The Spurned Hen and the Desolate House Text: Matthew 23:37-39
Introduction: Covenantal Reckoning
We come now to the hinge of Matthew's gospel. For twenty-three chapters, the Lord Jesus has been teaching, healing, confronting, and offering the kingdom to the covenant people of Israel. He has presented His credentials as their Messiah with irrefutable clarity. He has cleansed the Temple, silenced the Pharisees and Sadducees, and demonstrated His authority over every sphere. But covenant has two sides. There are blessings for obedience and curses for rebellion. And after a blistering series of woes pronounced upon the corrupt leadership of Jerusalem, the Lord's public ministry to Israel concludes here with a lament. It is a cry of rejected love, a pronouncement of just judgment, and a prophecy of future restoration.
This is not the detached statement of a philosopher, nor is it the angry rant of a frustrated reformer. This is the heartbroken cry of a husband over an adulterous wife, of a father over a rebellious son. This is the cry of Yahweh over His chosen city. Our modern sensibilities are often offended by the language of judgment. We want a God who is all tender affirmation, a God who would never leave a house desolate. But a God who cannot hate evil is a God who cannot truly love good. A love that has no wrath at its core when that which is loved is defiled and destroyed is not a love worth the name. It is sentimental slush.
Here, Jesus, the embodiment of the God of Israel, stands as the great prophet, summing up the entire history of His people's rebellion. He stands as the great priest, about to offer Himself as the final sacrifice. And He stands as the great king, pronouncing sentence on the city that was supposed to be His throne. This passage is a microcosm of the entire biblical drama: God's persistent, tender, pursuing love; man's proud, stiff-necked, suicidal rejection; the inevitable consequences of that rejection; and the final, sovereign promise of a day when that rejection will be turned to repentance.
We must understand that what happens to Jerusalem here is a pattern. All nations, all cities, all families, and all individuals who reject the tender, gathering call of Christ will eventually find their house left to them desolate. And their only hope, Jerusalem's only hope, is to cry out for the return of the one they spurned.
The Text
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you did not want it. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’ ”
(Matthew 23:37-39 LSB)
The Cry of Rejected Affection (v. 37)
The Lord begins with a lament, a repetition that communicates deep emotion.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you did not want it." (Matthew 23:37)
Notice the charge. Jerusalem's defining characteristic, in the Lord's summary, is that she is a murderer of God's messengers. This was not a one-time slip-up; it was her historical identity. From the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, as Jesus had just said, the story of the covenant people was one of rejecting the Word of the Lord by attacking the mouthpiece. They had a perverse habit of building monuments to dead prophets their fathers had killed, while sharpening stones for the living ones God sent to them. This is the essence of dead religion. It honors the forms of past faithfulness while despising the substance of present faithfulness.
Against this backdrop of violent rebellion, Christ reveals the heart of God. "How often I wanted to gather your children together..." This is not the voice of a frustrated deity whose plans are being thwarted by the vaunted "free will" of man. This is the pre-incarnate Yahweh speaking through the lips of Jesus, describing His historical posture toward His people. Throughout the Old Testament, through every prophet, every judge, every call to repentance, God's stated desire was for the good of His people. The problem was not with God's offer, but with their reception.
The metaphor He uses is one of profound tenderness and protective instinct: "the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings." This is a picture of safety, warmth, and refuge. When danger approaches, a hen's instinct is to cover her young. The danger approaching Jerusalem was the Roman eagle, and Jesus, the true and better protector, longed to shield them from the coming judgment. This is an image of covenantal protection. But notice the tragic conclusion: "and you did not want it." The leaders of the people, the "you" He is addressing, refused this gathering. They would not come themselves, and they hindered those who would. They chose their own corrupt authority over the authority of Christ. They chose the cold comfort of their traditions over the warm safety of His wings.
This is the mystery of sin. God's desire for His covenant people to walk in obedience is plainly stated. Their responsibility to do so is clear. Their refusal is culpable. This does not negate God's sovereignty. God's decretive will is always accomplished. But His preceptive will can be, and is, violated by sinful men, and they are held accountable for it.
The Pronouncement of Judicial Desolation (v. 38)
The consequence of this covenantal refusal is stated with stark finality.
"Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!" (Matthew 23:38 LSB)
The word "Behold" is a call to attention. See this. Mark it down. This is the verdict. "Your house" has a double meaning. First, it refers to the Temple, the house of God, which they had turned into a den of thieves. But by calling it "your house," Jesus is disowning it. It is no longer "My Father's house." It is theirs now, and they can have it. Second, it refers to the entire city and the nation, the house of Israel. The glory is departing.
And it is being left "desolate." This is a judicial sentence. God is withdrawing His protective presence. For centuries, the presence of God in the Temple was Jerusalem's glory and protection. Now, that protection is being removed. This is not an accident of history; it is a divine act of abandonment. When a people persistently reject God's gathering wing, He eventually gives them what they want. He leaves them to themselves. And to be left to oneself is the definition of hell. This was a prophecy that would be literally and horrifically fulfilled within a generation, in A.D. 70, when the Roman armies surrounded the city and leveled it, leaving it a desolate ruin.
This is a terrifying principle. When God's grace is spurned, His Spirit will not always strive with man. There comes a point where God gives a rebellious people, or a rebellious person, over to their sin. He lets them have the desolation they have chosen. The scariest thing God can do to a sinner is to let him have his own way.
The Condition for Future Restoration (v. 39)
But this judgment is not the final word. The lament ends with a prophecy, a glimmer of hope on the far side of the coming devastation.
"For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’ " (Matthew 23:39 LSB)
Jesus is now withdrawing His physical presence from the apostate leadership of Israel. "You will not see Me." His public ministry to them is over. The next time they see Him, it will be when He is arrested, tried, and crucified. But He looks beyond the cross and the coming judgment of A.D. 70 to a future day of national repentance.
He says they will not see Him again until they say something specific. What must they say? "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" This is a quotation from Psalm 118, a messianic psalm of welcome. Ironically, this is what the crowds had shouted just days before during the Triumphal Entry. But that was a fickle, popular welcome. The Lord is looking for a deep, genuine, national turning.
This is a foundational text for a Christian hope for the Jewish people. The Apostle Paul expands on this very theme in Romans 9-11, speaking of a day when the partial hardening of Israel will be removed and "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26). Jesus here declares that His visible, glorious return in blessing is conditioned on their repentance. The same nation that rejected Him must one day welcome Him. The desolation is not permanent. The divorce is not final. There will be a remarriage.
This is a profoundly hopeful and postmillennial statement. Christ will not return to a world that is uniformly hostile to Him. He will return after His gospel has done its work, a work that will include the conversion of the Jewish people. The Great Commission to disciple the nations will be successful, and a key sign of that success will be the cry of converted Israel, welcoming back her King with the very words she should have used when He first came.
Conclusion: The Open Invitation
This passage lays out the stark choice that faces every human heart. God's posture toward us in Christ is that of a hen wanting to gather her chicks. He offers protection, warmth, forgiveness, and life. He calls us to take refuge under the shadow of His wings, which is ultimately the shadow of the cross.
The question is, what is our response? Is it the proud, self-sufficient, "we will not have this man to rule over us" of the Jerusalem leadership? If so, the end of that road is desolation. It is to be left to the emptiness of "your house," your life, your kingdom, which, without Christ, is a wasteland. It is a house built on sand, and the storm is coming.
Or is our response to be the cry of humble faith? "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" This is the cry of the sinner who recognizes his need for a savior. It is the cry of the prodigal who sees his father running to him. It is the cry of the church, welcoming her king. And it is the cry that will one day rise from the nation of Israel, and from all the redeemed nations of the earth.
The invitation that Jerusalem rejected is extended to you now. The wings of Christ are outstretched. Do not say, "I do not want it." Do not choose a desolate house. Rather, run to Him for refuge, and join the great chorus that will greet Him at His coming, the chorus He is patiently waiting to hear: "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"