What Does Matthew 24:34 Mean?

(34) **This generation shall not** **pass . . .**—The natural meaning of the words is, beyond question. that which takes “generation” in the ordinary sense (as in Matthew 1:17, Acts 13:36, and elsewhere) for those who are living at any given period. So it was on “this generation” (Matthew 23:36) that the accumulated judgments were to fall. The desire to bring the words into more apparent harmony with history has led some interpreters to take “generation” in the sense of “race” or “people,” and so to see in the words a prophecy of the perpetuity of the existence of the Jews as a distinct people till the end of the world. But for this meaning there is not the shadow of authority; nor does it remove the difficulty which it was invented to explain. The words of Matthew 16:28 state the same fact in language which does not admit of any such explanation. **Till all these things be fulfilled.**—Better, *till all these things come to pass.* The words do not necessarily imply more than the commencement of a process, the first unrolling of the scroll of the coming ages.