Not so. I am in good company.
Matthew Henry says:
Then shall be great tribulation; then when the measure of iniquity is full; then when the servants of God are sealed and secured, then come the troubles; nothing can be done against Sodom till Lot is entered into Zoar, and then look for fire and brimstone immediately. There shall be great tribulation. Great, indeed, when within the city plague and famine raged, and (worse than either) faction and division, so that every man's sword was against his fellow; then and there it was that the hands of the pitiful women flayed their own children. Without the city was the Roman army ready to swallow them up, with a particular rage against them, not only as Jews, but as rebellious Jews. War was the only one of the three sore judgment s that David excepted against; but that was it by which the Jews were ruined; and there were famine and pestilence in extremity besides. Josephus's History of the Wars of the Jews, has in it more tragical passages than perhaps any history whatsoever.
(1.) It was a desolation unparalleled, such as was not since the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be. Many a city and kingdom has been made desolate, but never any with a desolation like this. Let not daring sinners think that God has done his worst, he can heat the furnace seven times and yet seven times hotter, and will, when he sees greater and still greater abominations. The Romans, when they destroyed Jerusalem, were degenerated from the honour and virtue of their ancestors, which had made even their victories easy to the vanquished. And the wilfulness and obstinacy of the Jews themselves contributed much to the increase of the tribulation. No wonder that the ruin of Jerusalem was an unparalleled ruin, when the sin of Jerusalem was an unparalleled sin-even their crucifying Christ. The nearer any people are to God in profession and privileges, the greater and heavier will his judgment s be upon them, if they abuse those privileges, and be false to that profession, Amos 3:2.
(2.) It was a desolation which, if it should continue long, would be intolerable, so that no flesh should be saved, v. 22. So triumphantly would death ride, in so many dismal shapes, and with such attendants, that there would be no escaping, but, first or last, all would be cut off. He that escaped one sword, would fall by another, Isaiah 24:17-18. The computation which Josephus makes of those that were slain in several places, amounts to above two millions. No flesh shall be saved; he doth not say, "No soul shall be saved," for the destruction of the flesh may be for the saving of the spirit in the day of the Lord Jesus; but temporal lives will be sacrificed so profusely, that one would think, if it last awhile, it would make a full end.
But here is one word of comfort in the midst of all this terror-that for the elects' sake these days shall be shortened, not made shorter than what God had determined (for that which is determined, shall be poured upon the desolate, Daniel 9:27), but shorter than what he might have decreed, if he had dealt with them according to their sins; shorter than what the enemy designed, who would have cut all off, if God who made use of them to serve his own purpose, had not set bounds to their wrath; shorter than one who judged by human probabilities would have imagined. Note,
[1.] In times of common calamity God manifests his favour to the elect remnant; his jewels, which he will then make up; his peculiar treasure, which he will secure when the lumber is abandoned to the spoiler.
[2.] The shortening of calamities is a kindness God often grants for the elects' sake. Instead of complaining that our afflictions last so long, if we consider our defects, we shall see reason to be thankful that they do not last always; when it is bad with us, it becomes us to say, "Blessed be God that it is no worse; blessed be God that it is not hell, endless and remediless misery." It was a lamenting church that said, It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed; and it is for the sake of the elect, lest their spirit should fail before them, if he should contend for ever, and lest they should be tempted to put forth, if not their heart, yet their hand, to iniquity.
And now comes in the repeated caution, which was opened before, to take heed of being ensnared by false Christs, and false prophets; (v. 23, etc.), who would promise them deliverance, as the lying prophets in Jeremiah's time (Jeremiah 14:13; 23:16-17; 27:16; 28:2), but would delude them. Times of great trouble are times of great temptation, and therefore we have need to double our guard then. If they shall say, Here is a Christ, or there is one, that shall deliver us from the Romans, do not heed them, it is all but talk; such a deliverance is not to be expected, and therefore not such a deliverer.
Adam Clarke says:
[For then shall be great tribulation] No history can furnish us with a parallel to the calamities and miseries of the Jews:-rapine, murder, famine, and pestilence within: fire and sword, and all the horrors of war, without. Our Lord wept at the foresight of these calamities; and it is almost impossible for any humane person to read the relation of them in Josephus without weeping also. Luke 21:22, calls these the days of vengeance, that all things which were written might be fulfilled.
1. These were the days in which all the calamities predicted by Moses, Joel, Daniel, and other prophets, as well as those predicted by our Saviour, met in one common center, and were fulfilled in the most terrible manner on that generation.
2. These were the days of vengeance in another sense, as if God's judgment s had certain periods and revolutions; for it is remarkable that the temple was burned by the Romans in the same month, and on the same day of the month, on which it had been burned by the Babylonians. See Josephus, War, b. 6 c. 4.
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown says:
For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.
For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. Such language is not unusual in the Old Testament with reference to tremendous calamities. But it is matter of literal fact, that there was crowded into the period of the Jewish War an amount and complication of suffering perhaps unparalleled; as the narrative of Josephus, examined closely and arranged under different heads, would show.
