Mark 13:25

And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:24-27 The disciples had confounded the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. This mistake Christ set right, and showed that the day of Christ's coming, and the day of judgment, shall be after that tribulation. Here he foretells the final dissolution of the present frame and fabric of the world. Also, the visible appearance of the Lord Jesus coming in the clouds, and the gathering together of all the elect to him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

On the house-top - See the notes at Matthew 9:1-8.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

25. And the stars of heaven shall fall—"and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth" (Lu 21:25, 26).

and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken—Though the grandeur of this language carries the mind over the head of all periods but that of Christ's Second Coming, nearly every expression will be found used of the Lord's coming in terrible national judgments: as of Babylon (Isa 13:9-13); of Idumea (Isa 34:1, 2, 4, 8-10); of Egypt (Eze 32:7, 8); compare also Ps 18:7-15; Isa 24:1, 17-19; Joe 2:10, 11, &c. We cannot therefore consider the mere strength of this language a proof that it refers exclusively or primarily to the precursors of the final day, though of course in "that day" it will have its most awful fulfilment.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Mark 13:24"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the stars of heaven shall fall,.... The Jewish Rabbins and doctors, who fell off from the written word, and compiled their "Misna", or oral law, their book of traditions, and set it up above the Bible, the foundation of which was laid immediately upon their dispersion.

And the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken; the ordinances of the legal dispensation, which were shaken before, but now so shaken as to be removed; compare Haggai 2:6 with Hebrews 12:26; See Gill on Matthew 24:29.

Geneva Study Bible

And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 13:25. οἱ ἀστέρες, etc., the stars shall be in process of falling (one after the other)—ἔσονται with πίπτοντες instead of πεσοῦνται in Mt.—αἱ δυνάμεις, etc.: the powers in heaven = the powers of heaven (Mt.) = the host of heaven (34:4), a synonym for the stars.

Bengel's Gnomen

Mark 13:25. Ἔσονται ἐκπίπτοντες, shall be falling) A metaphor from a flower, Jam 1:11. [The flower thereof falleth.]

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 25. - And the stars shall be falling from heaven (ἔσονται ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πίπτοντες) and the powers that are in the heavens shall be shaken. In the great events of the creation recorded in Genesis 1 the sun and the moon and the stars did not show their light until that period which is called the fourth day. So in the end of the world, the sun and the moon and the stars are represented as withdrawing their light, perhaps figuratively, but perhaps also literally, in the course of some of the unknown physical changes which shall accompany the winding up of the present dispensation. To this agree the next words, "the powers that are in the heavens shall be shaken." The powers may here mean those great unseen forces of nature by which the universe is now held in equipoise. When the Creator wills it, these powers shall be shaken. (See Job 26:11, "The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof;" see also Isaiah 34:4, "And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll.") As the end of the world approaches, the elements will quiver and tremble. Mark 13:25

Vincent's Word Studies

The stars of heaven shall fall

A rendering which falls very far short of the graphic original: οἱ ἀστέρες ἔσονται ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πίπτοντες: the stars shall be falling from heaven. So Rev., thus giving the sense of continuousness, as of a shower of falling stars.