One stone on another

Luke 19:41-45 says, “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation." 45 And he entered the temple…

Several things about this passage make it difficult to exegete it. First, is Jesus talking about the city or the temple when he says in verse 44 “they will not leave one stone upon another in you”? Verse 41 one says he is looking at the city when he weeps, but in verse 45 it says he entered the temple. One looks like he is standing outside the city, the other looks like he is standing outside the temple.

The parallel passage in Matthew 24 makes it clear that Jesus is referring to the Temple.

It could be that Matthew and Luke aren’t recording the same incident and that Jesus made the same sort of statement about both the temple and the city independently of one another.

Another possibility is that Jesus was talking in hyperbolic and eschatological terms when he says “not one stone will be on another.” It could have been similar to a general who says, “I’m going to raze your city.” It means I’m going to conquer you. It does not necessarily say anything about how flat the city will be or to what smallness the gravel will be when they are finished with it.

One problem with taking the passage in a futuristic manner is that we don’t build buildings out of stones any more. If we are waiting for an army to conquer Jerusalem now days they would have to totally rebuild the city with first century products. Cities nowadays are made out of cement and rebar and steel and other modern technologies.

I suppose you might take the building properties hyperbolically or some other accommodating way and say that Jesus really meant that whatever you happen to be building the buildings out of whenever the destruction comes, that will be flattened out to 1/8” materials with no bumps over 4 inches high. But if you’re going to make stuff up, you might as well go with the more reasonable eschatological rendering above.

We prefer to take it as simply as we can: The parallel passage makes it clear he is talking about the temple being destroyed completely (it was in 70 a.d.); the city will not be rebuilt using first century technology so that it can fulfill the Scripture (that already happened); and the preteristic understanding fits the history and overall context better than the futuristic .