On The Way To The Cross: Jesus's Prophetic Warning

In addition to the seven final statements our Lord said on the cross, There is a prophetic warning that He gave to a group of women referred to as "Daughters of Jerusalem".

"Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Cover us.' For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
(Luke 23:28-31)

This statement is not traditionally grouped with the seven last words of Christ. This is because He said this on the way to Golgotha rather than after He arrived there. We will consider it and its meaning before discussing the traditional Seven Last Words.

After Pilate delivered Jesus over to the will of the priests and the people, Jesus was led away to be crucified outside the city. Per Roman custom, the condemned were forced to carry their cross as humiliating symbol of submission and defeat. Because He had been scourged, it soon became apparent that Jesus was physically unable to do this. And so, the Roman soldiers who were assigned the grim task of crucifying Jesus compelled Simon of Cyrene, a passerby coming into the city to carry Jesus's cross close behind Him (Luke 23:26).

Luke writes that following Jesus, "was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him" (Luke 23:27).

This crowd of people and women seems to be Jerusalemites, rather than the company of women and disciples who followed Jesus from Galilee. Jesus addresses this company as "Daughters of Jerusalem."

It was customary at that time for professional wailers to follow any Jew who was being executed by Rome to "mourn" the death of an Israelite at the hands of Gentiles. These wailers would cry out and making a display of feigned sorrow. The commotion was for show. Considering how all the people had just insisted with loud voices that Pilate "Crucify Him!" (Luke 23:21, 23), this charade was Jerusalem's final act of hypocrisy in their rejection of their Messiah before killing Him.

Jesus called the wailers: "Daughters of Jerusalem." He told them to stop weeping for Him. He had no need for their insincerity. Jesus was not being put to death because the Roman governor wanted Him crucified. He was being executed because the religious leaders and now the people had demanded it. It was ridiculous to pretend otherwise. So Jesus called for the wailers to stop the deception and for Jerusalem to stop lying to itself.

Instead, Jesus called them to wake up from their delusion and recognize the imminent destruction Jerusalem was bringing upon itself for rejecting its Savior and Messiah. This is why Jesus advised them to "weep for yourselves and for your children" (Luke 23:28b).

His rebuke to the daughters of Jerusalem was not a bitter retaliation of anger to those who were unjustly killing Him. It was an admonition of love and sadness for the suffering they and their children would experience when Rome would annihilate Jerusalem forty years later in 70 A.D.

He was exhorting them to adopt His emotional perspective and concern which He had expressed earlier that week when He lamented Jerusalem's impending doom.

Jesus's first emotional expression lamenting Jerusalem occurred as He triumphantly entered the city. Luke writes that when He saw the city, He wept over it (Luke 19:41).

At that time Jesus said:

"If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."
(Luke 19:42-44)

Later, after He publicly rebuked the Pharisees in the temple for their blind hypocrisy (Matthew 23:1-36), He once more lamented over Jerusalem's sin against God and the dreadful consequences of their actions.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!'"
(Matthew 23:37-39)

It is remarkable to consider that even as He was being unjustly abused, reviled, tortured, condemned, and led to His execution, Jesus was not complaining about His sufferings, "Stop weeping for Me" (Luke 23:28b). Even in His lonely pain He was still considering and lamenting the suffering of the enemies He loved, "But weep for yourselves and for your children" (Luke 23:28c).

Jesus then explained why the daughters of Jerusalem should weep for themselves by describing what people will say when Rome besieges Jerusalem in the coming days:

"For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.'"
(Luke 23:29)

The siege will be so terrible and devastating that people will lose all hope.

Mothers will witness the suffering of their own children and lament that they were ever born. They will envy those who were barren. And barren women will consider themselves fortunate that they never had children of their own. This perspective is the exact opposite of the normal assessment of having children or being childless in the ancient world.

Others wish for their own death. They will begin to say to the mountains, '"Fall on us," and to the hills, "Cover us." This statement is a direct reference to Hosea's prophetic warning:

"Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed;
Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars;
Then they will say to the mountains,
'Cover us!' And to the hills, 'Fall on us!"'
(Hosea 10:8)

Hosea's prophecy, like Jesus's, speaks to the severity of God's judgment upon His people. The people are unable to stand the wrath which they have brought upon themselves through idolatry in the days of Hosea; likewise in rejecting the Messiah in the time of Christ.

When the Roman General Titus besieged the Jerusalem in 70 A.D., his victory was so complete that he described it this way: "he had merely lent his arms to God, who had so manifested his wrath" (Flavius Philostratus. "The Life of Apolonius," 6.29).

These lines bidding the mountains to "Cover us!" and the hills to "Fall on us!" are also repeated in Revelation when the sixth seal is broken.

"Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
(Revelation 6:15-16)

Thus, Hosea's prophecy has at least three fulfillments:

1. Assyria's Invasion of Israel — 725 B.C.
2. The Roman Destruction of Jerusalem — 70 A.D.
3. The Wrath of the Lamb against the kings, commanders, great, rich, and strong men of the earth — the Apocalypse

Jesus then ended His prophetic warning to the daughters of Jerusalem with a metaphorical question for them to consider:

"For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
(Luke 23:31

The main symbols of this metaphor are green and dry wood. A green tree is living, its wood is not ready to be burned. Dry wood has been dead for a while. It burns rather quickly.

Within this metaphor, Jesus is like a green tree because He is righteous and alive. The Roman governor found no fault in Him (Luke 23:4, 15, 22). And yet despite His innocence, Rome is putting Him to death, or, in the unstated implications of the metaphor, Rome is burning Him.

Jerusalem, on the other hand, will be like a dry tree that has been dead for a long time. The people of Jerusalem are spiritually dead in their sin. In rejecting Jesus, they have both rejected their Messiah and their God. Within a generation they will soon rebel against Roman authority. When they do, Rome will destroy and burn them as a raging fire consumes the dry wood of a dead tree.

Jesus's prophetic question to Jerusalem, then, is this: If Rome is willing to kill Me who it has declared innocent, what do you think Rome will do to you in your rebellion?

The same is true of suffering and judgment. If the innocent Messiah suffers, how much will the unrighteous suffer when they stand before God's fiery judgement?

This metaphorical question alludes to a warning God gave to the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:45-49). In this warning the LORD God says:

"Behold, I am about to kindle a fire in you, and it will consume every green tree in you, as well as every dry tree; the blazing flame will not be quenched and the whole surface from south to north will be burned by it."
(Ezekiel 20:47)

"Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Cover us.' For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
(Luke 23:28-31)

Read about Jesus's first final word from the cross here: "1: A Word of Mercy."