Saying,
If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong unto your peace! but now they are hid from your eyes.
Read Chapter 19
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
If thou hadst known. "As I know," says S. Gregory (hom39), Bede and others. Because I am come to thee as thy Messiah, for thy salvation, to save thee, and bring thee everlasting blessing, according to the words of Zech. ix. If thou hadst known what is for thy good, salvation, and happiness, namely, penitence and faith in Me, which I have taught thee these three years past, thou wouldst weep, as I do, for thy past blindness and obstinacy. Euthymius supplies, "Thou wouldst in no wise perish." Others say, "Thou wouldst bear thyself otherwise; listen to Me, and believe in Me." The Syriac has, "If thou hadst known the things that are for thy peace and salvation in this thy day." The Arabic. "If thou hadst known, even thou, and in this thy day, how much peace there was for thee in it." Peace, in Hebrew, means prosperity, safety, happiness, every good, both of body and soul.
It is an aposopiopesis, showing the profound passion of grief and indignation in Christ, for He upbraids the ungratefu...
If thou also hadst known. It is a broken sentence, as it were in a transport of grief; and we may understand, thou wouldst also weep. Didst thou know, even at this day, that peace and reconciliation which God still offers to thee. (Witham)
What can be more tender than the apostrophe here made use of by our Saviour! Hadst thou but known that is, didst thou but know how severe a punishment is about to be inflicted upon thee, for the numberless transgressions of thy people, thou likewise wouldst weep; but, alas! hardened in iniquity, thou still rejoicest, ignorant of the punishment hanging over thy head. Just men have daily occasion to bewail, like our blessed Redeemer, the blindness of the wicked, unable to see, through their own perversity, the miserable state of their souls, and the imminent danger they are every moment exposed to, of losing themselves for ever. Of these, Solomon cries out; (Proverbs ii. 13.) They leave the right way, and walk through dark ways. We ought to imitate th...
Further, when, as He drew nigh to Jerusalem, He wept over it and said, "If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace, but they are hidden from thee"
Therefore He went into Galilee, for He was unwilling to show Himself to the Jews, lest He should lead them to repentance, and restore them from their impiety to a sound mind.
