Luke 23:29

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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(29) Blessed are the barren.—We must enter into all the passionate desire of Israelite women for offspring, as we see it, e.g., in Rachel (Genesis 30:1) and in Hannah (1Samuel 1:10-11), in order to estimate the strangeness of such a beatitude. With some of those who heard it, its force may have been emphasised by its contrast between it and the blessing which had been once uttered by a woman who may, perhaps, have been one of them (Luke 11:27).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:26-31 We have here the blessed Jesus, the Lamb of God, led as a lamb to the slaughter, to the sacrifice. Though many reproached and reviled him, yet some pitied him. But the death of Christ was his victory and triumph over his enemies: it was our deliverance, the purchase of eternal life for us. Therefore weep not for him, but let us weep for our own sins, and the sins of our children, which caused his death; and weep for fear of the miseries we shall bring upon ourselves, if we slight his love, and reject his grace. If God delivered him up to such sufferings as these, because he was made a sacrifice for sin, what will he do with sinners themselves, who make themselves a dry tree, a corrupt and wicked generation, and good for nothing! The bitter sufferings of our Lord Jesus should make us stand in awe of the justice of God. The best saints, compared with Christ, are dry trees; if he suffer, why may not they expect to suffer? And what then shall the damnation of sinners be! Even the sufferings of Christ preach terror to obstinate transgressors.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Daughters of Jerusalem - Women of Jerusalem. This was a common mode of speaking among the Hebrews.

Weep for yourselves ... - This refers to the calamities that were about to come upon them in the desolation of their city by the Romans.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. not for me, &c.—noble spirit of compassion, rising above His own dread endurances, in tender commiseration of sufferings yet in the distance and far lighter, but without His supports and consolations!

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Luke 23:27"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For behold the days are coming,.... The time is hastening on; yet a little while, a few years more, and such times of distress will be:

in the which they shall say; or it shall be commonly said; it will be in every one's mouth:

blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck; that is, happy wilt those persons be who have no children, to be starved to death, for want of bread; or to be killed with the sword before their eyes, which must greatly enhance their own miseries. Dr. Hammond thinks, that one passage particularly is referred to, related by Josephus; that when Titus had so closely encompassed the city with a wall, that there was no coming out for provisions, upon which a sore famine commenced, so that they fed on dung and dirt, and shoes, and girdles, one rich and noble woman, whose name was Mary, the daughter of Eleazar, being stripped of all she had, by the seditious, killed her own child, and dressed it, and ate part of it; and the other part being found by the soldiers that broke in upon her, the news of this shocking fact was spread all over the city, and every one looked with horror upon it, and with the same compassion, as if they had done it themselves: and then might those words be said, "blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare", &c. who, though starving themselves, were under no temptation to do such a detestable action.

Geneva Study Bible

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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 23:29. (μακάριαι, etc.: blessed the women that have no children, barren, or unmarried: nobody to care for but themselves. The reflection implies keen sympathy with human feeling.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

29. Blessed are the barren] Comp. Luke 11:27; Hosea 9:12-16. The words received their most painful illustration in the incident of the Siege, which had long been foretold in prophecy (Deuteronomy 28:53-57; Jeremiah 19:9), that women were driven even to kill and eat their own children: Jos. B. J. v. 10, vi. 3. The ‘Blessed’ shewed an awful reversal of the proper blessedness of motherhood.

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 23:29. Ἐροῦσι) viz. “your children” shall say.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 29. - Blessed are the barren. A strange beatitude to be spoken to the women of Israel, who, through all their checkered history, so passionately longed that this barrenness might not be their portion! Luke 23:29