Bible Strands
Luke 19:43
For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses Jerusalem as He approaches the temple, pronouncing a coming judgment following His lament over the city's spiritual blindness in the preceding verse.
The words — The Greek παρεμβαλοῦσιν (parembalousin) literally means "will cast around," describing the physical encirclement of the city. The phrase ἡμέραι... ἥξουσιν (hēmerai... hēxousin) translates to "days will come," marking a fixed future fulfillment.
The thread — This siege imagery echoes Ezekiel 4:2, which commands building a siege wall and setting up camps, and anticipates Luke 21:20, where Jerusalem is explicitly surrounded by armies. The motif also parallels the impending judgment on Ariel in Isaiah 29:1.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that spiritual rejection produces concrete historical consequences. It requires readers to acknowledge divine warnings as irreversible once the appointed time passes.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,
Cross-references
- Luke 21:20 But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you will know that her desolation is near.
- Isaiah 29:1 Woe to you, O Ariel, the city of Ariel where David camped! Year upon year let your festivals recur.
- Ezekiel 4:2 Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides.
- Ezekiel 26:8 He will slaughter the villages of your mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp to your walls, and raise his shields against you.
- Deuteronomy 28:49 The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,
- Isaiah 37:33 So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.
- Jeremiah 6:3 Shepherds and their flocks will come against her; they will pitch their tents all around her, each tending his own portion:
- Daniel 9:26 Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed.
- Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
- Psalms 37:12 The wicked scheme against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them,