Luke 21:18

But there shall not an hair of your head perish.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) There shall not an hair of your head perish.—The promise does not meet us in this form in the parallel passages of the two other Gospels. A like promise meets us in Matthew 10:30, Luke 12:7. The very same phrase occurs, however, almost as if it were a quotation from this Gospel, in St. Paul’s address to the sailors, in Acts 27:34.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:5-28 With much curiosity those about Christ ask as to the time when the great desolation should be. He answers with clearness and fulness, as far as was necessary to teach them their duty; for all knowledge is desirable as far as it is in order to practice. Though spiritual judgements are the most common in gospel times, yet God makes use of temporal judgments also. Christ tells them what hard things they should suffer for his name's sake, and encourages them to bear up under their trials, and to go on in their work, notwithstanding the opposition they would meet with. God will stand by you, and own you, and assist you. This was remarkably fulfilled after the pouring out of the Spirit, by whom Christ gave his disciples wisdom and utterance. Though we may be losers for Christ, we shall not, we cannot be losers by him, in the end. It is our duty and interest at all times, especially in perilous, trying times, to secure the safety of our own souls. It is by Christian patience we keep possession of our own souls, and keep out all those impressions which would put us out of temper. We may view the prophecy before us much as those Old Testament prophecies, which, together with their great object, embrace, or glance at some nearer object of importance to the church. Having given an idea of the times for about thirty-eight years next to come, Christ shows what all those things would end in, namely, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the utter dispersion of the Jewish nation; which would be a type and figure of Christ's second coming. The scattered Jews around us preach the truth of Christianity; and prove, that though heaven and earth shall pass away, the words of Jesus shall not pass away. They also remind us to pray for those times when neither the real, nor the spiritual Jerusalem, shall any longer be trodden down by the Gentiles, and when both Jews and Gentiles shall be turned to the Lord. When Christ came to destroy the Jews, he came to redeem the Christians that were persecuted and oppressed by them; and then had the churches rest. When he comes to judge the world, he will redeem all that are his from their troubles. So fully did the Divine judgements come upon the Jews, that their city is set as an example before us, to show that sins will not pass unpunished; and that the terrors of the Lord, and his threatenings against impenitent sinners, will all come to pass, even as his word was true, and his wrath great upon Jerusalem.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A hair of your head perish - This is a proverbial expression, denoting that they should not suffer any essential injury. This was strikingly fulfilled in the fact that in the calamities of Jerusalem there is reason to believe that no Christian suffered. Before those calamities came on the city they had fled to "Pella," a city on the east of the Jordan. See the notes at Matthew 24:18.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. not a hair … perish—He had just said (Lu 21:16) they should be put to death; showing that this precious promise is far above immunity from mere bodily harm, and furnishing a key to the right interpretation of the ninety-first Psalm, and such like. Matthew adds the following (Mt 24:12): "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many," the many or, the most—the generality of professed disciples—"shall wax cold." But he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Sad illustrations of the effect of abounding iniquity in cooling the love of faithful disciples we have in the Epistle of James, written about this period referred to, and too frequently ever since (Heb 10:38, 39; Re 2:10). "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness, and then shall the end come" (Mt 24:14). God never sends judgment without previous warning; and there can be no doubt that the Jews, already dispersed over most known countries, had nearly all heard the Gospel "as a witness," before the end of the Jewish state. The same principle was repeated and will repeat itself to the end.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

It is a proverbial speech, signifying that they should have no hurt or damage by any thing which their enemies should do against them. When at the last you come to cast up your accounts, you shall find you have lost nothing, and your enemies shall also find that they have gained nothing.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But there shall not art hair of your head perish. That is, without the will of God, as in Matthew 10:29 or not one shall perish, but what shall be restored again: or the sense is, that though they should be betrayed by their friends, and hated, and persecuted, and imprisoned by their enemies, yet they should be no losers in the main; all things should work together for their good; and though even they should be put to death, yet that would be to their advantage, since instead of a temporal, troublesome life, they should enjoy an eternal and happy one: for this cannot be understood of entire preservation from all corporeal damages and hurt; seeing it is, before declared, that they should be put into prisons, and some of them put to death; nor of their preservation at the destruction of Jerusalem, for none of them was living at that time, but the Apostle John, and he was not in those parts.

Geneva Study Bible

But there shall not an hair of your head perish.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 21:18-19. Comp. 1 Samuel 14:45; 2 Samuel 14:11; 1 Kings 1:52; Acts 27:34. But the meaning cannot be, “ye shall remain unharmed in life and limb” against which interpretation the preceding καὶ θανατ. ἐξ ὑμῶν, Luke 21:16, is decisive, since θανατ. cannot be taken, as by Volkmar, of mere danger of death; rather ἀπόληται is to be taken in a Messianic sense. Comp. the following κτήσεσθε τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν. Hence: no hair of your head shall be subject to the everlasting ἀπώλεια, i.e. you shall not come by the slightest harm as to the Messianic salvation; but rather, Luke 21:19 : through your endurance (Matthew 10:22; Matthew 24:13; Mark 13:13), in these persecutions, ye shall gain your souls, whereby is denoted the acquisition of the Messianic salvation; the latter is regarded as the life, and the opposite as death. Comp. Luke 9:25, Luke 17:33, also ζημιοῦσθαι τὴν ψυχήν, Mark 8:36. The form of the expression θρὶξ ἐκ τ. κεφ. κ.τ.λ. has therefore a proverbial character (Matthew 10:30), and is not to be taken in such a manner as that God would restore again every hair at the resurrection (Zeller in the Theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 336; comp. his Apostelg. p. 18 f.). The omission of the verse in Marcion shows that at an early period there was already found therein a contradiction to Luke 21:16, as Gfrörer, Baur, Hilgenfeld, and others still find there. This apparent impropriety makes it the more improbable that Luke 21:18 should be a later addition (Wilke, Baur, Hilgenfeld), perhaps from Acts 17:34.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 21:18, θρὶξ, etc., a hair of your head shall not perish = Matthew 10:30, where it is said: “your hairs are all numbered”. What! even in the case of those who die? Yes, Jesus would have His apostles live in this faith whatever betide; an optimistic creed, necessary to a heroic life.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. not a hair of your head] for they are “all numbered,” Matthew 10:30. The previous verse (Luke 21:16) is of course sufficient to shew that the meaning is spiritual here, not literal as in Acts 27:34.

shall...perish] i.e. not without the special Providence of God, nor without reward, nor before the due time. Bengel.

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 21:18. Θρὶξ, an hair) A proverbial expression.—οὐ μὴ ἀπόληται, shall not perish) namely, without the special providence of God,—without its reward,—before its time. Most of the apostles, or at least some of them, lived beyond the destruction of Jerusalem.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - But there shall not an hair of your head perish. Not, of course, to be understood literally; for comp. ver. 16. Bengel's comment accurately paraphrases it: "Not a hair of your head shall perish without the special providence of God, nor without reward, nor before the due time." The words, too, had a general fulfillment; for the Christian community of Palestine, warned by this very discourse of the Lord's, fled in time from the doomed city, and so escaped the extermination which overtook the Jewish people in the great war which ended in the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70). Luke 21:18