Daughters of God

Women at the Cross

This chapter is based on Luke 23:27-31; Mark 15:40-47.

When Jesus was thought to be dying beneath the burden of the cross, many women, who, though not believers in Christ, were touched with pity for His sufferings, broke forth into a mournful wailing. When Jesus revived, He looked upon them with tender compassion. He knew they were not lamenting Him because He was a teacher sent from God, but from motives of common humanity. He looked upon the weeping women and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, but weep not for me, but for yourselves, and for your children.” DG 67.2

Jesus did not despise their tears, but the sympathy which they expressed wakened a deeper chord of sympathy in His own heart for them. He forgot His own grief in contemplating the future fate of Jerusalem. Only a short time ago the people had cried out, “His blood be on us and on our children.” How blindly had they invoked the doom they were soon to realize! Many of the very women who were weeping about Jesus were to perish with their children in the siege of Jerusalem.—The Spirit of Prophecy 3:151 (1878). DG 67.3

The women of Galilee had remained with the disciple John to see what disposition would be made of the body of Jesus, which was very precious to them, although their faith in Him as the promised Messiah had perished with Him.... The women were astonished to see Joseph and Nicodemus, both honored and wealthy councilors, as anxious and interested as themselves for the proper disposal of the body of Jesus.—The Spirit of Prophecy 3:174, 175 (1878). DG 67.4