Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Herod's Desire to Kill Jesus
31 At that very hour some Pharisees came, and said to him, “Get away
from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32 And he said to them, “Go and tell
that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and
the third day I finish my course. 33 Nevertheless I must go on my way today and
tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish
away from Jerusalem.’ 34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and
stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your
children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would
not! 35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me
until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’
Commentary:
13:31–35 This passage is a record of two episodes. The first (vv. 31–33) seems to have occurred in the Perea region, which came within the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas (cf. 3:1); it was relatively close to Jerusalem. The second (vv. 34–35) seems to have occurred even closer to Jerusalem. The whole passage reveals a great deal about how Jesus saw his life. “Jesus freely accepted his Passion and death: ‘No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord’ (Jn 10:18). Hence the sovereign freedom of God’s Son as he went out to his death” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 609). Jesus is aware, moreover, that the failure of his mission to the Jews is only a temporary one, for the time will come when they will acknowledge him as the Messiah (v. 35).
The warning given by the Pharisees (v. 31) allows us to see (as happens elsewhere: see 7:36; 11:37) that Jesus had a lot of contact with them, and that even though he criticized their behaviour, he did so only to expose their faults so that they could correct them.
In vv. 34–35, Jesus lets us see how profoundly saddened he is by Jerusalem’s resistance to the love of God—a love of which there was much evidence. By using the simile of the hen and her chicks, he shows that his actions are those of God (cf. Mt 23:37–39 and note). St Augustine explores the meaning of this touching simile, saying: “You see, brethren, how a hen becomes weak with her chickens. No other bird, when it is a mother, shows its maternity so clearly. […] But the hen is so enfeebled over her brood that even if the chickens are not following her, even if you do not see the young ones, you still know her at once to be a mother. With her wings drooping, her feathers ruffled, her note hoarse, in all her limbs she becomes so sunken and abject that, as I have said, even though you cannot see her young, you can see she is a mother. That is the way Jesus feels” (In Ioannis Evangelium, 15, 7).
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
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