<p>24:20&nbsp;<i>And pray that your flight is not in the winter, nor on a Sabbath</i>-&nbsp; The &quot;flight&quot; refers to the opportunity given to the civilians of Jerusalem to flee. These opportunities were in October AD67 and in Spring AD70. &quot;The Sabbath&quot; refers more likely to the Sabbath Year rather than to the weekly Sabbath. There would've been little food in the Sabbath year because the land was not to be planted that year. The Sabbath year at the time was AD68/69 (the last Sabbath year ever observed in the land). So perhaps we can reason from these facts that the Lord's words were heeded, the faithful did pray as He recommended- and so they did not flee in Winter (but rather in Autumn 67 and Spring 70), nor in the Sabbath year.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord&rsquo;s request for prayer indicates that the exact timing of events in the tribulation will be changeable in accordance with the fervency of our latter day prayers. Changeable time periods has been a feature of God&rsquo;s prophetic dealings with Israel (see the Digression &lsquo;Conditional Prophecy in Daniel&rsquo;); and :22 is explicit that the intended number of days will be shortened. An AD70 application for this is hard to find; it may be that the exact timing of the Roman offer of amnesty was dependent on the intensity of prayer by the besieged Jerusalem ecclesia. That ecclesia, rent as they were by&nbsp;schism, false doctrine and materialism (if we accept the evidence that Hebrews was addressed to them) was a type of the faithful remnant of the last days. They were finally sorted out by the events of AD67 - 70, cp. the latter day tribulation.</p><p>Lk. 21:24 adds: &quot;Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled&quot;. The allusion is to Dan. 8:13: &quot;The transgression of desolation gave both the sanctuary and the host (i.e. the people of Israel) to be&nbsp;<i>trodden underfoot&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp;</i>This part of Luke 21 is clearly alluding to Zechariah 14, a prophecy about the final desolation of Jerusalem:</p><table border=0 cellspacing=3 cellpadding=0 width=95%>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p><b>Luke 21</b></p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p><b>Zechariah 14</b></p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>20.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>Jerusalem surrounded by armies</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>2.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>All nations against Jerusalem to battle</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>20.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>The desolation of Jerusalem is near</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>2.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>The city shall be taken</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>21.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>Let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>5.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>You shall flee to the ... mountains</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>22.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>Great distress in the land</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>2.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>Houses ransacked, women raped.</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>24.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>Led away captive into all nations</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>2.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>Half the city shall go into captivity</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>24.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>Jerusalem trodden down by the Gentiles.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>12:3</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>LXX Jerusalem a stone trodden down by the   Gentiles.</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table><p>The context of Zechariah 14 is clearly concerning the last days and the literal appearance of Messiah in Israel. The way the Olivet Prophecy alludes to it, indeed is based upon it, shows that it too requires reference to the last days. Any limited fulfilment in AD70 was only a partial foretaste of the final outworking of the prophecy. I have explained in the digression about &lsquo;Conditional Prophecy in Daniel&rsquo; that Dan. 8:13 itself was a prophecy which had already had various possible fulfilments but had already had its fulfilment rescheduled a few times. It is therefore unsurprising if its intended, or possible, fulfilment in AD70 was again rescheduled.</p>