Mark 13:27

And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) Then shall he send his angels.—Note the absence of the “trumpet,” which is prominent in St. Matthew.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:24-27 The disciples had confounded the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. This mistake Christ set right, and showed that the day of Christ's coming, and the day of judgment, shall be after that tribulation. Here he foretells the final dissolution of the present frame and fabric of the world. Also, the visible appearance of the Lord Jesus coming in the clouds, and the gathering together of all the elect to him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

On the house-top - See the notes at Matthew 9:1-8.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. And then shall he send his angels—"with a great sound of a trumpet" (Mt 24:31).

and shall gather together his elect, &c.—As the tribes of Israel were anciently gathered together by sound of trumpet (Ex 19:13, 16, 19; Le 23:24; Ps 81:3-5), so any mighty gathering of God's people, by divine command, is represented as collected by sound of trumpet (Isa 27:13; compare Re 11:15); and the ministry of angels, employed in all the great operations of Providence, is here held forth as the agency by which the present assembling of the elect is to be accomplished. Lightfoot thus explains it: "When Jerusalem shall be reduced to ashes, and that wicked nation cut off and rejected, then shall the Son of man send His ministers with the trumpet of the Gospel, and they shall gather His elect of the several nations, from the four corners of heaven: so that God shall not want a Church, although that ancient people of His be rejected and cast off: but that ancient Jewish Church being destroyed, a new Church shall be called out of the Gentiles." But though something like this appears to be the primary sense of the verse, in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem, no one can fail to see that the language swells beyond any gathering of a human family into a Church upon earth, and forces the thoughts onward to that gathering of the Church "at the last trump," to meet the Lord in the air, which is to wind up the present scene. Still, this is not, in our judgment, the direct subject of the prediction; for Mr 13:28 limits the whole prediction to the generation then existing.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Mark 13:25"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And then he shall send his angels,.... The ministers of the Gospel to preach it, and plant more churches among the Gentiles, since that at Jerusalem was entirely broken up:

and shall gather together his elect; that is, he the son of man, or Christ, shall gather them by the ministry of his servants; or "they shall gather them", as the Ethiopic version reads; and as Beza says it is read in a certain copy: these ministers shall be the means of gathering such whom God has chosen from all eternity, to obtain salvation by Christ, out of the world, and unto Christ, and into a Gospel church state: even

from the uttermost part of the earth, to the uttermost part of the heaven; be they where they will, on earth, and under the whole heavens; See Gill on Matthew 24:31.

Geneva Study Bible

And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 13:27. ἀπʼ ἄκρου γῆς, etc. (cf. expression in Mt.), from the extremity of the earth to the extremity of heaven. The earth is conceived as a flat surface, and the idea is—from one end of the earth to the other, where it touches the heavens. But they touch at both ends, so that Mt.’s expression is the more accurate. Either from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, or from one end of the heaven to, etc.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. then shall he send his angels] As the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), alone ever declared or manifested Him to His creatures, so to Him God hath delegated the universal and ultimate judgment of mankind, that “as in our nature He performed all that was requisite to save us, as in our nature He was exalted to God’s right hand to rule and bless us, so He shall in our nature appear to judge us.” Barrow’s Sermons; comp. also Pearson On the Creed, Art. vii.

Bengel's Gnomen

Mark 13:27. Ἀπʼ ἄκρου) This is an abbreviated mode of expression, in this sense, from the uttermost part of the heaven (sky) and earth in the east, even to the uttermost part of the heaven and earth in the west. [O blessed general assembly, of which who would not desire to form a member?—V. g.]

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - And then shall he send forth the angels. This represents the great harvest at the end of the world, when the angel-reapers shall be sent forth to separate the wicked from the just. The elect will be gathered from the four winds (ἐκ τῶν πεσσάρων ἀνέμων); literally, out of the four winds - the winds representing figuratively every corner of the world; or, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven. At its extremities, in the horizon, there appears to be the end alike of earth and of heaven, as though earth and heaven joined, and the heaven terminated by melting into the earth and becoming one with it. The expression simply means, "from horizon to horizon," or from every part of the earth. Mark 13:27

Vincent's Word Studies

From the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven (ἀπ' ἄκρου γῆς ἕως ἄκρου οὐρανοῦ)

From the outermost border of the earth, conceived as a fiat surface, to where the outermost border of the heaven sets a limit to the earth. Compare Matthew 24:31. Mark's expression is more poetical.