Maden:

Luke 19:42

Oh if thou had known, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, &c.

Chap. 6.

The Will of God touching man’s salvation, as it is generally revealed and propounded in the Gospel.

Hitherto of Christ’s carriage and deportment towards Jerusalem; It follows now to speak of his words and speeches to her, and therein first of his passionate and pathetical wish or complaint: wherein first of all, the manner of speech offers itself to our consideration, because the original text, is not rendered alike by all. In the translation of it, some looking more at the scope and intention of Christ, who sets himself purposely to bewail the condition of Jerusalem, than at the bare and naked translation of the words; do render them in the nature of a wish or desire, “oh that thou had known,” &c. and so make the sense full and complete, without the supply or addition of anything else unto it; and the particle (If) is sometimes rendered in that sense, as the learned observe¹: and many interpreters go this way.² Others looking more punctually at the grammatical construction of the words in the original, render the words in a conditional phrase, by way of supposition, “If thou had known,” &c.,³ and so seem to make it defective speech, or a broken and imperfect sentence, which must be thus supplied and made up: “If thou had known the worth and excellency of those good things which are offered unto thee by the coming of a Savior, though would not value them at so low a rate”: Or, “If thou had known the misery and calamity thou lies open unto, thou would not sing and rejoice as now thou does, but weep and shed tears as thou see me do.” And this also is well backed with the authority of the learned,⁴ and they are induced to incline to this opinion, because of the tears of Christ mentioned in the verse before.

Now for a man that speaks out of depth of sorrow, and fulness of grief, it is nothing strange for him to break off his speech, and leave it imperfect; for as it is the nature of joy to enlarge the heart, and dilate the spirits, and so set open as it were a wide door for the thoughts of the heart to go out and vent themselves; so it is the nature of sorrow to contract and straighten, to narrow and draw together the spirits, and as it were to shut the door of the soul, so that like as it is with a vessel, though it be full of liquor, yet if the mouth of it be stopped, none will flow out; even so it was here with Christ: having begun to speak, he was so overwhelmed with grief, and so deeply affected with the estate and condition of Jerusalem, that he could not speak out, but was even constrained to weep out the rest of the sentence, leaving the full sense and meaning to be gathered and supplied out of his tears: as is used in such passionate and pathetical speeches. The matter is not much in regard of the sense and meaning, whether the words be read in a manner of a wish, “O that thou had known,” &c. or whether they be translated by way of supposition, in a conditional phrase, “If thou had known,” &c. And happily he shall not do amiss that joins them both together, and reads the words thus, “O if thou had known,”⁵ and so they afford this observation.

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