41 When he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come on you, when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side, 44 and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”
45 He entered into the temple, and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ [1] but you have made it a ‘den of robbers’!” [2] 47 He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people sought to destroy him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Luke 19:41-47
Commentary on Luke 19:41-48
(Read Luke 19:41-48)
Who can behold the holy Jesus, looking forward to the miseries that awaited his murderers, weeping over the city where his precious blood was about to be shed, without seeing that the likeness of God in the believer, consists much in good-will and compassion? Surely those cannot be right who take up any doctrines of truth, so as to be hardened towards their fellow-sinners. But let every one remember, that though Jesus wept over Jerusalem, he executed awful vengeance upon it. Though he delights not in the death of a sinner, yet he will surely bring to pass his awful threatenings on those who neglect his salvation. The Son of God did not weep vain and causeless tears, nor for a light matter, nor for himself. He knows the value of souls, the weight of guilt, and how low it will press and sink mankind. May he then come and cleanse our hearts by his Spirit, from all that defiles. May sinners, on every side, become attentive to the words of truth and salvation.