) wide evangelisation; (5) universal troubles of war, &c. They were the “beginning of birth-throes” (Mat_24:8); what the Jews called the “birth-pangs of the Messiah.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9) Commotions.—The word does not occur in the other…
(9) Commotions.—The word does not occur in the other Gospels, but is used by St. Paul in 1Co_14:33 (“confusion”), 2Co_6:5; 2Co_12:20 (“tumults”). Its exact meaning is unsettlement, disorder.
Be not terrified.—The word is used by St. Luke only, here and in Luk_24:37, in the New Testament.
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By and by.—Better, as elsewhere, immediately.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 9, 10. Wars and commotions... nation shall rise…
Vers. 9, 10. Wars and commotions... nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Josephus the Jewish, and Tacitus the Roman, historian the former in his "Jewish Wars," and the latter in his "Annals describe the period which immediately followed the Crucifixion as full of wars, crimes, violences, earthquakes. "It was a time," says Tacitus, "rich in disasters, horrible with battles, torn with seditions, savage even in peace itself."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.