<p>10:23&nbsp;<em>But when they persecute you-</em>&nbsp;Persecution was and is a matter of &lsquo;when&rsquo; rather than &lsquo;if&rsquo;. The parable of the sower likewise assumes that persecution because of the word will definitely come. &ldquo;Persecute&rdquo; is yet another word which figures frequently in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:10,11,12,44) as an event bound to happen to those who follow the Lord. So often, believers stumble because their experience of it catches them off guard. But we are to expect it, and a life lived under Sermon on the Mount principles will prepare us for the moments of crisis when persecution comes to us in direct and ugly forms. &nbsp;</p>
<p><em>In this city</em>- Which city? The fulfilment of this prediction was surely in the persecution of the Christians which began in Jerusalem; but Jesus was not then talking in Jerusalem. But &ldquo;this city&rdquo; could be translated &ldquo;that city&rdquo;, and the city every Jew had in mind was Jerusalem.</p>
<p><em>Flee into the next</em>- Fleeing persecution was a characteristic of the persecuted prophets and righteous. Hebrews 11 is full of allusion to the language in which Judaism's heroes were spoken about in the first century, and Heb. 11:34 speaks of how the Old Testament heroes of faith&nbsp;<em>fled</em>&nbsp;the edge of the sword (s.w.). Again and again, the Lord is seeking to inspire His secular followers that they are not to glance at those men as icons of a faith far beyond they themselves, but to realize their significance, and to be as them in the history of the new Israel that was now being created.</p>
<p><em>For truly I say to you, you shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes</em>- The construction could mean that&nbsp;<em>when&nbsp;</em>they had gone over the cities of Israel, then the Son of Man would come. &quot;Gone over&quot; translates&nbsp;<em>teleo</em>, the noun of which the Lord has just used in the preceding verse (:22) in saying that despite persecution for preaching, they must endure to &quot;the end&quot;. All this was His intention for the disciples in the first century, but this whole section of Matthew 10 is later repeated in the Olivet Prophecy, which clearly has reference to the last days. When the witness to Israel is ended, then the Lord will return. The whole picture of preaching within Israel whilst enduring fierce persecution is exactly the picture we get from a futuristic understanding of parts of the book of Revelation. I have outlined such an interpretation in my&nbsp;<em>The Last Days</em>.</p>
<p>The idea could be that they would still have cities to flee to right up to the point when the Son of Man comes. The preachers of the Gospel will somehow be preserved in the final tribulation- that would appear to be the message, although Rev. 11 and other passages hint that some at least of them will due.&nbsp;</p>