Mark 13:2 --> In a dramatic point of prophecy in this verse, Jesus foretells the destruction of the second temple. He says to His disciples, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” So not only does Jesus foretell the destruction of the temple, He predicts the extent and totality of the destruction as well. The buildings He was likely gesturing toward wouldn’t just be destroyed, they would be taken completely apart, with their basic building blocks scattered.
Jesus’ prediction came true within a single generation when Rome fulfilled this prophecy, burning and then demolishing the entire city and all of its buildings.
However, it should be noted that today, in Jerusalem, a centerpiece of the Jewish faith and a major tourist attraction, the Western Wall, still stands. The Western Wall, or the Wailing Wall as it’s also known, is the remaining Western wall from the mount of the second Temple. So this begs the question, if Jesus foretold the complete destruction of the buildings in the Temple, and the Western Wall is still standing, what’s going on? Was Jesus’ prophecy inaccurate? Should we accept His prophecy as being mostly accurate and move on? Is the prophecy yet to be completely fulfilled? Do we have the wrong location of where the second temple actually stood?
I believe that the answer is really quite simple. Jesus’ prophecy was completely and accurately fulfilled in 70 AD when the second temple was destroyed. In order to recognize that, we need to look at the specifics of what He said. In Mark 13:2, Jesus was responding to the marveling of one of His disciples about the buildings of the Temple. Let’s look again at His exact words. He said, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” When Jesus said this, He and His disciples were in the temple area. Jesus was speaking about the buildings they could see. The fact of the matter is, the Western Wall would not have been visible from their location, nor was it the wall of any of the buildings in Jerusalem. The Western Wall was a retaining wall that was used to hold up and reinforce the temple. It was part of the temple mount, not the temple itself. As such, it would not have been in view when Jesus said the buildings in view would be destroyed, nor would it have qualified as one of the buildings anyway.
Given the above, it’s clear that Jesus was dead-on accurate as usual in His prophecy. His words were fulfilled to the letter. The buildings in view were completely taken apart by the Romans, stone by stone, and a single retaining wall that would have been under them when Jesus spoke these words is all that is left to physically remind us of the greatness that was the second temple.
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