Verse 12 The children of the kingdom, the Jews themselves, the actual children of Abraham, whom God had chosen as the founder and head of his kingdom.--Cast into utter darkness. The scene of the suffering here described is plainly the future world; for it is to be inflicted at the time when true believers are to be united in happiness, with patriarchs long since departed from this stage of being. The expression in the latter part of the verse implies not only the extreme of human anguish and woe, but also an angry and desperate resentment on the part of the sufferers.--Gnashing of teeth. Men sometimes attempt to make the threatened judgments of God against the wicked appear unjust, by representing the eternal sufferings which they incur, as inflicted solely for the sins of this life. But the Scripture view of the subject is, that they who persist in sin through this season of probation, will persist in it forever. They will become forever irreconcilable in their hostility, and so, necessarily forever miserable.