“Coming in the Clouds of Heaven”
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[A]nd then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn…. (Matthew 24:30) The above portion of verse 30 follows that which spoke of “the sign of the Son of man in heaven” and before that part which says “they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven,” etc. But I wanted to cover the matter of the Son of man coming in the clouds first, and so now this. This part of verse 30 is reminiscent of Zechariah 12:11–12 where it says, “In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart...” The tribes’ mourning in A.D. 67–70 was in fulfillment of this Old Testament prophecy. It was to the tribes of the land of Israel to which this passage had reference. Allan A. MacRae said: Thus the English word “earth” could mean the entire globe or it could be used to indicate a small amount of soil. The Hebrew word eres which is translated “earth” hundreds of times, is often used in the sense of country or land, as “the land of Israel.” The English and Hebrew usages are far from identical and a translator often has difficulty in selecting the word that will fit the particular context (Allan A. MacRae, The Prophecies of Daniel, 22). The same thing holds true in the New Testament. The Greek word ge translated “earth” also means “land.” In this particular case it is talking about the tribes of the land of Israel. Jesus said, “ ... they [all the tribes of the earth/land—the Jews] shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (24:30). Here the Christians will have already fled from Jerusalem as Jesus instructed them in verse 16, and it is the Jewish tribes in the land which see the manifestation of Christ’s power and glory. On verse 30, Henry Hammond said, “30. And this shall appear to be a signal punishment upon the Jews, and they shall with sorrow (though too late) take notice of it as a notable act of revenge of the crucified Christ upon those that were thus guilty of his death….” (Henry Hammond, v. 1, 116, new ed.)