Prophecy · What Is Still Coming
The Times of the Gentiles
In one sentence of the Olivet teaching, Jesus compresses the entire sweep of Daniel’s prophecy: Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. The phrase names an age: Gentile dominion over the city of the great King, running from Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest through the whole procession of Daniel’s statue, and the word that governs the page is the small one: until. The dominion is real; it is long; and it has an appointed end.
The Sentence
Luke 21:20-24: spoken over a doomed city
Luke’s account of the Olivet teaching carries the nearest horizon most plainly: armies around Jerusalem, flight to the mountains, the days of vengeance. Within forty years it happened exactly: the church historians record that the Judean believers heeded the warning and escaped, and Clarke’s note below gives Josephus’s terrible arithmetic. But the sentence does not stop at A.D. 70. It reaches forward with a duration: trodden down until.
But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that her desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country stay out of the city. For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.the page's whole text: dominion, and its 'until.'
Now our Lord, foreseeing that there would be a famine in the city, warned His disciples in the siege that was coming, not to betake themselves to the city as a place of refuge, and under God's protection, but rather to depart from thence, and flee to the mountains.
Eusebius of Caesarea· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (1264), on Luke 21:21
They shall fall by the edge of the sword - Those who perished in the siege are reckoned to be not less than eleven hundred thousand. See Mat 24:22. And shall be led away captive - To the number of ninety-seven thousand. See Josephus, War, b. vi. c. ix. s. 2, 3, and on Mat 24:31 (note). Trodden down of the Gentiles - Judea was so completely subjugated that the very land itself was sold by Vespasian; the Gentiles possessing it, while the Jews were either nearly all killed or led away into captivity.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Luke 21:24
The Long Clock
from the head of gold to the stone
The clock starts
Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem: David's throne vacant, the head of gold crowned: “Thou art this head of gold”
The metals run
silver, bronze, iron: Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome: Gentile empire succeeding Gentile empire over the same city
Jesus names the span
“Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, UNTIL the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”: a bounded word
The clock stops
the stone cut without hands strikes the feet, and the God of heaven sets up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed
In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will shatter all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself stand forever.the clock's stated end: a kingdom that shall never be destroyed.
The “Until”
how the church has read the boundary
From Tertullian to the Victorians, readers have heard the same two things in the word: Gentile dominion is God-permitted (Daniel says He “removeth kings, and setteth up kings”), and it is God-terminated. Bede: thirteen centuries ago: already paired Luke’s “until” with Paul’s: blindness in part is happened to Israel untilthe fulness of the Gentiles be come in, “and so all Israel shall be saved.” The two untils have been read together ever since. Sir Robert Anderson’s The Coming Prince made the phrase the organizing frame of the whole prophetic calendar; his chronology is weighed at The Seventy Weeks.
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob.Paul's 'until': the fulness of the Gentiles, and all Israel saved.
So terribly was this prophecy fulfilled! And Jerusalem shall be trodden by the Gentiles - That is, inhabited. The land was sold, and no Jew suffered even to come within sight of Jerusalem.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Luke 21:24
For after He had declared that "Jerusalem was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled," -meaning, of course, those which were to be chosen of God, and gathered in with the remnant of Israel-He then goes on to proclaim, against this world and dispensation (even as Joel had done, and Daniel, and all the prophets with one consent ), that "there should be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.
Tertullian· On the Resurrection of the Flesh (c. 220), on Luke 21:24
Which indeed the Apostle makes mention of when he says, Blindness in part is happened to Israel, and so all Israel shall be saved. (Rom. 11:25.) Which when it shall have gained the promised salvation, hopes not rashly to return to the land of its fathers.
Bede· Catena Aurea by Aquinas (1264), on Luke 21:24
Others understand it of what is yet to come; so Dr. Whitby. Jerusalem shall be possessed by the Gentiles, of one sort or other, for the most part, till the time come when the nations that yet remain infidels shall embrace the Christian faith, when the kingdoms of this world shall become Christ's kingdoms, and then all the Jews shall be converted.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Luke 21:24
What this page does not dothe parked boundary, stated
Readers often ask how the modern city’s history maps onto this prophecy. By the founder’s standing direction, Israel’s present-day political situation and modern prophetic interpretation are not treated on this site for now. This page states what the texts state: a bounded Gentile dominion, an “until,” and a kingdom that ends it, and leaves the newspaper out of the exegesis. What Scripture itself guarantees about Israel’s future is presented at God’s Plan for Israel, where replacement theology is answered from Romans 11 directly.
Where It Points
the stone, and the King it stands for
The times of the Gentiles are not a footnote of Jewish history; they are the Bible’s frame for all Gentile power: permitted, sequenced, and ending at a stone cut without hands. Every empire in the statue believed itself permanent. The phrase’s quiet “until” outlasted all of them.
Closing
One sentence, one span, one small word carrying it all. Jerusalem’s long trampling was foretold with an expiration date only heaven can read, and the same Jesus who spoke the “until” is the stone that ends it.