Mat 24:17-18 | Barnes | STEP | Verse 17. Him which is on the housetop . The roofs of the houses in eastern countries were made flat, so that they were favourable places for walking and retirement. . The meaning here is, that he who should be on the house-top when this calamity came upon the city, should flee without delay ; he should not even take time to secure any article of apparel from his house. So sudden would be the calamity, that by doing it he would endanger his life.

Matthew 24:17-18

Verse 17. Him which is on the housetop. The roofs of the houses in eastern countries were made flat, so that they were favourable places for walking and retirement. Mt 9:2. The meaning here is, that he who should be on the house-top when this calamity came upon the city, should flee without delay; he should not even take time to secure any article of apparel from his house. So sudden would be the calamity, that by doing it he would endanger his life. Verse 18. Return back to take his clothes. His clothes which, in working, he had laid aside; or which in fleeing he should throw off as an incumbrance. Clothes here means the outer garment, commonly laid aside when men worked, or ran. Mt 5:40.

These directions were followed. It is said that the Christians, warned by these predictions, fled from the city to Pella, and other places beyond Jordan; so that there is not evidence that a single Christian perished in Jerusalem. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., lib. 3, ch. 6