This conversation took place, just about as they were passing the Jordan, into the western section of Judea, near the spot where Joshua and the Israelitish host of old passed over to the conquest of Canaan. A little before they reached Jericho, Jesus took a private opportunity to renew to the twelve his oft repeated warning of the awful events, now soon to happen after his entry into Jerusalem. “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death. And they shall deliver him to the heathen, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him; and the third day, he shall rise again.” Yet, distinct as was this declaration, and full as the prediction was in these shocking particulars, Luke assures us, that “they understood none of these things; and this saying was hid from them; neither knew they the things which were spoken.” Now, we cannot easily suppose that they believed that he, to whom they had so heartily and confidently devoted their lives and fortunes, was trying their feelings by an unnecessary fiction, so painful in its details. The only just supposition which we can make, then, is that they explained all these predictions to themselves, in a way best accordant with their own notions of the kingdom which the Messiah was to found, and on the hope of whose success they had staked all. The account of his betrayal, ill-treatment, and disgraceful death, they could not literally interpret, as the real doom which awaited their glorious and mighty Lord; it could only mean, to them, that for a brief space, the foes of the Son of God were to gain a seeming triumph over the hosts that were to march against Jerusalem, to seat him on the throne of David. The traitorous heads of the Jewish faith, the members of the great Sanhedrim, the hypocritical Pharisees, and the lying, avaricious lawyers, would, through cowardice, selfishness, envy, jealousy, or some other meanness, basely conspire to support their compound tyranny, by attempting to crush the head of the new faith, with the help of their Roman masters, whom they would summon to the aid of their falling power. This unpatriotic and treacherous effort would for a time seem to be perfectly successful, but only long enough for the traitors to fill up the measure of their iniquities. Then, vain would be the combined efforts of priest and soldier,――of Jewish and of Roman power. Rising upon them, like life from the dead, the Son of God should burst forth in the might of his Father,――he should be revealed from heaven with ten thousand angels, and recalling his scattered friends, who might have been for a moment borne down before the iron hosts of Rome, he should sweep every foreign master, and every domestic religious tyrant, from Israel’s heritage, setting up a throne, whose sway should spread to the uttermost parts of the earth, displacing even the deep-rooted hold of Roman power. What then, would be the fate