<p>13:34 <i>O Jerusalem- </i>It was &ldquo;this generation&rdquo; which killed the prophets (:35), so why does the Lord specifically talk here about the children of Jerusalem? &ldquo;Daughter of Zion&rdquo; was an Old Testament term used for the faithful remnant in Jerusalem. But the way the Lord talks of gathering Jerusalem&rsquo;s residents under His wings is surely because He had a clear vision before Him of how the city would be burnt. For a hen typically gathers her brood under her wings to protect them from a barnyard fire; or perhaps with the intention of being burnt first to preserve the life of her brood as long as possible. And these were the Lord&rsquo;s feelings to the &ldquo;Jerusalem&rdquo; which rejected Him and sought His life; He wanted to save them, to buy them some more time at least (as reflected in the parable of the worker who doesn&rsquo;t want to cut the tree down immediately). But they didn&rsquo;t want to know. It was and is all so tragic.</p><p><i>Jerusalem that kills the prophets and stones them that are sent to her How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you were not willing</i>- I suggested on :33 that &quot;Jerusalem&quot; refers not so much to the physical city as to the Jerusalem based religious leadership of Israel. He so wished to have gathered their &quot;children&quot;, their converts and those they influenced; but He had had very limited success. The allusion is to the parable of the husbandmen, who killed and stoned the servants / prophets sent to them (Mt. 21:35).&nbsp;Stoning was the punishment for apostasy (Dt. 13:10; Acts 7:59). It was their wilful religious misunderstandings which led them to such violence in practice.&nbsp;</p><p>&ldquo;The Lord builds up Jerusalem: he gathers together the outcasts of Israel&rdquo; (Ps. 147:2) is alluded to by the Lord here, where He reflects how He would fain have gathered together the children of Jerusalem, &ldquo;but you were not willing&rdquo;. The words of the Psalm speak as if this is what the Lord God is going to do. But Jesus understood it as being impossible of fulfilment if the outcast children would not allow themselves to be gathered. Likewise the statement that the Lord will build up Jerusalem was made in a restoration context; but again, it was dependent upon the Jews&rsquo; obedience for its fulfilment. God was and is potentially ready to work with us. &nbsp;</p><p>The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is perhaps most clearly seen in His attitude to Israel. So many of the parables refer in some way to the love of God and Christ for Israel; and their love for rebellious, indifferent Israel is the supreme example of pure grace. He felt towards them as a hen for her chicks. Here again is an element of unreality; a hen whose very own chicks won't be gathered under her wings. This seems to go right against nature; the pain of the rejected parent was there in the experience of the Lord. He wasn't just passively enduring the polemics of the Pharisees; they were His chicks, He really wanted them under His wings (cp. Israel dwelling under the wings of the cherubim). We must ever remember this when we read the records of Him arguing with them and exposing their hypocrisy. He wasn't just throwing back their questions, playing the game and winning, just surviving from day to day with them. He was trying to gather them, and their rejection of His words really hurt Him. Their reproach broke His heart; He didn't just brazenly endure it as we might the ravings of a drunken man (Ps. 69:20). &nbsp;</p><p>He lamented over a Zion that sought only to hurt and murder Him. Yet not so many verses later in our Bibles we hear the Lord using the same word in saying that at His coming, the elect would be &quot;<i>gathered together</i>&quot; unto Him (Mt. 24:31). He so often had earnestly desired the coming of His Kingdom there and then; to gather His people unto Him. But they would not. It must have been unbearable to be such a sensitive person in such a hard and insensitive, dehumanizing world. &ldquo;How often&hellip;&rdquo; suggests that there were specific times in His ministry when it would have been potentially possible to gather together Zion&rsquo;s children in one and begin the Kingdom. But they refused.</p><p>We see the Lord&rsquo;s humility here in comparing Himself to a female, humble, farmyard animal- and not a proud lion. Many of the descriptions of the Lord in the parables are taken from Old Testament passages describing the feelings of&nbsp;<i>God</i>&nbsp;towards Israel, showing the truth of this in the first century context when Israel were still God's people. Thus the Lord's description of Himself as a hen wishing to gather the chicks of Jerusalem is based on Is. 31:5: &quot;As mother-birds flying, so will the Lord defend Jerusalem&quot; (Heb.).&nbsp;Lk. 13:8 could suggest that Christ's attitude to Israel was even more patient than that of God Himself; yet because their feelings to Israel are identical, the implication is perhaps that the Son enables and thereby persuades the Father to be even more patient with us than He would naturally be The gracious desire of the Lord to save even those who crucified Him is the essence of God&rsquo;s saving care in the Old Testament.</p>