Earlier Scripture repeatedly terms Jerusalem the “holy city” (Nehemiah 11:1, Nehemiah 11:18; Isaiah 52:1; Matthew 4:5; Matthew 27:53). The city was termed “holy,” of course, because this is the place where the Lord God dwelt with his people in the temple (Psalm 2:6; Psalm 24:3). But with Jerusalem’s rejection of the Saviour as displayed in their crucifying him, the city no longer had the right to that honoured name. The term now rightly describes the church, the dwelling place of God in the Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21–22). Those Gentiles in their hostility to the gospel trample the church underfoot.
2 but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.