What Does Matthew 10:36 Mean?

**23. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another--**"into the other." This, though applicable to all time, and exemplified by our Lord Himself once and again, had special reference to the brief opportunities which Israel was to have of "knowing the time of His visitations." **for verily I say unto you--**what will startle you, but at the same time show you the solemnity of your mission, and the need of economizing the time for it. **Ye shall not have gone over--**Ye shall in nowise have completed. **the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come--**To understand this--as Lange and others do--in the first instance, of Christ's own peregrinations, as if He had said, "Waste not your time upon hostile places, for I Myself will be after you ere your work be over"--seems almost trifling. "The coming of the Son of man" has a fixed doctrinal sense, here referring immediately to the crisis of Israel's history as the visible kingdom of God, when Christ was to come and judge it; when "the wrath would come upon it to the uttermost"; and when, on the ruins of Jerusalem and the old economy, He would establish His own kingdom. This, in the uniform language of Scripture, is more immediately "the coming of the Son of man," "the day of vengeance of our God" (Mt 16:28; 24:27, 34; compare with He 10:25; Jas 5:7-9)--but only as being such a lively anticipation of His second coming for vengeance and deliverance. So understood, it is parallel with Mt 24:14 (on which see). Directions for the Service of Christ in Its Widest Sense (Mt 10:24-42).