Morning Bible Study: Luke 19:41-48

Jesus’s Love for Jerusalem
41 As he [Jesus] approached and saw the city, he wept for it, 

42 saying, “If you knew this day what would bring peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 

43 For the days will come on you when your enemies will build a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side. 

44 They will crush you and your children among you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in your midst, because you did not recognize the time when God visited you.”

Cleansing the Temple
45 He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling,

46 and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!”[Is 56:7; Jr 7:11]

47 Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people were looking for a way to kill him, 

48 but they could not find a way to do it, because all the people were captivated by what they heard.

Commentary
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com)

"Who can behold the holy Jesus, looking forward to the miseries that awaited his murderers, weeping over the city where his precious blood was about to be shed, without seeing that the likeness of God in the believer, consists much in good-will and compassion? Surely those cannot be right who take up any doctrines of truth, so as to be hardened towards their fellow-sinners. But let every one remember, that though Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he executed awful vengeance upon it. Though he delights not in the death of a sinner, yet he will surely bring to pass his awful threatenings on those who neglect his salvation. 

The Son of God did not weep vain and causeless tears, nor for a light matter, nor for himself. He knows the value of souls, the weight of guilt, and how low it will press and sink mankind. May he then come and cleanse our hearts by his Spirit, from all that defiles. May sinners, on every side, become attentive to the words of truth and salvation."