Comment: The pronouncement of woe by our Lord Jesus Christ to the unbelieving and hard-hearted Jews was to correct them for their stiff resistance to the gospel. He warned that until they humbled themselves, acknowledged his messiahship and returned to God, Jerusalem would remain bereft of the benefits of God’s lovingkindness and remain a desolate place.
Our Saviour also addressed the women who were weeping on account of the torture he was undergoing in the hands of the wicked Jews as it is written, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” – Luke 23:28-31.
Christ also said: “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.” (Luke 21:20) History records that these prophecies fulfilled when Jerusalem was overrun by the Roman armies and destroyed barely three decades after Christ had ascended to heaven. We must strive not to be faced with the “severity of God” by doing good so as to “continue in his goodness”.- Romans 11:22.