“One Will Be Taken” — Taken Where? Jesus’ Answer Was About Vultures

“One Will Be Taken” — Taken Where? Jesus’ Answer Was About Vultures In Luke 17, Jesus says "the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left." His disciples ask the obvious question: "Where, Lord?" And his answer is one sentence about a body and birds: "Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together." The King James Version says eagles. A modern translation says vultures. So what was Jesus telling them? In this video we read that one sentence slowly, word by word. We start with the two stories Jesus tells right before it: Noah, where the one who remained was saved, and Lot, where the ones taken by the hand were saved. We look at the Greek words behind "taken" and "left": the verb for "taken" is the same one Jesus uses in "I will come again, and receive you unto myself," and the verb for "left" is the same one used for "forgive" in the Lord's Prayer. We compare Luke's "body" with Matthew's "carcase," find the verb behind the word "synagogue," and see why one Greek word can mean eagle or vulture, a saying as old as the book of Job: "where the slain are, there is she." Then we follow four answers that readers have given to the disciples' question. The Roman eagles: the standard at the head of every legion, the golden eagle Herod set over the great gate of the temple, and the Roman standards set at the temple's eastern gate when it burned. The saints gathering to Christ, as John Chrysostom, the Geneva Bible notes and Matthew Poole read it. Birds over the slain as a sign of judgment, from Deuteronomy and Hosea to Revelation 19, which uses the same Greek verb. And a proverb that refuses to give a place at all. We separate what the text says from how it has been interpreted. Subscribe to the channel for more of the verses you already know, explained from the text itself, with the sources below. Turn on notifications so you don't miss the next one. And tell us in the comments: when Jesus says one will be taken, do you think that person is rescued, or judged? Main sources The Holy Bible, King James Version: Genesis 7:1, 7:16, 7:23; 19:15-17, 19:26; Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 28:26, 28:49; 32:11; 1 Samuel 17:46; Job 39:27-30; Isaiah 40:31; Jeremiah 7:33; Ezekiel 39:17; Hosea 8:1; Habakkuk 1:8; Matthew 17:1; 24:26-41; Luke 5:1; 11:4; 17:11-37; 21:20; John 11:48; 14:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1; Revelation 12:14; 19:17. World English Bible: Luke 17:34-37. New American Standard Bible: Matthew 24:28. Greek New Testament, Textus Receptus: Matthew 17 and 24; Luke 11:4 and 17; John 14:3; Revelation 19:17. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance; Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon; Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon. John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible; Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers; The Pulpit Commentary (with its quotation of Godet); Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Matthew Poole's Commentary; the Geneva Bible notes; Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary; Meyer's NT Commentary; The Expositor's Greek Testament; Vincent's Word Studies (with its note on Aristotle); Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 76 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers). Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War 3.6.2 and 6.6.1; Antiquities of the Jews 17.6 (translated by William Whiston). Background dates (the commentators, the Revised Version, the siege of Jerusalem in the year 70): standard reference summaries. Visual credits Archive photos (Wikimedia Commons): "Eurasian griffon vulture flying over nature reserve Uvac, Serbia" — Ivanbuki, CC BY-SA 4.0 "Griffon vulture, Parc naturel régional des Baronnies provençales" — Scarabinol, CC BY 4.0 "Aquila in bronzo, I-II sec dc" — Sailko, CC BY 3.0 "Insegna legionaria con aquila, da amiternum" — Sailko, CC BY 3.0 "SaltPillarDeadSea" — Disdero, CC BY-SA 2.5 "Mount Sodom, Dead Sea Outlook, Israel 06" — Hoshvilim, CC BY-SA 4.0 "A natural landscape of plains flooded with rainwater under the sky in the Zamzam area, El Fasher" — Mutasim suksuk, CC BY 4.0 "Cloudy sky with sunlight peeking through clouds in mumbai" — Capturedmumbai, CC BY-SA 4.0 Other archive images: public domain or CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Stock photos and footage: Pexels and Pixabay. The narration voice and most of the images are AI-generated. AI images are conceptual reconstructions, not historical records. Thumbnail: AI-generated illustration. #Bible #Jesus #BibleStudy #Luke17 #Matthew24 #WhatTheBibleReallyMeans