It is frequently assumed that the Lord’s words, “Pray ye that your flight be not . . . on the Sabbath” (Matthew 24:20), unmistakeably show that those addressed are Jews, it being supposed that they are regarded as persons who would be bound by the law of the Sabbath, and thereby prevented from journeying upon that day. It is, however, abundantly clear from the conjoined phrase, “in the winter,” and the words of the nineteenth verse, that the Lord’s object is not to release them from the difficulty of disobedience to the Mosaic law of the Sabbath, but to avert certain sufferings from the hand of man which would come upon them if they attempted to carry out on the Sabbath His command to flee from Jerusalem. The truth is that the persons addressed are Christians, in faith and standing like ourselves (as, indeed, is necessarily implied in their being disciples of the Lord Jesus, in which character they are instructed in this chapter), who will be resident in Jerusalem at the time when “the abomination of desolation” shall be set “in the holy place,” as predicted by Daniel (cf. Matthew 24:15 with Daniel 9:27 marg.), and who are commanded to flee immediately from the land. If they had to flee during winter, or as described in verse 19, great sufferings would be entailed by the circumstances of the journey; and in mercy they are permitted to pray for the providential adjustment of those circumstances as to the season of the year, etc. But it must also be remembered that at the time contemplated, Israel, as a people, will have been regathered into the Holy Land, the temple rebuilt (otherwise there would be no “holy place” to be invaded by the “abomination of desolation”), and the ordinances of the Mosaic code re-established as the law of the land. One of these, the law of the Sabbath (cf. John 11:18, and Acts 1:12), restricted journeying on that day; and is clearly viewed as in operation. To violate it, therefore, would entail on the Lord’s disciples the wrath of a fanatical people inflamed by a zeal like that which hindered them from entering Pilate’s judgment-hall lest they should be defiled, while they were clamoring for the murder of the Holy One and the Just. Matthew 12:1-14, may be instructively compared.