Matthew · Chapter 27

V. 1. In the morning-As the sanhedrim used to meet in one of the courts of the temple, which was never opened in the night, they were forced to stay till the morning before they could proceed regularly, in the resolution they had taken to put him to death. Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66; 23:1; John 18:28.

Verse 1. When the morning was come] As soon as it was light-took counsel against Jesus. They had begun this counsel the preceding evening, see Matthew 26:59. But as it was contrary to all forms of law to proceed against a person’s life by night, they seem to have separated for a few hours, and then, at the break of day, came together again, pretending to conduct the business according to the forms of law.

To put him to death] They had already determined his death, and pronounced the sentence of death on him; Matthew 26:66. And now they assemble under the pretence of reconsidering the evidence, and deliberating on it, to give the greater appearance of justice to their conduct. They wished to make it appear that “they had taken ample time to consider of it, and, from the fullest conviction, by the most satisfactory and conclusive evidence, they had now delivered him into the hands of the Romans, to meet that death to which they had adjudged him.”

Verses 1, 2. When the morning was come — As soon as the day dawned, the chief priests and elders took counsel against Jesus, &c. — It seems they separated for the space of an hour or two, and at daybreak came together again to consult what method they should take to carry into execution the sentence they had passed against him, namely, to put him to death for the pretended crime of blasphemy. And now they resolved to carry him before Pilate the governor, loaded with chains, that he likewise might give sentence against him. For, indeed, otherwise they could not accomplish their purpose; the power of life and death being now taken out of their hands. The Roman governors of Judea, it must be observed, resided commonly at Cesarea, and there was only an inferior officer in Jerusalem, with a single legion to keep the peace of the city. At the great festivals, however, they came up to prevent or suppress tumults, and to administer justice; for the governors of provinces frequently visited the principal towns under their jurisdiction on this latter account. Accordingly it is insinuated, John 18:39, that Pilate was wont to give judgment in Jerusalem at the passovers. Being come, therefore, as usual, a while before the feast, Pilate heard of the stir that was among the rulers, and was informed, perhaps by Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, of the character of the person on whose account it was made; and that the chief priests were actuated by envy in their proceedings against him, verse 18.

§ 135. — JESUS TAKEN BEFORE PILATE, 1-14.

1. The morning — Of Friday, the day of the crucifixion. All the chief priests and elders of the people — The Sanhedrim. See note on chap. 26:3.

1 Christ is delivered bound to Pilate. 3 Judas hangeth himself. 19 Pilate, admonished of his wife, 24 washeth his hands: 26 and looseth Barabbas. 29 Christ is crowned with thorns, 34 crucified, 40 reviled, 50 dieth, and is buried: 66 his sepulchre is sealed, and watched.

CHAPTER 27. Verse 1. Took counsel to put him to death. — They had already pronounced him “guilty of death,” and now they take counsel to carry the sentence into effect. In this two things were to be effected: one was to obtain the confirmation of their sentence from Pilate; the other, so to mix up charges of seditious designs against the Roman power with the pretended offence against their religion, as to engage the Roman governor to take his execution upon himself, and to carry it into effect in the Roman mode by crucifixion. See note on Matthew 26:66.

V. 2. Having bound him-They had bound him when he was first apprehended. But they did it now afresh, to secure him from any danger of an escape, as he passed through the streets of Jerusalem.

Verse 2. They-delivered him to Pontius Pilate] The Sanhedrin had the power of life and death in their own hands in every thing that concerned religion; but as they had not evidence to put Christ to death because of false doctrine, they wished to give countenance to their conduct by bringing in the civil power, and therefore they delivered him up to Pilate as one who aspired to regal dignities, and whom he must put to death, if he professed to be Cæsar’s friend. Pontius Pilate governed Judea ten years under the Emperor Tiberius; but, having exercised great cruelties against the Samaritans, they complained of him to the emperor, in consequence of which he was deposed, and sent in exile to Vienna, in Dauphiny, where he killed himself two years after.

Verses 1, 2. When the morning was come — As soon as the day dawned, the chief priests and elders took counsel against Jesus, &c. — It seems they separated for the space of an hour or two, and at daybreak came together again to consult what method they should take to carry into execution the sentence they had passed against him, namely, to put him to death for the pretended crime of blasphemy. And now they resolved to carry him before Pilate the governor, loaded with chains, that he likewise might give sentence against him. For, indeed, otherwise they could not accomplish their purpose; the power of life and death being now taken out of their hands. The Roman governors of Judea, it must be observed, resided commonly at Cesarea, and there was only an inferior officer in Jerusalem, with a single legion to keep the peace of the city. At the great festivals, however, they came up to prevent or suppress tumults, and to administer justice; for the governors of provinces frequently visited the principal towns under their jurisdiction on this latter account. Accordingly it is insinuated, John 18:39, that Pilate was wont to give judgment in Jerusalem at the passovers. Being come, therefore, as usual, a while before the feast, Pilate heard of the stir that was among the rulers, and was informed, perhaps by Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, of the character of the person on whose account it was made; and that the chief priests were actuated by envy in their proceedings against him, verse 18.

2. And when they had bound him — Doubtless while the keepers of our Lord had been waiting for the morning they had relaxed the severity of his bonds. They now rebind him, and lead him forth. The entire Sanhedrim present seem to have gone in a body with their prisoner to the palace of Pilate. Pontius Pilate the governor — Pilate was at this time procurator of Judea, an office rather of a pecuniary nature, yet, in the irregularities of the times, extended over every department of government. He was the sixth governor of Palestine after the cessation of the royalty. He was noted for his severity, cruelty, and despotic will. On one occasion, contrary to the practice of the Roman governors, who respected as far as possible the religious peculiarities of subject provinces, he introduced the Roman standards into the city with the images of the emperor upon them, esteemed idolatrous by the Jews. When the Jews remonstrated he threatened to massacre them. Upon this they threw themselves unanimously on the ground, protesting that they would rather die than consent to the profanation; upon which the Roman governor relented. On another occasion, when the Jews seditiously opposed his expending the sacred money upon the city water-works, he sent a body of soldiers with concealed arms to fall upon them unawares, who committed a much greater massacre than he intended. Saint Luke refers to a massacre by him, committed at a passover, when he mingled the blood of certain Galileans with the sacrifices they were performing. A similar cruelty in the massacre of certain Samaritans, after they had submitted, proved the ruin of Pilate. The Samaritan senate sent a complaint of his cruelty to Vitellius, president of Syria, by whom Pilate was ordered to Rome, to answer to the charge before the emperor Tiberius. Before he arrived Tiberius died; but Pilate was banished by his successor Caligula to Vienne in Gaul, where, in mortification for his disgrace, he committed suicide.

In his conduct at the trial of our Saviour, Pilate appears like a true Roman politician. He is on the side of justice, in regard to which his perceptions are acute and his procedures exact and just, so far as no passion or self-interest of his own interfered. He is versatile and inventive of expedients to rescue Jesus from an unjust death, until the Jews make him feel that such a course endangers his standing as Cesar’s friend. He examines Jesus, and pronounces him innocent; he expostulates with the Jews; he endeavours to release him instead of Barabbas; he sends him to Herod; he presents him as an object of sympathy, to move the Jews to pity; he proposes to chastise and set him free, and finally, he washes his hands in token of irresponsibility of Jesus’s death. It was only to save himself from the danger of what he finally suffered, an arraignment before Cesar for maladministration, that he yielded the point. But to save his own life or interests, the life of a single man or of any number of men would have been readily sacrificed.

Verse 2. Pontius Pilate the governor. — Pilate has here the title of hgemwn, which properly belonged to the proconsular or proprætorian governors of the Roman provinces; because, though only procurator of Judea, which was an inferior dignity, he had the proconsular power of life and death, which was not unusual in the lesser provinces. Hence, although Josephus calls him epitropov, or procurator, he sometimes gives him the higher title also, and thus confirms the accuracy of the evangelist.

V. 3. Then Judas seeing that he was condemned-Which probably he thought Christ would have prevented by a miracle.

Verse 3. Judas-when he saw that he was condemned, repented] There is much of the wisdom and goodness of God to be seen in this part of Judas’s conduct. Had our Lord been condemned to death on the evidence of one of his own disciples, it would have furnished infidels with a strong argument against Christ and the Christian religion. “One of his own disciples, knowing the whole imposture, declared it to the Jewish rulers, in consequence of which he was put to death as an impostor and deceiver.” But the traitor, being stung with remorse, came and acknowledged his crime, and solemnly declared the innocence of his Master, threw back the money which they gave him to induce him to do this villainous act; and, to establish the evidence which he now gave against them and himself, in behalf of the innocence of Christ, hanged himself, or died through excessive grief and contrition. Thus the character of Christ was rescued from all reproach; infidelity deprived of the power to cry “imposture!” and the Jewish rulers overwhelmed with eternal infamy. If it should ever be said, “One who knew him best delivered him up as an impostor,”-to this it may be immediately answered, “The same person, struck with remorse, came and declared his own guilt, and Christ’s innocence; accused and convicted the Jewish rulers, in the open council, of having hired him to do this iniquitous action, threw them back the bribe they had given him, and then hanged himself through distress and despair, concluding his iniquity in this business was too great to be forgiven.” Let him who chooses, after this plenary evidence to the innocence of Christ, continue the objection, and cry out imposture! take heed that he go not and do LIKEWISE. Caiaphas, Pilate, and Judas have done so already, and I have known several, who have called Christ an impostor, who have cut their own throats, shot, drowned, or hanged themselves. God is a jealous God, and highly resents every thing that is done and said against that eternal truth that came to man through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, there is one class of Deists, viz. those who are vicious in their lives, and virulent in their opposition to Christianity, who generally bring themselves to an untimely end.

Verses 3-5. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned — Which probably he thought Christ would have prevented by a miracle; repented himself — Of the fatal bargain he had made, and the great guilt he had thereby contracted; and being pierced with the deepest remorse and agony of conscience on that account; to make some reparation, if possible, for the injury he had done, he came and confessed his sin openly before the chief priests, scribes, and elders, bringing again the money with which they had hired him to commit it, and earnestly begging that they would take it back. It seems he thought this the most public testimony he could give of his Master’s innocence, and of his own repentance. I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood: and they said, What is that to us? — They answer with the steady coolness of persons who knew no shame or remorse for their wickedness. See thou to that — But was it nothing to them that they had thirsted after this innocent blood, and hired Judas to betray it, and had now condemned it to be shed unjustly? Was this nothing to them? Ought it not to have given a check to the violence of the prosecution; a warning to take heed what they did to this just man? Thus do fools make a mock at sin, as if no harm were done, no hazard run by the commission of the greatest wickedness. Thus light did these Jewish priests and elders make of shedding innocent blood! When Judas found that he could not prevent the dreadful effects of his traitorous conduct, “his conscience, being enraged, lashed him more furiously than before, suggesting thoughts which by turns made the deepest wounds in his soul. His Master’s innocence and benevolence, the usefulness of his life, the favours he had received from him, with many other considerations crowding into his mind, racked him to such a degree, that his torment became intolerable; he was as if he had been in the suburbs of hell. Wherefore, unable to sustain the misery of those agonizing passions and reflections, he threw down the wages of his iniquity, (which the chief priests and elders would not take back,) in the temple — Probably in the treasury, before the Levite porters and others who happened to be there, and then went away in despair, and hanged himself — Making such an end of a wicked life as one might expect those to make into whom Satan enters, and who are given up to the love of money, for which this wretch betrayed his master, friend, and Saviour, and cast away his own soul.” See Matthew 24:24. The word aphgxato, here rendered, he hanged himself, plainly denotes strangling, but does not say whether by hanging or otherwise. The term used in those places where hanging is mentioned is different from this. Our translation follows the Vulgate, laqueo se suspendit. The Syriac renders it, he strangled himself. “St. Peter seems to give rather a different account, Acts 1:18. Falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And to reconcile the two passages, Tobit 3:10 is adduced to prove that the word aphgxato in Matthew may signify suffocation with grief in consequence of which a man’s bowels may gush out; and instances are cited of persons who are supposed to have died in this manner. But as these instances may be otherwise understood, it is more natural to suppose that Judas hanged himself on some tree growing out of a precipice; and that the branch breaking, or the knot of the handkerchief, or whatever else he hanged himself with, opening, he fell down headlong, and dashed himself to pieces, so that his bowels gushed out. Peter’s phrase, elakhse mesov, he burst asunder, favours this conjecture.” — Macknight. Thus perished Judas Iscariot the traitor, a miserable example of the fatal influence of covetousness, and a standing monument of the divine vengeance, proper to deter future generations from acting contrary to conscience, through the love of the world. Some have said, that he sinned more in despairing of the mercy of God than in betraying his Master, but it is probable his sin was in its own nature unpardonable; at least it appeared so to him; at which we cannot wonder, if he noticed, as it is probable he did, the words uttered by Christ at his last supper with his disciples, Wo to that man, &c. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Doubtless the terrors of the Almighty set themselves in array against him; and all the threatenings and curses written in God’s book entered his soul, as water may into the bowels, or oil insinuate itself into the bones, as was foretold concerning him, Psalm 109:18, 19, and drove him to this desperate shift for the escaping of a hell within, to leap into a hell before him, which was but the perfection and perpetuity of the horror and despair felt in his soul. Thus we see in him, that even sorrow for sin, if it be not according to God, worketh death, even the worst kind of death, death eternal, while godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation. And as we saw the latter of these kinds of sorrow exemplified before in the story of Peter, so we see the former exhibited here in this of Judas.

§ 139. — REPENTANCE AND DEATH OF JUDAS, 3-10.

Matthew now interrupts his narrative of the fate of the Saviour to give his final account of Judas. It hardly seems probable that Judas would give up all for lost before the final sentence and surrender of Jesus by Pilate.

3. Saw that he was condemned — The actual perception of the result, and the clear consciousness of the enormity of the crime, produced in Judas’s mind a revulsion. A conscious feeling also that he had sinned beyond mercy, seems to have possessed his soul. He felt that his trifling gains could never be used; and, with a desperate desire to know the worst of his case, he rushed through the gate of a voluntary death into the presence of his final Judge. Repented himself — Such a repentance as brings no true reformation. It was guilt starting back from the consequence of its doings. There is much repentance of this kind in the world of the lost.

Verses 3-8. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned, &c. — This circumstance brought even Judas to repentance, that is, it awakened the horror of his conscience that he had been the means of murdering a person who he knew was guiltless of any crime. He had obtained the cursed pelf, the hope of which had blinded his judgment and stifled the struggles of his better feelings; and, the infatuating prize being in possession, the passion had subsided, reason had resumed her functions, the whole extent of his baseness and guilt flashed upon his soul, with the fears of the righteous retribution which awaited him. He repented himself, indeed; he would probably have parted with the world for the moment, avaricious as he was, if the foul, the damning deed could have been undone; but the result proved that, strong and agonizing as this feeling was, it was not “godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation;” it was the repentance of the damned at the day of judgment, when the gate of mercy is for ever shut; for the wo was upon him, the wo of Him whom he had basely betrayed. Still, before he was permitted to execute upon himself that last act which was to seal his eternal destiny, his remorse was so overruled as to force from even him a public declaration of the blameless character of the Master of whom he had been so unworthy and false a disciple; a testimony which was to be perpetuated by the purchase of a field and the imposition of a new name upon it, arising out of the circumstance of its purchase, which should render it a public monument for time to come both of the truth of the fact, and the evidence it affords to the innocency of our Lord and the malice of his unjust judges. The whole action is most vividly represented, and the more impressively so from the absence of all emotion in the evangelical narrative in this as well as in all other scenes, even those the most moving. He comes to the chief priests and elders, assembled in council, in the chamber appointed for the sittings of that court, in a part of the temple, whither they seem to have adjourned from the house of Caiaphas; he brings with him the thirty pieces of silver, wrung from the grasp of his covetousness by his agonized conscience; he declares to his employers that he had sinned, that he had betrayed innocent blood; and when they refused to take back the money, he casts it down in the temple, as though his possession of it only heightened his torment; departs, and hangs himself, unable to sustain life and bear the light of offended Heaven! The cold villany of the chief priests and elders, the leading magistrates and judges of the Jewish nation, stands in singular contrast to this; but is equally forcible as a testimony to the unjust manner in which our Lord had been treated at his trial. What is that to us? see thou to that: as though they were not equally guilty who used a wicked instrument to accomplish an unjust purpose as the instrument himself; and as though they were not bound to receive this evidence of a repenting traitor in his favour, and give it its due weight in their representation of the case to the Roman governor. Thus the judges, by proclaiming their own guilt, demonstrated by their sanguinary obduracy, as fully as Judas by his remorse, the triumphant innocence of our blessed Lord of every thing which could render him, according to their unjust sentence, “guilty of death.” But the evidence does not close here, and the reader will mark what follows.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful, &c. — The money cast away by Judas is now to be disposed of, and they determined that it could not lawfully be put into the treasury, korbanan, the place where the offerings for the service of the temple were put; thus verifying our Lord’s words,” Straining out the gnat, and swallowing a camel,” purchasing innocent blood with the money, and yet scrupling to deposit it in a sacred place: but thus tacitly and unintentionally declaring that it had been the wages of iniquity, and was itself polluted by the unholy purpose to which it had been appropriated. This scruple rested on no written law; but they probably reasoned from analogy: if “the hire of a harlot,” Deuteronomy 23:18, was not to be offered to God in pursuance of a vow; how much more the money by which a life had been purchased, and, they might have added, by which spotless innocence had been betrayed and murdered! After taking counsel on this point, they agreed, under an overruling Providence, to purchase “the potter’s field,” so called, probably because potters’ earth had been dug out of it; and being now exhausted of that material, and unfit for any agriculture, its value was small, and it was therefore purchased for the mean price of “thirty pieces of silver.” From this time the field was called Aceldama, the field of blood; not, we may well conjecture, from the imposition of that name upon it by the chief priests, as by popular and habitual designation. Thus it remained marked with this new and expressive name, both as a proof of the fact, if it should be hereafter questioned, and a memorial of that remorse of Judas, for his treachery, which afforded so striking a proof of the guiltlessness of his betrayed Master. “The ordering of Divine Providence in these events was most signal, and not less in the overruled purpose of the Jewish sanhedrim in the use to which they applied it; for by making it a burial place it was the longer preserved, by the respect paid to places appropriated to such purposes, from obliteration, and might probably remain marked by its tombs, the tombs of strangers, long after the capture of Jerusalem. At all events, it remained till after the publication of St. Matthew’s gospel in Judea; and as he could not relate a fact as notorious to all the inhabitants without being contradicted, if not truly stated, so the fact being established, the history with which it stood connected was confirmed by a durable and visible monument. To thee publicity of the fact Peter appeals, Acts 1:19. And it was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Aceldama, that is to say, “the field of blood.” Jerome says that it was to be seen in his days in Ælia, (the name of the city built upon the site of Jerusalem,) on the south side of Mount Sion.

The mode in which Judas committed suicide has exercised the ingenuity of critics, ancient and modern. This has arisen from a supposed discrepancy between the account of Matthew and that of Peter in Acts 1:18, who says nothing of hanging, but states that, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Suicer’s Thesaurus shows the different opinions of the fathers. Among the moderns some suppose he died of suffocation from grief; others, from rage and remorse; and that after death his body swelled and burst. Campbell translates, “he went away and strangled himself,” leaving the mode undetermined; Wakefield, “was choked with grief,” following Hammond and still older commentators. All, however, acknowledge that the word used by Matthew commonly means to hang one’s self; of which classical examples are abundant, as also examples from the Septuagint. The ancient versions too give the same sense; nor is there the least inconsistency between the statement of the evangelist and St. Peter, in Acts 1:18; and no necessity therefore exists to strain the meaning of the passage of the former, apelqwn aphgxato, he went and hanged himself, into any unusual sense. St. Matthew relates the fact and mode of his suicide generally; St. Peter, to mark more strongly the infliction of the Divine vengeance upon so wretched a criminal, dwells upon these additional circumstances in his death, which so strikingly impressed it with the character of a supernatural retribution. He hanged himself; but, prhnhv genomenov, becoming prostrate, that is, falling headlong or rather upon his face, — either after death, or during the struggles of death, being violently cast down from the place where he was hanging by the hand of avenging Heaven, in order to make him a public example, — he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out. That something preternatural is implied in this account, appears evident from the description of his body: for this effect could not follow from the mere breaking of the rope and his falling upon the ground, unless he had chosen a precipice for the place of his execution, which indeed some have supposed, but without any warrant from the history, or the real import of the terms employed.

V. 4. They said, what is that to us?-How easily could they digest innocent blood! And yet they had a conscience!

It is not lawful (say they) to put it into the treasury-But very lawful to slay the innocent!

Verse 4. Innocent blood.] aima aqwon, a Hebraism, for an innocent man. But instead of aqwon, innocent, two ancient MSS., Syriac, Vulgate, Sahidic, Armenian, and all the Itala; Origen, Cyprian, Lucifer, Ambrose, Leo, read dikaion, righteous, or just.

What is that to us?] What is it?-A great deal. You should immediately go and reverse the sentence you have pronounced, and liberate the innocent person. But this would have been justice, and that would have been a stranger at their tribunal.

Verses 3-5. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned — Which probably he thought Christ would have prevented by a miracle; repented himself — Of the fatal bargain he had made, and the great guilt he had thereby contracted; and being pierced with the deepest remorse and agony of conscience on that account; to make some reparation, if possible, for the injury he had done, he came and confessed his sin openly before the chief priests, scribes, and elders, bringing again the money with which they had hired him to commit it, and earnestly begging that they would take it back. It seems he thought this the most public testimony he could give of his Master’s innocence, and of his own repentance. I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood: and they said, What is that to us? — They answer with the steady coolness of persons who knew no shame or remorse for their wickedness. See thou to that — But was it nothing to them that they had thirsted after this innocent blood, and hired Judas to betray it, and had now condemned it to be shed unjustly? Was this nothing to them? Ought it not to have given a check to the violence of the prosecution; a warning to take heed what they did to this just man? Thus do fools make a mock at sin, as if no harm were done, no hazard run by the commission of the greatest wickedness. Thus light did these Jewish priests and elders make of shedding innocent blood! When Judas found that he could not prevent the dreadful effects of his traitorous conduct, “his conscience, being enraged, lashed him more furiously than before, suggesting thoughts which by turns made the deepest wounds in his soul. His Master’s innocence and benevolence, the usefulness of his life, the favours he had received from him, with many other considerations crowding into his mind, racked him to such a degree, that his torment became intolerable; he was as if he had been in the suburbs of hell. Wherefore, unable to sustain the misery of those agonizing passions and reflections, he threw down the wages of his iniquity, (which the chief priests and elders would not take back,) in the temple — Probably in the treasury, before the Levite porters and others who happened to be there, and then went away in despair, and hanged himself — Making such an end of a wicked life as one might expect those to make into whom Satan enters, and who are given up to the love of money, for which this wretch betrayed his master, friend, and Saviour, and cast away his own soul.” See Matthew 24:24. The word aphgxato, here rendered, he hanged himself, plainly denotes strangling, but does not say whether by hanging or otherwise. The term used in those places where hanging is mentioned is different from this. Our translation follows the Vulgate, laqueo se suspendit. The Syriac renders it, he strangled himself. “St. Peter seems to give rather a different account, Acts 1:18. Falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And to reconcile the two passages, Tobit 3:10 is adduced to prove that the word aphgxato in Matthew may signify suffocation with grief in consequence of which a man’s bowels may gush out; and instances are cited of persons who are supposed to have died in this manner. But as these instances may be otherwise understood, it is more natural to suppose that Judas hanged himself on some tree growing out of a precipice; and that the branch breaking, or the knot of the handkerchief, or whatever else he hanged himself with, opening, he fell down headlong, and dashed himself to pieces, so that his bowels gushed out. Peter’s phrase, elakhse mesov, he burst asunder, favours this conjecture.” — Macknight. Thus perished Judas Iscariot the traitor, a miserable example of the fatal influence of covetousness, and a standing monument of the divine vengeance, proper to deter future generations from acting contrary to conscience, through the love of the world. Some have said, that he sinned more in despairing of the mercy of God than in betraying his Master, but it is probable his sin was in its own nature unpardonable; at least it appeared so to him; at which we cannot wonder, if he noticed, as it is probable he did, the words uttered by Christ at his last supper with his disciples, Wo to that man, &c. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Doubtless the terrors of the Almighty set themselves in array against him; and all the threatenings and curses written in God’s book entered his soul, as water may into the bowels, or oil insinuate itself into the bones, as was foretold concerning him, Psalm 109:18, 19, and drove him to this desperate shift for the escaping of a hell within, to leap into a hell before him, which was but the perfection and perpetuity of the horror and despair felt in his soul. Thus we see in him, that even sorrow for sin, if it be not according to God, worketh death, even the worst kind of death, death eternal, while godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation. And as we saw the latter of these kinds of sorrow exemplified before in the story of Peter, so we see the former exhibited here in this of Judas.

4. What is that to us? — So unsympathizing are Satan and his agents to the victims they have ruined. He probably stood at the railing between the court of Israel and the court of the priests. (See Temple Plan.) The priests in their own court may have been arranging matters for the passover festivals. Judas flung the money probably over the railing upon the pavement at the feet of the priests.

Verses 3-8. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned, &c. — This circumstance brought even Judas to repentance, that is, it awakened the horror of his conscience that he had been the means of murdering a person who he knew was guiltless of any crime. He had obtained the cursed pelf, the hope of which had blinded his judgment and stifled the struggles of his better feelings; and, the infatuating prize being in possession, the passion had subsided, reason had resumed her functions, the whole extent of his baseness and guilt flashed upon his soul, with the fears of the righteous retribution which awaited him. He repented himself, indeed; he would probably have parted with the world for the moment, avaricious as he was, if the foul, the damning deed could have been undone; but the result proved that, strong and agonizing as this feeling was, it was not “godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation;” it was the repentance of the damned at the day of judgment, when the gate of mercy is for ever shut; for the wo was upon him, the wo of Him whom he had basely betrayed. Still, before he was permitted to execute upon himself that last act which was to seal his eternal destiny, his remorse was so overruled as to force from even him a public declaration of the blameless character of the Master of whom he had been so unworthy and false a disciple; a testimony which was to be perpetuated by the purchase of a field and the imposition of a new name upon it, arising out of the circumstance of its purchase, which should render it a public monument for time to come both of the truth of the fact, and the evidence it affords to the innocency of our Lord and the malice of his unjust judges. The whole action is most vividly represented, and the more impressively so from the absence of all emotion in the evangelical narrative in this as well as in all other scenes, even those the most moving. He comes to the chief priests and elders, assembled in council, in the chamber appointed for the sittings of that court, in a part of the temple, whither they seem to have adjourned from the house of Caiaphas; he brings with him the thirty pieces of silver, wrung from the grasp of his covetousness by his agonized conscience; he declares to his employers that he had sinned, that he had betrayed innocent blood; and when they refused to take back the money, he casts it down in the temple, as though his possession of it only heightened his torment; departs, and hangs himself, unable to sustain life and bear the light of offended Heaven! The cold villany of the chief priests and elders, the leading magistrates and judges of the Jewish nation, stands in singular contrast to this; but is equally forcible as a testimony to the unjust manner in which our Lord had been treated at his trial. What is that to us? see thou to that: as though they were not equally guilty who used a wicked instrument to accomplish an unjust purpose as the instrument himself; and as though they were not bound to receive this evidence of a repenting traitor in his favour, and give it its due weight in their representation of the case to the Roman governor. Thus the judges, by proclaiming their own guilt, demonstrated by their sanguinary obduracy, as fully as Judas by his remorse, the triumphant innocence of our blessed Lord of every thing which could render him, according to their unjust sentence, “guilty of death.” But the evidence does not close here, and the reader will mark what follows.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful, &c. — The money cast away by Judas is now to be disposed of, and they determined that it could not lawfully be put into the treasury, korbanan, the place where the offerings for the service of the temple were put; thus verifying our Lord’s words,” Straining out the gnat, and swallowing a camel,” purchasing innocent blood with the money, and yet scrupling to deposit it in a sacred place: but thus tacitly and unintentionally declaring that it had been the wages of iniquity, and was itself polluted by the unholy purpose to which it had been appropriated. This scruple rested on no written law; but they probably reasoned from analogy: if “the hire of a harlot,” Deuteronomy 23:18, was not to be offered to God in pursuance of a vow; how much more the money by which a life had been purchased, and, they might have added, by which spotless innocence had been betrayed and murdered! After taking counsel on this point, they agreed, under an overruling Providence, to purchase “the potter’s field,” so called, probably because potters’ earth had been dug out of it; and being now exhausted of that material, and unfit for any agriculture, its value was small, and it was therefore purchased for the mean price of “thirty pieces of silver.” From this time the field was called Aceldama, the field of blood; not, we may well conjecture, from the imposition of that name upon it by the chief priests, as by popular and habitual designation. Thus it remained marked with this new and expressive name, both as a proof of the fact, if it should be hereafter questioned, and a memorial of that remorse of Judas, for his treachery, which afforded so striking a proof of the guiltlessness of his betrayed Master. “The ordering of Divine Providence in these events was most signal, and not less in the overruled purpose of the Jewish sanhedrim in the use to which they applied it; for by making it a burial place it was the longer preserved, by the respect paid to places appropriated to such purposes, from obliteration, and might probably remain marked by its tombs, the tombs of strangers, long after the capture of Jerusalem. At all events, it remained till after the publication of St. Matthew’s gospel in Judea; and as he could not relate a fact as notorious to all the inhabitants without being contradicted, if not truly stated, so the fact being established, the history with which it stood connected was confirmed by a durable and visible monument. To thee publicity of the fact Peter appeals, Acts 1:19. And it was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Aceldama, that is to say, “the field of blood.” Jerome says that it was to be seen in his days in Ælia, (the name of the city built upon the site of Jerusalem,) on the south side of Mount Sion.

The mode in which Judas committed suicide has exercised the ingenuity of critics, ancient and modern. This has arisen from a supposed discrepancy between the account of Matthew and that of Peter in Acts 1:18, who says nothing of hanging, but states that, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Suicer’s Thesaurus shows the different opinions of the fathers. Among the moderns some suppose he died of suffocation from grief; others, from rage and remorse; and that after death his body swelled and burst. Campbell translates, “he went away and strangled himself,” leaving the mode undetermined; Wakefield, “was choked with grief,” following Hammond and still older commentators. All, however, acknowledge that the word used by Matthew commonly means to hang one’s self; of which classical examples are abundant, as also examples from the Septuagint. The ancient versions too give the same sense; nor is there the least inconsistency between the statement of the evangelist and St. Peter, in Acts 1:18; and no necessity therefore exists to strain the meaning of the passage of the former, apelqwn aphgxato, he went and hanged himself, into any unusual sense. St. Matthew relates the fact and mode of his suicide generally; St. Peter, to mark more strongly the infliction of the Divine vengeance upon so wretched a criminal, dwells upon these additional circumstances in his death, which so strikingly impressed it with the character of a supernatural retribution. He hanged himself; but, prhnhv genomenov, becoming prostrate, that is, falling headlong or rather upon his face, — either after death, or during the struggles of death, being violently cast down from the place where he was hanging by the hand of avenging Heaven, in order to make him a public example, — he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out. That something preternatural is implied in this account, appears evident from the description of his body: for this effect could not follow from the mere breaking of the rope and his falling upon the ground, unless he had chosen a precipice for the place of his execution, which indeed some have supposed, but without any warrant from the history, or the real import of the terms employed.

V. 5. In that part of the temple where the sanhedrim met.

Verse 5. In the temple] naov signifies, properly, the temple itself, into which none but the priests were permitted to enter; therefore en tw naw must signify, near the temple, by the temple door, where the boxes stood to receive the free-will offerings of the people, for the support and repairs of the sacred edifice. See this amply proved by Kypke.

Hanged himself] Or was strangled-aphgxato. Some eminent critics believe that he was only suffocated by excessive grief, and thus they think the account here given will agree with that in Acts 1:18. Mr. Wakefield supports this meaning of the word with great learning and ingenuity. I have my doubts-the old method of reconciling the two accounts appears to me quite plausible-he went and strangled himself, and the rope breaking, he fell down, and by the violence of the fall his body was bursted, and his bowels gushed out. I have thought proper, on a matter of such difficulty, to use the word strangled, as possessing a middle meaning between choking or suffocation by excessive grief, and hanging, as an act of suicide. See Clarke note on “Matthew 10:4”. Dr. Lightfoot is of opinion that the devil caught him up into the air, strangled him, and threw him down on the ground with violence, so that his body was burst, and his guts shed out! This was an ancient tradition.

Verses 3-5. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned — Which probably he thought Christ would have prevented by a miracle; repented himself — Of the fatal bargain he had made, and the great guilt he had thereby contracted; and being pierced with the deepest remorse and agony of conscience on that account; to make some reparation, if possible, for the injury he had done, he came and confessed his sin openly before the chief priests, scribes, and elders, bringing again the money with which they had hired him to commit it, and earnestly begging that they would take it back. It seems he thought this the most public testimony he could give of his Master’s innocence, and of his own repentance. I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood: and they said, What is that to us? — They answer with the steady coolness of persons who knew no shame or remorse for their wickedness. See thou to that — But was it nothing to them that they had thirsted after this innocent blood, and hired Judas to betray it, and had now condemned it to be shed unjustly? Was this nothing to them? Ought it not to have given a check to the violence of the prosecution; a warning to take heed what they did to this just man? Thus do fools make a mock at sin, as if no harm were done, no hazard run by the commission of the greatest wickedness. Thus light did these Jewish priests and elders make of shedding innocent blood! When Judas found that he could not prevent the dreadful effects of his traitorous conduct, “his conscience, being enraged, lashed him more furiously than before, suggesting thoughts which by turns made the deepest wounds in his soul. His Master’s innocence and benevolence, the usefulness of his life, the favours he had received from him, with many other considerations crowding into his mind, racked him to such a degree, that his torment became intolerable; he was as if he had been in the suburbs of hell. Wherefore, unable to sustain the misery of those agonizing passions and reflections, he threw down the wages of his iniquity, (which the chief priests and elders would not take back,) in the temple — Probably in the treasury, before the Levite porters and others who happened to be there, and then went away in despair, and hanged himself — Making such an end of a wicked life as one might expect those to make into whom Satan enters, and who are given up to the love of money, for which this wretch betrayed his master, friend, and Saviour, and cast away his own soul.” See Matthew 24:24. The word aphgxato, here rendered, he hanged himself, plainly denotes strangling, but does not say whether by hanging or otherwise. The term used in those places where hanging is mentioned is different from this. Our translation follows the Vulgate, laqueo se suspendit. The Syriac renders it, he strangled himself. “St. Peter seems to give rather a different account, Acts 1:18. Falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And to reconcile the two passages, Tobit 3:10 is adduced to prove that the word aphgxato in Matthew may signify suffocation with grief in consequence of which a man’s bowels may gush out; and instances are cited of persons who are supposed to have died in this manner. But as these instances may be otherwise understood, it is more natural to suppose that Judas hanged himself on some tree growing out of a precipice; and that the branch breaking, or the knot of the handkerchief, or whatever else he hanged himself with, opening, he fell down headlong, and dashed himself to pieces, so that his bowels gushed out. Peter’s phrase, elakhse mesov, he burst asunder, favours this conjecture.” — Macknight. Thus perished Judas Iscariot the traitor, a miserable example of the fatal influence of covetousness, and a standing monument of the divine vengeance, proper to deter future generations from acting contrary to conscience, through the love of the world. Some have said, that he sinned more in despairing of the mercy of God than in betraying his Master, but it is probable his sin was in its own nature unpardonable; at least it appeared so to him; at which we cannot wonder, if he noticed, as it is probable he did, the words uttered by Christ at his last supper with his disciples, Wo to that man, &c. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Doubtless the terrors of the Almighty set themselves in array against him; and all the threatenings and curses written in God’s book entered his soul, as water may into the bowels, or oil insinuate itself into the bones, as was foretold concerning him, Psalm 109:18, 19, and drove him to this desperate shift for the escaping of a hell within, to leap into a hell before him, which was but the perfection and perpetuity of the horror and despair felt in his soul. Thus we see in him, that even sorrow for sin, if it be not according to God, worketh death, even the worst kind of death, death eternal, while godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation. And as we saw the latter of these kinds of sorrow exemplified before in the story of Peter, so we see the former exhibited here in this of Judas.

Ver. 5. He went and hanged himself. The Vulgate reads, se suspendit, “suspended himself;” but some read, strangulatus est, “was hanged.” One thinks, and no mean critic, that the devil took him up into the air, and strangled him, and on letting him fall he was almost broken in pieces. It seems however more likely that the abdomen burst, when somebody cut him down.

5. Hanged himself — There is no discrepancy between this account and the narrative given in Acts 1:18. Judas hung himself near one of the precipices with which the environs of Jerusalem abound, and the rope breaking, perhaps intentionally on his part, he was precipitated down and dashed to pieces. On this point Prof. Hackett says: “I measured the precipitous, almost perpendicular walls in different places, and found the height to be, variously, forty, thirty-six, thirty-three, thirty, and twenty-five feet. Olive trees still grow quite near the edge of these rocks, and, no doubt, in former times they were still more numerous in the same place. A rocky pavement exists also at the bottom of the precipices; and hence, on that account, a person who should fall from above would be liable to be crushed and mangled as well as killed. The traitor may have struck in his fall upon some pointed rock and caused ‘his bowels to gush out.’“

Verses 3-8. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned, &c. — This circumstance brought even Judas to repentance, that is, it awakened the horror of his conscience that he had been the means of murdering a person who he knew was guiltless of any crime. He had obtained the cursed pelf, the hope of which had blinded his judgment and stifled the struggles of his better feelings; and, the infatuating prize being in possession, the passion had subsided, reason had resumed her functions, the whole extent of his baseness and guilt flashed upon his soul, with the fears of the righteous retribution which awaited him. He repented himself, indeed; he would probably have parted with the world for the moment, avaricious as he was, if the foul, the damning deed could have been undone; but the result proved that, strong and agonizing as this feeling was, it was not “godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation;” it was the repentance of the damned at the day of judgment, when the gate of mercy is for ever shut; for the wo was upon him, the wo of Him whom he had basely betrayed. Still, before he was permitted to execute upon himself that last act which was to seal his eternal destiny, his remorse was so overruled as to force from even him a public declaration of the blameless character of the Master of whom he had been so unworthy and false a disciple; a testimony which was to be perpetuated by the purchase of a field and the imposition of a new name upon it, arising out of the circumstance of its purchase, which should render it a public monument for time to come both of the truth of the fact, and the evidence it affords to the innocency of our Lord and the malice of his unjust judges. The whole action is most vividly represented, and the more impressively so from the absence of all emotion in the evangelical narrative in this as well as in all other scenes, even those the most moving. He comes to the chief priests and elders, assembled in council, in the chamber appointed for the sittings of that court, in a part of the temple, whither they seem to have adjourned from the house of Caiaphas; he brings with him the thirty pieces of silver, wrung from the grasp of his covetousness by his agonized conscience; he declares to his employers that he had sinned, that he had betrayed innocent blood; and when they refused to take back the money, he casts it down in the temple, as though his possession of it only heightened his torment; departs, and hangs himself, unable to sustain life and bear the light of offended Heaven! The cold villany of the chief priests and elders, the leading magistrates and judges of the Jewish nation, stands in singular contrast to this; but is equally forcible as a testimony to the unjust manner in which our Lord had been treated at his trial. What is that to us? see thou to that: as though they were not equally guilty who used a wicked instrument to accomplish an unjust purpose as the instrument himself; and as though they were not bound to receive this evidence of a repenting traitor in his favour, and give it its due weight in their representation of the case to the Roman governor. Thus the judges, by proclaiming their own guilt, demonstrated by their sanguinary obduracy, as fully as Judas by his remorse, the triumphant innocence of our blessed Lord of every thing which could render him, according to their unjust sentence, “guilty of death.” But the evidence does not close here, and the reader will mark what follows.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful, &c. — The money cast away by Judas is now to be disposed of, and they determined that it could not lawfully be put into the treasury, korbanan, the place where the offerings for the service of the temple were put; thus verifying our Lord’s words,” Straining out the gnat, and swallowing a camel,” purchasing innocent blood with the money, and yet scrupling to deposit it in a sacred place: but thus tacitly and unintentionally declaring that it had been the wages of iniquity, and was itself polluted by the unholy purpose to which it had been appropriated. This scruple rested on no written law; but they probably reasoned from analogy: if “the hire of a harlot,” Deuteronomy 23:18, was not to be offered to God in pursuance of a vow; how much more the money by which a life had been purchased, and, they might have added, by which spotless innocence had been betrayed and murdered! After taking counsel on this point, they agreed, under an overruling Providence, to purchase “the potter’s field,” so called, probably because potters’ earth had been dug out of it; and being now exhausted of that material, and unfit for any agriculture, its value was small, and it was therefore purchased for the mean price of “thirty pieces of silver.” From this time the field was called Aceldama, the field of blood; not, we may well conjecture, from the imposition of that name upon it by the chief priests, as by popular and habitual designation. Thus it remained marked with this new and expressive name, both as a proof of the fact, if it should be hereafter questioned, and a memorial of that remorse of Judas, for his treachery, which afforded so striking a proof of the guiltlessness of his betrayed Master. “The ordering of Divine Providence in these events was most signal, and not less in the overruled purpose of the Jewish sanhedrim in the use to which they applied it; for by making it a burial place it was the longer preserved, by the respect paid to places appropriated to such purposes, from obliteration, and might probably remain marked by its tombs, the tombs of strangers, long after the capture of Jerusalem. At all events, it remained till after the publication of St. Matthew’s gospel in Judea; and as he could not relate a fact as notorious to all the inhabitants without being contradicted, if not truly stated, so the fact being established, the history with which it stood connected was confirmed by a durable and visible monument. To thee publicity of the fact Peter appeals, Acts 1:19. And it was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Aceldama, that is to say, “the field of blood.” Jerome says that it was to be seen in his days in Ælia, (the name of the city built upon the site of Jerusalem,) on the south side of Mount Sion.

The mode in which Judas committed suicide has exercised the ingenuity of critics, ancient and modern. This has arisen from a supposed discrepancy between the account of Matthew and that of Peter in Acts 1:18, who says nothing of hanging, but states that, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Suicer’s Thesaurus shows the different opinions of the fathers. Among the moderns some suppose he died of suffocation from grief; others, from rage and remorse; and that after death his body swelled and burst. Campbell translates, “he went away and strangled himself,” leaving the mode undetermined; Wakefield, “was choked with grief,” following Hammond and still older commentators. All, however, acknowledge that the word used by Matthew commonly means to hang one’s self; of which classical examples are abundant, as also examples from the Septuagint. The ancient versions too give the same sense; nor is there the least inconsistency between the statement of the evangelist and St. Peter, in Acts 1:18; and no necessity therefore exists to strain the meaning of the passage of the former, apelqwn aphgxato, he went and hanged himself, into any unusual sense. St. Matthew relates the fact and mode of his suicide generally; St. Peter, to mark more strongly the infliction of the Divine vengeance upon so wretched a criminal, dwells upon these additional circumstances in his death, which so strikingly impressed it with the character of a supernatural retribution. He hanged himself; but, prhnhv genomenov, becoming prostrate, that is, falling headlong or rather upon his face, — either after death, or during the struggles of death, being violently cast down from the place where he was hanging by the hand of avenging Heaven, in order to make him a public example, — he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out. That something preternatural is implied in this account, appears evident from the description of his body: for this effect could not follow from the mere breaking of the rope and his falling upon the ground, unless he had chosen a precipice for the place of his execution, which indeed some have supposed, but without any warrant from the history, or the real import of the terms employed.

Verse 6. The treasury] korbanan-the place whither the people brought their free-will offerings for the service of the temple, so called from the Hebrew ˆbrq korban, AN OFFERING, from brq karab, he drew nigh, because the person who brought the gift came nigh to that place where God manifested his glory between the cherubim, over the mercy-seat in the most holy place. It is from this idea that the phrase to draw nigh to God is taken, which is so frequently used in the sacred writings. Because it is the price of blood.] “What hypocrites, as one justly exclaims, to adjudge an innocent man to death, and break the eternal laws of justice and mercy without scruple, and to be, at the same time, so very nice in their attention to a ceremonial direction of the law of Moses! Thus it is that the devil often deludes many, even among the priests, by a false and superstitious tenderness or conscience in things indifferent, while calumny, envy, oppression of the innocent, and a conformity to the world, give them no manner of trouble or disturbance.” See Quesnel.

Verses 6-8. And the chief priests took the silver pieces — They refused to receive them from Judas, for fear, perhaps, of taking thereby the whole guilt of the murder of Christ upon themselves, which they wished Judas to bear with them; but the money being thrown down in some place belonging to the temple, in the precincts of which it is probable they held their council, they took it up; but were at first at a loss to know what use to make of it. It is not lawful, said they, to put them (the pieces of silver) into the treasury: because it is the price of blood — Yes, of innocent blood: and was it lawful to purchase that? We see these priests and rulers had a conscience too! but what kind of a conscience! A conscience that strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel! They scrupled deviating from a ceremonial direction of Moses, while they were knowingly and wilfully transgressing, in the most flagrant instance possible, the eternal and unchangeable laws of justice and mercy! were adjudging to an ignominious and painful death the Holy One of God! These “arch hypocrites,” says Baxter, “make conscience of ceremony, and make no conscience of perjury, persecution, and murdering the innocent! Blood they thirst for, and will give money to procure it, but the price of blood must not be consecrated!” They scruple not to give money to procure the shedding of blood, but scruple the putting that money into the treasury! they are afraid to defile the treasury, but not afraid to pollute their souls. The word korbanan, here rendered treasury, occurs in no other passage in the Scriptures. Josephus makes use of it, and interprets it, ton ieron qhsauron, the sacred treasure. It is formed from korban, originally Hebrew, which also occurs but once in the Greek form, namely, Mark 7:11, and signifies that which is given, or devoted to God. The unlawfulness of putting the thirty shekels into this repository arose from this single circumstance, that it contained the treasure consecrated to God; and the priests judged that such an offering, as this price of blood, would have been as much an abomination to the Lord, as the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, which were expressly forbidden to be brought into the house of God for any vow, or offering, Deuteronomy 23:18. They took counsel and bought the potter’s field — Well known, it seems, by that name; to bury strangers in — Foreigners, heathen, especially, of whom there then were great numbers at Jerusalem. To purchase this field with the money, they thought would be putting it to a pious use; so holy and charitable would they be! Perhaps they thought to atone for what they had done by this public good act of providing a burying-place for strangers, though not at their own charge! Thus, in the dark times of Popery, people were made to believe that building churches, and endowing monasteries, would make amends for immoralities. Thirty pieces of silver may seem but a small price for a field so near to Jerusalem as this was. Probably the potters, by digging earth out of it for their ware, had made it useless either for tillage or pasture. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood — Because it was bought with the money Judas received for betraying his Master’s life. Providence seems to have set this name upon the field to perpetuate the memory of the transaction. Jerome, who had been upon the spot, tells us that they still showed this field in his time: that it lay south of mount Zion, and that they buried there the poorest and meanest of the people. The historian’s mentioning the purchase of the potter’s field with the money for which Judas betrayed his Master, being an appeal to a very public transaction, puts the truth of this part of the history beyond all manner of exception.

6. The price of blood — The true confession that they had bought Jesus for death. The money made abominable by certain crimes, was by law excluded from the treasury of God. Deuteronomy xxiii, 18. Many retain a sort of ecclesiastical conscience while committing the grossest immoralities.

Verses 3-8. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned, &c. — This circumstance brought even Judas to repentance, that is, it awakened the horror of his conscience that he had been the means of murdering a person who he knew was guiltless of any crime. He had obtained the cursed pelf, the hope of which had blinded his judgment and stifled the struggles of his better feelings; and, the infatuating prize being in possession, the passion had subsided, reason had resumed her functions, the whole extent of his baseness and guilt flashed upon his soul, with the fears of the righteous retribution which awaited him. He repented himself, indeed; he would probably have parted with the world for the moment, avaricious as he was, if the foul, the damning deed could have been undone; but the result proved that, strong and agonizing as this feeling was, it was not “godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation;” it was the repentance of the damned at the day of judgment, when the gate of mercy is for ever shut; for the wo was upon him, the wo of Him whom he had basely betrayed. Still, before he was permitted to execute upon himself that last act which was to seal his eternal destiny, his remorse was so overruled as to force from even him a public declaration of the blameless character of the Master of whom he had been so unworthy and false a disciple; a testimony which was to be perpetuated by the purchase of a field and the imposition of a new name upon it, arising out of the circumstance of its purchase, which should render it a public monument for time to come both of the truth of the fact, and the evidence it affords to the innocency of our Lord and the malice of his unjust judges. The whole action is most vividly represented, and the more impressively so from the absence of all emotion in the evangelical narrative in this as well as in all other scenes, even those the most moving. He comes to the chief priests and elders, assembled in council, in the chamber appointed for the sittings of that court, in a part of the temple, whither they seem to have adjourned from the house of Caiaphas; he brings with him the thirty pieces of silver, wrung from the grasp of his covetousness by his agonized conscience; he declares to his employers that he had sinned, that he had betrayed innocent blood; and when they refused to take back the money, he casts it down in the temple, as though his possession of it only heightened his torment; departs, and hangs himself, unable to sustain life and bear the light of offended Heaven! The cold villany of the chief priests and elders, the leading magistrates and judges of the Jewish nation, stands in singular contrast to this; but is equally forcible as a testimony to the unjust manner in which our Lord had been treated at his trial. What is that to us? see thou to that: as though they were not equally guilty who used a wicked instrument to accomplish an unjust purpose as the instrument himself; and as though they were not bound to receive this evidence of a repenting traitor in his favour, and give it its due weight in their representation of the case to the Roman governor. Thus the judges, by proclaiming their own guilt, demonstrated by their sanguinary obduracy, as fully as Judas by his remorse, the triumphant innocence of our blessed Lord of every thing which could render him, according to their unjust sentence, “guilty of death.” But the evidence does not close here, and the reader will mark what follows.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful, &c. — The money cast away by Judas is now to be disposed of, and they determined that it could not lawfully be put into the treasury, korbanan, the place where the offerings for the service of the temple were put; thus verifying our Lord’s words,” Straining out the gnat, and swallowing a camel,” purchasing innocent blood with the money, and yet scrupling to deposit it in a sacred place: but thus tacitly and unintentionally declaring that it had been the wages of iniquity, and was itself polluted by the unholy purpose to which it had been appropriated. This scruple rested on no written law; but they probably reasoned from analogy: if “the hire of a harlot,” Deuteronomy 23:18, was not to be offered to God in pursuance of a vow; how much more the money by which a life had been purchased, and, they might have added, by which spotless innocence had been betrayed and murdered! After taking counsel on this point, they agreed, under an overruling Providence, to purchase “the potter’s field,” so called, probably because potters’ earth had been dug out of it; and being now exhausted of that material, and unfit for any agriculture, its value was small, and it was therefore purchased for the mean price of “thirty pieces of silver.” From this time the field was called Aceldama, the field of blood; not, we may well conjecture, from the imposition of that name upon it by the chief priests, as by popular and habitual designation. Thus it remained marked with this new and expressive name, both as a proof of the fact, if it should be hereafter questioned, and a memorial of that remorse of Judas, for his treachery, which afforded so striking a proof of the guiltlessness of his betrayed Master. “The ordering of Divine Providence in these events was most signal, and not less in the overruled purpose of the Jewish sanhedrim in the use to which they applied it; for by making it a burial place it was the longer preserved, by the respect paid to places appropriated to such purposes, from obliteration, and might probably remain marked by its tombs, the tombs of strangers, long after the capture of Jerusalem. At all events, it remained till after the publication of St. Matthew’s gospel in Judea; and as he could not relate a fact as notorious to all the inhabitants without being contradicted, if not truly stated, so the fact being established, the history with which it stood connected was confirmed by a durable and visible monument. To thee publicity of the fact Peter appeals, Acts 1:19. And it was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Aceldama, that is to say, “the field of blood.” Jerome says that it was to be seen in his days in Ælia, (the name of the city built upon the site of Jerusalem,) on the south side of Mount Sion.

The mode in which Judas committed suicide has exercised the ingenuity of critics, ancient and modern. This has arisen from a supposed discrepancy between the account of Matthew and that of Peter in Acts 1:18, who says nothing of hanging, but states that, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Suicer’s Thesaurus shows the different opinions of the fathers. Among the moderns some suppose he died of suffocation from grief; others, from rage and remorse; and that after death his body swelled and burst. Campbell translates, “he went away and strangled himself,” leaving the mode undetermined; Wakefield, “was choked with grief,” following Hammond and still older commentators. All, however, acknowledge that the word used by Matthew commonly means to hang one’s self; of which classical examples are abundant, as also examples from the Septuagint. The ancient versions too give the same sense; nor is there the least inconsistency between the statement of the evangelist and St. Peter, in Acts 1:18; and no necessity therefore exists to strain the meaning of the passage of the former, apelqwn aphgxato, he went and hanged himself, into any unusual sense. St. Matthew relates the fact and mode of his suicide generally; St. Peter, to mark more strongly the infliction of the Divine vengeance upon so wretched a criminal, dwells upon these additional circumstances in his death, which so strikingly impressed it with the character of a supernatural retribution. He hanged himself; but, prhnhv genomenov, becoming prostrate, that is, falling headlong or rather upon his face, — either after death, or during the struggles of death, being violently cast down from the place where he was hanging by the hand of avenging Heaven, in order to make him a public example, — he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out. That something preternatural is implied in this account, appears evident from the description of his body: for this effect could not follow from the mere breaking of the rope and his falling upon the ground, unless he had chosen a precipice for the place of his execution, which indeed some have supposed, but without any warrant from the history, or the real import of the terms employed.

V. 7. They bought with them the potter's field-Well known, it seems, by that name. This was a small price for a field so near Jerusalem. But the earth had probably been digged for potters' vessels, so that it was now neither fit for tillage nor pasture, and consequently of small value. Foreigners-Heathens especially, of whom there were then great numbers in Jerusalem.

Verse 7. To bury strangers in.] toiv xenoiv, the strangers, probably meaning, as some learned men conjecture, the Jewish strangers who might have come to Jerusalem, either to worship, or on some other business, and died there during their stay. See here, the very money for which the blessed Jesus was sold becomes subservient to the purpose of mercy and kindness! The bodies of strangers have a place of rest in the field purchased by the price at which his life was valued, and the souls of strangers and foreigners have a place of rest and refuge in his blood which was shed as a ransom price for the salvation of the whole world.

Verses 6-8. And the chief priests took the silver pieces — They refused to receive them from Judas, for fear, perhaps, of taking thereby the whole guilt of the murder of Christ upon themselves, which they wished Judas to bear with them; but the money being thrown down in some place belonging to the temple, in the precincts of which it is probable they held their council, they took it up; but were at first at a loss to know what use to make of it. It is not lawful, said they, to put them (the pieces of silver) into the treasury: because it is the price of blood — Yes, of innocent blood: and was it lawful to purchase that? We see these priests and rulers had a conscience too! but what kind of a conscience! A conscience that strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel! They scrupled deviating from a ceremonial direction of Moses, while they were knowingly and wilfully transgressing, in the most flagrant instance possible, the eternal and unchangeable laws of justice and mercy! were adjudging to an ignominious and painful death the Holy One of God! These “arch hypocrites,” says Baxter, “make conscience of ceremony, and make no conscience of perjury, persecution, and murdering the innocent! Blood they thirst for, and will give money to procure it, but the price of blood must not be consecrated!” They scruple not to give money to procure the shedding of blood, but scruple the putting that money into the treasury! they are afraid to defile the treasury, but not afraid to pollute their souls. The word korbanan, here rendered treasury, occurs in no other passage in the Scriptures. Josephus makes use of it, and interprets it, ton ieron qhsauron, the sacred treasure. It is formed from korban, originally Hebrew, which also occurs but once in the Greek form, namely, Mark 7:11, and signifies that which is given, or devoted to God. The unlawfulness of putting the thirty shekels into this repository arose from this single circumstance, that it contained the treasure consecrated to God; and the priests judged that such an offering, as this price of blood, would have been as much an abomination to the Lord, as the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, which were expressly forbidden to be brought into the house of God for any vow, or offering, Deuteronomy 23:18. They took counsel and bought the potter’s field — Well known, it seems, by that name; to bury strangers in — Foreigners, heathen, especially, of whom there then were great numbers at Jerusalem. To purchase this field with the money, they thought would be putting it to a pious use; so holy and charitable would they be! Perhaps they thought to atone for what they had done by this public good act of providing a burying-place for strangers, though not at their own charge! Thus, in the dark times of Popery, people were made to believe that building churches, and endowing monasteries, would make amends for immoralities. Thirty pieces of silver may seem but a small price for a field so near to Jerusalem as this was. Probably the potters, by digging earth out of it for their ware, had made it useless either for tillage or pasture. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood — Because it was bought with the money Judas received for betraying his Master’s life. Providence seems to have set this name upon the field to perpetuate the memory of the transaction. Jerome, who had been upon the spot, tells us that they still showed this field in his time: that it lay south of mount Zion, and that they buried there the poorest and meanest of the people. The historian’s mentioning the purchase of the potter’s field with the money for which Judas betrayed his Master, being an appeal to a very public transaction, puts the truth of this part of the history beyond all manner of exception.

7. Potter’s field — Pottery, or the manufactory of earthenware, was a very ancient art. The remains of it are found among the relics of the most ancient nations. The clay being dug from the surface, for the purposes of pottery, rendered the soil unfit for tillage or other uses, so that it was sold for the small price here paid.

Verses 3-8. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned, &c. — This circumstance brought even Judas to repentance, that is, it awakened the horror of his conscience that he had been the means of murdering a person who he knew was guiltless of any crime. He had obtained the cursed pelf, the hope of which had blinded his judgment and stifled the struggles of his better feelings; and, the infatuating prize being in possession, the passion had subsided, reason had resumed her functions, the whole extent of his baseness and guilt flashed upon his soul, with the fears of the righteous retribution which awaited him. He repented himself, indeed; he would probably have parted with the world for the moment, avaricious as he was, if the foul, the damning deed could have been undone; but the result proved that, strong and agonizing as this feeling was, it was not “godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation;” it was the repentance of the damned at the day of judgment, when the gate of mercy is for ever shut; for the wo was upon him, the wo of Him whom he had basely betrayed. Still, before he was permitted to execute upon himself that last act which was to seal his eternal destiny, his remorse was so overruled as to force from even him a public declaration of the blameless character of the Master of whom he had been so unworthy and false a disciple; a testimony which was to be perpetuated by the purchase of a field and the imposition of a new name upon it, arising out of the circumstance of its purchase, which should render it a public monument for time to come both of the truth of the fact, and the evidence it affords to the innocency of our Lord and the malice of his unjust judges. The whole action is most vividly represented, and the more impressively so from the absence of all emotion in the evangelical narrative in this as well as in all other scenes, even those the most moving. He comes to the chief priests and elders, assembled in council, in the chamber appointed for the sittings of that court, in a part of the temple, whither they seem to have adjourned from the house of Caiaphas; he brings with him the thirty pieces of silver, wrung from the grasp of his covetousness by his agonized conscience; he declares to his employers that he had sinned, that he had betrayed innocent blood; and when they refused to take back the money, he casts it down in the temple, as though his possession of it only heightened his torment; departs, and hangs himself, unable to sustain life and bear the light of offended Heaven! The cold villany of the chief priests and elders, the leading magistrates and judges of the Jewish nation, stands in singular contrast to this; but is equally forcible as a testimony to the unjust manner in which our Lord had been treated at his trial. What is that to us? see thou to that: as though they were not equally guilty who used a wicked instrument to accomplish an unjust purpose as the instrument himself; and as though they were not bound to receive this evidence of a repenting traitor in his favour, and give it its due weight in their representation of the case to the Roman governor. Thus the judges, by proclaiming their own guilt, demonstrated by their sanguinary obduracy, as fully as Judas by his remorse, the triumphant innocence of our blessed Lord of every thing which could render him, according to their unjust sentence, “guilty of death.” But the evidence does not close here, and the reader will mark what follows.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful, &c. — The money cast away by Judas is now to be disposed of, and they determined that it could not lawfully be put into the treasury, korbanan, the place where the offerings for the service of the temple were put; thus verifying our Lord’s words,” Straining out the gnat, and swallowing a camel,” purchasing innocent blood with the money, and yet scrupling to deposit it in a sacred place: but thus tacitly and unintentionally declaring that it had been the wages of iniquity, and was itself polluted by the unholy purpose to which it had been appropriated. This scruple rested on no written law; but they probably reasoned from analogy: if “the hire of a harlot,” Deuteronomy 23:18, was not to be offered to God in pursuance of a vow; how much more the money by which a life had been purchased, and, they might have added, by which spotless innocence had been betrayed and murdered! After taking counsel on this point, they agreed, under an overruling Providence, to purchase “the potter’s field,” so called, probably because potters’ earth had been dug out of it; and being now exhausted of that material, and unfit for any agriculture, its value was small, and it was therefore purchased for the mean price of “thirty pieces of silver.” From this time the field was called Aceldama, the field of blood; not, we may well conjecture, from the imposition of that name upon it by the chief priests, as by popular and habitual designation. Thus it remained marked with this new and expressive name, both as a proof of the fact, if it should be hereafter questioned, and a memorial of that remorse of Judas, for his treachery, which afforded so striking a proof of the guiltlessness of his betrayed Master. “The ordering of Divine Providence in these events was most signal, and not less in the overruled purpose of the Jewish sanhedrim in the use to which they applied it; for by making it a burial place it was the longer preserved, by the respect paid to places appropriated to such purposes, from obliteration, and might probably remain marked by its tombs, the tombs of strangers, long after the capture of Jerusalem. At all events, it remained till after the publication of St. Matthew’s gospel in Judea; and as he could not relate a fact as notorious to all the inhabitants without being contradicted, if not truly stated, so the fact being established, the history with which it stood connected was confirmed by a durable and visible monument. To thee publicity of the fact Peter appeals, Acts 1:19. And it was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Aceldama, that is to say, “the field of blood.” Jerome says that it was to be seen in his days in Ælia, (the name of the city built upon the site of Jerusalem,) on the south side of Mount Sion.

The mode in which Judas committed suicide has exercised the ingenuity of critics, ancient and modern. This has arisen from a supposed discrepancy between the account of Matthew and that of Peter in Acts 1:18, who says nothing of hanging, but states that, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Suicer’s Thesaurus shows the different opinions of the fathers. Among the moderns some suppose he died of suffocation from grief; others, from rage and remorse; and that after death his body swelled and burst. Campbell translates, “he went away and strangled himself,” leaving the mode undetermined; Wakefield, “was choked with grief,” following Hammond and still older commentators. All, however, acknowledge that the word used by Matthew commonly means to hang one’s self; of which classical examples are abundant, as also examples from the Septuagint. The ancient versions too give the same sense; nor is there the least inconsistency between the statement of the evangelist and St. Peter, in Acts 1:18; and no necessity therefore exists to strain the meaning of the passage of the former, apelqwn aphgxato, he went and hanged himself, into any unusual sense. St. Matthew relates the fact and mode of his suicide generally; St. Peter, to mark more strongly the infliction of the Divine vengeance upon so wretched a criminal, dwells upon these additional circumstances in his death, which so strikingly impressed it with the character of a supernatural retribution. He hanged himself; but, prhnhv genomenov, becoming prostrate, that is, falling headlong or rather upon his face, — either after death, or during the struggles of death, being violently cast down from the place where he was hanging by the hand of avenging Heaven, in order to make him a public example, — he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out. That something preternatural is implied in this account, appears evident from the description of his body: for this effect could not follow from the mere breaking of the rope and his falling upon the ground, unless he had chosen a precipice for the place of his execution, which indeed some have supposed, but without any warrant from the history, or the real import of the terms employed.

Verse 8. The field of blood] In vain do the wicked attempt to conceal themselves; God makes them instrumental in discovering their own wickedness. Judas, by returning the money, and the priests, by laying it out, raise to themselves an eternal monument-the one of his treachery, the others of their perfidiousness, and both of the innocence of Jesus Christ. As, long as the Jewish polity continued, it might be said, “This is the field that was bought from the potter with the money which Judas got from the high priests for betraying his Master; which he, in deep compunction of spirit, brought back to them, and they bought this ground for a burial-place for strangers: for as it was the price of the blood of an innocent man, they did not think proper to let it rest in the treasury of the temple where the traitor had thrown it, who afterwards, in despair, went and hanged himself.” What a standing proof must this have been of the innocence of Christ, and of their perfidy!

Verses 6-8. And the chief priests took the silver pieces — They refused to receive them from Judas, for fear, perhaps, of taking thereby the whole guilt of the murder of Christ upon themselves, which they wished Judas to bear with them; but the money being thrown down in some place belonging to the temple, in the precincts of which it is probable they held their council, they took it up; but were at first at a loss to know what use to make of it. It is not lawful, said they, to put them (the pieces of silver) into the treasury: because it is the price of blood — Yes, of innocent blood: and was it lawful to purchase that? We see these priests and rulers had a conscience too! but what kind of a conscience! A conscience that strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel! They scrupled deviating from a ceremonial direction of Moses, while they were knowingly and wilfully transgressing, in the most flagrant instance possible, the eternal and unchangeable laws of justice and mercy! were adjudging to an ignominious and painful death the Holy One of God! These “arch hypocrites,” says Baxter, “make conscience of ceremony, and make no conscience of perjury, persecution, and murdering the innocent! Blood they thirst for, and will give money to procure it, but the price of blood must not be consecrated!” They scruple not to give money to procure the shedding of blood, but scruple the putting that money into the treasury! they are afraid to defile the treasury, but not afraid to pollute their souls. The word korbanan, here rendered treasury, occurs in no other passage in the Scriptures. Josephus makes use of it, and interprets it, ton ieron qhsauron, the sacred treasure. It is formed from korban, originally Hebrew, which also occurs but once in the Greek form, namely, Mark 7:11, and signifies that which is given, or devoted to God. The unlawfulness of putting the thirty shekels into this repository arose from this single circumstance, that it contained the treasure consecrated to God; and the priests judged that such an offering, as this price of blood, would have been as much an abomination to the Lord, as the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, which were expressly forbidden to be brought into the house of God for any vow, or offering, Deuteronomy 23:18. They took counsel and bought the potter’s field — Well known, it seems, by that name; to bury strangers in — Foreigners, heathen, especially, of whom there then were great numbers at Jerusalem. To purchase this field with the money, they thought would be putting it to a pious use; so holy and charitable would they be! Perhaps they thought to atone for what they had done by this public good act of providing a burying-place for strangers, though not at their own charge! Thus, in the dark times of Popery, people were made to believe that building churches, and endowing monasteries, would make amends for immoralities. Thirty pieces of silver may seem but a small price for a field so near to Jerusalem as this was. Probably the potters, by digging earth out of it for their ware, had made it useless either for tillage or pasture. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood — Because it was bought with the money Judas received for betraying his Master’s life. Providence seems to have set this name upon the field to perpetuate the memory of the transaction. Jerome, who had been upon the spot, tells us that they still showed this field in his time: that it lay south of mount Zion, and that they buried there the poorest and meanest of the people. The historian’s mentioning the purchase of the potter’s field with the money for which Judas betrayed his Master, being an appeal to a very public transaction, puts the truth of this part of the history beyond all manner of exception.

8. The field of blood — The name stood as a memento of the direful sale and execution. The name, “called in their proper tongue Aceldama,” is at the present day traditionally given to a spot south of the Valley of Hinnom. Unto this day — Unto the time that Matthew writes. This was perhaps about eight years of interval. Sceptics have quoted this phrase in proof that Matthew was written in a later age. But it is a curious coincidence, that we fell upon this phrase a few days since in a New York newspaper, in regard to an event not more than eight years distant.

Verses 3-8. Then Judas, when he saw that he was condemned, &c. — This circumstance brought even Judas to repentance, that is, it awakened the horror of his conscience that he had been the means of murdering a person who he knew was guiltless of any crime. He had obtained the cursed pelf, the hope of which had blinded his judgment and stifled the struggles of his better feelings; and, the infatuating prize being in possession, the passion had subsided, reason had resumed her functions, the whole extent of his baseness and guilt flashed upon his soul, with the fears of the righteous retribution which awaited him. He repented himself, indeed; he would probably have parted with the world for the moment, avaricious as he was, if the foul, the damning deed could have been undone; but the result proved that, strong and agonizing as this feeling was, it was not “godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation;” it was the repentance of the damned at the day of judgment, when the gate of mercy is for ever shut; for the wo was upon him, the wo of Him whom he had basely betrayed. Still, before he was permitted to execute upon himself that last act which was to seal his eternal destiny, his remorse was so overruled as to force from even him a public declaration of the blameless character of the Master of whom he had been so unworthy and false a disciple; a testimony which was to be perpetuated by the purchase of a field and the imposition of a new name upon it, arising out of the circumstance of its purchase, which should render it a public monument for time to come both of the truth of the fact, and the evidence it affords to the innocency of our Lord and the malice of his unjust judges. The whole action is most vividly represented, and the more impressively so from the absence of all emotion in the evangelical narrative in this as well as in all other scenes, even those the most moving. He comes to the chief priests and elders, assembled in council, in the chamber appointed for the sittings of that court, in a part of the temple, whither they seem to have adjourned from the house of Caiaphas; he brings with him the thirty pieces of silver, wrung from the grasp of his covetousness by his agonized conscience; he declares to his employers that he had sinned, that he had betrayed innocent blood; and when they refused to take back the money, he casts it down in the temple, as though his possession of it only heightened his torment; departs, and hangs himself, unable to sustain life and bear the light of offended Heaven! The cold villany of the chief priests and elders, the leading magistrates and judges of the Jewish nation, stands in singular contrast to this; but is equally forcible as a testimony to the unjust manner in which our Lord had been treated at his trial. What is that to us? see thou to that: as though they were not equally guilty who used a wicked instrument to accomplish an unjust purpose as the instrument himself; and as though they were not bound to receive this evidence of a repenting traitor in his favour, and give it its due weight in their representation of the case to the Roman governor. Thus the judges, by proclaiming their own guilt, demonstrated by their sanguinary obduracy, as fully as Judas by his remorse, the triumphant innocence of our blessed Lord of every thing which could render him, according to their unjust sentence, “guilty of death.” But the evidence does not close here, and the reader will mark what follows.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful, &c. — The money cast away by Judas is now to be disposed of, and they determined that it could not lawfully be put into the treasury, korbanan, the place where the offerings for the service of the temple were put; thus verifying our Lord’s words,” Straining out the gnat, and swallowing a camel,” purchasing innocent blood with the money, and yet scrupling to deposit it in a sacred place: but thus tacitly and unintentionally declaring that it had been the wages of iniquity, and was itself polluted by the unholy purpose to which it had been appropriated. This scruple rested on no written law; but they probably reasoned from analogy: if “the hire of a harlot,” Deuteronomy 23:18, was not to be offered to God in pursuance of a vow; how much more the money by which a life had been purchased, and, they might have added, by which spotless innocence had been betrayed and murdered! After taking counsel on this point, they agreed, under an overruling Providence, to purchase “the potter’s field,” so called, probably because potters’ earth had been dug out of it; and being now exhausted of that material, and unfit for any agriculture, its value was small, and it was therefore purchased for the mean price of “thirty pieces of silver.” From this time the field was called Aceldama, the field of blood; not, we may well conjecture, from the imposition of that name upon it by the chief priests, as by popular and habitual designation. Thus it remained marked with this new and expressive name, both as a proof of the fact, if it should be hereafter questioned, and a memorial of that remorse of Judas, for his treachery, which afforded so striking a proof of the guiltlessness of his betrayed Master. “The ordering of Divine Providence in these events was most signal, and not less in the overruled purpose of the Jewish sanhedrim in the use to which they applied it; for by making it a burial place it was the longer preserved, by the respect paid to places appropriated to such purposes, from obliteration, and might probably remain marked by its tombs, the tombs of strangers, long after the capture of Jerusalem. At all events, it remained till after the publication of St. Matthew’s gospel in Judea; and as he could not relate a fact as notorious to all the inhabitants without being contradicted, if not truly stated, so the fact being established, the history with which it stood connected was confirmed by a durable and visible monument. To thee publicity of the fact Peter appeals, Acts 1:19. And it was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Aceldama, that is to say, “the field of blood.” Jerome says that it was to be seen in his days in Ælia, (the name of the city built upon the site of Jerusalem,) on the south side of Mount Sion.

The mode in which Judas committed suicide has exercised the ingenuity of critics, ancient and modern. This has arisen from a supposed discrepancy between the account of Matthew and that of Peter in Acts 1:18, who says nothing of hanging, but states that, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Suicer’s Thesaurus shows the different opinions of the fathers. Among the moderns some suppose he died of suffocation from grief; others, from rage and remorse; and that after death his body swelled and burst. Campbell translates, “he went away and strangled himself,” leaving the mode undetermined; Wakefield, “was choked with grief,” following Hammond and still older commentators. All, however, acknowledge that the word used by Matthew commonly means to hang one’s self; of which classical examples are abundant, as also examples from the Septuagint. The ancient versions too give the same sense; nor is there the least inconsistency between the statement of the evangelist and St. Peter, in Acts 1:18; and no necessity therefore exists to strain the meaning of the passage of the former, apelqwn aphgxato, he went and hanged himself, into any unusual sense. St. Matthew relates the fact and mode of his suicide generally; St. Peter, to mark more strongly the infliction of the Divine vengeance upon so wretched a criminal, dwells upon these additional circumstances in his death, which so strikingly impressed it with the character of a supernatural retribution. He hanged himself; but, prhnhv genomenov, becoming prostrate, that is, falling headlong or rather upon his face, — either after death, or during the struggles of death, being violently cast down from the place where he was hanging by the hand of avenging Heaven, in order to make him a public example, — he burst asunder, and all his bowels gushed out. That something preternatural is implied in this account, appears evident from the description of his body: for this effect could not follow from the mere breaking of the rope and his falling upon the ground, unless he had chosen a precipice for the place of his execution, which indeed some have supposed, but without any warrant from the history, or the real import of the terms employed.

V. 9. Then was fulfilled-What was figuratively represented of old, was now really accomplished.

What was spoken by the prophet-The word Jeremy, which was added to the text in latter copies, and thence received into many translations, is evidently a mistake: for he who spoke what St. Matthew here cites (or rather paraphrases) was not Jeremy, but Zechariah. Zechariah 11:12.

Verse 9. Jeremy the prophet] The words quoted here are not found in the Prophet Jeremiah, but in Zechariah 11:13. But St. Jerome says that a Hebrew of the sect of the Nazarenes showed him this prophecy in a Hebrew apocryphal copy of Jeremiah; but probably they were inserted there only to countenance the quotation here.

One of Colbert’s, a MS. of the eleventh century, has zaxariou, Zechariah; so has the later Syriac in the margin, and a copy of the Arabic quoted by Bengel. In a very elegant and correct MS. of the Vulgate, in my possession, written in the fourteenth century, Zachariam is in the margin, and Jeremiam in the text, but the former is written by a later hand. Jeremiah is wanting in two MSS., the Syriac, later Persic, two of the Itala, and in some other Latin copies. It is very likely that the original reading was dia toi profhtou, and the name of no prophet mentioned. This is the more likely, as Matthew often omits the name of the prophet in his quotations. See Matthew 1:22; 2:5, 15; 13:35; 21:4. Bengel approves of the omission.

It was an ancient custom among the Jews, says Dr. Lightfoot, to divide the Old Testament into three parts: the first beginning with the law was called THE LAW; the second beginning with the Psalms was called THE PSALMS; the third beginning with the prophet in question was called JEREMIAH: thus, then, the writings of Zechariah and the other prophets being included in that division that began with Jeremiah, all quotations from it would go under the name of this prophet. If this be admitted, it solves the difficulty at once. Dr. Lightfoot quotes Baba Bathra, and Rabbi David Kimchi’s preface to the prophet Jeremiah, as his authorities; and insists that the word Jeremiah is perfectly correct as standing at the head of that division from which the evangelist quoted, and which gave its denomination to all the rest. But Jeremiah is the reading in several MSS. of the Coptic. It is in one of the Coptic Dictionaries in the British Museum, and in a Coptic MS. of Jeremiah, in the library of St. Germain. So I am informed by the Rev. Henry Tattam, Rector of St Cuthbert’s, Bedford.

Verse 9. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy — The words here quoted are not in any copy of Jeremiah extant. But they bear a strong resemblance to the words of Zechariah 11:12, 13. One MS., not of great account, has Zecariou, of Zechariah. Another adds no name to the word prophet, and there is none added in the Syriac version, the words being only, which was spoken by the prophet. And it seems, from a remark of Augustine, that some copies in his time named no prophet. Indeed it is not improbable that the name Jeremiah was inserted by some officious transcriber. Or we may suppose, with Bishop Hall, that in copying the words, Jeremiah was put down for Zechariah, a blunder which transcribers might easily commit, especially if the names were written by abbreviation, Iriou for Zriou, as the bishop says he has seen in some ancient MSS. But if the present reading is retained, we may allow, that, as the Jewish Scriptures were divided into three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, what was found in the prophets might properly enough be said to be in Jeremiah, if his prophecies stood first in the collection, just as our Lord affirmed that whatever was in the Hagiographa concerning him, was contained in the Psalms, because the Psalms stood first in that division of the Scriptures. Or, we may adopt the solution offered by Grotius, who observes, that the Jews had many prophecies handed down to them by tradition, such as the prophecy of Enoch, Jude 1:14, 15, and the traditionary prophecies concerning the destruction of Jerusalem mentioned by Josephus, and that the later prophets often allude to and repeat the words of the former. He therefore declares it to be his opinion, that the prophecy concerning the thirty pieces of silver, recorded Zechariah 11:12 Zechariah

Ver. 9. By Jeremy the prophet. The above citation is found in Zechariah only. Jeremiah’s name was either inserted without authority, or as his name stood foremost of the minor prophets, any passage cited from them might be said to be in the book of Jeremiah. So Lightfoot. But as Zechariah and Jeremiah are twice distinctly cited by St. Matthew, the name has probably been mistaken by the copyist. Augustine thinks it was a defect of memory in the evangelist.

9. Then was fulfilled — Verified by an event of which the words were strikingly expressive. Jeremy — This is no doubt a mistake of the transcribers. The true name is Zechariah, and the reference is to Zechariah 11:12, 13. The mistake arose probably because the contracted form of the name Zechariah, which would be Zriou, was taken for Jriou, the contracted form of Jeremy. The passage is quoted for sense, and not word for word, as is often the case with the evangelists. Their inspired interpretation is always a guarantee for the true sense of the passage which they quote in substance.

Verse 9. Then was fulfilled, &c. — Because in these words the prophecy said to have been fulfilled is referred to Jeremy the prophet, attempts have been made, but in vain, to find in the writings of Jeremiah something corresponding with them. The quotation is manifestly from Zechariah 11:12, 13: “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.” There is a considerable variation in the words as they stand in St. Matthew; and this, together with what is alleged to be the obscurity of the prediction as it stands in Zechariah, has been made use of to support the notion that here as well as in other places, the evangelist does not quote the prophecy as fulfilled by the event which he narrates, but accommodates the words to the event. But no end could be answered by this, except to introduce a sort of literary ornament into his narrative; an artifice which we are forbidden to attribute to any of the evangelists from the rigid simplicity they uniformly observe. The subject has, it is true, its difficulties; but none which are insuperable. No practical end of conviction or illustration can be assigned for the introduction of these words of the prophet, unless we admit the intention of St. Matthew to have been to adduce, in addition to many others, a signal and direct fulfilment of those prophetic indications of the life of our Lord which the Jewish Scriptures were allowed to contain. The first inquiry necessary to settle this point must be into the import of that section of the prophecy of Zechariah in which the quotation stands. And on this it may be generally observed that it has no apparent reference to any events which took place previously to the time of Christ. The evidence of this is so strong that the most ancient Jewish commentators themselves refer it to the Messiah, although, of course, they give it a different interpretation, but an entirely conjectural one; thus declaring that THEY know of no fact or series of facts in their history to which they can refer it. The prophecy is highly figurative, and therefore proportionably obscure; but several points break through it which no one can mistake, as,

1. That God had appointed one eminent shepherd to feed his flock, the Jewish people, called emphatically. “the flock of slaughter,” with reference to some wasting destruction which threatened to come upon them, and which from the time when Zechariah wrote we know must be subsequent to that which had already been produced by the invasion of the king of Babylon. This is a circumstance which agrees with the ministry of our Lord, who announces himself under the character of a shepherd, and the object of whose care was to avert the impending ruin of his people by bringing them to repentance.

2. That “the shepherds,” of the flock spoken of, were without regard to them: “Their own shepherds pity them not;” in which we have an exact picture of the Jewish teachers in our Lord’s days, men who neglected their charge and despised the people.

3. That a strong enmity existed between these shepherds and him whom God himself had appointed: “My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me;” words which have the force of even historical truth though in the form of prophecy, and justly describe the holy “loathing” which Christ had of the pride, hypocrisy, and wickedness of the scribes and Pharisees, and their malignant abhorrence of him.

4. That even this divinely appointed Shepherd finally gives up his charge in judicial visitation: “Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another;” an awful description of a people abandoned to entire ruin, which nothing has occurred to realize, but the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, an event which signally answers to the prophecy.

5. That a covenant between the people intended and this Shepherd was broken: “And I took my staff, even beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.” And to what can this refer but to the entire annulling of the whole Mosaic covenant, by the rejection of the Jews as a peculiar people?

6. That a part of this very rejected and abandoned flock should admit his authority and mission: “And so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew” (“certainly knew,” margin) “that it was the word of the Lord.” This is one of the most noticeable part of the prophecy; and the distinction made between the body of the flock, and a portion called the poor of the flock, who are characterized by “waiting upon him,” or, as the phrase implies, worshipping and serving this great Shepherd, and acknowledging the truth of his word, as “the word of Jehovah,” can only be referred to the few, and the despised and persecuted part of the Jews, who followed Christ, believed on him worshipped him as their God, and acknowledged the heavenly origin of his doctrine. Now all these particulars, which bring us down to the passage quoted by St. Matthew, do so directly and obviously relate to our Lord and his official administration, that the only conclusion to which such a connection and scope of the discourse can justly lead us, is, that the words themselves so quoted relate to him likewise, and that, in fact, they give the great reason of this his terrible dealing with his ancient “flock,” which was then despising and rejecting him; one most marked and flagrant instance of which is, their estimating him at the price of a slave, “thirty pieces of silver,” — the “goodly price,” as the prophet sarcastically observes, “at which I was prized of them.” This application, is made the more striking by the particular, which is added, that this price was “cast unto the potter,” that is, cast down in order, as the event was, to be given to the potter, for the purchase of his field. So consistently does the application of the whole to Christ run through the prophecy; and so manifestly does it appear that the evangelist must have quoted the passage, as a direct and proper prediction of the event!

The second inquiry respects the verbal differences between the words of Zechariah and those cited by St. Matthew. The only variations of any importance arise from this, that the Messiah is represented by the prophet as the actor in the transaction: “If ye think good, give me my price. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter,” &c.; which difficulty is solved by reflecting, that it is frequent in Scripture to represent a thing as done by him who is the occasion of its being done. Instances abound in the prophets; and even in relation to this very event, we have an instance in Acts 1:18, where St. Peter, speaking of Judas, says, “Now this man purchased a field with the reward of his iniquity;” meaning in a style of speaking familiar to a Hebrew, that he was the occasion of the field being purchased, by bringing back the reward of his iniquity and casting it down in the temple. The spirit and energy which this mode of expression gives to writing, is manifest; but in prophecy there was often a deeper intention. The object was to throw a veil over the events predicted; and this was effectually done often by transferring the actions made the subject of prophecy to a higher and more mysterious agent, distinct from the real one, yet so that the event, when it occurred, should explain the whole. God himself is therefore frequently, nay, almost constantly, in the writings of the prophets, said to do what he permits to be done for good or for evil; and thus the doctrine of his control over the whole course of things is preserved, and prophecy is prevented from assuming that historical character which might have interfered with the free agency of men. To apply this rule to the passage in question: it was not to be expected that the prophet should narrate the event of the betrayal of Messiah in the manner it occurred, by bringing the Pharisees and Judas in person upon the scene. The act is therefore transferred to the Divine Messiah himself, because of his permitting it, and so controlling the CIRCUMSTANCES of the sin, though not the sin itself, that that vicious intention and purpose of the actors should be accomplished in one particular mode, and with such circumstances as should overrule it to their ultimate confusion. For this reason the Messiah is brought in by the prophet as though he were the great actor; but St. Matthew, taught the intent of the Holy Spirit, gives the SENSE of the prediction rather than the exact words, and refers the acts to the true actors, — and THEY took and gave them, &c. Nor was it necessary to quote them with precise exactness in order to convince the Jews, for whose use in the first place he wrote his gospel. He evidently quotes them in brief, but with sufficient plainness to refer the Jew to the passage in his own Scriptures, that he might read them there. This view renders much of that criticism superfluous which has been resorted to in order to confirm the citation of St. Matthew with the words of Zechariah, and which, after all, is for the most part conjectural.

A third question on this quotation arises out of its being referred by the evangelist, not to Zechariah, but to Jeremiah, in whose acknowledged book of prophecies it is not certainly found. For this various solutions have been offered; as, an error of transcription; that the words occur in some lost prophecy of Jeremiah; that the Old Testament was divided by the Jews into three great parts, the law, the Psalms, and the prophets, beginning with Jeremiah; so that any quotation from them might go under the name of that prophet; that several of the last chapters of Zechariah were written by Jeremiah, which is supported by Mr. Mede and Bishop Kidder. Against some of these solutions great objections lie; and the most probable is, that St. Matthew wrote only, dia tou profhtou, by the prophet, which is confirmed by some MSS., and by the Syriac version. “And,” says Bishop Pearce, “I am the more inclined to think so, because I find that Matthew does five times make no mention of the prophet whose words he quotes, one instance of which we have in verse 15 of this chapter.” The word Jeremy crept very early into the text; which might arise from some transcriber having the celebrated passage respecting the potter and the clay in his mind, though that relates to a different subject. — From the identity of the expressions it must be concluded that the words are from the book of Zechariah.

V. 10. As the Lord commanded me-To write, to record.

§ 139. — REPENTANCE AND DEATH OF JUDAS, 3-10.

Matthew now interrupts his narrative of the fate of the Saviour to give his final account of Judas. It hardly seems probable that Judas would give up all for lost before the final sentence and surrender of Jesus by Pilate.

3. Saw that he was condemned — The actual perception of the result, and the clear consciousness of the enormity of the crime, produced in Judas’s mind a revulsion. A conscious feeling also that he had sinned beyond mercy, seems to have possessed his soul. He felt that his trifling gains could never be used; and, with a desperate desire to know the worst of his case, he rushed through the gate of a voluntary death into the presence of his final Judge. Repented himself — Such a repentance as brings no true reformation. It was guilt starting back from the consequence of its doings. There is much repentance of this kind in the world of the lost.

V. 11. Art thou the king of the Jews?-Jesus before Caiaphas avows himself to be the Christ, before Pilate to be a king; clearly showing thereby, that his answering no more, was not owing to any fear.

Verse 11. Before the governor] My old MS. English Bible translates hghmwn Meyr cheef justyse, Presedent.

Art thou the Xing of the Jews?] The Jews had undoubtedly delivered him to Pilate as one who was rising up against the imperial authority, and assuming the regal office. See on Matthew 27:2.

11:12, 13, which represented symbolically, according to the manner of the prophets, the things that were to befall the Messiah, was originally acted and spoken by Jeremiah, as Matthew affirms; but that Zechariah, who in many particulars followed Jeremiah, was directed by the Spirit to repeat it afterward, and preserve it in writing among his other prophecies; and that the Jews had preserved the knowledge of this fact by tradition; wherefore, though it be now found in Zechariah, being originally spoken by Jeremiah, Matthew has committed no error here in referring it to him. See note on Zechariah 11:12, 13.

Verse 11. And Jesus stood before the governor — As a prisoner before the judge. “Little did the governor imagine,” says Bishop Porteus, “who it was that then stood before him. Little did he suspect that he himself must one day stand before the tribunal of that very person whom he was then about to judge as a criminal.” Observe, reader, we could not have stood before God because of our sins, nor have lifted up our face in his presence, if Christ had not thus been judged and condemned, and thereby made a sin-offering for us. He was arraigned that we might be discharged. For a more full account of our Lord’s appearance before Pilate, see John 18:29, &c., and Luke 23:2, &c. And the governor asked him, Art thou the king of the Jews? — From Pilate’s asking our Lord this question, we must suppose that the priests explained their accusation by telling him that Jesus had travelled continually through the country, and everywhere had given himself out for the Messiah; and that even during his trial before them, he had been so presumptuous as to assume that dignity in open court. Without some information of this kind, the governor would hardly have put such a question to Jesus, no prisoner being obliged to accuse himself. And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest — That is, according to the Hebrew idiom, It is as thou sayest. John tells us that our Lord added, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? that is, Dost thou ask this question of thine own accord, because thou thinkest that I have affected regal power, or, dost thou ask it according to the information of the priests, who affirm that I have acknowledged myself to be a king? Jesus undoubtedly knew what had happened, but he spake to the governor after this manner, because, not being present when the priests accused him, he had not heard what they said. Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? dost thou think that I am acquainted with the religious opinions, expectations, and disputes of the Jews? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me, as a seditious person. What hast thou done to merit such a charge? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. See on John 18:35.

Ver. 11. The governor asked him, Art thou the king of the jews? The rulers, determined to take away his life, made this the grand charge, and urged that through all jewry he had stirred up the people to sedition against the Romans. The Saviour’s reply is modest, glorious, and convincing. Thou sayest. It is as thou sayest. I am the king of the jews. To this purpose was I born, and for this end came I into the world, to bear witness of the truth; but my kingdom is not of this world. Thus the Lord, having avowed his Divinity to the sanhedrim, that he should come on the clouds of heaven; now avows his regal dignity to the governor, as King of kings and Lord of lords. Thus, according to St. Paul, he “witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate.” — The governor now pronounced him faultless, which roused all the bloody passions in the rulers’ hearts.

JESUS BEFORE PILATE, AND THE SURRENDER OF BARABBAS, 11-26.

11. Jesus stood before the governor — The Sanhedrim in a body, followed by their partisans, marched with their prisoner from the palace of Caiaphas to Pilate’s abode, which probably was at the town of Antonia, north of the temple. (See note on Matthew 21:12, and Temple Plan.) This tower was built by the Maccabees, the illustrious princes of Judah, (see note on Matthew 1:17,) as a depository of the high priest’s vestments, and rebuilt with great splendour by Herod. It was a fortress, but at the same time a most magnificent palace. To avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews decline entering Pilate’s palace. We must, then, figure to ourselves the multitudes standing in the broad area before the palace, while Jesus is taken in, either to the court or some public apartment of the building, called thence “the Pretorium,” or pretor’s (governor’s) office. Hence it appears by the narrative, especially in John, that Pilate alternately went out unto them, and returned into the judgment hall, or Pretorium, to Jesus. We may be aided in understanding this by supposing that in the diagram at 26:68, the court answers to the pretorium; and the area or broad space where the Jews are, is at the place marked “street.” It was towards this open yard that Pilate presents Jesus. John 19:4.

From the Jews in the front area Pilate learns the charge, and that Jesus is brought before him because the Jews had no power to execute him. Pilate then enters the Pretorium and learns of Jesus that he claims to be a spiritual king. Pilate then goes out to the Jews and pronounces Jesus innocent. Then the multitude raises a clamour of accusations, to which Jesus is so serenely and firmly silent that the governor marvelled greatly.

Art thou the King of the Jews? — The fullest and most striking account of the colloquy between our Lord and Pilate is given by John, and full notes upon it belong to a commentary upon that evangelist. Thou sayest — An affirmative answer of the question. It is as thou sayest.

Verse 11. Art thou the king of the Jews? — This question could not have arisen from any thing which occurred at the trial before the sanhedrim, and was probably suggested to Pilate by the chief priests, whose object it was to implicate Jesus in a charge of seditious intentions, so that the Roman governor might both the more readily consent to his death, and take his execution into his own hands, and, according to the Roman manner, crucify him.

Thou sayest. — This, as above observed, was a form of affirmation. Our Lord without hesitation declared that he was the King of the Jews; but showed that he knew the authors of the charge of sedition suggested it by asking, “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?” At the same time he takes care that Pilate should not proceed in ignorance upon the malicious suggestions of the priests, that he had professed to be the King of the Jews politically, by explaining his meaning, “My kingdom is not of this world,” it is not a civil but a spiritual reign; and this was done that Pilate might know that Cesar had nothing to fear from him, John 18:33, &c. There was great artifice in preferring so dangerous a charge against him before the Roman governor: Pilate appears at once to have perceived, that if our Lord had professed to be a king, it was in some mystical sense, and not literally. Accordingly, St. Luke adds, “Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man.” This so enraged his accusers, that Pilate, anxious to get quit of the case, and gathering from their clamours against him that he was a Galilean, sent him to Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, who was then at Jerusalem. See Luke 23:5, &c. This circumstance is omitted by Matthew, who proceeds with what occurred after Jesus had been sent back to Pilate. It is to be remarked that although our Lord replied to Pilate when he asked him whether he professed to be King of the Jews, he remained quite silent when Pilate asked him again, after his accusers had poured forth various accusations, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? The reason is obvious: had not our Lord repelled the charge of sedition, Pilate would have had a show of justice in condemning him; but to clamorous and vague charges he answered nothing, as knowing that they could not affect his character, nor make his condemnation appear less unjust. He was to die the innocent for the guilty; and it was enough that he established his innocence against every specific charge, that it might appear; and how truly it did appear, is showed in the reiterated justification of him by Pilate.

Verse 12. He answered nothing.] An answer to such accusations was not necessary: they sufficiently confuted themselves.

Verses 12-14. When he was accused of the chief priests, &c., he answered nothing — In consequence of the conversation that took place between Jesus and Pilate, referred to in the preceding note, Pilate was inclined to acquit Jesus, declaring he found in him no fault at all; but the priests were not disconcerted, nor abashed by the public declaration which the governor, in obedience to conscience and truth, made of the prisoner’s innocence; for they persisted in their accusations with more vehemence than before, affirming that he had attempted to raise a sedition in Galilee; see Luke 23:5. To this heavy charge Jesus answered nothing. Nay, he continued mute, notwithstanding the governor expressly desired him to speak in his own defence, saying, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? — Yes, he did hear, and still hears all that is witnessed unjustly against his truth and ways; but he keeps silence because it is the day of his patience, and does not answer as he shortly will, Psalm 50:3. In answering nothing to the accusations of the witnesses, Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, chap. 53:7. But a conduct so extraordinary, in such circumstances, astonished Pilate exceedingly, for he had good reason to be persuaded of Christ’s innocence. Indeed, his humble appearance was a sufficient refutation of the charge which the Jews brought against him, and his silence served instead of the most elaborate defence; and possibly he might decline making any public defence, lest the common people, moved by what he must have said, should have asked his release, and prevented his death; in which respect he showed his followers a noble example of courage and submission to the divine will. Besides, the gross falsehood of the accusation, known to the chief priests themselves, and to all the inhabitants of Galilee, rendered any reply needless.

JESUS BEFORE PILATE, AND THE SURRENDER OF BARABBAS, 11-26.

11. Jesus stood before the governor — The Sanhedrim in a body, followed by their partisans, marched with their prisoner from the palace of Caiaphas to Pilate’s abode, which probably was at the town of Antonia, north of the temple. (See note on Matthew 21:12, and Temple Plan.) This tower was built by the Maccabees, the illustrious princes of Judah, (see note on Matthew 1:17,) as a depository of the high priest’s vestments, and rebuilt with great splendour by Herod. It was a fortress, but at the same time a most magnificent palace. To avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews decline entering Pilate’s palace. We must, then, figure to ourselves the multitudes standing in the broad area before the palace, while Jesus is taken in, either to the court or some public apartment of the building, called thence “the Pretorium,” or pretor’s (governor’s) office. Hence it appears by the narrative, especially in John, that Pilate alternately went out unto them, and returned into the judgment hall, or Pretorium, to Jesus. We may be aided in understanding this by supposing that in the diagram at 26:68, the court answers to the pretorium; and the area or broad space where the Jews are, is at the place marked “street.” It was towards this open yard that Pilate presents Jesus. John 19:4.

From the Jews in the front area Pilate learns the charge, and that Jesus is brought before him because the Jews had no power to execute him. Pilate then enters the Pretorium and learns of Jesus that he claims to be a spiritual king. Pilate then goes out to the Jews and pronounces Jesus innocent. Then the multitude raises a clamour of accusations, to which Jesus is so serenely and firmly silent that the governor marvelled greatly.

Art thou the King of the Jews? — The fullest and most striking account of the colloquy between our Lord and Pilate is given by John, and full notes upon it belong to a commentary upon that evangelist. Thou sayest — An affirmative answer of the question. It is as thou sayest.

Verses 12-14. When he was accused of the chief priests, &c., he answered nothing — In consequence of the conversation that took place between Jesus and Pilate, referred to in the preceding note, Pilate was inclined to acquit Jesus, declaring he found in him no fault at all; but the priests were not disconcerted, nor abashed by the public declaration which the governor, in obedience to conscience and truth, made of the prisoner’s innocence; for they persisted in their accusations with more vehemence than before, affirming that he had attempted to raise a sedition in Galilee; see Luke 23:5. To this heavy charge Jesus answered nothing. Nay, he continued mute, notwithstanding the governor expressly desired him to speak in his own defence, saying, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? — Yes, he did hear, and still hears all that is witnessed unjustly against his truth and ways; but he keeps silence because it is the day of his patience, and does not answer as he shortly will, Psalm 50:3. In answering nothing to the accusations of the witnesses, Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, chap. 53:7. But a conduct so extraordinary, in such circumstances, astonished Pilate exceedingly, for he had good reason to be persuaded of Christ’s innocence. Indeed, his humble appearance was a sufficient refutation of the charge which the Jews brought against him, and his silence served instead of the most elaborate defence; and possibly he might decline making any public defence, lest the common people, moved by what he must have said, should have asked his release, and prevented his death; in which respect he showed his followers a noble example of courage and submission to the divine will. Besides, the gross falsehood of the accusation, known to the chief priests themselves, and to all the inhabitants of Galilee, rendered any reply needless.

JESUS BEFORE PILATE, AND THE SURRENDER OF BARABBAS, 11-26.

11. Jesus stood before the governor — The Sanhedrim in a body, followed by their partisans, marched with their prisoner from the palace of Caiaphas to Pilate’s abode, which probably was at the town of Antonia, north of the temple. (See note on Matthew 21:12, and Temple Plan.) This tower was built by the Maccabees, the illustrious princes of Judah, (see note on Matthew 1:17,) as a depository of the high priest’s vestments, and rebuilt with great splendour by Herod. It was a fortress, but at the same time a most magnificent palace. To avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews decline entering Pilate’s palace. We must, then, figure to ourselves the multitudes standing in the broad area before the palace, while Jesus is taken in, either to the court or some public apartment of the building, called thence “the Pretorium,” or pretor’s (governor’s) office. Hence it appears by the narrative, especially in John, that Pilate alternately went out unto them, and returned into the judgment hall, or Pretorium, to Jesus. We may be aided in understanding this by supposing that in the diagram at 26:68, the court answers to the pretorium; and the area or broad space where the Jews are, is at the place marked “street.” It was towards this open yard that Pilate presents Jesus. John 19:4.

From the Jews in the front area Pilate learns the charge, and that Jesus is brought before him because the Jews had no power to execute him. Pilate then enters the Pretorium and learns of Jesus that he claims to be a spiritual king. Pilate then goes out to the Jews and pronounces Jesus innocent. Then the multitude raises a clamour of accusations, to which Jesus is so serenely and firmly silent that the governor marvelled greatly.

Art thou the King of the Jews? — The fullest and most striking account of the colloquy between our Lord and Pilate is given by John, and full notes upon it belong to a commentary upon that evangelist. Thou sayest — An affirmative answer of the question. It is as thou sayest.

Verse 14. Marvelled greatly.] Silence under calumny manifests the utmost magnanimity. The chief priests did not admire this because it confounded them; but Pilate, who had no interest to serve by it, was deeply affected. This very silence was predicted. Isaiah 53:7.

Verses 12-14. When he was accused of the chief priests, &c., he answered nothing — In consequence of the conversation that took place between Jesus and Pilate, referred to in the preceding note, Pilate was inclined to acquit Jesus, declaring he found in him no fault at all; but the priests were not disconcerted, nor abashed by the public declaration which the governor, in obedience to conscience and truth, made of the prisoner’s innocence; for they persisted in their accusations with more vehemence than before, affirming that he had attempted to raise a sedition in Galilee; see Luke 23:5. To this heavy charge Jesus answered nothing. Nay, he continued mute, notwithstanding the governor expressly desired him to speak in his own defence, saying, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? — Yes, he did hear, and still hears all that is witnessed unjustly against his truth and ways; but he keeps silence because it is the day of his patience, and does not answer as he shortly will, Psalm 50:3. In answering nothing to the accusations of the witnesses, Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, chap. 53:7. But a conduct so extraordinary, in such circumstances, astonished Pilate exceedingly, for he had good reason to be persuaded of Christ’s innocence. Indeed, his humble appearance was a sufficient refutation of the charge which the Jews brought against him, and his silence served instead of the most elaborate defence; and possibly he might decline making any public defence, lest the common people, moved by what he must have said, should have asked his release, and prevented his death; in which respect he showed his followers a noble example of courage and submission to the divine will. Besides, the gross falsehood of the accusation, known to the chief priests themselves, and to all the inhabitants of Galilee, rendered any reply needless.

14. The governor marvelled greatly — It might not be so wonderful that a prisoner should make no defence; but the many circumstances of a mysterious nature, which Jesus refused to explain, greatly perplexed the governor.

V. 15. At every feast-Every year, at the feast of the passover. Mark 15:6; Luke 23:17; John 18:39.

Verse 15. The governor was wont to release] Whence this custom originated among the Jews is not known,-probably it was introduced by the Romans themselves, or by Pilate, merely to oblige the Jews, by showing them this public token of respect; but if it originated with him, he must have had the authority of Augustus; for the Roman laws never gave such discretionary power to any governor.

Verses 15-18. Now at that feast, &c. — It had become a custom with the Roman governors, at the feast of the passover, to gratify the people with the pardon and release of any one prisoner they pleased. There was no law to oblige them to do this, nor is it certain when or how this custom arose. But as acts of grace are generally popular things, it is probable it originated with the Romans themselves, and that they introduced and continued it to please their tributaries. It was, however, a bad custom, being an encouragement to wickedness, and an obstruction to justice. And they had then a notable, epishmon, a remarkable, or notorious prisoner — Who had really been guilty of the crime whereof they falsely accused Jesus; had made an insurrection, with accomplices, and committed murder in the insurrection; a crime which, though their impudence exceeded all bounds, they durst not lay to Christ’s charge. When they were gathered together — About Pilate’s tribunal, and began with great noise and clamour to demand of him that he would do, at this passover, as he had always done upon the like occasion, Mark 15:8; and would discharge a prisoner, Pilate asked, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus? — Pilate, desiring to preserve the life of Jesus, of whose innocence he was fully convinced, in order to induce the people to ask for his release, proposes no other alternative than that scandalous and outrageous criminal who has just now been mentioned. For he knew that for envy, as well as from malice and revenge, they had delivered Jesus. That it was not his guilt, but his goodness that they were provoked at: and that they envied him because the people magnified him. Hence Pilate was willing to make the proposal to the people in such a form as might be most likely to secure his life.

Ver. 15. To release unto the people a prisoner. At festivals the jews used to put criminals to death, to deter the nation from crimes. But as they had been released from Egyptian bondage at the paschal feast, they humanely released a felon according to the popular humour. Pilate therefore followed this custom.

15. Was wont — Was accustomed. The Jewish nation was under the Roman government, and there would often be men in prison whose crime was some attempt in favour of Jewish liberty, or some popular offence against the Roman power. Hence, when the governor came down from Cesarea to Jerusalem, it would be a popular act to grant pardon to some turbulent patriot in prison for sedition.

Verse 15. Now at that feast, &c. — The Persian version renders it, “every year, on the day of the feast,” that is, the passover. But this release of a criminal does not appear to have been a custom which originated with the Jews. It was certainly not derived from their law, which, as St. Paul says, Hebrews 10:28, inflicted death “without mercy,” cwriv oiktirmwn. It was the custom with both Greeks and Romans to distinguish some of their festivals in this manner; and this had probably been first imitated by Herod the Great, who conformed in many respects to Gentile manners. The Christian emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius, used to release all prisoners at Easter, except for some specified crimes.

Verse 16. A notable prisoner-Barabbas.] This person had, a short time before, raised an insurrection in Jerusalem, in which it appears, from Mark 15:7, some lives were lost. In some MSS., and in the Armenian and Syriac Hieros., this man has the surname of Jesus. Professor Birch has discovered this reading in a Vatican MS., written in 949, and numbered 354, in which is a marginal note which has been attributed to Anastasius, bishop of Antioch, and to Chrysostom, which asserts that in the most ancient MSS. the passage was as follows:-tina qelete apo twn duw apolusw umin, (IN) ton barabban, h (IN) ton legomenon (XN): Which of the two do ye wish me to release unto you, Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ? As Jesus, or Joshua, was a very common name among the Jews, and as the name of the father was often joined to that of the son, as Simon Barjonah, Simon, son of Jonah; so it is probable it was the case here, Jesus Barabba, Jesus, son of Abba, or Abbiah. If this name were originally written as above, which I am inclined to believe, the general omission of JESUS in the MSS. may be accounted for from the over zealous scrupulosity of Christian copyists, who were unwilling that a murderer should, in the same verse, be honoured with the name of the Redeemer of the world. See Birch in New Test.

Verses 15-18. Now at that feast, &c. — It had become a custom with the Roman governors, at the feast of the passover, to gratify the people with the pardon and release of any one prisoner they pleased. There was no law to oblige them to do this, nor is it certain when or how this custom arose. But as acts of grace are generally popular things, it is probable it originated with the Romans themselves, and that they introduced and continued it to please their tributaries. It was, however, a bad custom, being an encouragement to wickedness, and an obstruction to justice. And they had then a notable, epishmon, a remarkable, or notorious prisoner — Who had really been guilty of the crime whereof they falsely accused Jesus; had made an insurrection, with accomplices, and committed murder in the insurrection; a crime which, though their impudence exceeded all bounds, they durst not lay to Christ’s charge. When they were gathered together — About Pilate’s tribunal, and began with great noise and clamour to demand of him that he would do, at this passover, as he had always done upon the like occasion, Mark 15:8; and would discharge a prisoner, Pilate asked, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus? — Pilate, desiring to preserve the life of Jesus, of whose innocence he was fully convinced, in order to induce the people to ask for his release, proposes no other alternative than that scandalous and outrageous criminal who has just now been mentioned. For he knew that for envy, as well as from malice and revenge, they had delivered Jesus. That it was not his guilt, but his goodness that they were provoked at: and that they envied him because the people magnified him. Hence Pilate was willing to make the proposal to the people in such a form as might be most likely to secure his life.

16. A notable prisoner — A famous outlaw. Mark says that he had raised “an insurrection,” and that his adherents, who “had committed murder in the insurrection,” were also, like himself, under arrest and in prison. As they probably lived by plunder, Barabbas is called “a robber.” As a fierce and brave Jewish patriot, he had become notable or famous among the populace. He was, perhaps, like Robin Hood among the old English, hateful to the government but popular with the masses.

Verse 16. A notable prisoner, called Barabbas. — This man was notable, marked or distinguished, for his crimes, being guilty of sedition and murder: and was withal a robber, probably a leader of one of those banditti who infested the country. His name, Bar Abba, the son of a father, was a common one among the Jews; but his character is strongly exhibited to show the excessive hatred of the Jewish council to our Lord, and their eagerness for his blood. To accomplish this end they were willing that a mischievous and dangerous felon should be again let loose upon society. Thus, by another circumstance, was the partial and unjust character of Christ’s judges made manifest, and by consequence the innocence of our Lord was the more strongly illustrated. It was not the populace that cried, “Not this man, but Barabbas,” until the members of the sanhedrim, the great judges and magistrates of the land, had persuaded them, verse 20; and thus, in prosecuting our Lord, they openly declared that they had no regard to justice or law. This was evident to Pilate, who knew that for envy, through a malignant feeling occasioned by his excellence, they had delivered him, and explains his reluctance to surrender him to their wishes.

Verses 15-18. Now at that feast, &c. — It had become a custom with the Roman governors, at the feast of the passover, to gratify the people with the pardon and release of any one prisoner they pleased. There was no law to oblige them to do this, nor is it certain when or how this custom arose. But as acts of grace are generally popular things, it is probable it originated with the Romans themselves, and that they introduced and continued it to please their tributaries. It was, however, a bad custom, being an encouragement to wickedness, and an obstruction to justice. And they had then a notable, epishmon, a remarkable, or notorious prisoner — Who had really been guilty of the crime whereof they falsely accused Jesus; had made an insurrection, with accomplices, and committed murder in the insurrection; a crime which, though their impudence exceeded all bounds, they durst not lay to Christ’s charge. When they were gathered together — About Pilate’s tribunal, and began with great noise and clamour to demand of him that he would do, at this passover, as he had always done upon the like occasion, Mark 15:8; and would discharge a prisoner, Pilate asked, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus? — Pilate, desiring to preserve the life of Jesus, of whose innocence he was fully convinced, in order to induce the people to ask for his release, proposes no other alternative than that scandalous and outrageous criminal who has just now been mentioned. For he knew that for envy, as well as from malice and revenge, they had delivered Jesus. That it was not his guilt, but his goodness that they were provoked at: and that they envied him because the people magnified him. Hence Pilate was willing to make the proposal to the people in such a form as might be most likely to secure his life.

JESUS BEFORE PILATE, AND THE SURRENDER OF BARABBAS, 11-26.

11. Jesus stood before the governor — The Sanhedrim in a body, followed by their partisans, marched with their prisoner from the palace of Caiaphas to Pilate’s abode, which probably was at the town of Antonia, north of the temple. (See note on Matthew 21:12, and Temple Plan.) This tower was built by the Maccabees, the illustrious princes of Judah, (see note on Matthew 1:17,) as a depository of the high priest’s vestments, and rebuilt with great splendour by Herod. It was a fortress, but at the same time a most magnificent palace. To avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews decline entering Pilate’s palace. We must, then, figure to ourselves the multitudes standing in the broad area before the palace, while Jesus is taken in, either to the court or some public apartment of the building, called thence “the Pretorium,” or pretor’s (governor’s) office. Hence it appears by the narrative, especially in John, that Pilate alternately went out unto them, and returned into the judgment hall, or Pretorium, to Jesus. We may be aided in understanding this by supposing that in the diagram at 26:68, the court answers to the pretorium; and the area or broad space where the Jews are, is at the place marked “street.” It was towards this open yard that Pilate presents Jesus. John 19:4.

From the Jews in the front area Pilate learns the charge, and that Jesus is brought before him because the Jews had no power to execute him. Pilate then enters the Pretorium and learns of Jesus that he claims to be a spiritual king. Pilate then goes out to the Jews and pronounces Jesus innocent. Then the multitude raises a clamour of accusations, to which Jesus is so serenely and firmly silent that the governor marvelled greatly.

Art thou the King of the Jews? — The fullest and most striking account of the colloquy between our Lord and Pilate is given by John, and full notes upon it belong to a commentary upon that evangelist. Thou sayest — An affirmative answer of the question. It is as thou sayest.

V. 18. He knew that for envy they had delivered him-As well as from malice and revenge; they envied him, because the people magnified him.

Verse 18. For envy] dia fqonon, through malice. Then it was his business, as an upright judge, to have dispersed this mob, and immediately released Jesus.

Seeing malice is capable of putting even Christ himself to death, how careful should we be not to let the least spark of it harbour in our breast. Let it be remembered that malice as often originates from envy as it does from anger.

Verses 15-18. Now at that feast, &c. — It had become a custom with the Roman governors, at the feast of the passover, to gratify the people with the pardon and release of any one prisoner they pleased. There was no law to oblige them to do this, nor is it certain when or how this custom arose. But as acts of grace are generally popular things, it is probable it originated with the Romans themselves, and that they introduced and continued it to please their tributaries. It was, however, a bad custom, being an encouragement to wickedness, and an obstruction to justice. And they had then a notable, epishmon, a remarkable, or notorious prisoner — Who had really been guilty of the crime whereof they falsely accused Jesus; had made an insurrection, with accomplices, and committed murder in the insurrection; a crime which, though their impudence exceeded all bounds, they durst not lay to Christ’s charge. When they were gathered together — About Pilate’s tribunal, and began with great noise and clamour to demand of him that he would do, at this passover, as he had always done upon the like occasion, Mark 15:8; and would discharge a prisoner, Pilate asked, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus? — Pilate, desiring to preserve the life of Jesus, of whose innocence he was fully convinced, in order to induce the people to ask for his release, proposes no other alternative than that scandalous and outrageous criminal who has just now been mentioned. For he knew that for envy, as well as from malice and revenge, they had delivered Jesus. That it was not his guilt, but his goodness that they were provoked at: and that they envied him because the people magnified him. Hence Pilate was willing to make the proposal to the people in such a form as might be most likely to secure his life.

18. Knew that for envy — Pilate was perfectly satisfied that the charge brought by the Jews against Jesus, as seeking to be the rival king against Cesar, was a fiction. He knew the innocence of the accused. When he surrendered him he was guilty of innocent blood. No washing of his own hands could cleanse his soul or clear his character in history. From the other evangelists we learn to supply several facts omitted by Matthew. Pilate, on learning that Jesus was of Galilee, sent him to Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee, who was then in Jerusalem, hoping that he would dispose of his case. But Herod, after putting Jesus to mockery, remands him back to Pilate. Pilate endeavours to induce the Jews to allow Jesus to be dismissed with a few stripes, and they refuse with clamour. After he had endeavoured to have him released by amnesty, and they prefer the release of Barabbas, he washes his hands, in token of protesting his innocence of the death of Jesus. They respond loudly by taking the responsibility of his blood upon their own heads and their children’s. Pilate then surrenders Jesus apart, to mockery and scourges and then brings him out as a piteous spectacle, and presents him, with the words, Behold the man.” So far from being melted at the sight, they cry out the more to “crucify him!” On his demanding for what possible reason Jesus is to be crucified, they reply, “Because he called himself the Son of God.” Struck with this new charge, and with the strange assumption of this divine title by his prisoner, Pilate returns to Jesus to examine him, and is so impressed with his noble bearing as to make one more effort to save him. But at last the cry, “If you let this man go you are not Cesar’s friend,” settled the matter. Pilate did not bear to have his faithfulness to the emperor questioned, and to save his own position he sacrificed Jesus. He thus became sharer in their guilt. Taking his seat upon the tribunal of the pavement, so called, in front of his palace, he received the last rejection of Jesus by the Jews, and gave him up to death at about nine o’clock on Friday the day of the crucifixion.

Verse 19. I have suffered many things-in a dream] There is no doubt that God had appeared unto this woman, testifying the innocence of Christ, and showing the evils which should pursue Pilate if this innocent blood should be shed by his authority. See Matthew 27:2.

Verses 19, 20. When he was set down, &c. — While Pilate was labouring to effect his purpose, he was confirmed in his unwillingness to condemn Jesus, by a message sent from his wife by way of caution; which message was probably delivered to him publicly, in the hearing of all present, for it was intended to be a warning, not to him only, but to the prosecutors: saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man — Gr. tw dikaiw, that righteous man; an honourable testimony this, not only to our Lord’s innocence, but to his virtue and universal goodness, given even at a time when he was persecuted as the worst of malefactors. And, when his friends were afraid to appear in his defence, God made even those that were strangers and enemies to speak in his favour: when Peter denied him, Judas confessed him; when the chief priests pronounced him guilty of death, Pilate declared he found no fault in him; when the women that loved him stood afar off, Pilate’s wife, that knew little of him, showed a concern for him! Observe, reader, God will not leave himself without witnesses to the truth and equity of his cause, even when it seems to be most spitefully run down by its enemies, and most shamefully deserted by its friends. I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him — Whether she dreamed of the cruel usage of an innocent person, or of the judgments that were about to fall upon those that had any hand in his death, or both, her dream, it seems, was very frightful and distressing, and made such an impression on her mind, that she could not be easy till she had sent an account of it to her husband, who was sitting on the tribunal in the pavement. And the special providence of God must be acknowledged in sending this remarkable dream at this time; for it is not likely that she had heard any thing before concerning Christ, at least not so as to occasion her dreaming of him, but that the dream was immediately from God. She might, indeed, be one of those termed devout and honourable women, and might have some sense of religion; yet God sometimes revealed himself to some that had not, as to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. Be this as it may, her message was a fair warning to Pilate, and by it and similar instances we learn, that, as the Father of spirits has many ways of access to the spirits of men, and can give them instruction even in a dream, or vision of the night; so he has many ways of giving checks to sinners in their sinful pursuits; and it is a great mercy to have such checks, whether from the word of God, or from his providence, or from faithful friends, or from our own consciences, or in any other way. The people had not yet said whether they would have Jesus or Barabbas released to them. Therefore, when Pilate received his wife’s message, he called the chief priests and rulers together, and in the hearing of the multitude made a speech to them, wherein he gave an account of the examination which Jesus had undergone at his tribunal and at Herod’s, and declared that in both courts the trial had turned out honourably for his character. Wherefore he proposed to them that he should be the object of the people’s favour. See Luke 23:13-17. But the chief priests, &c., persuaded the multitude, both by themselves and their emissaries, whom they sent abroad among them, that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus — Suggesting, doubtless, that he was an impostor in league with Satan; an enemy to their church and temple; that if he were let alone, the Romans would come and take away their place and nation; that Barabbas, though an ill man, yet, not having the interest that Jesus had, could not do so much mischief. Thus they managed the mob, who otherwise were well affected to Jesus, and, if they had not been so much at the beck of their priests, would never have done such a preposterous thing as to prefer Barabbas before Jesus. Here, 1st, We cannot but look upon these wicked priests with indignation. By the law, in certain matters of controversy, the people were to be guided by the priests, and to do as they directed them, Deuteronomy 17:8. This great power, put into their hands, they wretchedly abused, and the leaders of the people caused them to err. 2d, We cannot but look upon the deluded people with pity, to see them hurried on thus violently to such great wickedness, and failing into the ditch with their blind leaders!

Ver. 19. Have thou nothing to do with that just man. I am utterly surprised at the comment which certain critics put upon these words. All agree that the dream was supernatural; but the question is, whether it proceeded from God or from Satan. “We commonly reckon,” says John Calvin, “that this woman was suborned of the devil to obstruct or retard the redemption of man.” Maldonatus obviously leans to the same idea. Why then should Satan enter into Judas, and hurry him on to betray his Master, and then immediately inspire the dream of this woman to prevent his crucifixion? If Satan act against Satan, how shall his kingdom stand? The dream was most assuredly of God, to prevent Pilate from destroying himself in ignorance, by becoming the principal agent in the Saviour’s death. But were not the rulers and Pilate fated, or predestinated from eternity, to be the instruments of the Saviour’s death? It is replied, and largely illustrated in Genesis 22., that Abraham had, after a hard inward conflict, bound and laid his Isaac on the wood, and had raised his arm to slay his only son; and consequently that the obedience both of the father and the son were as consummate as if Isaac had actually been immolated. No man doubts of this. Hence John Goodwin, in his “Redemption Redeemed,” strikingly infers from Isaac, the type of Christ, that if the jews had embraced the Saviour, being convinced of his divine mission by his miracles, his obedience or willingness to die would have been equally meritorious of our redemption.

This thought has a high claim to consideration; for St. Paul founds the merits of Christ on his obedience, saying, he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Philippians 2:8. Also in Psalm 40:7 it is said, Lo I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, oh my God. In that case our Saviour might probably, like Enoch, have been translated to the glory of the Father, after doing his will on earth. But against this supposition the words of Christ to Peter in the garden will be opposed. How then must the scriptures be fulfilled? I answer, the prophecies concerning Christ’s death were not more positive than those which once announced the sentence of death on Ahab, on Hezekiah, and on the Ninevites; yet in all these three cases, tears saved the men from punishment. And our Saviour himself twice said of Jerusalem, EXCEPT YE REPENT, ye shall all likewise perish. Luke 13:3, 5. Moreover, sooner than admit that Pilate and the jews were absolutely fated to so foul a deed, I would adopt a system favoured by the Augustine theology; that the jewish rulers about the time of Lazarus’s resurrection, were rejected, passed into a state of reprobation, and so God employed them, as demons also are employed, to fulfil the scriptures in crucifying the Lord of glory.

19. The judgment seat — He seats himself in order to pronounce the amnesty or release of Jesus or some other person. He makes every effort in his power to induce the Jews to demand the release of Jesus, but they prefer the outlaw to the just and holy one. Judgment seat — Or tribunal erected in the open court or area before the palace, with the people before it. His wife — Her name Claudia Procula, and tradition says she was converted to Christianity by this dream. It is one of those minute coincidences which mark the accurate knowledge of the author of this Gospel, that it was only just at this time that Roman governors were allowed to have their wives with them. That just man — That innocent man. This day — Perhaps it was a morning dream, occurring to her after Pilate had gone forth upon the business which now occupied him. Morning dreams were held as specially prophetic. Stern as was the character of Pilate, it is clearly evident, as our comment on John will more fully show, that he was not a little affected by the circumstances of the trial and death of Jesus. Nor is the thought to be of course rejected that the same divine power that warned Joseph of Jesus’s birth by a dream, may have warned Pilate by the same means to beware of a share in his death.

Verse 19. On the judgment seat. — Causes were heard by the Roman governors in the prætorium; but judgment was pronounced in the open air, from a bhma, or tribunal formed of stone or marble.

His wife sent to him, &c. — Her name was Claudia Procula, and Grotius observes, this circumstance marks the time of the event, and affords an incidental proof of the veracity of the evangelist, for it was only in the reign of Tiberius that the wives of governors had obtained permission to attend them in the provinces. On this dream it would be useless to quote at length the various opinions, ancient and modern, which have been entertained. By the fathers and the most respectable commentators it has been referred to a supernatural cause; by some, and especially those of the so denominated rational school, it has been resolved into some natural cause, and especially to her having had her imagination disturbed by the accounts she had received of the character of Jesus, and the proceedings which were instituted against him. To make this the more probable, some have conjectured her to have been a devout woman and a Jewess; for which no authority is given. As some of these notions are influenced by the desire to get rid, as far as possible, of every thing supernatural, and especially of admonitory dreams, it may be generally observed that no critics are consistent here but this German neologians, who explain away every thing supernatural in the Scriptures. If critics are not, therefore, prepared to go to that infidel extreme, it is useless to object to one event in the Gospel history as supernatural, when many such must be allowed by themselves. The believer in the Bible, as a revelation from God, must believe that dreams have often been produced by a Divine agency: and it is as objectionable in reason as it is in faith, to deny that a phenomenon, so adapted to produce powerful impressions upon the mind, should not often be an agency which Providence employs for its own purposes. In this case no natural cause could be given for this singular and timely dream; for the attempt to solve it by supposing the wife of Pilate to be acquainted with Christ’s character and works has no foundation. All that can be pleaded for it is probability: but probability is against it; for as Pilate was obviously unacquainted with our Lord, as he indicates a total ignorance of his former life, there is no reason to assume that Pilate’s wife had turned her attention to his proceedings, if she had ever heard of them, or that she had felt any interest in them, since our Lord was but occasionally at Jerusalem, and the Romans held the religion of the Jews in great contempt. But even had she known more of him, then there is not any reason to conclude, if she had even reverenced him, her dream could not have been produced by her knowledge of his dangers. For it occurred during the same night in which he had been secretly apprehended, and his trial had been going on in the council while she was asleep, and all without the knowledge and consent of Pilate himself, who was called upon only to confirm a sentence passed in a Jewish, not in a Roman court, and which they had a right to hold without his permission. She must, therefore, be considered as wholly ignorant of the transactions of the night, of Christ’s betrayal, apprehension, and condemnation by the sanhedrim. The occurrence of the dream, the powerful manner in which it affected her, the message which she sent to her husband during the day, after the proceedings against Jesus had become public, when seated on the tribunal; and the testimony given by a Gentile woman of rank, from the impression of a singular dream, in favour of the righteous character of Christ, must all be referred to a higher than a natural cause, or to mere accident. It was the design of God to multiply testimonies to the holy and blameless character of our Lord, that it might be the more strongly marked to all future ages that he died, “the JUST for the unjust, to bring us to God.” Judas, by his confession; the false witnesses, by their disagreement; the judges, by their violence, manifest injustice, and the vagueness of their charges; Pilate’s wife, by her message to her lord; and Pilate himself, all proclaimed the perfect INNOCENCE of the victim; who was, nevertheless, yielded up to the clamours of his persecutors. How strange are these events! and yet how perfectly they accord with the true character and design of our Saviour’s passion and death!

Have thou nothing to do, &c. — Mhden soi kai tw dikaiw ekeinw, a mode of speaking equivalent to a strong exhortation not to do him the least injury, nor implicate himself in the guilt of condemning the innocent. This day in a dream. — By this day is meant this night, because the day in Judea was reckoned to begin on the preceding evening, and therefore the night on which she had the dream was a constituent part of the day on which she sent the message. So Genesis 1:5, “The evening and the morning were the first DAY.”

Verse 20. Ask Barabbas] Who had raised an insurrection and committed murder-and to destroy Jesus, whose voice was never heard in their streets, and who had, during the space of three years and a half, gone about unweariedly, from village to village, instructing the ignorant, healing the diseased, and raising the dead.

Verses 19, 20. When he was set down, &c. — While Pilate was labouring to effect his purpose, he was confirmed in his unwillingness to condemn Jesus, by a message sent from his wife by way of caution; which message was probably delivered to him publicly, in the hearing of all present, for it was intended to be a warning, not to him only, but to the prosecutors: saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man — Gr. tw dikaiw, that righteous man; an honourable testimony this, not only to our Lord’s innocence, but to his virtue and universal goodness, given even at a time when he was persecuted as the worst of malefactors. And, when his friends were afraid to appear in his defence, God made even those that were strangers and enemies to speak in his favour: when Peter denied him, Judas confessed him; when the chief priests pronounced him guilty of death, Pilate declared he found no fault in him; when the women that loved him stood afar off, Pilate’s wife, that knew little of him, showed a concern for him! Observe, reader, God will not leave himself without witnesses to the truth and equity of his cause, even when it seems to be most spitefully run down by its enemies, and most shamefully deserted by its friends. I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him — Whether she dreamed of the cruel usage of an innocent person, or of the judgments that were about to fall upon those that had any hand in his death, or both, her dream, it seems, was very frightful and distressing, and made such an impression on her mind, that she could not be easy till she had sent an account of it to her husband, who was sitting on the tribunal in the pavement. And the special providence of God must be acknowledged in sending this remarkable dream at this time; for it is not likely that she had heard any thing before concerning Christ, at least not so as to occasion her dreaming of him, but that the dream was immediately from God. She might, indeed, be one of those termed devout and honourable women, and might have some sense of religion; yet God sometimes revealed himself to some that had not, as to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. Be this as it may, her message was a fair warning to Pilate, and by it and similar instances we learn, that, as the Father of spirits has many ways of access to the spirits of men, and can give them instruction even in a dream, or vision of the night; so he has many ways of giving checks to sinners in their sinful pursuits; and it is a great mercy to have such checks, whether from the word of God, or from his providence, or from faithful friends, or from our own consciences, or in any other way. The people had not yet said whether they would have Jesus or Barabbas released to them. Therefore, when Pilate received his wife’s message, he called the chief priests and rulers together, and in the hearing of the multitude made a speech to them, wherein he gave an account of the examination which Jesus had undergone at his tribunal and at Herod’s, and declared that in both courts the trial had turned out honourably for his character. Wherefore he proposed to them that he should be the object of the people’s favour. See Luke 23:13-17. But the chief priests, &c., persuaded the multitude, both by themselves and their emissaries, whom they sent abroad among them, that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus — Suggesting, doubtless, that he was an impostor in league with Satan; an enemy to their church and temple; that if he were let alone, the Romans would come and take away their place and nation; that Barabbas, though an ill man, yet, not having the interest that Jesus had, could not do so much mischief. Thus they managed the mob, who otherwise were well affected to Jesus, and, if they had not been so much at the beck of their priests, would never have done such a preposterous thing as to prefer Barabbas before Jesus. Here, 1st, We cannot but look upon these wicked priests with indignation. By the law, in certain matters of controversy, the people were to be guided by the priests, and to do as they directed them, Deuteronomy 17:8. This great power, put into their hands, they wretchedly abused, and the leaders of the people caused them to err. 2d, We cannot but look upon the deluded people with pity, to see them hurried on thus violently to such great wickedness, and failing into the ditch with their blind leaders!

Ver. 20. The chief priests — persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas. When a strong passion has once gained possession of the mind, not only the moral principle becomes extinct, but the understanding is blinded as to the consequences of guilt. Surely, had they thought at all, they must have seen the developement of their malice; aye, and what is most to be dreaded, the vengeance of heaven for the innocent blood of a prophet.

20. Chief priests and elders persuaded — The people had been upon his side. They had brought him into Jerusalem with triumph, while the rulers were compelled to hide their heads in low murmurs. They dared not openly apprehend him, for fear of the people; but taking him secretly, and surrendering him with all the appendages of a culprit guilty of something, the people are induced to consider him as a deceiver and blasphemer and traitor. The very fact that he is there in fetters seems to prove that he is not divine, and so make out that he was a deceiver, who had claimed to be the Son of God. Nevertheless, when it comes to the point that he shall not be demanded for release, but the outlaw shall be preferred before him, it takes a fresh onset of persuasion to induce the people to take that step. Doubtless the friends of Jesus were mostly absent, frightened away by this fearful revolution.

Verse 21. They said, Barabbas.] What a fickle crowd! A little before they all hailed him as the Son of David, and acknowledged him as a gift from God; now they prefer a murderer to him! But this it appears they did at the instigation of the chief priests. We see here how dangerous wicked priests are in the Church of Christ; when pastors are corrupt, they are capable of inducing their flock to prefer Barabbas to Jesus, the world to God, and the pleasures of sense to the salvation of their souls. The invidious epithet which a certain statesman gave to the people at large was, in its utmost latitude, applicable to these Jews,-they were a SWINISH MULTITUDE.

Verses 21, 22. The governor said, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? — He still hoped to gain his point, and have Jesus released: but, to his great surprise, they said, Barabbas — As if his crimes were less than those of Jesus, and therefore he less deserved to die; or, as if his merits were greater, and therefore he better deserved to live! Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and thou earth, be horribly afraid! Were ever men that pretended to reason or religion guilty of such prodigious madness, such horrid wickedness! This was it that Peter charged so home upon them, when he said, Acts 3:14, Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and ye killed the Prince of life. Pilate saith, &c. — Pilate, being amazed at their choice of Barabbas, was willing to hope it was rather from a fondness to him than from enmity to Jesus, and therefore put this question to them, What shall I do then with Jesus? — Shall I release him likewise for the greater honour of your feast? Or, will you leave the disposing of him to me? No: — They all say, LET HIM BE CRUCIFIED — The punishment which Barabbas had deserved: and this probably made them think of it. But in their malice they forgot with how dangerous a precedent they furnished the Roman governor. And indeed, within the compass of a few years, it turned dreadfully upon themselves. They desired he might die that death, because it was looked upon as the most scandalous and ignominious; and they hoped thereby to make his followers ashamed to own him, and their relation to him. It was absurd for them to prescribe to the judge what sentence he should pass, but their malice and rage made them forget all rules of order and decency, and turn a court of justice into a riotous and seditious assembly. Though they that cried thus, perhaps, were not the same persons that the other day had cried, HOSANNA; yet see what a change was made in the face of the populace in a little time! When he rode in triumph to Jerusalem, so general were the acclamations of praise, that one would have thought he had no enemies; but now, when he was led in dishonour to Pilate’s judgment-seat, so general were the outcries of enmity, that one would think he had no friends! Such revolutions are there in this changeable world, through which our way to heaven lies, as our Master’s did, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, counterchanged. 2 Corinthians 6:8.

21. They said, Barabbas — This was the deepest human degradation, to have the vilest of mankind preferred before him. He was held worse than the worst, and lower than the lowest.

V. 22. They all say, Let him be crucified-The punishment which Barabbas had deserved: and this probably made them think of it. But in their malice they forgot with how dangerous a precedent they furnished the Roman governor. And indeed within the compass of a few years it turned dreadfully upon themselves.

Verse 22. What shall I do then with Jesus?] Showing, hereby, that it was his wish to release him.

Verses 21, 22. The governor said, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? — He still hoped to gain his point, and have Jesus released: but, to his great surprise, they said, Barabbas — As if his crimes were less than those of Jesus, and therefore he less deserved to die; or, as if his merits were greater, and therefore he better deserved to live! Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and thou earth, be horribly afraid! Were ever men that pretended to reason or religion guilty of such prodigious madness, such horrid wickedness! This was it that Peter charged so home upon them, when he said, Acts 3:14, Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and ye killed the Prince of life. Pilate saith, &c. — Pilate, being amazed at their choice of Barabbas, was willing to hope it was rather from a fondness to him than from enmity to Jesus, and therefore put this question to them, What shall I do then with Jesus? — Shall I release him likewise for the greater honour of your feast? Or, will you leave the disposing of him to me? No: — They all say, LET HIM BE CRUCIFIED — The punishment which Barabbas had deserved: and this probably made them think of it. But in their malice they forgot with how dangerous a precedent they furnished the Roman governor. And indeed, within the compass of a few years, it turned dreadfully upon themselves. They desired he might die that death, because it was looked upon as the most scandalous and ignominious; and they hoped thereby to make his followers ashamed to own him, and their relation to him. It was absurd for them to prescribe to the judge what sentence he should pass, but their malice and rage made them forget all rules of order and decency, and turn a court of justice into a riotous and seditious assembly. Though they that cried thus, perhaps, were not the same persons that the other day had cried, HOSANNA; yet see what a change was made in the face of the populace in a little time! When he rode in triumph to Jerusalem, so general were the acclamations of praise, that one would have thought he had no enemies; but now, when he was led in dishonour to Pilate’s judgment-seat, so general were the outcries of enmity, that one would think he had no friends! Such revolutions are there in this changeable world, through which our way to heaven lies, as our Master’s did, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, counterchanged. 2 Corinthians 6:8.

22. Let him be crucified — This was the decisive utterance of the fatal word.

Verse 23. What evil hath he done?] Pilate plainly saw that there was nothing laid to his charge for which, consistently with the Roman laws, he could condemn him.

But they cried out the more] What strange fury and injustice! They could not answer Pilate’s question, What evil hath he done? He had done none, and they knew he had done none; but they are determined on his death.

Verse 23. The governor said, Why? what evil hath he done? — A proper question to be asked before we censure any in common discourse, much more for a judge to ask, before he pass a sentence of death. It is much for the honour of the Lord Jesus, that, though he suffered as an evil doer, yet neither his judge nor his prosecutors could find that he had done any evil. Had he done any evil against God? No: he always did those things that pleased him. Had he done any against the civil government? No: as he did himself, so he taught others to render to Cesar the things that were Cesar’s. Had he done any against the public peace? No: he did not strive or cry, nor was his kingdom of this world. Had he done any evil to particular persons? Whom had he defrauded, or otherwise injured? Not one: so far from it, that he continually went about doing good. But they cried the more, LET HIM BE CRUCIFIED. They do not go about to show any evil he had done, but, right or wrong, he must be crucified. Quitting all pretensions to the truth of the premises, they resolved to hold fast the conclusion, and what was wanting in evidence to make up in clamour.

JESUS BEFORE PILATE, AND THE SURRENDER OF BARABBAS, 11-26.

11. Jesus stood before the governor — The Sanhedrim in a body, followed by their partisans, marched with their prisoner from the palace of Caiaphas to Pilate’s abode, which probably was at the town of Antonia, north of the temple. (See note on Matthew 21:12, and Temple Plan.) This tower was built by the Maccabees, the illustrious princes of Judah, (see note on Matthew 1:17,) as a depository of the high priest’s vestments, and rebuilt with great splendour by Herod. It was a fortress, but at the same time a most magnificent palace. To avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews decline entering Pilate’s palace. We must, then, figure to ourselves the multitudes standing in the broad area before the palace, while Jesus is taken in, either to the court or some public apartment of the building, called thence “the Pretorium,” or pretor’s (governor’s) office. Hence it appears by the narrative, especially in John, that Pilate alternately went out unto them, and returned into the judgment hall, or Pretorium, to Jesus. We may be aided in understanding this by supposing that in the diagram at 26:68, the court answers to the pretorium; and the area or broad space where the Jews are, is at the place marked “street.” It was towards this open yard that Pilate presents Jesus. John 19:4.

From the Jews in the front area Pilate learns the charge, and that Jesus is brought before him because the Jews had no power to execute him. Pilate then enters the Pretorium and learns of Jesus that he claims to be a spiritual king. Pilate then goes out to the Jews and pronounces Jesus innocent. Then the multitude raises a clamour of accusations, to which Jesus is so serenely and firmly silent that the governor marvelled greatly.

Art thou the King of the Jews? — The fullest and most striking account of the colloquy between our Lord and Pilate is given by John, and full notes upon it belong to a commentary upon that evangelist. Thou sayest — An affirmative answer of the question. It is as thou sayest.

Verse 23. But they cried out the more, &c. — Thus it is manifest that our Lord had no charge against him examined with judicial care by Pilate, but was sacrificed to a popular clamour, the fear of a tumult, and an apprehension lest the Jews should represent him as negligent in his government, and a careless friend or an enemy to Cesar. As a popular tumult in favour of our Lord had been apprehended by the chief priests, for which reason they had proceeded so secretly against him, the circumstance of the multitude now clamouring for his crucifixion under the influence of his persecutors, has given occasion to many reflections being made on the sudden changes to which popular opinion is liable. These observations are indeed very just, but not quite applicable in this case. The people most favourable to our Lord were chiefly those from the country, who were attending the feast, and especially from Galilee. The multitude, now under the direction of the priests and elders, were the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and probably those of the lowest rank, over whom the leading members of the council, chiefly wealthy Sadducees, would have great control. Now also the Roman governor had the cause before him, with the military at command, and those who were better disposed to Christ were overawed.

V. 24. Then Pilate took water and washed his hands-This was a custom frequently used among the heathens as well as among the Jews, in token of innocency.

Verse 24. Pilate-took water, and washed his hands] Thus signifying his innocence. It was a custom among the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins, to wash the hands in token of innocence, and to show that they were pure from any imputed guilt. In case of an undiscovered murder, the elders of that city which was nearest to the place where the dead body was found, were required by the law, Deuteronomy 21:1-10, to wash their hands over the victim which was offered to expiate the crime, and thus make public protestation of their own innocence. David says, I will wash my hands in innocence, so shall I compass thine altar, Psalm 26:6. As Pilate knew Christ was innocent, he should have prevented his death: he had the armed force at his command, and should have dispersed this infamous mob. Had he been charged with countenancing a seditious person, he could have easily cleared himself, had the matter been brought before the emperor. He, therefore, was inexcusable.

Verses 24, 25. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing — That he could not convince them what an unjust, unreasonable thing it was for him to condemn a man whom he believed to be innocent, and whom they could not prove to be guilty; and that instead of doing any good by his opposition to their will, a tumult was made — Through their furious outcries; he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude — Pilate did this, says Origen, according to the custom of the Jews, being willing to assert Christ’s innocency to them, not in words only, but by deed. Thus, in the instance of a murder, committed by an unknown hand, the elders of the city nearest to the place where the dead body was found, were to wash their hands over a heifer slain by way of sacrifice to expiate the crime, and to say, Our hands have not shed this blood, Deuteronomy 21:6. Alluding to which ceremony, the psalmist, having renounced all confederacy with wicked and mischievous men, says, I will wash my hands in innocency. But as washing the hands in token of innocence was a rite frequently used. also by the Gentiles, it is much more probable that Pilate, who was a Gentile, did this in conformity to them. He thought, possibly, by this avowal of his resolution to have no hand in the death of Christ, to have terrified the populace; for one of his understanding and education could not but be sensible that all the water in the universe was not able to wash away the guilt of an unrighteous sentence. Saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it — Nevertheless, solemn as his declaration was, it had no effect; for the people continued inflexible, crying out with one consent, His blood be on us and on our children — That is, We are willing to take the guilt of his death upon ourselves. The governor, therefore, finding by the sound of the cry that it was general, and that the people were fixed in their choice of Barabbas, passed the sentence they desired. He released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired, but he delivered Jesus to their will, Luke 23:25. In this conduct, notwithstanding his efforts to save Jesus, he was utterly inexcusable, and the more so the more he was convinced of Christ’s innocence. He had an armed force under his command sufficient to have scattered this infamous mob, and to have enforced the execution of a righteous sentence. But if not, he ought himself rather to have suffered death than to have knowingly condemned the innocent. Accordingly, as the ancient Christians believed, great calamities afterward befell him and his family, as a token of the displeasure of God for his perversion of justice in this instance. According to Josephus, he was deposed from his government by Vitellius, and sent to Tiberius at Rome, who died before he arrived there. And we learn from Eusebius, that quickly after, having been banished to Vienne in Gaul, he laid violent hands upon himself, falling on his own sword. Agrippa, who was an eye-witness to many of his enormities, speaks of him, in his oration to Caius Cesar, as one who had been a man of the most infamous character.

As to the imprecation of the Jewish priests and people, His blood be on us and on our children, it is well known, that as it was dreadfully answered in the ruin so quickly brought on the Jewish nation, and the calamities which have since pursued that wretched people in almost all ages and countries; so it was particularly illustrated in the severity with which Titus, merciful as he naturally was, treated the Jews whom he took during the siege of Jerusalem; of whom Josephus himself writes, [Bell. Jud., 50. 5:11, (al. 6:12,) § 1,] that mastigoumenoi anestaurounto, having been scourged, and tortured in a very terrible manner, they were crucified in the view and near the walls of the city; perhaps, among other places, on mount Calvary; and it is very probable, this might be the fate of some of those very persons who now joined in this cry, as it undoubtedly was of many of their children. For Josephus, who was an eye-witness, expressly declares, “that the number of those thus crucified was so great that there was not room for the crosses to stand by each other; and that at last they had not wood enough to make crosses off.” A passage which, especially when compared with the verse before us, must impress and astonish the reader beyond any other in the whole story. If this were not the very finger of God, pointing out their crime in crucifying his Son, it is hard to say what could deserve to be called so. Elsner has abundantly shown, that among the Greeks, the persons on whose testimony others were put to death used, by a very solemn execration, to devote themselves to the divine vengeance, if the person so condemned were not really guilty. See Doddridge.

Ver. 24. Pilate — took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. This custom was primitive. “If I am wicked, why then labour I in vain? If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.” Job 9:29-31. In cases of an undiscovered murder, Moses required the elders of Israel to wash their hands over a heifer, slain in the valley for expiation. Deuteronomy 21:6. Ovid, the Roman poet, is then not quite accurate in ascribing this custom wholly to the Greeks. He says, “The ancients believed, by the lustrations they prepared, that murder might be expiated. The commencement of this error was in Greece, where it was thought that an impious murder might be expiated by ablutions. Thus the son of Actor, surnamed Aruneus, was absolved by Peleus; and Peleus himself, from the murder of Phocus, was absolved by Acastus in the camp of Heraclea. — The son of Amphiarus too, cries in fury, wash away, oh river Achelous, the guilt of my parricide; and lo, he is washed at once from his crime and his remorse. — Oh no, no! The sword awaits its victim. Canst thou be so credulous as to think that water can wash away a crime so foul?” Omne nefas omnemque mali purgamina causam

Credebant nostri tollere posse senes.

Græcia principium moris fuit: illa nocentes

Impia lustratos ponere facta putat.

Actoriden Peleus, ipsum quoque Pelea Phoci

Cæde per Hæmonias solvit Acastus aquas. —

Amphiaraides Naupactoo Acheloo,

Solve nefas, dixit, solve et ille nefas.

Ah nimiùm faciles, qui tristia crimina cædis

Flumineâ tolli posse putetis aquâ.

FASTORUM, lib. 2. 5:35. Ed. Paris, 1804.

The repose which Pilate procured by this sacrifice of innocence to fury was but momentary. Some insurrection having happened in Samaria, Pilate destroyed many; and being accused to the emperor Vitellius, he was deposed, and died on his passage to Rome. But Eusebius says, he was banished to Vienne in France.

24. Washed his hands — An emblem of his own innocence of the murder. See note on 26:18.

Verse 24. He took water and washed his hands, &c. — Figurative allusions to this custom appear in the Old Testament. “I will wash my hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar.” It has been disputed whether Pilate in this act followed a Jewish or a Gentile custom. That it was a Jewish emblematical action, appears from Deuteronomy 21:6, 7: “And all the elders of that city that is next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley,” the heifer slain for expiation, “and they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.” It is scarcely probable, however, that Pilate paid much regard to Jewish ceremonies. Washing the hands was used by the Greeks and Romans on the commission of involuntary homicide; but that was for the purpose of expiation, which Pilate could not intend; for by this act he declared that he was innocent of the blood of Christ, not that he had contracted a guilty stain which needed lustration. It may be taken therefore as a strong mode of declaring his sentiments, by an emblematical action, suggested by the earnestness of his mind, without any reference to any particular rite either Jewish or Pagan, though founded upon the general practice of washing as a symbol of purity, and one which was overruled to render his declaration of our Lord’s innocence the more impressive and remarkable; for the act could not be mistaken, though attempts might afterward be made to pervert his words; and to the Jews the assertion of Christ’s innocence must have been most unwelcome. This action he accompanied with the memorable saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person;” most iniquitously indeed surrendering to death one he declared just; but at the same time proclaiming that those who were guilty of the act were guilty of blood, and brought themselves under the charge of murdering the innocent.

See ye to it. — Pilate reasoned, as ill as he acted. He vainly hoped to transfer the guilt from himself to the Jews; and because he had attempted in vain to persuade them to desist from their purpose, thought himself excused in yielding to the difficulties to which their violence and threats exposed him. Philo describes him as “naturally inflexible, rigid, and self-willed;” but he had already had to contend with two insurrections of the Jews produced by his opposing their religious prejudices; one, on occasion of his attempting to bring the Roman standards into Jerusalem; the other, from his applying the wealth of the sacred treasury to other uses; and the fear of a third, on this occasion, coupled with the still powerful apprehension lest the Jews should misrepresent his conduct to his jealous and sanguinary master, the Emperor Tiberius, prevailed over his convictions. Yet the supreme power of life and death was in his hands, and the difficulty and danger of acting right form no justification for acting wrong. Pilate washed his hands; but his conscience was still left black with the very guilt which he declared would lie upon the Jews, — the guilt of innocent blood.

V. 25. His blood be on us and on our children-As this imprecation was dread. fully answered in the ruin so quickly brought on the Jewish nation, and the calamities which have ever since pursued that wretched people, so it was peculiarly fulfilled by Titus the Roman general, on the Jews whom he took during the siege of Jerusalem. So many, after having been scourged in a terrible manner, were crucified all round the city, that in a while there was not room near the wall for the crosses to stand by each other. Probably this befell some of those who now joined in this cry, as it certainly did many of their children: the very finger of God thus pointing out their crime in crucifying his Son.

Verse 25. His blood be on us and on our children.] If this man be innocent, and we put him to death as a guilty person, may the punishment due to such a crime be visited upon us, and upon our children after us! What a dreadful imprecation! and how literally fulfilled! The notes on chap. 24, will show how they fell victims to their own imprecation, being visited with a series of calamities unexampled in the history of the world. They were visited with the same kind of punishment; for the Romans crucified them in such numbers when Jerusalem was taken, that there was found a deficiency of crosses for the condemned, and of places for the crosses. Their children or descendants have had the same curse entailed upon them, and continue to this day a proof of the innocence of Christ, the truth of his religion, and of the justice of God.

Verses 24, 25. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing — That he could not convince them what an unjust, unreasonable thing it was for him to condemn a man whom he believed to be innocent, and whom they could not prove to be guilty; and that instead of doing any good by his opposition to their will, a tumult was made — Through their furious outcries; he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude — Pilate did this, says Origen, according to the custom of the Jews, being willing to assert Christ’s innocency to them, not in words only, but by deed. Thus, in the instance of a murder, committed by an unknown hand, the elders of the city nearest to the place where the dead body was found, were to wash their hands over a heifer slain by way of sacrifice to expiate the crime, and to say, Our hands have not shed this blood, Deuteronomy 21:6. Alluding to which ceremony, the psalmist, having renounced all confederacy with wicked and mischievous men, says, I will wash my hands in innocency. But as washing the hands in token of innocence was a rite frequently used. also by the Gentiles, it is much more probable that Pilate, who was a Gentile, did this in conformity to them. He thought, possibly, by this avowal of his resolution to have no hand in the death of Christ, to have terrified the populace; for one of his understanding and education could not but be sensible that all the water in the universe was not able to wash away the guilt of an unrighteous sentence. Saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it — Nevertheless, solemn as his declaration was, it had no effect; for the people continued inflexible, crying out with one consent, His blood be on us and on our children — That is, We are willing to take the guilt of his death upon ourselves. The governor, therefore, finding by the sound of the cry that it was general, and that the people were fixed in their choice of Barabbas, passed the sentence they desired. He released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired, but he delivered Jesus to their will, Luke 23:25. In this conduct, notwithstanding his efforts to save Jesus, he was utterly inexcusable, and the more so the more he was convinced of Christ’s innocence. He had an armed force under his command sufficient to have scattered this infamous mob, and to have enforced the execution of a righteous sentence. But if not, he ought himself rather to have suffered death than to have knowingly condemned the innocent. Accordingly, as the ancient Christians believed, great calamities afterward befell him and his family, as a token of the displeasure of God for his perversion of justice in this instance. According to Josephus, he was deposed from his government by Vitellius, and sent to Tiberius at Rome, who died before he arrived there. And we learn from Eusebius, that quickly after, having been banished to Vienne in Gaul, he laid violent hands upon himself, falling on his own sword. Agrippa, who was an eye-witness to many of his enormities, speaks of him, in his oration to Caius Cesar, as one who had been a man of the most infamous character.

As to the imprecation of the Jewish priests and people, His blood be on us and on our children, it is well known, that as it was dreadfully answered in the ruin so quickly brought on the Jewish nation, and the calamities which have since pursued that wretched people in almost all ages and countries; so it was particularly illustrated in the severity with which Titus, merciful as he naturally was, treated the Jews whom he took during the siege of Jerusalem; of whom Josephus himself writes, [Bell. Jud., 50. 5:11, (al. 6:12,) § 1,] that mastigoumenoi anestaurounto, having been scourged, and tortured in a very terrible manner, they were crucified in the view and near the walls of the city; perhaps, among other places, on mount Calvary; and it is very probable, this might be the fate of some of those very persons who now joined in this cry, as it undoubtedly was of many of their children. For Josephus, who was an eye-witness, expressly declares, “that the number of those thus crucified was so great that there was not room for the crosses to stand by each other; and that at last they had not wood enough to make crosses off.” A passage which, especially when compared with the verse before us, must impress and astonish the reader beyond any other in the whole story. If this were not the very finger of God, pointing out their crime in crucifying his Son, it is hard to say what could deserve to be called so. Elsner has abundantly shown, that among the Greeks, the persons on whose testimony others were put to death used, by a very solemn execration, to devote themselves to the divine vengeance, if the person so condemned were not really guilty. See Doddridge.

Ver. 25. His blood be on us, and on our children. The people who said this were misguided by the rulers and their dependents. But alas, they little thought that one million one hundred and ninety three thousand lives would so soon be required for this and all their other sins. — Josephus’s Wars of the Jews, book 7.

25. His blood be on us — Terrible imprecation of wrath upon themselves and offspring. In less than forty years from this exclamation the Romans came. They crucified such numbers of Jews that, Josephus says, there was no room for more crosses. Doubtless some of these very persons, and certainly their children, died by this very death, perhaps on the very spot.

Verse 25. His blood be upon us, &c. — What Pilate was eager, though in vain, to transfer from himself, these infatuated and infuriated people were ready to take — the blood of the innocent. Among the Athenians, witnesses devoted themselves and their children, if they should accuse falsely. This also is implied in the form of our judicial oath, “So help you God,” only as you speak the truth. Grotius shows that this kind of denunciation and devotement was used by the Roman witnesses, “Sit sanguis istius super nos,” as here the Jews, “His blood be upon us!” and, as they were before a Roman tribunal, they might naturally adopt the Roman form. But they render it more emphatic by adding, and upon our children: and fearfully was their bold imprecation verified. In the subsequent Roman war, “wrath came upon them to the uttermost;” and, to make the retribution the more marked, great numbers of them were put to death by crucifixion — that torturing mode of death, for the infliction of which upon our Lord they so fiercely clamoured. Five hundred of them a day were sometimes crucified by Titus, till at length, as Josephus, who was witness of these horrors, says, “Room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses for the bodies.”

V. 26. He delivered him to be crucified-The person crucified was nailed to the cross as it lay on the ground, through each hand extended to the utmost stretch, and through both the feet together. Then the cross was raised up, and the foot of it thrust with a violent shock into a hole in the ground prepared for it. This shock disjointed the body, whose whole weight hung upon the nails, till the persons expired through mere dint of pain. This kind of death was used only by the Romans, and by them inflicted only on slaves and the vilest criminals.

Verse 26. Scourged Jesus] This is allowed to have been a very severe punishment of itself among the Romans, the flesh being generally cut by the whips used for this purpose: so the poet:-

----Horribili SECTERE flagello.

“To be cut by the horrible whip.”-HOR. Sat. I. 3. 119.

And sometimes it seems, they were whipped to death. See the same poet, Sat. I. 2. 41.

----Ille FLAGELLIS

AD MORTEM cæsus.----

See also HORAT. Epod. od. iv. v. 11.

It has been thought that Pilate might have spared this additional cruelty of whipping; but it appears that it was a common custom to scourge those criminals which were to be crucified, (see Josephus Deuteronomy Bello, lib. ii. c. 25,) and lenity in Christ’s case is not to be allowed; he must take all the misery in full tale.

Delivered him to be crucified.] Tacitos, the Roman historian, mentions the death of Christ in very remarkable terms:-

Nero-quæsitissimis pœnis is affecit, quos-vulgus CHRISTIANOS appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus CHRISTUS, qui Tiberio imperitante, per Procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat.-“Nero put those who commonly went by the name of Christians to the most exquisite tortures. The author of this name was CHRIST, who was capitally punished in the reign of TIBERIUS, by PONTIUS PILATE the PROCURATOR.”

Verse 26. And when he had scourged Jesus, &c. — This was an ignominious and cruel punishment, usually, but most unreasonably inflicted by the Romans on such as were condemned to be crucified; as if the exquisite tortures of crucifixion were not a punishment sufficient of any crime, real or pretended, without adding to them those of the scourge. Matthew and Mark seem to signify, that the scourging of Jesus was performed on the pavement; for they tell us, that after it was over, the soldiers took him into the prætorium, and mocked him. We may, therefore, suppose, that the priests and multitude required the governor to scourge him openly in their sight; and that he, to pacify them, consented, contrary to his inclination, hoping, as some suppose, that this previous punishment would excite the pity of the Jews and prevent Christ’s crucifixion. That, however, was not the case. Nothing short of that ignominious and torturing death would satisfy them. Jesus being thus scourged, the Scriptures were fulfilled, I gave my back to the smiters, Isaiah 50:6. The ploughers ploughed on my back: they made long their furrows, Psalm 129:3. By his stripes we are healed.

Ver. 26. When he had scourged Jesus, with the lictors, who did the same to Paul and Silas. This was a cruel punishment which they inflicted on malefactors in order to extort confessions. A full tragedy in character now followed, in planting the crown of thorns on his head, putting on him the robe, placing in his hands the reed for a sceptre, and paying to him the regal homage of bowing the knee. Such was the barbarism of the primitive world. When the French and the English made their first establishments in North America, great jealousies were excited among the six Indian nations; and when they got hold of a solitary traveller, they treated him with mockery and insults conformably to their humour. Oh what a heart is there in man. Those insults were permitted to the Saviour, that being the hour and the power of darkness, that the Father might by contrast, crown him with glory and honour, array him in the robes of light and majesty, and command the nations to bow the knee, lest with his iron sceptre he should dash them to pieces.

SCOURGING BY PILATE AND DELIVERY FOR CRUCIFIXION, 26-31. The purpose of this whole scene of course is to burlesque Jesus’s claim to royalty. A notable king forsooth is this, for whom the proper crown is a garland of thorns, the sceptre a reed, the robe an old cast off cloak. Mock homage, interspersed with insults and injuries, completes the wretched drama.

26. Scourged Jesus — The Greek word here used is borrowed from the Roman flagellum, which was the scourge with which slaves were chastised before execution. It was composed of ox nerves, extremely sharp, interwoven with sheep bones, so as to lacerate the flesh.

Verse 26. When he had scourged him. — Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Jesus concerning himself, “And they shall mock him, and scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and kill him,” Mark 10:34. Scourging among the Romans preceded capital punishment; but as Pilate attempted after this to save our Lord, it is probable that he hoped, by this minor infliction, to pacify them, and effect his deliverance. Slaves among the Romans were scourged with the flagella, a severe instrument which cut deep into the flesh; but freemen with rods. The original word here used would, however, intimate that the severer instrument was used in the case of Jesus. And in this particular also the retributive justice of God upon the Jews was strikingly marked; for we learn from Josephus that in this manner they were treated before crucifixion: “when they had SCOURGED them, and TORMENTED them before death all manner of ways, they crucified them over against the wall of the city.”

Delivered him to be crucified. — At length yielding against his convictions, and admitting that very charge of sedition made against him by his enemies, as the kind of death inflicted upon him shows; although he had previously declared that he found no fault in him. The conduct of Pilate admits therefore of no palliation.

V. 27. The whole troop-or cohort. This was a body of foot commanded by the governor, which was appointed to prevent disorders and tumults, especially on solemn occasions. Mark 15:16; John 19:2.

Verse 27. The common hall] Or, prætorium. Called so from the prætor, a principal magistrate among the Romans, whose business it was to administer justice in the absence of the consul. This place night be termed in English the court house, or common hall.

Verses 27-30. Then the soldiers took Jesus — The soldiers, having received orders to crucify Jesus, carried him into the common hall, or prætorium, in Pilate’s palace, after they had scourged him. Here they added the shame of disgrace to the bitterness of his punishment; for, sore as he was, by reason of the stripes they had laid on him, they dressed him as a fool in an old purple robe, (Mark, John,) in derision of his being called King of the Jews. Then they put a reed into his hand, instead of a sceptre; and having made a wreath of thorns, they put it on his head for a crown, forcing it down in such a rude manner that his temples were torn, and his face besmeared with blood. It is certain that they intended by this crown to expose our Lord’s pretended royalty to ridicule and contempt; but, had that been all, a crown of straws might have served as well. They undoubtedly meant to add cruelty to their scorn; which especially appeared in their striking him on the head, (verse 30.) when this crown was put on. If the best descriptions of the eastern thorns can be credited, they are much larger than any commonly known in these parts. Hasselquist, speaking of the naba, or nabka, of the Arabians, (Trav., p. 288,) says, “In all probability this is the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put on the head of Christ: it grows very common in the East, and the plant is extremely fit for the purpose; for it has many small, and most sharp spines, which are well adapted to give great pain. The crown might be easily made of these soft, round, and pliant branches, and, what in my opinion seems to be the greatest proof of it, is, that the leaves much resemble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep green: perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which emperors and generals were used to be crowned, that there might be calumny even in the punishment.” Bishop Pearce, Michaelis, and a late learned writer, indeed, have remarked, that akanqwn may be the genitive plural either of akanqa, thorn, or of akanqov, the herb called bear’s-foot, a smooth plant, and without prickles. But in support of the common version let it be observed, 1st, That in both Mark and John it is called stefanov akanqinov, a thorny crown. This adjective, both in sacred and classical use, plainly denotes thorny; “that it ever means bear’s-foot,” says Dr. Campbell, “I have seen no evidence. Thus in the LXX., Isaiah 34:13, in the common editions, the phrase, akanqina xula, is used for prickly shrubs. 2d, That the word akanqa, thorn, both in the right case, and in the oblique cases, occurs in several places of the New Testament and of the LXX., is unquestionable. But that in either the word akanqov is found, has not been pretended. Not one of the ancient, or of the Oriental versions, or indeed of any versions known to me, favours this hypothesis. The Italic and the Syriac, which are the oldest, both render the word thorns. Tertullian, the first of the Latin fathers, mentions the crown as being of thorns, and speaks in such a manner as clearly shows that he had never heard of any different opinion, or even a doubt raised upon the subject, which is very strong evidence for the common translation. Add to this, that an eminent Greek father, Clement of Alexandria, a contemporary of Tertullian, understood the word in the same manner. It is absurd, says he, (Pæd., 50:2, c. 8,) in us who hear that our Lord was crowned with thorns, akanqaiv, to insult the venerable sufferer by crowning ourselves with flowers. Several passages, equally apposite, might be given from the same chapter, but not one word that betrays a suspicion that the term might be, or a suggestion that it ever had been, otherwise interpreted. To this might be added all the ancient commentators, both Greek and Latin. There is therefore here the highest probability opposed to mere conjecture.” To the Son of God, in this condition, the rude soldiers bowed the knee, and said, Hail, king of the Jews — Pretending respect, but really mocking him, and at the same time giving him severe blows, some with the reed, others with their hands. Those who smote him with the reed laid their blows upon the thorns, with which his head was crowned: thereby driving the prickles thereof afresh into his temples. Those who smote him with their hands, aimed at his cheeks or some part of his body. To see an innocent and virtuous man treated with such barbarity, one would suppose must have excited feelings of pity and sympathy in the minds of some, even of his unfeeling and hard-hearted enemies! Of this, however, if it took place, the evangelist’s are silent.

27. The common hall — The Pretorium, or court. See note on verse 11. Whole band — There were five cohorts of soldiers, comprising each about 600 men, retained by the governor at Cesarea, and one at Jerusalem. This one whole Roman cohort is therefore now summoned to perform or witness the degradation of the victim.

Verse 27. The common hall. — The prætorium, or Pilate’s residence, formerly the palace of Herod, in the upper part of the city. Pilate’s tribunal or “judgment seat” was on the outside; and the place into which Christ was now led was probably the interior court of the palace.

The whole band of soldiers. — This was a cohort of soldiers, or the tenth part of a legion. Five Roman cohorts were stationed at Cesarea, and one at Jerusalem: but the latter was a cohort of the largest number.

V. 28. They put on him a scarlet robe-Such as kings and generals wore; probably an old tattered one.

Verse 28. Stripped him] Took off his mantle, or upper garment. A scarlet robe] Or, according to Mark and John, a purple robe, such as emperors and kings wore.

Verses 27-30. Then the soldiers took Jesus — The soldiers, having received orders to crucify Jesus, carried him into the common hall, or prætorium, in Pilate’s palace, after they had scourged him. Here they added the shame of disgrace to the bitterness of his punishment; for, sore as he was, by reason of the stripes they had laid on him, they dressed him as a fool in an old purple robe, (Mark, John,) in derision of his being called King of the Jews. Then they put a reed into his hand, instead of a sceptre; and having made a wreath of thorns, they put it on his head for a crown, forcing it down in such a rude manner that his temples were torn, and his face besmeared with blood. It is certain that they intended by this crown to expose our Lord’s pretended royalty to ridicule and contempt; but, had that been all, a crown of straws might have served as well. They undoubtedly meant to add cruelty to their scorn; which especially appeared in their striking him on the head, (verse 30.) when this crown was put on. If the best descriptions of the eastern thorns can be credited, they are much larger than any commonly known in these parts. Hasselquist, speaking of the naba, or nabka, of the Arabians, (Trav., p. 288,) says, “In all probability this is the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put on the head of Christ: it grows very common in the East, and the plant is extremely fit for the purpose; for it has many small, and most sharp spines, which are well adapted to give great pain. The crown might be easily made of these soft, round, and pliant branches, and, what in my opinion seems to be the greatest proof of it, is, that the leaves much resemble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep green: perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which emperors and generals were used to be crowned, that there might be calumny even in the punishment.” Bishop Pearce, Michaelis, and a late learned writer, indeed, have remarked, that akanqwn may be the genitive plural either of akanqa, thorn, or of akanqov, the herb called bear’s-foot, a smooth plant, and without prickles. But in support of the common version let it be observed, 1st, That in both Mark and John it is called stefanov akanqinov, a thorny crown. This adjective, both in sacred and classical use, plainly denotes thorny; “that it ever means bear’s-foot,” says Dr. Campbell, “I have seen no evidence. Thus in the LXX., Isaiah 34:13, in the common editions, the phrase, akanqina xula, is used for prickly shrubs. 2d, That the word akanqa, thorn, both in the right case, and in the oblique cases, occurs in several places of the New Testament and of the LXX., is unquestionable. But that in either the word akanqov is found, has not been pretended. Not one of the ancient, or of the Oriental versions, or indeed of any versions known to me, favours this hypothesis. The Italic and the Syriac, which are the oldest, both render the word thorns. Tertullian, the first of the Latin fathers, mentions the crown as being of thorns, and speaks in such a manner as clearly shows that he had never heard of any different opinion, or even a doubt raised upon the subject, which is very strong evidence for the common translation. Add to this, that an eminent Greek father, Clement of Alexandria, a contemporary of Tertullian, understood the word in the same manner. It is absurd, says he, (Pæd., 50:2, c. 8,) in us who hear that our Lord was crowned with thorns, akanqaiv, to insult the venerable sufferer by crowning ourselves with flowers. Several passages, equally apposite, might be given from the same chapter, but not one word that betrays a suspicion that the term might be, or a suggestion that it ever had been, otherwise interpreted. To this might be added all the ancient commentators, both Greek and Latin. There is therefore here the highest probability opposed to mere conjecture.” To the Son of God, in this condition, the rude soldiers bowed the knee, and said, Hail, king of the Jews — Pretending respect, but really mocking him, and at the same time giving him severe blows, some with the reed, others with their hands. Those who smote him with the reed laid their blows upon the thorns, with which his head was crowned: thereby driving the prickles thereof afresh into his temples. Those who smote him with their hands, aimed at his cheeks or some part of his body. To see an innocent and virtuous man treated with such barbarity, one would suppose must have excited feelings of pity and sympathy in the minds of some, even of his unfeeling and hard-hearted enemies! Of this, however, if it took place, the evangelist’s are silent.

28. A scarlet robe — A kind of round cloak, which was confined on the right shoulder by a clasp, so as to cover the left side of the body, worn by military officers and called paludamentum. Those of the emperors were purple. This cloak or robe, called by Matthew scarlet, is by Mark called purple. The two colours blend into each other, and the words are interchangeable. The scarlet dye, however, was made from a shrub; the purple from a shell-fish.

Verse 28. A scarlet robe. — Clamuda kokkinhn, or a crimson robe, such as that worn by kings and people of rank; and this was done in mockery of his title, the king of the Jews. St. Mark says, “a purple robe,” porfura; but the terms are not unfrequently interchanged, both designating the same or nearly the same colour. A cloak of this colour was worn by the superior Roman officers.

Verse 29. A crown of thorns] stefanon ex akanqwn. It does not appear that this crown was intended to be an instrument of punishment or torture to his head, but rather to render him ridiculous; for which cause also they put a reed in his hand, by way of sceptre, and bowed their knees, pretending to do him homage. The crown was not probably of thorns, in our sense of the word: there are eminently learned men who think that the crown was formed of the herb acanthus; and Bishop Pearce and Michaelis are of this opinion. Mark, Mark 15:17, and John, John 19:5, term it, stefanon akanqinon, which may very well be translated an acanthine crown or wreath, formed out of the branches of the herb acanthus, or bear’s foot. This, however, is a prickly plant, though nothing like thorns, in the common meaning of that word. Many Christians have gone astray in magnifying the sufferings of Christ from this circumstance; and painters, the worst of all commentators, frequently represent Christ with a crown of long thorns, which one standing by is striking into his head with a stick. These representations engender ideas both false and absurd. There is a passage produced from Philo by Dr. Lardner, which casts much light on these indignities offered to our blessed Lord. “Caligula, the successor of Tiberius, gave Agrippa the tetrarchy of his uncle Philip, with the right of wearing a diadem or crown. When he came to Alexandria, on his way to his tetrarchate, the inhabitants of that place, filled with envy at the thoughts of a Jew having the title of king, showed their indignation in the following way. They brought one Carabus (a sort of an idiot) into the theatre; and, having placed him on a lofty seat, that he might be seen by all, they put a diadem upon his head, made of the herb byblos, (the ancient papyrus, or paper flag;) his body they covered with a mat or carpet, instead of a royal cloak. One seeing a piece of reed, papurou (the stem, probably, of the aforesaid herb) lying on the ground, picked it up, and put it in his hand in place of a sceptre. Having thus given him a mock royal dress, several young fellows, with poles on their shoulders, came and stood on each side of him as his guards. Then there came people, some to pay their homage to him, some to ask justice, and some to consult him on affairs of state and the crowd that stood round about made a confused noise, crying, Mario, that being, as they say, the Syriac word for LORD; thereby showing that they intended to ridicule Agrippa, who was a Syrian.” See PHILO, Flace. p. 970, and Dr. Lardner, Works, vol. i. p. 159.

There is the most remarkable coincidence between this account and that given by the evangelists; and the conjecture concerning the acanthus will probably find no inconsiderable support from the bylos and papyrus of Philo. This plant, Pliny says, grows to ten cubits long in the stem and the flowers were used ad deos coronandos, for CROWNING THE GODS. See Hist. Nat. lib. xiii. c. 11.

The reflections of pious Quesnel on these insults offered to our blessed Lord merit serious attention.

Let the crown of thorns make those Christians blush who throw away so much time, pains, and money, in beautifying and adorning a sinful head. Let the world do what it will to render the royalty and mysteries of Christ contemptible, it is my glory to serve a King thus debased; my salvation, to adore that which the world despises; and my redemption, to go unto God through the merits of him who was crowned with thorns.”

Verses 27-30. Then the soldiers took Jesus — The soldiers, having received orders to crucify Jesus, carried him into the common hall, or prætorium, in Pilate’s palace, after they had scourged him. Here they added the shame of disgrace to the bitterness of his punishment; for, sore as he was, by reason of the stripes they had laid on him, they dressed him as a fool in an old purple robe, (Mark, John,) in derision of his being called King of the Jews. Then they put a reed into his hand, instead of a sceptre; and having made a wreath of thorns, they put it on his head for a crown, forcing it down in such a rude manner that his temples were torn, and his face besmeared with blood. It is certain that they intended by this crown to expose our Lord’s pretended royalty to ridicule and contempt; but, had that been all, a crown of straws might have served as well. They undoubtedly meant to add cruelty to their scorn; which especially appeared in their striking him on the head, (verse 30.) when this crown was put on. If the best descriptions of the eastern thorns can be credited, they are much larger than any commonly known in these parts. Hasselquist, speaking of the naba, or nabka, of the Arabians, (Trav., p. 288,) says, “In all probability this is the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put on the head of Christ: it grows very common in the East, and the plant is extremely fit for the purpose; for it has many small, and most sharp spines, which are well adapted to give great pain. The crown might be easily made of these soft, round, and pliant branches, and, what in my opinion seems to be the greatest proof of it, is, that the leaves much resemble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep green: perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which emperors and generals were used to be crowned, that there might be calumny even in the punishment.” Bishop Pearce, Michaelis, and a late learned writer, indeed, have remarked, that akanqwn may be the genitive plural either of akanqa, thorn, or of akanqov, the herb called bear’s-foot, a smooth plant, and without prickles. But in support of the common version let it be observed, 1st, That in both Mark and John it is called stefanov akanqinov, a thorny crown. This adjective, both in sacred and classical use, plainly denotes thorny; “that it ever means bear’s-foot,” says Dr. Campbell, “I have seen no evidence. Thus in the LXX., Isaiah 34:13, in the common editions, the phrase, akanqina xula, is used for prickly shrubs. 2d, That the word akanqa, thorn, both in the right case, and in the oblique cases, occurs in several places of the New Testament and of the LXX., is unquestionable. But that in either the word akanqov is found, has not been pretended. Not one of the ancient, or of the Oriental versions, or indeed of any versions known to me, favours this hypothesis. The Italic and the Syriac, which are the oldest, both render the word thorns. Tertullian, the first of the Latin fathers, mentions the crown as being of thorns, and speaks in such a manner as clearly shows that he had never heard of any different opinion, or even a doubt raised upon the subject, which is very strong evidence for the common translation. Add to this, that an eminent Greek father, Clement of Alexandria, a contemporary of Tertullian, understood the word in the same manner. It is absurd, says he, (Pæd., 50:2, c. 8,) in us who hear that our Lord was crowned with thorns, akanqaiv, to insult the venerable sufferer by crowning ourselves with flowers. Several passages, equally apposite, might be given from the same chapter, but not one word that betrays a suspicion that the term might be, or a suggestion that it ever had been, otherwise interpreted. To this might be added all the ancient commentators, both Greek and Latin. There is therefore here the highest probability opposed to mere conjecture.” To the Son of God, in this condition, the rude soldiers bowed the knee, and said, Hail, king of the Jews — Pretending respect, but really mocking him, and at the same time giving him severe blows, some with the reed, others with their hands. Those who smote him with the reed laid their blows upon the thorns, with which his head was crowned: thereby driving the prickles thereof afresh into his temples. Those who smote him with their hands, aimed at his cheeks or some part of his body. To see an innocent and virtuous man treated with such barbarity, one would suppose must have excited feelings of pity and sympathy in the minds of some, even of his unfeeling and hard-hearted enemies! Of this, however, if it took place, the evangelist’s are silent.

29. Had platted — The old English verb to plat or plait, signifies to braid or interweave. A crown of thorns — The question has been raised whether this crown was intended for mockery or for pain. Undoubtedly mockery was the leading object, and yet that mockery is all the more effective by being made painful. A crown of straw would have been mockery; a crown of thorns was a painful mockery. What sort of thorns composed this crown is uncertain. But Haselquist, a Swedish naturalist, says, of the Nabea Palisius Athanaei of Alphinus, now Zizyphus Spina Christi, “In all probability this is the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put upon the head of Christ. It is very common in the East. This plant is very fit for the purpose, for it has many small and sharp spines which are well adapted to give pain; the crown might easily be made of these soft round and pliant branches; and what in my opinion seems to be the greater proof is, that the leaves very much resemble those of the ivy, as they are of a very deep glossy green. Perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which emperors and generals were crowned, that there might be a calumny even in the punishment.” — Kitto, Art., Thorns. A reed — A burlesque sceptre for this fictitious king. The reed is a plant with a hollow jointed stalk, growing in wet grounds. It was sometimes used for light walking canes, and one may have been taken from the bystanders for the present purpose. Bowed… mocked… Hail — These were all ironical offers of mocking homage to Jesus as he sat in a semblance of royalty. What followed was real and professed abuse and injury.

Verse 29. A crown of thorns. — Akanqa is used as a general term for those prickly plants which we denominate thorns; so that the species cannot be determined by it. “The naba or nabda of the Arabians,” says Hasselquist in his Travels, “is in all probability the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put upon the head of Christ: it grows common in the east. This plant was very fit for the purpose, for it has many small and sharp spines: a crown might easily be made of those soft, round, and pliant branches; and what in my opinion seems to be the greatest proof is, that the leaves resemble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep green. Perhaps the soldiers would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which the emperors and generals were used to be crowned, that there might be satire and calumny even in the punishment.” Bishop Pearce, however, thinks that the herb acanthus was used, which has the epithet smooth, as well as flexible, in the Latin poets; and that mocking, not torture, was the object of thus placing a crown or wreath upon the head of our Saviour. But whether this plant grows in Palestine, is not certain; and some common thorn nearest at hand, and to be found in any waste place, was more likely to be used by the ferocious Roman soldiers. Both Mark and John call the crown stefanov akanqinov, which “adjective,” says Campbell, “both in sacred use and classical, plainly denotes spineus, thorny.” The crown having been placed on the head of our Saviour, and a reed, the mock representative of a sceptre, they bowed the knee before him, and in derision said, Hail, king of the Jews. They did not turn his claim to be the Messiah into mockery; this these pagans knew nothing of; but they regarded him in the light in which it had been the artifice of the chief priests and elders to place him, as a state prisoner condemned for aspiring to the sovereignty in opposition to Cesar. During the whole of this scene of contumely and barbarous sport, to which were added spitting upon him, and smiting him on the head with the reed or cane, the evangelists record no word, or action of our Lord. He sustained the whole in silence and unresisting submission, and thus fulfilled the words of the prophet, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter: and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.”

Verse 30. And they spit upon him] “Let us pay our adoration,” says the same pious writer, “and humble ourselves in silence at the sight of a spectacle which faith alone renders credible, and which our senses would hardly endure. Jesus Christ, in this condition, preaches to the kings of the earth this truth-that their sceptres are but reeds, with which themselves shall be smitten, bruised, and crushed at his tribunal, if they do not use them here to the advancement of his kingdom.”

Verses 27-30. Then the soldiers took Jesus — The soldiers, having received orders to crucify Jesus, carried him into the common hall, or prætorium, in Pilate’s palace, after they had scourged him. Here they added the shame of disgrace to the bitterness of his punishment; for, sore as he was, by reason of the stripes they had laid on him, they dressed him as a fool in an old purple robe, (Mark, John,) in derision of his being called King of the Jews. Then they put a reed into his hand, instead of a sceptre; and having made a wreath of thorns, they put it on his head for a crown, forcing it down in such a rude manner that his temples were torn, and his face besmeared with blood. It is certain that they intended by this crown to expose our Lord’s pretended royalty to ridicule and contempt; but, had that been all, a crown of straws might have served as well. They undoubtedly meant to add cruelty to their scorn; which especially appeared in their striking him on the head, (verse 30.) when this crown was put on. If the best descriptions of the eastern thorns can be credited, they are much larger than any commonly known in these parts. Hasselquist, speaking of the naba, or nabka, of the Arabians, (Trav., p. 288,) says, “In all probability this is the tree which afforded the crown of thorns put on the head of Christ: it grows very common in the East, and the plant is extremely fit for the purpose; for it has many small, and most sharp spines, which are well adapted to give great pain. The crown might be easily made of these soft, round, and pliant branches, and, what in my opinion seems to be the greatest proof of it, is, that the leaves much resemble those of ivy, as they are of a very deep green: perhaps the enemies of Christ would have a plant somewhat resembling that with which emperors and generals were used to be crowned, that there might be calumny even in the punishment.” Bishop Pearce, Michaelis, and a late learned writer, indeed, have remarked, that akanqwn may be the genitive plural either of akanqa, thorn, or of akanqov, the herb called bear’s-foot, a smooth plant, and without prickles. But in support of the common version let it be observed, 1st, That in both Mark and John it is called stefanov akanqinov, a thorny crown. This adjective, both in sacred and classical use, plainly denotes thorny; “that it ever means bear’s-foot,” says Dr. Campbell, “I have seen no evidence. Thus in the LXX., Isaiah 34:13, in the common editions, the phrase, akanqina xula, is used for prickly shrubs. 2d, That the word akanqa, thorn, both in the right case, and in the oblique cases, occurs in several places of the New Testament and of the LXX., is unquestionable. But that in either the word akanqov is found, has not been pretended. Not one of the ancient, or of the Oriental versions, or indeed of any versions known to me, favours this hypothesis. The Italic and the Syriac, which are the oldest, both render the word thorns. Tertullian, the first of the Latin fathers, mentions the crown as being of thorns, and speaks in such a manner as clearly shows that he had never heard of any different opinion, or even a doubt raised upon the subject, which is very strong evidence for the common translation. Add to this, that an eminent Greek father, Clement of Alexandria, a contemporary of Tertullian, understood the word in the same manner. It is absurd, says he, (Pæd., 50:2, c. 8,) in us who hear that our Lord was crowned with thorns, akanqaiv, to insult the venerable sufferer by crowning ourselves with flowers. Several passages, equally apposite, might be given from the same chapter, but not one word that betrays a suspicion that the term might be, or a suggestion that it ever had been, otherwise interpreted. To this might be added all the ancient commentators, both Greek and Latin. There is therefore here the highest probability opposed to mere conjecture.” To the Son of God, in this condition, the rude soldiers bowed the knee, and said, Hail, king of the Jews — Pretending respect, but really mocking him, and at the same time giving him severe blows, some with the reed, others with their hands. Those who smote him with the reed laid their blows upon the thorns, with which his head was crowned: thereby driving the prickles thereof afresh into his temples. Those who smote him with their hands, aimed at his cheeks or some part of his body. To see an innocent and virtuous man treated with such barbarity, one would suppose must have excited feelings of pity and sympathy in the minds of some, even of his unfeeling and hard-hearted enemies! Of this, however, if it took place, the evangelist’s are silent.

30. Smote — The blow of the reed would have been too light to inflict much pain upon any other part than the head, and there it would aggravate the pain of the thorns.

At the present day, such is the spirit of Christianity, the criminal is left to the serene but stern action of the law, without any such voluntary insults and tortures as these, which serve to deprave the perpetrators as much as they torture the victim.

After this scourging and mockery Jesus is led forth from the inner court or Pretorium to the door of the palace, by Pilate, who presents him before the multitude in the hope that the sorrowful sight may awaken pity and produce his release. He declares Jesus innocent. They reply, that by Jewish law he is liable to death for blasphemy in claiming to be the “Son of God.” Startled at this supernatural name, Pilate takes Jesus again into the interior court, and demands of him what is his true origin. Jesus retains his own mystery and silence; but Pilate coming forth, again pronounces Jesus innocent. At this point the Jews give Pilate the finishing stroke. If he lets this man go he is not Cesar’s friend. Before that threat the iron will of Pilate bent and yielded. See John 19:12-13.

The Roman emperors had ever lent a ready ear to the complaints of provinces against their governors. Augustus Cesar did so against Herod the Great. The remonstrances of the Jews prevented Archelaus from being king, and finally their complaints overthrew him. And Pilate himself was in fact ruined, as we have elsewhere narrated, by such a complaint of the Samaritans against him. He sacrifices Jesus, therefore, to his own security.” See note on verse 2.

§ 140. — LEADING FORTH AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS, 32-34.

Verses 31, 32. After they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him — But it is not said they took the crown of thorns off his head, which served to gratify both their malice and contempt; probably he died wearing it, that the title, which was written over him, might be the better understood. And led him away to crucify him — It was a Jewish custom, in the time of Moses, to execute delinquents without the camp; but after Jerusalem was built, they were executed without the city walls. And Dr. Lardner has proved, by many quotations, that it was customary not only for the Jews, but also for the Sicilians, Ephesians, and Romans to execute their malefactors without the gates of their cities. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene — According to custom, Jesus walked to the place of execution, and bore his cross at his first setting out, (John 19:17,) not indeed the whole cross, but the transverse beam to which he was to be nailed; the other part being at the place already. But the fatigue of the preceding night, spent without sleep, the sufferings he had undergone in the garden, his having been hurried from place to place, and obliged to stand the whole time of his trials, the want of food and loss of blood, which he had sustained, and not his want of courage on this occasion, concurred to make him so faint, that he was not long able to bear his cross. The soldiers, therefore, laid it on one Simon, a native of Cyrene in Egypt, the father of Alexander and Rufus, two noted men among the first Christians at the time Mark wrote his gospel, (see Mark 15:21,) and forced him to bear it after Jesus. This they did, however, not out of compassion for Jesus; but lest he should die with fatigue, and by that means should elude his punishment. As Jesus went along he was followed by a great crowd, particularly of women, who sighed, shed tears, beat their breasts, and bitterly lamented the severity of his lot; which gave occasion to his predicting, once more, the calamities coming on his country: for, turning unto them, he said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, &c.; see Luke 23:27-30; thus showing, that the thoughts of those calamities afflicted his soul far more than the feelings of his own sufferings.

31. Led him away to crucify him — From the judgment hall of Pilate at the fortress of Antonia, Jesus is led forth to crucifixion. That he was led to a spot without the city gates, we are assured by St. Paul. Hebrews 13:11-12. But in what direction, whether east or west, neither Scripture, nor any reliable tradition, nor any circumstantial evidence informs us. Tradition, indeed, of a later date has fixed upon a spot, where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands as a monument of the event. (See map of city.) But clear circumstantial proof shows that the site of that church was not without the ancient city walls.

While our Lord was led forth a multitude, mostly women, follow him weeping. Jesus addresses them with a compassionate prophecy of the sorrows which the sins of their countrymen were bringing upon their heads. Luke 23:27-31.

V. 32. Him they compelled to bear his cross-He bore it himself, till he sunk under it, John 19:17.

Verse 32. A man of Cyrene-him they compelled to bear his cross.] In John, John 19:16, 17, we are told Christ himself bore the cross, and this, it is likely, he did for a part of the way; but, being exhausted with the scourging and other cruel usage which he had received, he was found incapable of bearing it alone; therefore they obliged Simon, not, I think, to bear it entirely, but to assist Christ, by bearing a part of it. It was a constant practice among the Romans, to oblige criminal to bear their cross to the place of execution: insomuch that Plutarch makes use of it as an illustration of the misery of vice. “Every kind of wickedness produces its own particular torment, just as every malefactor, when he is brought forth to execution, carries his own cross.” See Lardner’s Credib. vol. i. p. 160.

Verses 31, 32. After they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him — But it is not said they took the crown of thorns off his head, which served to gratify both their malice and contempt; probably he died wearing it, that the title, which was written over him, might be the better understood. And led him away to crucify him — It was a Jewish custom, in the time of Moses, to execute delinquents without the camp; but after Jerusalem was built, they were executed without the city walls. And Dr. Lardner has proved, by many quotations, that it was customary not only for the Jews, but also for the Sicilians, Ephesians, and Romans to execute their malefactors without the gates of their cities. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene — According to custom, Jesus walked to the place of execution, and bore his cross at his first setting out, (John 19:17,) not indeed the whole cross, but the transverse beam to which he was to be nailed; the other part being at the place already. But the fatigue of the preceding night, spent without sleep, the sufferings he had undergone in the garden, his having been hurried from place to place, and obliged to stand the whole time of his trials, the want of food and loss of blood, which he had sustained, and not his want of courage on this occasion, concurred to make him so faint, that he was not long able to bear his cross. The soldiers, therefore, laid it on one Simon, a native of Cyrene in Egypt, the father of Alexander and Rufus, two noted men among the first Christians at the time Mark wrote his gospel, (see Mark 15:21,) and forced him to bear it after Jesus. This they did, however, not out of compassion for Jesus; but lest he should die with fatigue, and by that means should elude his punishment. As Jesus went along he was followed by a great crowd, particularly of women, who sighed, shed tears, beat their breasts, and bitterly lamented the severity of his lot; which gave occasion to his predicting, once more, the calamities coming on his country: for, turning unto them, he said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, &c.; see Luke 23:27-30; thus showing, that the thoughts of those calamities afflicted his soul far more than the feelings of his own sufferings.

Verse 32. And as they came out. — Out of the city; for as in the wilderness offenders were executed without the camp, so at Jerusalem without the walls of the city. There was also a typical allusion in this, to which St. Paul refers, Hebrews 13:11-13: “For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without THE GATE. Let us go forth therefore unto him without THE CAMP, bearing his reproach.”

Him they compelled to bear his cross. — It was usual for criminals to bear their own cross. So Plautus: Patibulum ferat per urbem, deinde affigatur cruci, “Let him carry his cross through the city, and then be fastened to it.” Our Saviour bore his own cross for some time; but, probably exhausted by previous ill usage, he appears to have sunk under its weight, so that, meeting Simon, a Cyrenian, “coming,” says St. Mark, “out of the country,” they compelled him to bear his cross, — they pressed him into this service, as the word imports. He was of Cyrene, a city of Lybia, where many Jews were located; but was now probably a resident at Jerusalem, and was returning thence from the country. It is not unlikely that he was singled out at the instigation of the Jews as a favourer of Christ; for St. Mark adds, he was the father of Alexander and Rufus, both celebrated among the first Christians.

V. 33. A place called Golgotha, that is, the place of a skull-Golgotha in Syriac signifies a skull or head: it was probably called so from this time; being an eminence upon Mount Calvary, not far from the king's gardens. Mark 15:22; Luke 23:33; John 19:17

Verse 33. A place called Golgotha] From the Hebrew htglg or tlglg, golgoleth, a skull, probably so called from the many skulls of these who had suffered crucifixion and other capital punishments scattered up and down in the place. It is the same as Calvary, Calvaria, i.e. calvi capitis area, the place of bare skulls. Some think the place was thus called, because it was in the form of a human skull. It is likely that it was the place of public execution, similar to the Gemoniæ Scalæ at Rome.

Verses 33, 34. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha — A Syriac word which signifies a scull, or head. In Latin it is called Calvary. The place was so named, either because malefactors used to be executed there, or because the charnel-house or common repository for bones and sculls might have been there. Being upon an eminence, it seems to have been a proper spot of ground for the execution of criminals, as those that were crucified there might be seen at a considerable distance, and by a great number of spectators. They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall — The word colh, here rendered gall, is used with great latitude in the Septuagint. The Hebrew word, signifying wormwood, is twice so rendered, Proverbs 5:4; Lam. 3:15. At other times it seems to denote any bitter or poisonous infusion that tasted like gall. Mark says, They gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, esmurnismenon oinon. But, it seems, the two evangelists speak of the same ingredients. For though Mark terms that wine which Matthew calls vinegar, he may really have meant vinegar, which was a common drink among the ancients, (see Numbers 6:6,) and such as might very properly be called wine, as it was usually made of wine, or of the juice of grapes. Besides, it is well known that the ancients gave the general name of wine to all fermented liquors whatsoever. It is evident, therefore, that to reconcile the evangelists here, we have no occasion for the reading of Beza’s copy, which has oinon instead of oxov. As to the other ingredient of this potion, it is probable the bitter, or poisonous infusion of Matthew mentioned above, might be called myrrh by Mark, because it had myrrh mixed with it; there being nothing more common than for a medicine, compounded of many ingredients, to take its name from some one of them that is prevalent in the composition. Or the evangelists maybe reconciled more directly by supposing, that the word used by Matthew and rendered gall, and which, as we have seen, is applied to wormwood, signifies any bitter drug whatsoever, and therefore may denote myrrh, which has its name from a Hebrew word signifying bitterness. Casaubon has given a third solution of this difficulty. He thinks that our Lord’s friends put a cup of myrrhed wine into the hands of one of the soldiers to give to him, but that the soldier, out of contempt, added gall to it. Whatever were the ingredients in this liquor, it is probable that it was offered to Christ by some of his friends, with a view to stupify and render him insensible of the ignominy and pain of his punishment. For it appears it was not unusual to give criminals drink of this kind, before their execution, in order to make them insensible of the pains of death. Jesus, however, refused the potion that was offered him, because he would bear his sufferings, however sharp, not by intoxicating and stupifying himself, but through the strength of faith, fortitude, and patience.

33. Place called Golgotha — This was a Hebrew word signifying a skull-place. It is in Latin Calvaria, and thus it is in Luke called Calvary, which is the common name in English. It was called thus, some think, because, being the usual place of execution, the skulls of malefactors whose bodies had been there buried often become visible. But more probably it was so called from a supposed resemblance of the mound to a human skull. Calvary might have been a little elevated, but it could not have been a mountain or mount. Dr. Barclay, (with reasoning that may stand as valid enough in the existing absence of any proof to the contrary,) identifies Golgotha with Goath, (Jeremiah 31:39,) which he locates on the east, close between the city wall and the Kedron, a little north of Gethsemane. If that was the place of crucifixion, there, also, was the garden containing Joseph’s new tomb. John 19:4. The scene of bloody sweat, the crucifixion, and the entombment was then properly one.

Verse 33. Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull. — Golgotha is from the Chaldee atlglg Golgoltha, which signifies a skull, the last l being suppressed for the sake of euphony. It was a hill near Jerusalem, and had its name from the skulls of malefactors who had been executed there. Koinoel asserts that when their bodies were permitted to be buried, the skulls were excepted, and left on the ground; but it is more probable that as the Jews did not bury malefactors in the sepulchres of their fathers, they were interred on the spot, and by digging fresh graves in the place at common executions, skulls would frequently be turned up, and perhaps left on the ground with little respect. The name Calvary is of the same import as Golgotha.

V. 34. They gave him vinegar mingled with gall-Out of derision: which, however nauseous, he received and tasted of. St. Mark mentions also a different mixture which was given him, Wine mingled with myrrh: such as it was customary to give to dying criminals, to make them less sensible of their sufferings: but this our Lord refused to taste, determining to bear the full force of his pains.

Verse 34. They gave him vinegar-mingled with gall] Perhaps colh, commonly translated gall, signifies no more than bitters of any kind. It was a common custom to administer a stupefying potion compounded of sour wine, which is the same as vinegar, from the French vinaigre, frankincense, and myrrh, to condemned persons, to help to alleviate their sufferings, or so disturb their intellect that they might not be sensible of them. The rabbins say that they put a grain of frankincense into a cup of strong wine; and they ground this on Proverbs 31:6: Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, i.e. who is condemned to death. Some person, out of kindness, appears to have administered this to our blessed Lord; but he, as in all other cases, determining to endure the fulness of pain, refused to take what was thus offered to him, choosing to tread the winepress alone. Instead of oxov, vinegar, several excellent MSS. and versions have oinon, wine; but as sour wine is said to have been a general drink of the common people and Roman soldiers, it being the same as vinegar, it is of little consequence which reading is here adopted. This custom of giving stupefying potions to condemned malefactors is alluded to in Proverbs 31:6: Give strong drink, rqv shekar, inebriating drink, to him who is ready to PERISH, and wine to him who is BITTER of soul-because he is just going to suffer the punishment of death. And thus the rabbins, as we have seen above, understand it. See Lightfoot and Schoettgen. Michaelis offers an ingenious exposition of this place: “Immediately after Christ was fastened to the cross, they gave him, according to Matthew 27:34, vinegar mingled with gall; but, according to Mark, they offered him wine mingled with myrrh. That St. Mark’s account is the right one is probable from this circumstance, that Christ refused to drink what was offered him, as appears from both evangelists. Wine mixed with myrrh was given to malefactors at the place of execution, to intoxicate them, and make them less sensible to pain. Christ, therefore, with great propriety, refused the aid of such remedies. But if vinegar was offered him, which was taken merely to assuage thirst, there could be no reason for his rejecting it. Besides, he tasted it before he rejected it; and therefore he must have found it different from that which, if offered to him, he was ready to receive. To solve this difficulty, we must suppose that the words used in the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew were such as agreed with the account given by St. Mark, and at the same time were capable of the construction which was put on them by St. Matthew’s Greek translator. Suppose St. Matthew wrote aryrmb aylj (chaleea bemireera) which signifies, sweet wine with bitters, or sweet wine and myrrh, as we find it in Mark; and Matthew’s translator overlooked the yod y in aylj (chaleea) he took it for alj (chala) which signifies vinegar; and bitter, he translated by colh, as it is often used in the Septuagint. Nay, St. Matthew may have written alj, and have still meant to express sweet wine; if so, the difference only consisted in the points; for the same word which, when pronounced chale, signifies sweet, denotes vinegar, as soon as it is pronounced chala.”

With this conjecture Dr. Marsh (Michaelis’s translator) is not satisfied; and therefore finds a Chaldee word for oinov wine, which may easily be mistaken for one that denotes oxov vinegar; and likewise a Chaldee word, which signifies smurna, (myrrh,) which may be easily mistaken for one that denotes colh, (gall.) “Now,” says he, “rmj (chamar) or armj (chamera) really denotes oinov (wine,) and xmj (chamets) or axmj (charnetsa) really denotes oxov (vinegar.) Again, arwm (mura) really signifies smurna (myrrh,) and arrm (murera) really signifies colh (gall.) If, then, we suppose that the original Chaldee text was arwmb cylh armj (chamera heleet bemura) wine mingled with myrrh, which is not at all improbable, as it is the reading of the Syriac version, at Mark 15:23, it might easily have been mistaken for arrmb cylh axmj (chametsa haleet bemurera) vinegar mingled with gall.” This is a more ingenious conjecture than that of Michaelis. See Marsh’s notes to Michaelis, vol. iii., part 2d. p. 127-28. But as that kind of sour wine, which was used by the Roman soldiers and common people, appears to have been termed oinov, and vin aigre is sour wine, it is not difficult to reconcile the two accounts, in what is most material to the facts here recorded.

Verses 33, 34. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha — A Syriac word which signifies a scull, or head. In Latin it is called Calvary. The place was so named, either because malefactors used to be executed there, or because the charnel-house or common repository for bones and sculls might have been there. Being upon an eminence, it seems to have been a proper spot of ground for the execution of criminals, as those that were crucified there might be seen at a considerable distance, and by a great number of spectators. They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall — The word colh, here rendered gall, is used with great latitude in the Septuagint. The Hebrew word, signifying wormwood, is twice so rendered, Proverbs 5:4; Lam. 3:15. At other times it seems to denote any bitter or poisonous infusion that tasted like gall. Mark says, They gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, esmurnismenon oinon. But, it seems, the two evangelists speak of the same ingredients. For though Mark terms that wine which Matthew calls vinegar, he may really have meant vinegar, which was a common drink among the ancients, (see Numbers 6:6,) and such as might very properly be called wine, as it was usually made of wine, or of the juice of grapes. Besides, it is well known that the ancients gave the general name of wine to all fermented liquors whatsoever. It is evident, therefore, that to reconcile the evangelists here, we have no occasion for the reading of Beza’s copy, which has oinon instead of oxov. As to the other ingredient of this potion, it is probable the bitter, or poisonous infusion of Matthew mentioned above, might be called myrrh by Mark, because it had myrrh mixed with it; there being nothing more common than for a medicine, compounded of many ingredients, to take its name from some one of them that is prevalent in the composition. Or the evangelists maybe reconciled more directly by supposing, that the word used by Matthew and rendered gall, and which, as we have seen, is applied to wormwood, signifies any bitter drug whatsoever, and therefore may denote myrrh, which has its name from a Hebrew word signifying bitterness. Casaubon has given a third solution of this difficulty. He thinks that our Lord’s friends put a cup of myrrhed wine into the hands of one of the soldiers to give to him, but that the soldier, out of contempt, added gall to it. Whatever were the ingredients in this liquor, it is probable that it was offered to Christ by some of his friends, with a view to stupify and render him insensible of the ignominy and pain of his punishment. For it appears it was not unusual to give criminals drink of this kind, before their execution, in order to make them insensible of the pains of death. Jesus, however, refused the potion that was offered him, because he would bear his sufferings, however sharp, not by intoxicating and stupifying himself, but through the strength of faith, fortitude, and patience.

Ver. 34. They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall. St. Mark says, “myrrh,” the usual draught of bitter poisonous herbs, to dull the exquisite pains of crucifixion. This draught our blessed Lord declined.

34. Vinegar to drink — The fainting prisoner was brought to the place of execution, and the cross was taken from the shoulder of the bearer preparatory to driving the nails into his limbs; and they offer a stupefying potion to him, according to custom, to deaden the sense of pain. Jesus tastes it, as if to accept the insulting mercy; but declines to drink it, as it would obscure the clearness of his faculties. The vinegar mingled with gall is the same as the wine mingled with myrrh, mentioned by Mark; for the wine was so sour as to be truly a vinegar, and the word for gall would stand for anything bitter, as myrrh.

Verse 34. Vinegar to drink mingled with gall. — St. Mark says, “wine mingled with myrrh;” but the word colh designates whatever is bitter, and so might be used of gall or myrrh. The vinegar was the sharp, common wine which, from its acidity, was called oxov. This wine was often mixed with certain bitter herbs, to impart to it an intoxicating quality, and was given to criminals before their execution. It was a custom for the honourable women of Jerusalem to prepare wine of this kind, and to give it freely to those about to suffer death, to render them less sensible of pain. We have no intimation that our Lord experienced this attention from this class of females, but some of his friends might thus minister to him; but when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink, resolved to sustain the whole weight of his sufferings, and not to submit to have his senses or reason dulled by any stupifying draught. There may probably be an allusion to this custom in the words of Solomon, Proverbs 36:6: “Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish.”

V. 35. They parted his garments-This was the custom of the Romans. The soldiers performed the office of executioners, and divided among them the spoils of the criminals.

My vesture-That is, my inner garment. Psalm 22:18.

Verse 35. And they crucified him] Crucifixion properly means the act of nailing or tying to a cross. The cross was made of two beams, either crossing at the top at right angles, like a T, or in the middle of their length, like an X. There was, besides, a piece on the centre of the transverse beam, to which the accusation or statement of the crime of the culprit was attached, and a piece of wood which projected from the middle, on which the person sat, as on a sort of saddle; and by which the whole body was supported. Tertullian mentions this particularly: Nobis, says he, tota crux imputatur, cum antenna scilicet sua, et cum illo SEDILIS excessu. Advers. Nationes, lib. ii. Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, gives precisely the same description of the cross; and it is worthy of observation that both he and Tertullian flourished before the punishment of the cross had been abolished. The cross on which our Lord suffered was of the former kind; being thus represented in all old monuments, coins, and crosses. St. Jerome compares it to a bird flying, a man swimming, or praying with his arms extended. The punishment of the cross was inflicted among the ancient Hindoos from time immemorial for various species of theft; see Halhead’s Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 248, and was common among the Syrians, Egyptians, Persians, Africans, Greeks, and Romans: it is also still in use among the Chinese, who do not nail, but tie the criminal to it. It was probably the Romans who introduced it among the Jews. Before they became subject to the Romans, they used hanging or gibbeting, but not the cross. This punishment was the most dreadful of all others, both for the shame and pain of it: and so scandalous, that it was inflicted as the last mark of detestation upon the vilest of people. It was the punishment of robbers and murderers, provided they were slaves; but if they were free, it was thought too infamous a punishment for such, let their crimes be what they might.

The body of the criminal was fastened to the upright beam, by nailing or tying the feet to it, and on the transverse piece by nailing, and sometimes tying the hands to it. As the hands and feet are the grand instruments of motion, they are provided with a greater quantity of nerves; and the nerves in those places, especially the hands, are peculiarly sensible. Now, as the nerves are the instruments of all sensation or feeling, wounds in the parts where they abound must be peculiarly painful; especially when inflicted with such rude instruments as large nails, forced through the places by the violence of a hammer; thus tearing asunder the nervous fibrillæ, delicate tendons, and small bones of those parts. This punishment will appear dreadful enough, when it is considered that the person was permitted to hang (the whole weight of his body being borne up by his nailed hands and the projecting piece which passed between the thighs) till he perished through agony and lack of food. Some, we are informed, have lived three whole days in this state. It is true that, in some cases, there was a kind of mercy shown to the sufferer, which will appear sufficiently horrid, when it is known that it consisted in breaking the bones of their legs and thighs to pieces with a large hammer, in order to put them the sooner out of pain! Such a coup de grace as this could only spring from those tender mercies of the wicked which God represents as cruelty itself. Some were permitted to hang on the cross till eaten up by birds of prey, which often began to tear them before life was extinct. Horace alludes to this punishment, and from what he says, it seems to have been inflicted on slaves, &c., not on trifling occasions, but for the most horrible crimes.

Si quis eum servum, patinam qui tollere jussus

Semesos pisces tepidumque ligurrierit jus,

In CRUCE suffigat.

HOR. Satyr. l. i. s. 3. v. 80.

If a poor slave who takes away your plate,

Lick the warm sauce, or half cold fragments eat,

Yet should you crucify the wretch!----FRANCIS.

Non hominem occidi: non pasces in CRUCE corvos.

“I have not committed murder:

Then thou shalt not be nailed to the cross, to feed the ravens.” HOR. Epist. l. i. s. 16. v. 48.

The anguish occasioned by crucifixion was so intense, that crucio, (a cruce,) among the Romans, was the common word by which they expressed suffering and torment in general.

And parted his garments, casting lots] These were the Roman soldiers, who had crucified him: and it appears from this circumstance, that in those ancient times the spoils of the criminal were claimed by the executioners, as they are to the present day. It appears that they divided a part, and cast lots for the rest: viz. for his seamless coat, John 19:23, 24. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.] The whole of this quotation should be omitted, as making no part originally of the genuine text of this evangelist. It is omitted by almost every MS. of worth and importance, by almost all the versions, and the most reputable of the primitive fathers, who have written or commented on the place. The words are plainly an interpolation, borrowed from John 19:24, in which place they will be properly noticed.

Verses 35, 36. And they crucified him — The person crucified was nailed to the cross as it lay on the ground, through each hand, extended to the utmost stretch, and through both the feet together. Then the cross was raised up, and the foot of it thrust with a violent shock into a hole in the ground prepared for it. This shock disjointed the body, whose whole weight hung upon the nails, till the person expired through mere dint of pain. This kind of death was used only by the Romans, and by them inflicted only on slaves and the vilest criminals. With regard to Jesus, therefore, as soon as he refused the liquor offered him, the soldiers, according to custom, stripped him quite naked, and in that condition began to fasten him to the tree. But while they were piercing his hands and his feet with the nails, instead of crying out through the acuteness of his pain according to Luke 23:34, he calmly, though fervently prayed for them, and for all who had any hand in his death, beseeching God to forgive them, and excusing them by the only circumstance that could alleviate their guilt — their ignorance. Saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This was infinite meekness and goodness, truly worthy of God’s only-begotten Son; an example of forgiveness which, though it never can be equalled by any, is fit to be imitated by all. Dr. Heylin (Theolog. Lect, p. 103) has well described our Lord’s passion, as follows: “The appointed soldiers dig the hole in which the cross was to be erected. The nails and the hammer are ready. The cross is placed on the ground, and Jesus lies down upon the bed of sorrows. They nail him to it. They erect it. His nerves crack. His blood distils. He hangs upon his wounds,” naked, “a spectacle to heaven and earth.” Thus was the only-begotten Son of God, who came down to save the world, crucified by his own creatures! Hear, O heavens! O earth, earth, earth, hear! The Lord hath nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against him!

And parted his garments, casting lots — When the soldiers had nailed his naked body to the cross, and raised him up upon it, they divided his garments into four parts, John 19:23, and cast lots for the shares. This was according to the Roman custom; among whom soldiers performed the office of executioners, and divided among them the spoils of the criminals. His coat was excepted out of this division, because, as it was without seam, they agreed to cast lots for it by itself. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, &c. — This clause, though wanting in many valuable copies of this gospel, and in several early versions, is, however, found in the parallel place of John’s gospel, to the text of which it unquestionably belongs, not being omitted by one MS. or version, or ancient commentator. As it was a practice with some transcribers to correct, and, as they imagined, improve one gospel by another, Dr. Campbell thinks it probable, that it was at first copied by some one out of John’s gospel, and inserted in this. The prophet here referred to is David, who, Psalm 22., foretold this, and several other circumstances of the Messiah’s sufferings, upward of a thousand years before they took place. And sitting down, they watched him — The Romans used also to appoint a guard to stay by the crucified persons, that none might come and take them away. And the chief priests, doubtless, would take care that this guard was set, lest any of the people, of whom they were still jealous, should rise and rescue Jesus. But Providence so ordered it, that those who were appointed to watch him, became thereby unexceptionable witnesses for him; having the opportunity to see and hear those things which extorted from them that noble confession, verse 54, Truly this was the Son of God.

§ 141. — TRANSACTIONS WHILE ON THE CROSS, 35-50.

35. And they crucified him — The victim was nailed to the wooden post, with his arms extended upon the cross beam, his four limbs being pierced by the spikes. The post sunk into the ground with a sudden shock, producing an agonizing torture. By pain, by loss of blood, and by mental suffering, death slowly and wearily would come. The cross was a Roman mode of execution, reserved for slaves and the vilest of the race, and therefore selected by the Jews, although not a Jewish punishment, as a proof of their contempt. The halter among us is scarce so ignominious a term of shameful suffering. Thence the cross became in the apostolic writings a symbol, not only of the atonement, but of the offence and contempt with which the Jews and Pagans viewed Christianity. At the same time it was the symbol of the suffering fidelity with which Christians adhered to their religion. It is now the ensign of Christian nations, and is a badge of Christian honour. It floats upon commercial banners and hangs upon the neck of beauty. The Romanists have carried their reverence for the material and formal cross too far; but as a visible symbol of Christianity it is worthy of Christian use, nor should there be a superstitious extreme in the very act of rejecting the superstitious use of the symbol. The order of facts in the crucifixion of Jesus may be stated as follows: The two thieves are elevated on crosses by his side. Pilate fixes upon the cross of Jesus the superscription. The soldiers divide his garments. The passers-by and others revile him; while his mother and John and the women survey the scene at a distance with sorrow.

As the criminal was usually crucified naked, as far as decency permitted, the executioners divided his garments among themselves. It seems by John that there were four soldiers; and when they came to the coat of Jesus, inasmuch as it was seamless, they would not rend it, but cast lots for its possession. Casting lots — Each man’s name was written upon a ballot and cast into a vessel or receiver of some kind; the vessel was shaken, and he whose name leaped out was the winner.

Parted his garments — Of the parting of his garments, the fullest account is given by John.

Verse 35. And they crucified him. — This was at once the most ignominious and cruel of deaths; and was inflicted as the last mark of detestation upon slaves, robbers, murderers, and the vilest of the people. Hence the emphatic manner in which St. Paul refers to the crucifixion of Christ: “And became obedient unto death, EVEN THE DEATH OF THE CROSS.”

And parted his garments, casting lots. — From John 19:23, it appears that the garments were divided into “four parts, to every soldier a part;” so that four soldiers were the executioners, under the direction of a centurion. The coat or robe being seamless, “woven from the top throughout,” and probably peculiar in this respect, remained after this partition; and for this they cast lots, throwing the lots, as was customary, into a helmet. In this they unconsciously accomplished a prophecy: “They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots,” Psalm 22:18. Several MSS. and versions wanting this quotation, it has been supposed that the words were written in the margin from St. John’s gospel, where they are unquestionably found. Still it may be observed that it is quite in the manner of St. Matthew to notice, for the conviction of the Jews, the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies respecting the Messiah, and especially those which are expressed in a particular and minute manner. The whole Psalm from which this quotation is made, must be understood of Messiah, or if David was at all intended, it is in a lower sense; and, as in all those prophecies which have a twofold reference, there are passages which can only apply to the higher and ultimate person or event, so in this Psalm. Our Lord himself appears to give the Psalm a prophetic character relating to himself, by quoting its opening words when suffering on the cross. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!” This act of the Roman soldiers is another instance of the exact and minute prescience of “the spirit of prophecy.” No contrivance of Christ or of his disciples could bring about this correspondence of events to those spoken of him in a prophetic writing which had been in existence for ages. It was fulfilled by the Roman soldiers themselves, to whom the garments of malefactors fell as their perquisites; but was taken quite out of the common course of things, by the circumstance that they cast lots for his “vesture,” or robe, which would not have happened but for another circumstance certainly not to be conjectured, not possible to have been foreseen by man, that this robe was “without seam, woven from the top throughout,” so that to possess it whole excited the desire of each soldier, while each was anxious to submit his claim to the decision of the “lot.”

Verse 36. They watched him] To prevent his disciples or relatives from taking away the body or affording any relief to the sufferer.

Verses 35, 36. And they crucified him — The person crucified was nailed to the cross as it lay on the ground, through each hand, extended to the utmost stretch, and through both the feet together. Then the cross was raised up, and the foot of it thrust with a violent shock into a hole in the ground prepared for it. This shock disjointed the body, whose whole weight hung upon the nails, till the person expired through mere dint of pain. This kind of death was used only by the Romans, and by them inflicted only on slaves and the vilest criminals. With regard to Jesus, therefore, as soon as he refused the liquor offered him, the soldiers, according to custom, stripped him quite naked, and in that condition began to fasten him to the tree. But while they were piercing his hands and his feet with the nails, instead of crying out through the acuteness of his pain according to Luke 23:34, he calmly, though fervently prayed for them, and for all who had any hand in his death, beseeching God to forgive them, and excusing them by the only circumstance that could alleviate their guilt — their ignorance. Saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This was infinite meekness and goodness, truly worthy of God’s only-begotten Son; an example of forgiveness which, though it never can be equalled by any, is fit to be imitated by all. Dr. Heylin (Theolog. Lect, p. 103) has well described our Lord’s passion, as follows: “The appointed soldiers dig the hole in which the cross was to be erected. The nails and the hammer are ready. The cross is placed on the ground, and Jesus lies down upon the bed of sorrows. They nail him to it. They erect it. His nerves crack. His blood distils. He hangs upon his wounds,” naked, “a spectacle to heaven and earth.” Thus was the only-begotten Son of God, who came down to save the world, crucified by his own creatures! Hear, O heavens! O earth, earth, earth, hear! The Lord hath nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against him!

And parted his garments, casting lots — When the soldiers had nailed his naked body to the cross, and raised him up upon it, they divided his garments into four parts, John 19:23, and cast lots for the shares. This was according to the Roman custom; among whom soldiers performed the office of executioners, and divided among them the spoils of the criminals. His coat was excepted out of this division, because, as it was without seam, they agreed to cast lots for it by itself. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, &c. — This clause, though wanting in many valuable copies of this gospel, and in several early versions, is, however, found in the parallel place of John’s gospel, to the text of which it unquestionably belongs, not being omitted by one MS. or version, or ancient commentator. As it was a practice with some transcribers to correct, and, as they imagined, improve one gospel by another, Dr. Campbell thinks it probable, that it was at first copied by some one out of John’s gospel, and inserted in this. The prophet here referred to is David, who, Psalm 22., foretold this, and several other circumstances of the Messiah’s sufferings, upward of a thousand years before they took place. And sitting down, they watched him — The Romans used also to appoint a guard to stay by the crucified persons, that none might come and take them away. And the chief priests, doubtless, would take care that this guard was set, lest any of the people, of whom they were still jealous, should rise and rescue Jesus. But Providence so ordered it, that those who were appointed to watch him, became thereby unexceptionable witnesses for him; having the opportunity to see and hear those things which extorted from them that noble confession, verse 54, Truly this was the Son of God.

36. Sitting down… watched — The four Roman soldiers, who were the proper executioners, sat down to witness and secure the process of death. They witnessed the passing revilers, the sorrowing friends, the darkness, the confession of the thief, the draught given to drink, and the dying cry of the Lamb of God.

Verse 36. They watched him there. — That is, the centurion and the soldiers under his command sat down near the cross, to see that the sentence was carried into complete effect, and that no one removed the body from the cross.

Verse 37. His accusation] It was a common custom to affix a label to the cross, giving a statement of the crime for which the person suffered. This is still the case in China, when a person is crucified. Sometimes a person was employed to carry this before the criminal, while going to the place of punishment.

It is with much propriety that Matthew calls this aitia, accusation; for it was false that ever Christ pretended to be KING OF THE JEWS, in the sense the inscription held forth: he was accused of this, but there was no proof of the accusation; however it was affixed to the cross. From John 19:21, we find that the Jews wished this to be a little altered: Write, said they, that HE said, l am king of the Jews; thus endeavouring, by the addition of a vile lie, to countenance their own conduct in putting him to death. But this Pilate refused to do. Both Luke, Luke 23:38, and John, John 19:20, say that this accusation was written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. In those three languages, we may conceive the label to stand thus, according to the account given by St. John; the Hebrew being the mixed dialect then spoken.

In Hebrew-Ebraisti:

aydwhyd aklm ayrxn [wcy

In Greek-Ellhnista:

ihsouv o nazwraiov o basileuv

twn ioudaiwn

In Latin-Rwmaisti:

IESUS NAZARENUS REX IUDÆORUM

It is only necessary to observe, that all the letters, both of the Greek and Roman alphabets, were those now called square or uncial, similar to these above.

Verses 37, 38. And set over his head his accusation — That is, a superscription, containing the substance of his pretended crime, written in capital letters, and in these remarkable words, THIS IS JESUS, (John adds, OF NAZARETH,) THE KING OF THE JEWS. The two other evangelists do not express the title so fully. See the note on John 19:19, &c. Bishop Pearson, (On the Creed, p. 205,) and Dr. Lardner, (Credibil., vol. 1. p. 347,) have abundantly proved it to be usual, in cases of any extraordinary punishment, to put an inscription over the head of the sufferer, indicative of the crime for which he suffered. Then were there two thieves crucified with him — “They placed Jesus in the middle, by way of mock honour, because he had called himself a king, and was now crowned with thorns; or, if the priests had any hand in this, they might design hereby to impress the spectators more strongly with the thought of his being an impostor, and to make them look on him as the chief malefactor. Thus, however, as Mark observes, the Scripture, namely, Isaiah 53:12, was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. For, in giving the history of our Lord’s sufferings, the evangelists endeavour all along to make their readers sensible that all the circumstances of them had been foreseen and foretold by the prophets. Their design in which was, to prevent the offence which might otherwise have been taken at Christ’s sufferings.

Ver. 37. This is Jesus the king of the jews. Pilate wrote this in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin, for he knew that such a claim of regal power would justify him with Cæsar. Every insult the Saviour received connected the cross with the crown; he was indeed the King of the jews, and also of the gentiles, who in his times shall show who is the only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords.

37. Accusation — The indictment or charge upon which he was executed. It was written with black letters upon a white ground. The purport of a criminal charge was often proclaimed also by the public crier, and may have been done in this case.

Verse 37. And set up over his head his accusation. — This was according to custom. The crime for which the person was executed was written in black letters upon a white ground. The Syriac and Persian versions render it, “the cause of his death.” Luke and John inform us that this titlov was in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: Hebrew, that is, the Palestinian dialect, which went vaguely by that name, as being the language of the populace; Greek, as a prevalent language both in Judea, and among the foreign Jews who were present at the passover at Jerusalem; and Latin, as the language of the conquerors of the country. The inscription which excluded Gentiles from the inner court of the temple was written in those three languages. The evangelists give the sense of the inscription rather than the exact words, and hence the variation which appears in their account. All agree, however, that the crime for which he was executed by the Romans was, that he claimed to be THE KING OF THE JEWS; but that for which he was condemned by the sanhedrim was, that he said, “I am the Son of God.” The reasons why the sanhedrim urged his execution on a charge of treason have been above stated. Nor can any thing be a stronger proof of the utterly unjust treatment suffered by our blessed Lord from his judges than that he was condemned for one crime, and executed for one quite distinct; that is, he was not executed for the crime for which he was tried, nor tried on the charge for which he was executed!

V. 38. Mark 15:27; Luke 23:32.

Verse 38. Two thieves] lhstai, robbers, or cutthroats: men who had committed robbery and murder; for it does not appear that persons were crucified for robbery only. Thus was our Lord numbered (his name enrolled, placed as it were in the death warrant) with transgressors, according to the prophetic declaration, Isaiah 53:12; and the Jews placed him between these two, perhaps to intimate that he was the worst felon of the three.

Verses 37, 38. And set over his head his accusation — That is, a superscription, containing the substance of his pretended crime, written in capital letters, and in these remarkable words, THIS IS JESUS, (John adds, OF NAZARETH,) THE KING OF THE JEWS. The two other evangelists do not express the title so fully. See the note on John 19:19, &c. Bishop Pearson, (On the Creed, p. 205,) and Dr. Lardner, (Credibil., vol. 1. p. 347,) have abundantly proved it to be usual, in cases of any extraordinary punishment, to put an inscription over the head of the sufferer, indicative of the crime for which he suffered. Then were there two thieves crucified with him — “They placed Jesus in the middle, by way of mock honour, because he had called himself a king, and was now crowned with thorns; or, if the priests had any hand in this, they might design hereby to impress the spectators more strongly with the thought of his being an impostor, and to make them look on him as the chief malefactor. Thus, however, as Mark observes, the Scripture, namely, Isaiah 53:12, was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. For, in giving the history of our Lord’s sufferings, the evangelists endeavour all along to make their readers sensible that all the circumstances of them had been foreseen and foretold by the prophets. Their design in which was, to prevent the offence which might otherwise have been taken at Christ’s sufferings.

Ver. 38. Two thieves crucified with him. The supineness of the Hebrews in taking life, and the encrease of crimes and tyranny, caused the country to abound with bands of robbers. There were also robbers in the city. The zealots who opposed the Roman yoke were often outlawed, and encreased the number.

38. Two thieves — A fuller account in regard to the thieves is given by Luke.

Verse 38. Two thieves. — These were public robbers, with which the country was infested, and, as usual, had been reserved to one of the great feasts for execution, that the example might be the more influential. Here too another signal accomplishment of prophecy may be noticed, which is stated by St. Mark: “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors,” Isaiah 53:12. It is remarkable, also, that our Lord, some time before this, applied this prophecy to himself: “For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end,” Luke 22:37.

Verse 39. Wagging their heads] In token of contempt.

Verses 39-44. They that passed by reviled him, &c. — As it was a great aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings that he was crucified along with two thieves, and in the middle of them, as though he had been the chief malefactor of the three, so it was a further aggravation thereof that he was reviled, mocked, and derided by different descriptions of persons. The common people, whom the priests had incensed against him by the malicious lies which they spread concerning him, and which they pretended to found on the evidence of witnesses, seeing him hang as a malefactor on the cross, and reading the superscription that was placed over his head, expressed their indignation against him by railing on him, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, &c., save thyself — The rulers having, as they imagined, wholly overturned his pretensions as the Messiah, ridiculed him on that head, and, with a meanness of soul which will render them for ever infamous, mocked him while in the agonies of death, and even most basely upbraided him with the saving power, which they could not deny that he had exerted; saying, he saved others, himself he cannot save — Thus they scoff at the wonderful miracles of healing, by which he had demonstrated that he was the Messiah; and they promise to believe on him on condition that he would prove his pretensions by coming down from the cross. In the mean time nothing could be more false and hypocritical, for they continued in their unbelief notwithstanding that he raised himself from the dead, which was a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been; a miracle also that was attested by witnesses whose veracity they could not call in question; for it was told them by the soldiers whom they themselves had placed at the sepulchre to watch his body. It is plain, therefore, that their incorrigible stubbornness would not have yielded to any proof, however convincing, and that when they said they would believe if he would come down from the cross, they only meant to insult him; thinking it impossible now for him to escape out of their hands. In saying, He trusted in God, &c., they deride his faith and reliance on God, whom he had called his Father, and thus show themselves to be either real infidels, or very profane, though under a profession of religion. In speaking thus, however, they fulfilled a remarkable prophecy concerning the Messiah’s sufferings, Psalm 22:8, where it is foretold that his enemies would utter these very words, in derision of his pretensions. The thieves also, &c., cast the same in his teeth — That is, one of them did so, for, according to Luke 23:39, &c., the other exercised a most extraordinary faith in our Lord, and that at a time when he was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hung on a cross as the worst of malefactors. Some commentators endeavour to reconcile the two evangelists by supposing, that both the thieves might revile Jesus at first. But this solution is not very probable. In Scripture, a single person or thing is often expressed in the plural number, especially when it is not the speaker’s or writer’s intention to be more particular.

REVILING OF JESUS ON THE CROSS, 39-44.

In the extremity of his physical pain the Son of man must endure the utmost that human contempt can think and say and do. The accidental spectator, the chance specimens of our race; the chief priests, the representatives of rank, sacred and secular, are present. The powerful exert the uttermost of their power, and the vilest do their best and vilest. They utter taunts founded on calumnious misrepresentations of his words; they ridicule his kingship, and even his piety. They trample on his pretences, and exult over his weakness.

39. Wagging their heads — An accompanying gesture, expressive of the contempt uttered in their words.

Verses 39-44. And they that passed by, &c. — The crowd of his enemies probably passed in a sort of procession, before the cross, in order to satisfy themselves with a nearer view of his agonies, and to address to him personal insults. They reviled him, eblasfhmoun, they blasphemed him, accusing him of various crimes, wagging their heads, a usual mark of malevolent derision and exultation; but, in this, unconsciously fulfilling the words of the Psalm above quoted, which prophetically describes the sufferings of Messiah: “All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head,” Psalm 22:7. To this sarcastic mockery and contempt was our Saviour exposed from the common people, who taunted him, according to the perverted testimony of the false witnesses on his trial, with his threat of destroying the temple in three days, and bade him, if such was his power, to save himself, and if he was the Son of God, to come down from the cross; nor could the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, restrain themselves from this brutal mockery, but joined in the insults: but this also was signally overruled for the fulfilment of another portion of the same prophetic Psalm; for in nearly the words of that sacred composition, they said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him, ei qelei auton, “if he regards him,” or “delights in him.” The words of the Psalm are, “he trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” verse 8. Thus they themselves undesignedly applied the prophecy to our Lord, and themselves fulfilled it.

For he said, I am the Son of God. — It is to be remarked that the Jews mainly reproach Christ, not with the crime for which he was actually put to death by Pilate, a seditious assertion of sovereignty in opposition to the Roman power, for which, notwithstanding their hypocritical pretence of respect for the rights of Cesar, they world have honoured him; but for the very profession on which their own council had condemned him, — FOR HE SAID, I AM THE SON OF GOD; thus confessing that they had urged upon Pilate a false pretence, and that the ground of their hatred to him was his assumption of a Divine character, and the spirituality of his kingdom. Cast the same in his teeth. — Reproached him with pretending to a power which he could not execute, joining in the same revilings as the chief priests, elders, and scribes; of which the motive might be to move some compassion as to themselves, by an affected zeal, and to obtain deliverance from death; for instances are on record, in which persons, after having been for some time nailed to the cross and taken down, were by proper care recovered. St. Luke confines this reviling to “one of the malefactors;” to remove which difficulty, some have supposed that both at first joined in these insults, but that one was speedily touched with penitence. This is at least a better solution than that the plural is used for the singular; for the instances of this which are given are not apposite. Another solution is, that St. Matthew, not designing to relate the conversion of the penitent thief, speaks vaguely and generally in a matter on which nothing in his narrative depended; but that St. Luke, relating farther particulars, states the case with designed exactness.

Verse 40. Thou that destroyest] Who didst pretend that thou couldst have destroyed the temple, and built it up again in three days. This malicious torturing of our Lord’s words has been noticed before. Cruelty is obliged to take refuge in lies, in order to vindicate its infamous proceedings.

If thou be the Son of God] Or rather, uiov tou qeou A son of God, i.e. a peculiar favourite of the Most-High; not ~O Uiov tou Qeou, THE Son of God. “It is not to be conceived,” says a learned man, “that every passenger who was going to the city had a competent knowledge of Christ’s supernatural conception by the Holy Spirit, or an adequate comprehension of his character as the Messiah, and (kat~ exochn) THE SON OF GOD. There is not a single passiage where Jesus is designed to be pointed out as the MESSIAH, THE SON OF GOD, where the article is omitted: nor, on the other hand, is this designation ever specified without the article, thus, ~O Uiov tou Qeou. See Matthew 16:16; 26:63; 28:19.”

Verses 39-44. They that passed by reviled him, &c. — As it was a great aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings that he was crucified along with two thieves, and in the middle of them, as though he had been the chief malefactor of the three, so it was a further aggravation thereof that he was reviled, mocked, and derided by different descriptions of persons. The common people, whom the priests had incensed against him by the malicious lies which they spread concerning him, and which they pretended to found on the evidence of witnesses, seeing him hang as a malefactor on the cross, and reading the superscription that was placed over his head, expressed their indignation against him by railing on him, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, &c., save thyself — The rulers having, as they imagined, wholly overturned his pretensions as the Messiah, ridiculed him on that head, and, with a meanness of soul which will render them for ever infamous, mocked him while in the agonies of death, and even most basely upbraided him with the saving power, which they could not deny that he had exerted; saying, he saved others, himself he cannot save — Thus they scoff at the wonderful miracles of healing, by which he had demonstrated that he was the Messiah; and they promise to believe on him on condition that he would prove his pretensions by coming down from the cross. In the mean time nothing could be more false and hypocritical, for they continued in their unbelief notwithstanding that he raised himself from the dead, which was a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been; a miracle also that was attested by witnesses whose veracity they could not call in question; for it was told them by the soldiers whom they themselves had placed at the sepulchre to watch his body. It is plain, therefore, that their incorrigible stubbornness would not have yielded to any proof, however convincing, and that when they said they would believe if he would come down from the cross, they only meant to insult him; thinking it impossible now for him to escape out of their hands. In saying, He trusted in God, &c., they deride his faith and reliance on God, whom he had called his Father, and thus show themselves to be either real infidels, or very profane, though under a profession of religion. In speaking thus, however, they fulfilled a remarkable prophecy concerning the Messiah’s sufferings, Psalm 22:8, where it is foretold that his enemies would utter these very words, in derision of his pretensions. The thieves also, &c., cast the same in his teeth — That is, one of them did so, for, according to Luke 23:39, &c., the other exercised a most extraordinary faith in our Lord, and that at a time when he was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hung on a cross as the worst of malefactors. Some commentators endeavour to reconcile the two evangelists by supposing, that both the thieves might revile Jesus at first. But this solution is not very probable. In Scripture, a single person or thing is often expressed in the plural number, especially when it is not the speaker’s or writer’s intention to be more particular.

40. Thou that destroyest — Our Saviour’s real words did not express the destroying the temple, but rebuilding it if they destroyed it. There is a beautiful innocence in the words, which they have to pervert before they can make them condemnable. See note on Matthew 26:21. Save thyself — Here is their strong argument. The people who had shouted but a day or two ago, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” now plainly see their mistake. If this man were divine, the Messiah, the Son of God, he would certainly never have been caught and crucified. So the chief priests are after all right, and this man is an impostor. See note on Matthew 26:51. The fact that he is crucified is proof that he ought to be crucified. So are men worshippers of success. Come down from the cross — All his miracles, his lessons, and the perfection of his character, go for nothing unless he perform this test miracle. Let him show his superiority over his enemies, assert his power, and save his own life. If he does not, then he is so far from being the Messiah that he is justly crucified for maintaining himself to be so.

Verses 39-44. And they that passed by, &c. — The crowd of his enemies probably passed in a sort of procession, before the cross, in order to satisfy themselves with a nearer view of his agonies, and to address to him personal insults. They reviled him, eblasfhmoun, they blasphemed him, accusing him of various crimes, wagging their heads, a usual mark of malevolent derision and exultation; but, in this, unconsciously fulfilling the words of the Psalm above quoted, which prophetically describes the sufferings of Messiah: “All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head,” Psalm 22:7. To this sarcastic mockery and contempt was our Saviour exposed from the common people, who taunted him, according to the perverted testimony of the false witnesses on his trial, with his threat of destroying the temple in three days, and bade him, if such was his power, to save himself, and if he was the Son of God, to come down from the cross; nor could the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, restrain themselves from this brutal mockery, but joined in the insults: but this also was signally overruled for the fulfilment of another portion of the same prophetic Psalm; for in nearly the words of that sacred composition, they said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him, ei qelei auton, “if he regards him,” or “delights in him.” The words of the Psalm are, “he trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” verse 8. Thus they themselves undesignedly applied the prophecy to our Lord, and themselves fulfilled it.

For he said, I am the Son of God. — It is to be remarked that the Jews mainly reproach Christ, not with the crime for which he was actually put to death by Pilate, a seditious assertion of sovereignty in opposition to the Roman power, for which, notwithstanding their hypocritical pretence of respect for the rights of Cesar, they world have honoured him; but for the very profession on which their own council had condemned him, — FOR HE SAID, I AM THE SON OF GOD; thus confessing that they had urged upon Pilate a false pretence, and that the ground of their hatred to him was his assumption of a Divine character, and the spirituality of his kingdom. Cast the same in his teeth. — Reproached him with pretending to a power which he could not execute, joining in the same revilings as the chief priests, elders, and scribes; of which the motive might be to move some compassion as to themselves, by an affected zeal, and to obtain deliverance from death; for instances are on record, in which persons, after having been for some time nailed to the cross and taken down, were by proper care recovered. St. Luke confines this reviling to “one of the malefactors;” to remove which difficulty, some have supposed that both at first joined in these insults, but that one was speedily touched with penitence. This is at least a better solution than that the plural is used for the singular; for the instances of this which are given are not apposite. Another solution is, that St. Matthew, not designing to relate the conversion of the penitent thief, speaks vaguely and generally in a matter on which nothing in his narrative depended; but that St. Luke, relating farther particulars, states the case with designed exactness.

Verse 41. Chief priests-scribes and elders] To these, several ancient MSS. and versions add, kai farisaiwn, and Pharisees. But though the authority for this reading is respectable, yet it does not appear that the Pharisees joined in with the others in the condemnation of our Lord. Probably his discourses and parables, related in some of the preceding chapters, which were spoken directly to them, had so far convinced them that they would at least have no hand in putting him to death. All the infamy of this seems to fall upon the PRIESTS, scribes, and elders.

Verses 39-44. They that passed by reviled him, &c. — As it was a great aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings that he was crucified along with two thieves, and in the middle of them, as though he had been the chief malefactor of the three, so it was a further aggravation thereof that he was reviled, mocked, and derided by different descriptions of persons. The common people, whom the priests had incensed against him by the malicious lies which they spread concerning him, and which they pretended to found on the evidence of witnesses, seeing him hang as a malefactor on the cross, and reading the superscription that was placed over his head, expressed their indignation against him by railing on him, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, &c., save thyself — The rulers having, as they imagined, wholly overturned his pretensions as the Messiah, ridiculed him on that head, and, with a meanness of soul which will render them for ever infamous, mocked him while in the agonies of death, and even most basely upbraided him with the saving power, which they could not deny that he had exerted; saying, he saved others, himself he cannot save — Thus they scoff at the wonderful miracles of healing, by which he had demonstrated that he was the Messiah; and they promise to believe on him on condition that he would prove his pretensions by coming down from the cross. In the mean time nothing could be more false and hypocritical, for they continued in their unbelief notwithstanding that he raised himself from the dead, which was a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been; a miracle also that was attested by witnesses whose veracity they could not call in question; for it was told them by the soldiers whom they themselves had placed at the sepulchre to watch his body. It is plain, therefore, that their incorrigible stubbornness would not have yielded to any proof, however convincing, and that when they said they would believe if he would come down from the cross, they only meant to insult him; thinking it impossible now for him to escape out of their hands. In saying, He trusted in God, &c., they deride his faith and reliance on God, whom he had called his Father, and thus show themselves to be either real infidels, or very profane, though under a profession of religion. In speaking thus, however, they fulfilled a remarkable prophecy concerning the Messiah’s sufferings, Psalm 22:8, where it is foretold that his enemies would utter these very words, in derision of his pretensions. The thieves also, &c., cast the same in his teeth — That is, one of them did so, for, according to Luke 23:39, &c., the other exercised a most extraordinary faith in our Lord, and that at a time when he was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hung on a cross as the worst of malefactors. Some commentators endeavour to reconcile the two evangelists by supposing, that both the thieves might revile Jesus at first. But this solution is not very probable. In Scripture, a single person or thing is often expressed in the plural number, especially when it is not the speaker’s or writer’s intention to be more particular.

41. Chief priests… scribes and elders — They are all there, and they all have their mock.

Verses 39-44. And they that passed by, &c. — The crowd of his enemies probably passed in a sort of procession, before the cross, in order to satisfy themselves with a nearer view of his agonies, and to address to him personal insults. They reviled him, eblasfhmoun, they blasphemed him, accusing him of various crimes, wagging their heads, a usual mark of malevolent derision and exultation; but, in this, unconsciously fulfilling the words of the Psalm above quoted, which prophetically describes the sufferings of Messiah: “All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head,” Psalm 22:7. To this sarcastic mockery and contempt was our Saviour exposed from the common people, who taunted him, according to the perverted testimony of the false witnesses on his trial, with his threat of destroying the temple in three days, and bade him, if such was his power, to save himself, and if he was the Son of God, to come down from the cross; nor could the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, restrain themselves from this brutal mockery, but joined in the insults: but this also was signally overruled for the fulfilment of another portion of the same prophetic Psalm; for in nearly the words of that sacred composition, they said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him, ei qelei auton, “if he regards him,” or “delights in him.” The words of the Psalm are, “he trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” verse 8. Thus they themselves undesignedly applied the prophecy to our Lord, and themselves fulfilled it.

For he said, I am the Son of God. — It is to be remarked that the Jews mainly reproach Christ, not with the crime for which he was actually put to death by Pilate, a seditious assertion of sovereignty in opposition to the Roman power, for which, notwithstanding their hypocritical pretence of respect for the rights of Cesar, they world have honoured him; but for the very profession on which their own council had condemned him, — FOR HE SAID, I AM THE SON OF GOD; thus confessing that they had urged upon Pilate a false pretence, and that the ground of their hatred to him was his assumption of a Divine character, and the spirituality of his kingdom. Cast the same in his teeth. — Reproached him with pretending to a power which he could not execute, joining in the same revilings as the chief priests, elders, and scribes; of which the motive might be to move some compassion as to themselves, by an affected zeal, and to obtain deliverance from death; for instances are on record, in which persons, after having been for some time nailed to the cross and taken down, were by proper care recovered. St. Luke confines this reviling to “one of the malefactors;” to remove which difficulty, some have supposed that both at first joined in these insults, but that one was speedily touched with penitence. This is at least a better solution than that the plural is used for the singular; for the instances of this which are given are not apposite. Another solution is, that St. Matthew, not designing to relate the conversion of the penitent thief, speaks vaguely and generally in a matter on which nothing in his narrative depended; but that St. Luke, relating farther particulars, states the case with designed exactness.

Verse 42. He saved others; himself he cannot save.] Or, Cannot he save himself? Several MSS. read this with the mark of interrogation as above; and this makes the sarcasm still more keen.

A high priest who designs to destroy the temple of God: a Saviour who saves not himself; and the Son of God crucified: these are the contradictions which give offence to Jews and libertines. But a high priest who dispels the types and shadows, only that he may disclose the substance of religion, and become the minister of a heavenly sanctuary; a Saviour who dies only to be the victim of salvation; and the Son of God who confines his power within the bounds of the cross to establish the righteousness of faith: this is what a Christian adores; this is the foundation of his hope, and the fountain of his present comfort and final blessedness. See Quesnel.

We will believe him.] Instead of autw, him, many excellent MSS. have ep~ autw, IN him: this is a reading which Griesbach and other eminent critics have adopted.

Verses 39-44. They that passed by reviled him, &c. — As it was a great aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings that he was crucified along with two thieves, and in the middle of them, as though he had been the chief malefactor of the three, so it was a further aggravation thereof that he was reviled, mocked, and derided by different descriptions of persons. The common people, whom the priests had incensed against him by the malicious lies which they spread concerning him, and which they pretended to found on the evidence of witnesses, seeing him hang as a malefactor on the cross, and reading the superscription that was placed over his head, expressed their indignation against him by railing on him, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, &c., save thyself — The rulers having, as they imagined, wholly overturned his pretensions as the Messiah, ridiculed him on that head, and, with a meanness of soul which will render them for ever infamous, mocked him while in the agonies of death, and even most basely upbraided him with the saving power, which they could not deny that he had exerted; saying, he saved others, himself he cannot save — Thus they scoff at the wonderful miracles of healing, by which he had demonstrated that he was the Messiah; and they promise to believe on him on condition that he would prove his pretensions by coming down from the cross. In the mean time nothing could be more false and hypocritical, for they continued in their unbelief notwithstanding that he raised himself from the dead, which was a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been; a miracle also that was attested by witnesses whose veracity they could not call in question; for it was told them by the soldiers whom they themselves had placed at the sepulchre to watch his body. It is plain, therefore, that their incorrigible stubbornness would not have yielded to any proof, however convincing, and that when they said they would believe if he would come down from the cross, they only meant to insult him; thinking it impossible now for him to escape out of their hands. In saying, He trusted in God, &c., they deride his faith and reliance on God, whom he had called his Father, and thus show themselves to be either real infidels, or very profane, though under a profession of religion. In speaking thus, however, they fulfilled a remarkable prophecy concerning the Messiah’s sufferings, Psalm 22:8, where it is foretold that his enemies would utter these very words, in derision of his pretensions. The thieves also, &c., cast the same in his teeth — That is, one of them did so, for, according to Luke 23:39, &c., the other exercised a most extraordinary faith in our Lord, and that at a time when he was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hung on a cross as the worst of malefactors. Some commentators endeavour to reconcile the two evangelists by supposing, that both the thieves might revile Jesus at first. But this solution is not very probable. In Scripture, a single person or thing is often expressed in the plural number, especially when it is not the speaker’s or writer’s intention to be more particular.

42. He saved others; himself he cannot save — A noble Saviour, forsooth, who cannot save himself! And yet, as learned men, they know or ought to know that the Old Testament foretold a suffering as well as a glorious Messiah. They ought to have remembered that it was by suffering that the Messiah was to save. Come down from the cross — And if he should come down from the cross, what then? What hope of mercy for his enemies? What would be the fate of men who say to him, The test of your Messiahship is to overcome our purpose of murdering you? And, still worse, if he should come down from the cross, and leave the great work of the atonement unfinished, what redemption for you miserable sinners?

Verses 39-44. And they that passed by, &c. — The crowd of his enemies probably passed in a sort of procession, before the cross, in order to satisfy themselves with a nearer view of his agonies, and to address to him personal insults. They reviled him, eblasfhmoun, they blasphemed him, accusing him of various crimes, wagging their heads, a usual mark of malevolent derision and exultation; but, in this, unconsciously fulfilling the words of the Psalm above quoted, which prophetically describes the sufferings of Messiah: “All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head,” Psalm 22:7. To this sarcastic mockery and contempt was our Saviour exposed from the common people, who taunted him, according to the perverted testimony of the false witnesses on his trial, with his threat of destroying the temple in three days, and bade him, if such was his power, to save himself, and if he was the Son of God, to come down from the cross; nor could the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, restrain themselves from this brutal mockery, but joined in the insults: but this also was signally overruled for the fulfilment of another portion of the same prophetic Psalm; for in nearly the words of that sacred composition, they said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him, ei qelei auton, “if he regards him,” or “delights in him.” The words of the Psalm are, “he trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” verse 8. Thus they themselves undesignedly applied the prophecy to our Lord, and themselves fulfilled it.

For he said, I am the Son of God. — It is to be remarked that the Jews mainly reproach Christ, not with the crime for which he was actually put to death by Pilate, a seditious assertion of sovereignty in opposition to the Roman power, for which, notwithstanding their hypocritical pretence of respect for the rights of Cesar, they world have honoured him; but for the very profession on which their own council had condemned him, — FOR HE SAID, I AM THE SON OF GOD; thus confessing that they had urged upon Pilate a false pretence, and that the ground of their hatred to him was his assumption of a Divine character, and the spirituality of his kingdom. Cast the same in his teeth. — Reproached him with pretending to a power which he could not execute, joining in the same revilings as the chief priests, elders, and scribes; of which the motive might be to move some compassion as to themselves, by an affected zeal, and to obtain deliverance from death; for instances are on record, in which persons, after having been for some time nailed to the cross and taken down, were by proper care recovered. St. Luke confines this reviling to “one of the malefactors;” to remove which difficulty, some have supposed that both at first joined in these insults, but that one was speedily touched with penitence. This is at least a better solution than that the plural is used for the singular; for the instances of this which are given are not apposite. Another solution is, that St. Matthew, not designing to relate the conversion of the penitent thief, speaks vaguely and generally in a matter on which nothing in his narrative depended; but that St. Luke, relating farther particulars, states the case with designed exactness.

Verse 43. If he will have him] Or, if he delight in him-ei qelei auton. The verbs qelw and eqelw, are used by the Septuagint in more than forty places for the Hebrew xpj chaphets, which signifies, earnestly to desire, or delight in. Now as this is a quotation from Psalm 22:8, He trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, (wb xpj yk ki chaphets bo,) for he HATH DELIGHTED IN HIM:-oti qelei auton, Sept. This will sufficiently vindicate the above translation; as the evangelist quotes the words from that version, with the simple change of ei, if, for oti, because.

Verses 39-44. They that passed by reviled him, &c. — As it was a great aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings that he was crucified along with two thieves, and in the middle of them, as though he had been the chief malefactor of the three, so it was a further aggravation thereof that he was reviled, mocked, and derided by different descriptions of persons. The common people, whom the priests had incensed against him by the malicious lies which they spread concerning him, and which they pretended to found on the evidence of witnesses, seeing him hang as a malefactor on the cross, and reading the superscription that was placed over his head, expressed their indignation against him by railing on him, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, &c., save thyself — The rulers having, as they imagined, wholly overturned his pretensions as the Messiah, ridiculed him on that head, and, with a meanness of soul which will render them for ever infamous, mocked him while in the agonies of death, and even most basely upbraided him with the saving power, which they could not deny that he had exerted; saying, he saved others, himself he cannot save — Thus they scoff at the wonderful miracles of healing, by which he had demonstrated that he was the Messiah; and they promise to believe on him on condition that he would prove his pretensions by coming down from the cross. In the mean time nothing could be more false and hypocritical, for they continued in their unbelief notwithstanding that he raised himself from the dead, which was a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been; a miracle also that was attested by witnesses whose veracity they could not call in question; for it was told them by the soldiers whom they themselves had placed at the sepulchre to watch his body. It is plain, therefore, that their incorrigible stubbornness would not have yielded to any proof, however convincing, and that when they said they would believe if he would come down from the cross, they only meant to insult him; thinking it impossible now for him to escape out of their hands. In saying, He trusted in God, &c., they deride his faith and reliance on God, whom he had called his Father, and thus show themselves to be either real infidels, or very profane, though under a profession of religion. In speaking thus, however, they fulfilled a remarkable prophecy concerning the Messiah’s sufferings, Psalm 22:8, where it is foretold that his enemies would utter these very words, in derision of his pretensions. The thieves also, &c., cast the same in his teeth — That is, one of them did so, for, according to Luke 23:39, &c., the other exercised a most extraordinary faith in our Lord, and that at a time when he was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hung on a cross as the worst of malefactors. Some commentators endeavour to reconcile the two evangelists by supposing, that both the thieves might revile Jesus at first. But this solution is not very probable. In Scripture, a single person or thing is often expressed in the plural number, especially when it is not the speaker’s or writer’s intention to be more particular.

Ver. 43. He said, I am the Son of God. This is equivalent to saying, “I and my Father are one.” John 10:30. Matthew 26:64.

43. Let him deliver him — Here is another argument. If God is on this man’s side he will not suffer him to be slain.

Verses 39-44. And they that passed by, &c. — The crowd of his enemies probably passed in a sort of procession, before the cross, in order to satisfy themselves with a nearer view of his agonies, and to address to him personal insults. They reviled him, eblasfhmoun, they blasphemed him, accusing him of various crimes, wagging their heads, a usual mark of malevolent derision and exultation; but, in this, unconsciously fulfilling the words of the Psalm above quoted, which prophetically describes the sufferings of Messiah: “All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head,” Psalm 22:7. To this sarcastic mockery and contempt was our Saviour exposed from the common people, who taunted him, according to the perverted testimony of the false witnesses on his trial, with his threat of destroying the temple in three days, and bade him, if such was his power, to save himself, and if he was the Son of God, to come down from the cross; nor could the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, restrain themselves from this brutal mockery, but joined in the insults: but this also was signally overruled for the fulfilment of another portion of the same prophetic Psalm; for in nearly the words of that sacred composition, they said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him, ei qelei auton, “if he regards him,” or “delights in him.” The words of the Psalm are, “he trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” verse 8. Thus they themselves undesignedly applied the prophecy to our Lord, and themselves fulfilled it.

For he said, I am the Son of God. — It is to be remarked that the Jews mainly reproach Christ, not with the crime for which he was actually put to death by Pilate, a seditious assertion of sovereignty in opposition to the Roman power, for which, notwithstanding their hypocritical pretence of respect for the rights of Cesar, they world have honoured him; but for the very profession on which their own council had condemned him, — FOR HE SAID, I AM THE SON OF GOD; thus confessing that they had urged upon Pilate a false pretence, and that the ground of their hatred to him was his assumption of a Divine character, and the spirituality of his kingdom. Cast the same in his teeth. — Reproached him with pretending to a power which he could not execute, joining in the same revilings as the chief priests, elders, and scribes; of which the motive might be to move some compassion as to themselves, by an affected zeal, and to obtain deliverance from death; for instances are on record, in which persons, after having been for some time nailed to the cross and taken down, were by proper care recovered. St. Luke confines this reviling to “one of the malefactors;” to remove which difficulty, some have supposed that both at first joined in these insults, but that one was speedily touched with penitence. This is at least a better solution than that the plural is used for the singular; for the instances of this which are given are not apposite. Another solution is, that St. Matthew, not designing to relate the conversion of the penitent thief, speaks vaguely and generally in a matter on which nothing in his narrative depended; but that St. Luke, relating farther particulars, states the case with designed exactness.

V. 44. Mark 15:32; Luke 23:33.

Verse 44. The thieves also-cast the same in his teeth.] That is, one of the robbers; for one, we find, was a penitent, Luke 23:39, 40. See this form of expression accounted for, on Matthew 26:8.

Verses 39-44. They that passed by reviled him, &c. — As it was a great aggravation of our Lord’s sufferings that he was crucified along with two thieves, and in the middle of them, as though he had been the chief malefactor of the three, so it was a further aggravation thereof that he was reviled, mocked, and derided by different descriptions of persons. The common people, whom the priests had incensed against him by the malicious lies which they spread concerning him, and which they pretended to found on the evidence of witnesses, seeing him hang as a malefactor on the cross, and reading the superscription that was placed over his head, expressed their indignation against him by railing on him, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, &c., save thyself — The rulers having, as they imagined, wholly overturned his pretensions as the Messiah, ridiculed him on that head, and, with a meanness of soul which will render them for ever infamous, mocked him while in the agonies of death, and even most basely upbraided him with the saving power, which they could not deny that he had exerted; saying, he saved others, himself he cannot save — Thus they scoff at the wonderful miracles of healing, by which he had demonstrated that he was the Messiah; and they promise to believe on him on condition that he would prove his pretensions by coming down from the cross. In the mean time nothing could be more false and hypocritical, for they continued in their unbelief notwithstanding that he raised himself from the dead, which was a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been; a miracle also that was attested by witnesses whose veracity they could not call in question; for it was told them by the soldiers whom they themselves had placed at the sepulchre to watch his body. It is plain, therefore, that their incorrigible stubbornness would not have yielded to any proof, however convincing, and that when they said they would believe if he would come down from the cross, they only meant to insult him; thinking it impossible now for him to escape out of their hands. In saying, He trusted in God, &c., they deride his faith and reliance on God, whom he had called his Father, and thus show themselves to be either real infidels, or very profane, though under a profession of religion. In speaking thus, however, they fulfilled a remarkable prophecy concerning the Messiah’s sufferings, Psalm 22:8, where it is foretold that his enemies would utter these very words, in derision of his pretensions. The thieves also, &c., cast the same in his teeth — That is, one of them did so, for, according to Luke 23:39, &c., the other exercised a most extraordinary faith in our Lord, and that at a time when he was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hung on a cross as the worst of malefactors. Some commentators endeavour to reconcile the two evangelists by supposing, that both the thieves might revile Jesus at first. But this solution is not very probable. In Scripture, a single person or thing is often expressed in the plural number, especially when it is not the speaker’s or writer’s intention to be more particular.

44. The thieves also — Jesus has had the thief Barabbas preferred before him. He has been placed by the people below the lowest criminals. He is now placed by the executioners between these the chief of criminals. Such was the opinion of the world. And now the criminals themselves have their say; which is, that he is more criminal and contemptible than themselves. Few are so mean but they fancy there is somebody below them. At the bottom of all, in present estimation, is this Jesus. See note on verse 40.

Verses 39-44. And they that passed by, &c. — The crowd of his enemies probably passed in a sort of procession, before the cross, in order to satisfy themselves with a nearer view of his agonies, and to address to him personal insults. They reviled him, eblasfhmoun, they blasphemed him, accusing him of various crimes, wagging their heads, a usual mark of malevolent derision and exultation; but, in this, unconsciously fulfilling the words of the Psalm above quoted, which prophetically describes the sufferings of Messiah: “All they that see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head,” Psalm 22:7. To this sarcastic mockery and contempt was our Saviour exposed from the common people, who taunted him, according to the perverted testimony of the false witnesses on his trial, with his threat of destroying the temple in three days, and bade him, if such was his power, to save himself, and if he was the Son of God, to come down from the cross; nor could the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, restrain themselves from this brutal mockery, but joined in the insults: but this also was signally overruled for the fulfilment of another portion of the same prophetic Psalm; for in nearly the words of that sacred composition, they said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him, ei qelei auton, “if he regards him,” or “delights in him.” The words of the Psalm are, “he trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him,” verse 8. Thus they themselves undesignedly applied the prophecy to our Lord, and themselves fulfilled it.

For he said, I am the Son of God. — It is to be remarked that the Jews mainly reproach Christ, not with the crime for which he was actually put to death by Pilate, a seditious assertion of sovereignty in opposition to the Roman power, for which, notwithstanding their hypocritical pretence of respect for the rights of Cesar, they world have honoured him; but for the very profession on which their own council had condemned him, — FOR HE SAID, I AM THE SON OF GOD; thus confessing that they had urged upon Pilate a false pretence, and that the ground of their hatred to him was his assumption of a Divine character, and the spirituality of his kingdom. Cast the same in his teeth. — Reproached him with pretending to a power which he could not execute, joining in the same revilings as the chief priests, elders, and scribes; of which the motive might be to move some compassion as to themselves, by an affected zeal, and to obtain deliverance from death; for instances are on record, in which persons, after having been for some time nailed to the cross and taken down, were by proper care recovered. St. Luke confines this reviling to “one of the malefactors;” to remove which difficulty, some have supposed that both at first joined in these insults, but that one was speedily touched with penitence. This is at least a better solution than that the plural is used for the singular; for the instances of this which are given are not apposite. Another solution is, that St. Matthew, not designing to relate the conversion of the penitent thief, speaks vaguely and generally in a matter on which nothing in his narrative depended; but that St. Luke, relating farther particulars, states the case with designed exactness.

V. 45. From the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the earth unto the ninth hour-Insomuch, that even a heathen philosopher seeing it, and knowing it could not be a natural eclipse, because it was at the time of the full moon, and continued three hours together, cried out, "Either the God of nature suffers, or the frame of the world is dissolved." By this darkness God testified his abhorrence of the wickedness which was then committing. It likewise intimated Christ's sore conflicts with the Divine justice, and with all the powers of darkness.

Verse 45. There was darkness over all the land] I am of opinion that pasan thn ghn does not mean all the world, but only the land of Judea. So the word is used Matthew 24:30; Luke 4:25, and in other places. Several eminent critics are of this opinion: Beza defends this meaning of the word, and translates the Greek, super universam REGIONEM over the whole COUNTRY. Besides, it is evident that the evangelists speak of things that happened in Judea, the place of their residence. It is plain enough there was a darkness in Jerusalem, and over all Judea; and probably over all the people among whom Christ had for more than three years preached the everlasting Gospel; and that this darkness was supernatural is evident from this, that it happened during the passover, which was celebrated only at the full moon, a time in which it was impossible for the sun to be eclipsed. But many suppose the darkness was over the whole world, and think there is sufficient evidence of this in ancient authors. PHLEGON and THALLUS, who flourished in the beginning of the second century, are supposed to speak of this. The former says: “In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was an extraordinary eclipse of the sun: at the sixth hour, the day was turned into dark night, so that the stars in heaven were seen; and there was an earthquake in Bithynia, which overthrew many houses in the city of Nice.” This is the substance of what Phlegon is reputed to have said on this subject:-but 1. All the authors who quote him differ, and often very materially, in what they say was found in him. 2. Phlegon says nothing of Judea: what he says is, that in such an Olympiad, (some say the 102nd, others the 202nd,) there was an eclipse in Bithynia, and an earthquake at Nice. 3. Phlegon does not say that the earthquake happened at the time of the eclipse. 4. Phlegon does not intimate that this darkness was extraordinary, or that the eclipse happened at the full of the moon, or that it lasted three hours. These circumstances could not have been omitted by him, if he had known them. 5. Phlegon speaks merely of an ordinary, though perhaps total, eclipse of the sun, and cannot mean the darkness mentioned by the evangelists. 6. Phlegon speaks of an eclipse that happened in some year of the 102nd, or 202nd Olympiad; and therefore little stress can be laid on what he says as applying to this event.

The quotation from THALLUS, made by AFRICANUS, found in the Chronicle of SYNCELLUS, of the eighth century, is allowed by eminent critics to be of little importance. This speaks “of a darkness over all the world, and an earthquake which threw down many houses in Judea and in other parts of the earth.” It may be necessary to observe, that THALLUS is quoted by several of the ancient ecclesiastical writers for other matters, but never for this; and that the time in which he lived is so very uncertain, that Dr. Lardner supposes there is room to think he lived rather before than after Christ.

DIONYSIUS the Areopagite is supposed to have mentioned this event in the most decided manner: for being at Heliopolis in Egypt, with his friend Apollophanes, when our Saviour suffered, they there saw a wonderful eclipse of the sun, whereupon Dionysius said to his friend, “Either God himself suffers, or sympathizes with the sufferer.” It is enough to say of this man, that all the writings attributed to him are known to be spurious, and are proved to be forgeries of the fifth or sixth century. Whoever desires to see more on this subject, may consult Dr. Lardner, (vol. vii. p. 371, ed. 1788,) a man whose name should never be mentioned but with respect, notwithstanding the peculiarities of his religious creed; who has done more in the service of Divine revelation than most divines in Christendom; and who has raised a monument to the perpetuity of the Christian religion, which all the infidels in creation shall never be able to pull down or deface.

This miraculous darkness should have caused the enemies of Christ to understand that he was the light of the world, and that because they did not walk in it it was now taken away from them.

Verse 45. Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour — From mid-day till three in the afternoon with us, (see note on Matthew 20:1,) there was darkness over all the land — Or, over all the earth, as the original expression, epi pasan thn ghn, is more literally rendered in the Vulgate, and understood by many learned men; “the sun being darkened,” says Grotius, “as Luke informs us, not by the interposition of the moon, which was then full, nor by a cloud spread over the face of the sky, but in some way unknown to mankind.” It is true, the same expression sometimes evidently signifies only all the land, as Luke 4:25, where it is so translated. It seems, however, highly probable, if the darkness did not extend to the whole earth, or, to speak more properly, to the whole hemisphere, (it being night in the opposite one,) it extended to all the neighbouring countries. “This extraordinary alteration in the face of nature was peculiarly proper,” says Dr. Macknight, “while the Sun of righteousness was withdrawing his beams from the land of Israel, and from the world, not only because it was a miraculous testimony borne by God himself to his innocence, but also because it was a fit emblem of his departure, and its effects, at least till his light shone out anew with additional splendour, in the ministry of the apostles. The darkness which now covered Judea, together with the neighbouring countries, beginning about noon and continuing till Jesus expired, was not the effect of an ordinary eclipse of the sun; for that can never happen except when the moon is about the change, whereas now it was full moon; not to mention that total darknesses occasioned by eclipses of the sun never continue above twelve or fifteen minutes. Wherefore it must have been produced by the divine power, in a manner we are not able to explain.” The Christian writers, in their most ancient apologies to the heathen, while they affirm that, as it was full moon at the passover, when Christ was crucified, no such eclipse could happen by the course of nature; “they observe, also, that it was taken notice of as a prodigy by the heathen themselves. To this purpose, we have still remaining the words of Phlegon, the astronomer and freedman of Adrian, cited by Origen, (Contra Cels., p. 83,) at a time when his book was in the hands of the public. That heathen author, in treating of the fourth year of the 202d Olympiad, which is supposed to be the year in which our Lord was crucified, tells us, ‘That the greatest eclipse of the sun which was ever known happened then; for the day was so turned into night, that the stars in the heavens were seen.’ If Phlegon, as Christians generally suppose, is speaking of the darkness which accompanied our Lord’s crucifixion, it was not circumscribed within the land of Judea, but must have been universal. This many learned men have believed, particularly Huet, Grotius, Gusset, Reland, and Alphen.” Tertullian (Apol., cap. 21.) says that this prodigious darkening of the sun was recorded in the Roman archives; for, says he, “at the same moment, about noontide, the day was withdrawn; and they, who knew not that this was foretold concerning Christ, thought it was an eclipse.” — And Eusebius, in his Chronicle, at the eighteenth year of Tiberius, says, “Christ suffered this year, in which time we find in other commentaries of the heathen, these words: ‘There was a defection of the sun: Bithynia was shaken with an earthquake; and many houses fell down in the city of Nice.’” And then he proceeds to the testimony of Phlegon. See Whitby.

Ver. 45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land to the ninth hour, when the Saviour gave up the ghost into the hands of the Father. Of this darkness we have the testimony of Dionysius, in his seventh epistle to Polycarp, and in his eleventh epistle to Apollophanes. Several heathen writers also bear the same testimony.

Phlegon says, Anno quarto Olympiadis 202, fuit eclipsis solis omnium quæ ante innotuerunt maxima, et nox horâ diei sextâ facta est, ita ut stellæ in cœlo apparerent; magnus item terræmotus in Bithynia factus magnam partem Nicææ evertit. That is, “In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiade, there was a total eclipse of the sun, the greatest ever known, which occasioned darkness from the sixth hour, and so great that the stars appeared in heaven; and at the same time a great earthquake in Bithynia, in which part of the city of Nice was destroyed.” This darkness is also recorded by Thales; and Tertullian, in his apology, boldly appeals to the archives of the Romans, as containing the record of Phlegon; an event unknown before, that the sun in the midst of heaven should give this sign of obscuration. Likewise Apollophanes, then a gentile philosopher, having observed the darkness at the full moon, when a solar eclipse was impossible, writing to Suidas, said, Aut Divinitas patitur, aut compatitur ei qui patitur. “Either the divinity suffers, or sympathizes with him who suffers.” — Vide Poli Synop. See note on Luke 23:44.

§ 141. — THE DARKNESS, THE RELENTING, AND THE DEATH, 45-50. From the sixth hour to the ninth there was a wonderful darkness over the land. And already a relenting in men’s hearts follows so solemn a token of divine displeasure. One of the thieves who had reviled Jesus repents and confesses the Messiah. When Jesus thirsts he is relieved; and the multitude stands in suspense to see whether a divine interposition will not in fact save him. The centurion confesses him the Son of God.

45. From the sixth — The Jews reckon twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. The sixth hour was, therefore, noon; and the ninth hour was three o’clock. Darkness over all the land — This was no eclipse, for astronomy allows none at this time. Neither was it what is sometimes called the sympathy of nature over the scene; for that is too poetical for the plain reality of the facts before us. But it was a token of divine displeasure, calculated to dismay the hearts of these wicked men, and awaken in them some misgiving as to the being they were crucifying.

Verse 45. From the sixth hour there was darkness, &c. — This darkness was remarkable, from the time when it occurred, which was the passover, which was always celebrated at full moon, so that it could not be occasioned by an eclipse of the sun, and was therefore preternatural.

2. From its duration, from the sixth to the ninth hour, that is, from twelve at noon, to three in the afternoon, whereas an eclipse never continues more than fifteen minutes.

3. From its extent over all the land, meaning, probably, not over the whole globe, but over Palestine. References to a preternatural darkness over-spreading other countries at this time have been made by both ancient and modern commentators; but they are too vague and unsatisfactory to be depended upon; and if any end had been intended to be answered by this extension of the miracle, Divine Providence would no doubt have taken care that some more certain record should have been preserved of it. This was the first of the miraculous events which accompanied the crucifixion of our Saviour. The great sacrifice for the sins of the world was now offering; and as on great occasions God had been wont to show his acceptance of sacrifices by some visible token, and preternatural phenomena, so on this the greatest, the most solemn, and most important, the Father testifies from heaven that a more than ordinary death was undergoing, to mark which, the sun itself was darkened, and the face of heaven veiled. There was in this also, doubtless, something designedly and strikingly emblematical. The eternal Light of light, who had frequently compared himself to the sun, the natural light of the world, was now undergoing temporary obscuration under the deep cloud of his humiliation, only to shine forth again in his true splendour at his resurrection from the dead.

V. 46. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice-Our Lord's great agony probably continued these three whole hours, at the conclusion of which be thus cried out, while he suffered from God himself what was unutterable.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?-Our Lord hereby at once expresses his trust in God, and a most distressing sense of his letting loose the powers of darkness upon him, withdrawing the comfortable discoveries of his presence, and filling his soul with a terrible sense of the wrath due to the sins which he was bearing. Psalm 22:1.

Verse 46. My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me!] These words are quoted by our Lord from Psalm 22:1; they are of very great importance, and should be carefully considered.

Some suppose “that the divinity had now departed from Christ, and that his human nature was left unsupported to bear the punishment due to men for their sins.” But this is by no means to be admitted, as it would deprive his sacrifice of its infinite merit, and consequently leave the sin of the world without an atonement. Take deity away from any redeeming act of Christ, and redemption is ruined. Others imagine that our Lord spoke these words to the Jews only, to prove to them that he was the Messiah. “The Jews,” say they, “believed this psalm to speak of the Messiah: they quoted the eighth verse of it against Christ-He trusted in God that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. (See Matthew 27:43.) To which our Lord immediately answers, My God! my God! &c, thus showing that he was the person of whom the psalmist prophesied.” I have doubts concerning the propriety of this interpretation. It has been asked, What language is it that our Lord spoke? Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. Some say it is Hebrew-others Syriac. I say, as the evangelists quote it, it is neither. St. Matthew comes nearest the Hebrew, yntbz[ hml yla yla Eli, Eli, lamah azabthani, in the words, hli, hli, lama sabactani, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.

And St. Mark comes nearest the Syriac, Mark 15:34, [Syriac] Alohi, Alohi, l’mono shebachtheni, in the words elwi, elwi, lamma sabacqani, Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabachthani. It is worthy of note, that a Hebrew MS. of the twelfth century, instead of yntbz[ azabthani, forsaken me, reads yntjkv shechachthani, FORGOTTEN me. This word makes a very good sense, and comes nearer to the sabachthani of the evangelists. It may be observed also, that the words, Why hast thou FORGOTTEN me? are often used by David and others, in times of oppression and distress. See Psalm 42:9.

Some have taken occasion from these words to depreciate the character of our blessed Lord. “They are unworthy,” say they, “of a man who suffers, conscious of his innocence, and argue imbecility, impatience, and despair.” This is by no means fairly deducible from the passage. However, some think that the words, as they stand in the Hebrew and Syriac, are capable of a translation which destroys all objections, and obviates every difficulty. The particle hml lamah, may be translated, to what-to whom-to what kind or sort-to what purpose or profit: Genesis 25:32; Genesis 32:29; 33:15; Job 9:29; Jeremiah 6:20; 20:18; Amos 5:18; and the verb bz[ azab signifies to leave-to deposit-to commit to the care of. See Genesis 39:6; Job 39:11; Psalm 10:14, and Jeremiah 49:11. The words, taken in this way, might be thus translated: My God! my God! to what sort of persons hast thou left me? The words thus understood are rather to be referred to the wicked Jews than to our Lord, and are an exclamation indicative of the obstinate wickedness of his crucifiers, who steeled their hearts against every operation of the Spirit and power of God. See Ling. Brit. Reform. by B. Martin, p. 36. Through the whole of the Sacred Writings, God is represented as doing those things which, in the course of his providence, he only permits to be done; therefore, the words, to whom hast thou left or given me up, are only a form of expression for, “How astonishing is the wickedness of those persons into whose hands I am fallen!” If this interpretation be admitted, it will free this celebrated passage from much embarrassment, and make it speak a sense consistent with itself, and with the dignity of the Son of God. The words of St. Mark, Mark 15:34, agree pretty nearly with this translation of the Hebrew: eiv ti me egkatilepev; To what [sort of persons, understood] hast thou left me? A literal translation of the passage in the Syriac Testament gives a similar sense: Ad quid dereliquisti me? “To what hast thou abandoned me?” And an ancient copy of the old Itala version, a Latin translation before the time of St. Jerome, renders the words thus: Quare me in opprobrium dedisti? “Why hast thou abandoned me to reproach?”

It may he objected, that this can never agree with the inati, why, of Matthew. To this it is answered, that inati must have here the same meaning as eiv ti-as the translation of hml lama; and that, if the meaning be at all different, we must follow that evangelist who expresses most literally the meaning of the original: and let it be observed, that the Septuagint often translate hml by inati instead of eiv ti, which evidently proves that it often had the same meaning. Of this criticism I say, Valet quod valet, Let it pass for no more than it is worth: the subject is difficult. But whatever may be thought of the above mode of interpretation, one thing is certain, viz. That the words could not be used by our Lord in the sense in which they are generally understood. This is sufficiently evident; for he well knew why he was come unto that hour; nor could he be forsaken of God, in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The Deity, however, might restrain so much of its consolatory support as to leave the human nature fully sensible of all its sufferings, so that the consolations might not take off any part of the keen edge of his passion; and this was necessary to make his sufferings meritorious. And it is probable that this is all that is intended by our Lord’s quotation from the twenty-second Psalm. Taken in this view, the words convey an unexceptionable sense, even in the common translation.

Verse 46. About the ninth hour — Just before he expired; Jesus cried with a loud voice — Our Lord’s great agony probably continued these three whole hours, at the conclusion of which he thus cried out, while he suffered from God himself, and probably also from the powers of darkness, what was unutterable; Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani — These words are quoted from the first verse of the twenty-second Psalm. (where see the note,) but it is to be observed, that they are not the very words of the Hebrew original; but are in what is called Syro-Chaldaic, at that time the language of the country, and the dialect which our Lord seems always to have used. Mark expresses the two first words rather differently, namely; Eloi, Eloi, which comes nearer to the Syriac. Some think our Lord, in his agony, repeated the words twice, with some little variation, saying at one time, Eloi, and the other, Eli. “This,” says Dr. Doddridge, “is possible, and if it were otherwise, I doubt not but Mark has given us the word exactly, and Matthew a kind of contraction of it.” Both the evangelists have added the interpretation of the words, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? which words the last-mentioned divine paraphrases thus: “O my heavenly Father, wherefore dost thou add to all my other sufferings, those which arise from the want of a comfortable sense of thy presence? Wherefore dost thou thus leave me alone in the combat, destitute of those sacred consolations, which thou couldst easily shed abroad upon my soul, and which thou knowest I have done nothing to forfeit.” — Thus, in a most humble and affectionate manner, he intimated to his heavenly Father that he was only by imputation a sinner, and had himself done nothing to incur his displeasure, and showed that the want of the light of God’s countenance on his soul, and the sense of divine wrath due to the sins of mankind, were far more than all his complicated sufferings; but that his confidence in his Father, his love to him, and submission to his will, were unabated, even in that dreadful hour. In other words, while he utters this exclamation of the psalmist, he at once expresses his trust in God, and a most distressing sense of his withdrawing the comfortable discoveries of his presence, and filling his soul with a terrible sense of the wrath due to the sins which he was bearing. Some would interpret the words, My God, my God, to what a degree, or, to what length of time, or, to what [sort of persons] hast thou forsaken me? because lama, in the Hebrew, may have this signification, and the expression eiv ti, whereby Mark has rendered it. But certainly the word inati, which answers to it here in Matthew, is not liable to such ambiguity; nor can such an interpretation of Psalm 22:1, be made in any degree to accord with the verses immediately following, as the reader will see, if he will please to turn to them. The truth is, our Lord’s words here must be viewed in the same light with his prayer in the garden. For as that prayer expressed only the feelings and inclinations of his human nature, sorely pressed down with the weight of his sufferings, so his exclamation on the cross proceeded from the greatness of his sufferings then, and expressed the feelings of the same human nature, namely, an exceeding grief at God’s forsaking him, and a complaint that it was so. But as his prayer in the garden was properly tempered with resignation to the will of his Father, while he said, Not as I will, but as thou wilt; so his complaint on the cross was doubtless tempered in the same manner, though the evangelists have not particularly mentioned it. For that in the inward disposition of his mind he was perfectly resigned while he hung on the cross, is evident beyond all doubt, from his recommending his spirit to his Father in the article of death, which he could not have done if he had either doubted of his favour, or been discontented with his appointments. That the sufferings which made our Lord utter this exclamation, “were not merely those which appeared to the spectators, namely, the pains of death which he was then undergoing, is evident from this consideration, that many of his followers have suffered sharper and more lingering bodily torture, ending in death, without thinking themselves on that account forsaken of God; on the contrary, they both felt and expressed raptures of joy under the bitterest torments. Why then should Jesus have complained and been dejected under inferior sufferings, as we must acknowledge them to have been, if there were nothing in them but the pains of crucifixion? Is there any other circumstance in his history which leads us to think him defective in courage or patience? In piety and resignation came he behind his own apostles? Were his views of God and religion more confined than theirs? Had he greater sensibility of pain than they, without a proper balance arising from the superiority of his understanding? In short, was he worse qualified for martyrdom than they? The truth is, his words on the cross cannot be accounted for but on the supposition that he endured in his mind distresses inexpressible, in consequence of the withdrawing of his heavenly Father’s presence, and a sense of the wrath due to the sins of mankind, which he was now suffering.” — See Macknight. It is justly observed here by Dr. Doddridge, “That the interruption of a joyful sense of his Father’s presence (though there was, and could not but be, a rational apprehension of his constant favour, and high approbation of what he was now doing) was as necessary as it was that Christ should suffer at all. For had God communicated to his Son on the cross those strong consolations which he has given to some of the martyrs in their tortures, all sense of pain, and consequently all real pain, would have been swallowed up; and the violence done to his body, not affecting the soul, could not properly have been called suffering.” Some think Jesus on this occasion repeated the whole twenty-second Psalm. And, as it contains the most remarkable particulars of our Lord’s passion, being a sort of summary of all the prophecies relative to that subject, it must be acknowledged, that nothing could have been uttered more suitable to the circumstances wherein he then was, or better adapted to impress the minds of the beholders with becoming sentiments. For by citing it, and thereby applying it to himself, he signified that he was now accomplishing the things predicted therein concerning the Messiah. See the notes on that Psalm.

Ver. 46. Why hast thou forsaken me? Our Saviour is thought to have suffered in his soul the anguish due to us. Hence, in the garden, his soul was sorrowful even unto death; for he felt the whole wrath of God against the human kind for sin. So RICHARD WARD. His humanity therefore complained, because help and succour were deferred. So URSINUS. Besides the mocking of the jews, he is supposed to have suffered all the horrible injections with which hell in the hour and power of darkness was permitted to assail his soul. Yet there was no momentary dissolution of the hypostatical union; nor can we say that inward solace or comfort was denied, for his confidence was retained, saying, my God, my God. Let believers learn of their dear Lord never to let go their confidence, for that is the anchor-hold. And, as he never forsook his servants in trouble, so we should never give up our hope of deliverance.

46. About the ninth hour — At the close of the darkness. Eli — These words are the first verse of Psalm 22, quoted by our Lord in the Syro-Chaldaic language, the language in common use. The evangelist gives them in the very words of Jesus, rather than in the Greek, to show the reason of their mistake who supposed that he called for Elias. These words do not, we think, contain any reference to the darkness which was now disappearing, and which was given for his murderers rather than for him. The Saviour here applies the holy psalm to himself as prophetic. The particular words are expressive of the divine abandonment, of the departure of the divine presence as part of his atonement endurance. They are uttered by him to show that he is enduring an intolerable agony, deeper than any external infliction.

Verse 46. Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani? &c. — These words are partly Hebrew and partly Chaldee. St. Mark for Hli, writes Elwi; which Grotius takes to have arisen from the gospel of St. Mark, the friend of St. Peter, chiefly being used among the Jewish converts in the Babylonish diaspora, or dispersion, founded by St. Peter, who had all a language partaking of the Chaldee, and were more used to yhla. The words are from Psalm 22:1: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This exclamation has perplexed those who deny the sacrificial character of the death of Christ, as indicating something of complaint and shrinking from suffering, whereas according to their view of his heroic virtue, he doubtless ought to have gone through the whole scene without complaint. Their refuge from this difficulty is to consider these words as used not as a complaint, but as a mere reference to the prophetic Psalm in which they stand, didactically to show that the whole was a prophecy of him. This end, however, was answered by making these words the vehicle of uttering what must still be considered as an exclamation wrung from his fainting nature by the extremity of anguish. But this was not bodily anguish; for then the malefactors must be considered as superior to Christ in their patience under torture. It was not repining language, that God had so forsaken him as to leave them in the hands of his enemies. It was a deeper anguish which extorted this mournful cry, than that produced by corporal suffering, which the doctrine of the atonement can alone account for, although it is a mystery which none can explain. They are not the words of complaint as implying reluctance to suffer, but as expressive of deep internal agony, internal desertion of sensible support and consolation; in a word, the completion of what was begun in the garden, the drinking of the last dregs of bitterness out of the cup of wrath, when he having placed himself voluntarily in the room and stead of the guilty, was dealt with as though he were really such. Yet was there no distrust in God; for he almost immediately adds, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” The Socinian looks only for that magnanimity in Christ which makes him superior to bodily pain: we see all regard to bodily pain absorbed in the deeper sorrows of a pierced spirit, pressed with the weight of human transgression, laid upon him; the effect of which was manifested in this pathetic cry, that we might be convinced that a sinless mind could not suffer thus on its own account, and yet that we might equally witness the strength and majesty of him who could sustain the load, conquer in the awful conflict, maintain his trust in an unparalleled trial, and finally with calmness resign his pure spirit into the hands of God. The peculiar character of Christ’s sufferings, and his equally peculiar demeanour under them, are among the strongest presumptive evidences of his VICARIOUS and ATONING death. It is scarcely necessary to say, that in the language of scripture, God is said to FORSAKE any one when he leaves him without aid and comfort.

Verse 47. This man calleth for Elias.] Probably these were Hellenistic Jews, who did not fully understand the meaning of our Lord’s words. Elijah was daily expected to appear as the forerunner of the Messiah, whose arrival, under the character of a mighty prince, was generally supposed to be at hand throughout the east. See Malachi 4:5; Matthew 2:2-4; 17:10-12.

Verses 47-49. Some said, This man calleth for Elias — These must have been some of the strangers, of whom there was always a great concourse at the passover, who did not understand the dialect then spoken in Jerusalem. And one of them ran, &c. — Jesus knowing that he had now accomplished every thing required by God of the Messiah, and foretold by the prophets, excepting that circumstance of his sufferings, which was predicted Psalm 69:21, In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink, in order to give occasion to the accomplishment of this like wise, he said aloud, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar, (John 19:28.) And one took a sponge and filled it with vinegar — It is well known, that vinegar and water (which mixture was called posca) was the common drink of the Roman soldiers, for which purpose they usually carried vinegar with them in vessels when on duty. Perhaps, therefore, this vinegar was set here for their use, or for that of the crucified persons, whose torture would naturally make them thirsty. And put it on a reed — They put the sponge, as John tells us, upon hyssop, that is, a stalk of hyssop, called by the other evangelists kalamov, which signifies not only a reed, but the stalk of any plant. For that hyssop was a shrub, appears from 1 Kings 4:33, where it is reckoned among the trees. This office they performed to Jesus, not so much from pity, as to preserve him alive, in the hopes of seeing the miracle of Elijah’s descent from heaven, as appears from the next verse.

47. This man calleth for Elias — They confound the word Eli with Elias. We cannot think that this was a mockery.

Verse 47. This man calleth upon Elias. — This arose from our Lord’s having used the term Eli, “my God.” Either the Hellenistic Jews, who were not familiar with the language, mistook the word, or in the crowd some heard indistinctly, or, what is more probable, the whole was a continuance of the raillery exercised upon his claim as the Messiah; for a common notion among the Jews was, that Elias would precede the Messiah.

V. 48. One taking a sponge, filled it with vinegar-Vinegar and water was the usual drink of the Roman soldiers. It does not appear, that this was given him in derision, but rather with a friendly design, that he might not die before Elijah came. John 19:28.

Verse 48. Took a sponge] This being the most convenient way to reach a liquid to his mouth; tied it on a reed, that they might be able to reach his lips with it. This reed, as we learn from St. John, was a stalk of hyssop, which, in that country, must have grown to a considerable magnitude. This appears also to have been done in mercy, to alleviate his sufferings. See Matthew 27:34.

Verses 47-49. Some said, This man calleth for Elias — These must have been some of the strangers, of whom there was always a great concourse at the passover, who did not understand the dialect then spoken in Jerusalem. And one of them ran, &c. — Jesus knowing that he had now accomplished every thing required by God of the Messiah, and foretold by the prophets, excepting that circumstance of his sufferings, which was predicted Psalm 69:21, In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink, in order to give occasion to the accomplishment of this like wise, he said aloud, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar, (John 19:28.) And one took a sponge and filled it with vinegar — It is well known, that vinegar and water (which mixture was called posca) was the common drink of the Roman soldiers, for which purpose they usually carried vinegar with them in vessels when on duty. Perhaps, therefore, this vinegar was set here for their use, or for that of the crucified persons, whose torture would naturally make them thirsty. And put it on a reed — They put the sponge, as John tells us, upon hyssop, that is, a stalk of hyssop, called by the other evangelists kalamov, which signifies not only a reed, but the stalk of any plant. For that hyssop was a shrub, appears from 1 Kings 4:33, where it is reckoned among the trees. This office they performed to Jesus, not so much from pity, as to preserve him alive, in the hopes of seeing the miracle of Elijah’s descent from heaven, as appears from the next verse.

48. One of them ran — In consequence of our Lord having said, “I thirst.” Thrice was our Lord offered a draught. First, before he was nailed to the cross, a drugged cup was presented him to assuage pain. Next, (Luke 23:36, the sour wine is offered in insult. And now it is given in kindness to assuage his thirst. Took a sponge — To absorb the liquid. Put it on a reed — The reed was used to reach to the elevation of his mouth. It was a hyssop stalk.

Verses 48, 49. And put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. — Jesus had previously said, as we learn from John, “I thirst;” so that this might be an act of relenting compassion in the individual, who would find the vinegar or posca used by the Roman soldiers placed hard by in a vessel, as we learn from the same evangelist. He ran probably to obtain the reed, or the sponge. But the rest seem to have interrupted this act of kindness; for they said, still in the same obdurate spirit, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come and save him. St. John says, the sponge was put upon hyssop, meaning the STALK of that herb, which there might be long enough for the purpose, as the crosses were not lofty. This stalk might be called a reed, as kalamov was used metonymically for a rod, a staff, &c.

Verse 49. After this verse, BCL and five others add, Another, taking a spear, pierced his side, and there came out blood and water. Several of the fathers add the same words here: they appear, however, to be an interpolation from John 19:34.

Verses 47-49. Some said, This man calleth for Elias — These must have been some of the strangers, of whom there was always a great concourse at the passover, who did not understand the dialect then spoken in Jerusalem. And one of them ran, &c. — Jesus knowing that he had now accomplished every thing required by God of the Messiah, and foretold by the prophets, excepting that circumstance of his sufferings, which was predicted Psalm 69:21, In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink, in order to give occasion to the accomplishment of this like wise, he said aloud, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar, (John 19:28.) And one took a sponge and filled it with vinegar — It is well known, that vinegar and water (which mixture was called posca) was the common drink of the Roman soldiers, for which purpose they usually carried vinegar with them in vessels when on duty. Perhaps, therefore, this vinegar was set here for their use, or for that of the crucified persons, whose torture would naturally make them thirsty. And put it on a reed — They put the sponge, as John tells us, upon hyssop, that is, a stalk of hyssop, called by the other evangelists kalamov, which signifies not only a reed, but the stalk of any plant. For that hyssop was a shrub, appears from 1 Kings 4:33, where it is reckoned among the trees. This office they performed to Jesus, not so much from pity, as to preserve him alive, in the hopes of seeing the miracle of Elijah’s descent from heaven, as appears from the next verse.

49. Let be — This was not spoken to the soldier who was relieving his thirst with the sponge. As appears by Mark, the soldier himself joined in the expression. It means, “Wait and let us see if Elias will come to his rescue.” These words plainly show that there was no jest. There was an actual suspense, awakened by the awful darkness, as to whether the divine interposition would not take place.

After this verse, I am inclined to place the prayer of the penitent malefactor, in Luke 23:42, 43. Matthew (verse 44) clearly affirms that the thieves reviled him. Now it might be perfectly reasonable to say, as some do, that Matthew uses the plural for the singular, if the other thief silently assented, or did not dissent from the reproaches. But it is too much to concede that Matthew includes both in the plural as reviling, at the very moment when one never did revile, but reproved the reviler and prayed to Jesus. The only way of fair reconciliation is to hold Matthew and Luke as narrating different moments of the action of the malefactors. To suppose that one of them relented after the approach of supernatural darkness, brings the fact into correspondence with other proofs of a subsidence of hostile feeling at that point.

Verses 48, 49. And put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. — Jesus had previously said, as we learn from John, “I thirst;” so that this might be an act of relenting compassion in the individual, who would find the vinegar or posca used by the Roman soldiers placed hard by in a vessel, as we learn from the same evangelist. He ran probably to obtain the reed, or the sponge. But the rest seem to have interrupted this act of kindness; for they said, still in the same obdurate spirit, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come and save him. St. John says, the sponge was put upon hyssop, meaning the STALK of that herb, which there might be long enough for the purpose, as the crosses were not lofty. This stalk might be called a reed, as kalamov was used metonymically for a rod, a staff, &c.

V. 50. After he had cried with a loud voice-To show that his life was still whole in him.

He dismissed his spirit-So the original expression may be literally translated: an expression admirably suited to our Lord's words, John 10:18:

No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. He died by a voluntary act of his own, and in a way peculiar to himself. He alone of all men that ever were, could have continued alive even in the greatest tortures, as long as he pleased, or have retired from the body whenever he had thought fit. And how does it illustrate that love which he manifested in his death? Insomuch as he did not use his power to quit his body, as soon as it was fastened to the cross, leaving only an insensible corpse, to the cruelty of his murderers: but continued his abode in it, with a steady resolution, as long as it was proper. He then retired from it, with a majesty and dignity never known or to be known in any other death: dying, if one may so express it, like the Prince of life.

Verse 50. Yielded up the ghost.] afhke to pneuma, He dismissed the spirit. He himself willingly gave up that life which it was impossible for man to take away. It is not said that he hung on the cross till he died through pain and agony; nor is it said that his bones were broken, the sooner to put him out of pain, and to hasten his death; but that himself dismissed the soul, that he might thus become, not a forced sacrifice, but a free-will offering for sin.

Now, as our English word ghost, from the Anglo-Saxon [Anglo-Saxon] gast, an inmate, inhabitant, guest, (a casual visitant,) also a spirit, is now restricted among us to the latter meaning, always signifying the immortal spirit or soul of man, the guest of the body and as giving up the spirit, ghost, or soul, is an act not proper to man, though commending it to God, in our last moments, is both an act of faith and piety; and as giving up the ghost, i.e. dismissing his spirit from his body, is attributed to Jesus Christ, to whom alone it is proper; I therefore object against its use in every other case.

Every man, since the fall, has not only been liable to death, but has deserved it; as all have forfeited their lives because of sin. Jesus Christ, as born immaculate, and having never sinned, had not forfeited his life, and therefore may be considered as naturally and properly immortal. No man, says he, taketh it, my life, from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again, John 10:17, 18. Hence we rightly translate Matthew 27:50, afhke to pneuma, he gave up the ghost; i.e. he dismissed his spirit, that he might die for the sin of the world. The Evangelist St. John (John 19:30) makes use of an expression to the same import, which we translate in the same way: paredwke to pneuma, he delivered up his spirit. We translate Mark 15:37, and Luke 23:46, he gave up the ghost, but not correctly, because the word in both these places is very different-exepneuse, he breathed his last, or expired; though in the latter place, Luke 23:46, there is an equivalent expression-O Father, into thy hands, paratiqemai to pneuma mou, I commit my spirit; i.e. I place my soul in thy hand: proving that the act was his own; that no man could take his life away from him; that he did not die by the perfidy of his disciple, or the malice of the Jews, but by his own free act. Thus HE LAID DOWN his life for the sheep. Of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:5,10, and of Herod, Acts 12:23, our translation says, they gave up the ghost; but the word in both places is exeyuxe, which simply means to breathe out, to expire, or die: but in no case, either by the Septuagint in the Old, or any of the sacred writers in the New Testament, is afhke to pneuma, or paredwke to pneuma, he dismissed his spirit, or delivered up his spirit, spoken of any person but Christ. Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, &c., breathed their last; Ananias, Sapphira, and Herod, expired; but none, Jesus Christ excepted, gave up the ghost, dismissed, or delivered up his own spirit, and was, consequently, free among the dead. Of the patriarchs, &c., the Septuagint use the word ekleipwn, failing; or katepausen, he ceased, or rested.

Verse 50. And Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice — According to John 19:30, when Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished, meaning that the predictions of the prophets, respecting his sufferings and ministry on earth, were all fulfilled, and that the redemption of the world was on the point of being accomplished; and probably these were the words which he uttered with a loud voice, showing thereby, that his strength was not exhausted, but that he was about to give up his life of his own accord. And when he had thus cried, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Luke 23:46. And yielded up the ghost — Or rather, dismissed his spirit, as the original words, afhke to pneuma, properly signify: an expression admirably suited to our Lord’s own words, John 10:18, No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. He died by a voluntary act of his own, and in a way peculiar to himself. He alone, of all men that ever were, could have continued alive, even in the greatest tortures, as long as he pleased, or have retired from the body whenever he thought fit. And how does it illustrate that love which he manifested in his death! Inasmuch as he did not use his power to quit the body, as soon as it was fastened to the cross, leaving only an insensible corpse to the cruelty of his murderers: but continued his abode in it, with a steady resolution, as long as it was proper. He then retired from it with a majesty and dignity never known, or to be known in any other death: dying, if one may so express it, like the Prince of life.

Ver. 50. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. The voice of expiring men dies away like the vibrating sound of a bell; but the Saviour’s voice was strong. His enemies had indeed done their worst, but no man, said our Lord, taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. His death was voluntary, and he surrendered up his soul into his Father’s hands. His whole divinity was in that prayer, which left his body in the hands of men. His dying voice opened heaven, shook the earth, and awoke the dead. He rent the veil of the temple, and disclosed its mysteries to vulgar eyes; figurative that the veil of his flesh was now rent, that the sublime mysteries of faith stood disclosed, even life and immortality, and that the new and living way was opened for us to enter, following his flight into the holiest of all.

50. Cried again with a loud voice — The words are given by John: “It is finished!” They mean, that the atonement is wrought. The great work of penal suffering is done. The last pang is suffered, and his soul shall never sorrow again. The body must, indeed, rest in the grave; but the spirit will be in paradise, and glory eternal is won. For the joy that was set before him he had endured the cross, despising the shame, and will henceforth sit down at the right hand of the majesty of God.

Verse 50. When he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. — The words he thus loudly uttered were, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” Luke 23:46; and with that he yielded up the ghost, afhke to pneuma, “he dismissed his spirit.” The notion which has been built upon this form of expression, that our Lord voluntarily hastened his death by an act of his Divine power, dying, not as exhausted by his sufferings, but by cutting them short, is an instance of the liability of critics to be dazzled by a striking thought. If it were so, if our Lord died not as the effect of his crucifixion, but of an exertion of his Divine power, he was not put to death by the Jews, and he did not, as St. Paul says, become “obedient to the death of the cross,” although he died upon it. Doddridge, who adopts this view from Theophylact and others, speaks of the majesty and dignity of our Saviour in thus retiring from his sufferings, “dying, if one may so express it, like the Prince of life.” This, however, is said in forgetfulness of the inspired declaration that the Jews “killed the Prince of life,” not indeed that he killed himself. As for the passage quoted in confirmation of this criticism, “No man taketh away my life from me, but I lay it down of myself,” it teaches just the contrary doctrine; not that he would exert his Divine power to prevent men from inflicting death upon him; but that, although possessing that power, he would not exert it, but surrender himself to their will; for to lay down his life was surely to yield up himself to be put to death by his enemies. The truth is, that the meaning of the phrase, he dismissed or gave up his spirit, is altogether strained to support a notion which, theologically considered, would entail some perplexing consequences. It is no more than a periphrasis for death. A similar phrase is used in the Septuagint to express the death of Rachel, and the Greek writers have numerous examples. Wetstein gives the very words, afhke to pneuma, signifying simply to die, from Euripides. So also the Latins: Animam dimittere, animam reddere, &c. The early death of our Lord is not, therefore, to be ascribed to his own volition, but to the extremity of his sufferings; the violence of which rather CRUSHED his frame, than allowed him, as the malefactors, to linger on in exhaustion.

V. 51. Immediately upon his death, while the sun was still darkened, the veil of the temple, which separated the holy of holies from the court of the priests, though made of the richest and strongest tapestry, was rent in two from the top to the bottom: so that while the priest was ministering at the golden altar (it being the time of the sacrifice) the sacred oracle, by an invisible power was laid open to full view: God thereby signifying the speedy removal of the veil of the Jewish ceremonies the casting down the partition wall, so that the Jews and Gentiles were now admitted to equal privileges, and the opening a way through the veil of his flesh for all believers into the most holy place.

And the earth was shaken-There was a general earthquake through the whole globe, though chiefly near Jerusalem: God testifying thereby his wrath against the Jewish nation, for the horrid impiety they were committing.

Verse 51. The veil of the temple was rent] That is, the veil which separated the holy place, where the priests ministered, from the holy of holies, into which the high priest only entered, and that once a year, to make a general expiation for the sins of the people. This rending of the veil was emblematical, and pointed out that the separation between Jews and Gentiles was now abolished, and that the privilege of the high priest was now communicated to all mankind: ALL might henceforth have access to the throne of grace, through the one great atonement and mediator, the Lord Jesus. See this beautifully illustrated in Hebrews 10:19-22.

Verse 51. And behold — Immediately upon his death, while the sun was still darkened; the veil of the temple — The inner veil which divided the holy from the most holy place; though made of the richest and strongest tapestry; was rent in two from the top to the bottom: so while the priest was ministering at the golden altar, (it being the time of the evening sacrifice,) the sacred oracle, by an invisible power, was laid open to full view: God thereby signifying the speedy removal of the Jewish ceremonies, the abolition of the Mosaic dispensation, the breaking down the partition-wall between Jews and Gentiles, who were both to be now admitted to equal privileges, and the opening a way, through the veil of Christ’s flesh, for all believers into the most holy place. And the earth did quake — There was a general earthquake, probably through the whole globe, though chiefly at and near Jerusalem: God testifying thereby his wrath against the Jewish nation, for the horrid impiety they were committing. And the rocks rent — Mr. Fleming (Christology, vol. 2. pp. 97, 98) informs us, that a Deist, lately travelling through Palestine, was converted by viewing one of these rocks. For when he came to examine the clefts of it narrowly and critically, he was convinced that the rent had been made in a supernatural manner, as he acknowledged to his fellow-travellers, saying, I have long been a student of nature and the mathematics, and I am sure these rents in this rock were not made by a natural, or ordinary earthquake; for by such a concussion the rock must have split according to the veins, and where it was weakest in the adhesion of its parts; for this I have observed to have been done in other rocks, when separated or broken by an earthquake, and reason tells me, it must always be so. But it is quite otherwise here, for the rock is split athwart and cross the veins in a most strange and preternatural manner. This, therefore, I plainly see to be the effect of a real miracle, which neither nature nor art could have effected. Sandys (Trav., p. 264) has given an accurate description and delineation of this fissure; and Mr. Maundrell (in his Journey from Aleppo, p. 73, 74) tells us, that it is about a span wide at the upper part, and two spans deep; after which it closes, but opens again below, and runs down to an unknown depth in the earth.

Ver. 51. The veil of the temple was rent in twain. Maimonides says, in the first temple there was a wall one cubit thick, separating the holy from the holy of holies. On building the second temple, it was doubted whether the thickness of that wall should belong to the holy, or to the holy of holies; they therefore hung up two veils at a cubit distance, and called it paraxis, or trouble. If the two veils remained in our Saviour’s time, they were both rent, and the holy of holies exposed to view, and just about the time of the day when the priest would be burning incense. This veil, St. Paul says, signified that the way into the holy place was not yet laid open, till Christ entered heaven by a new and living way; that is, by the rending of his flesh on the cross. Hebrews 9:8.

§ 142. — THREEFOLD EFFECTS OF THE DEATH OF JESUS, 51-54.

The temple vail rent in twain, the earthquake, and the resurrection of saints.

When our Lord proclaimed the atonement finished, the stroke of his power smote three realms; the realm of grace, of nature, and of death. In the first, the temple’s vail was rent, indicatively of the departure of the old dispensation and its nullity at the approach of the new. In the second, the earth was rent, indicating that the same power would destroy and renew again the face of nature. In the third, the dead rose from their open graves, indicating that the dominion of the destroyer should be destroyed, and the human race be raised from his power to a complete resurrection.

51. The vail of the temple — The interior of the temple was an extended oblong room, divided into two apartments by a large curtain. The front one of these apartments was called the Holy Place; and the further one, concealed by a second curtain or vail, was called the Holy of Holies. Into the Holy of Holies none entered but the high priest; and he but once a year, on the great day of atonement. Vailed in this Holy of Holies, the divine presence was supposed to dwell. When the temple’s vail was rent from top to bottom, it was declared in fact that God no longer dwelt there. There was nothing to conceal. It was but an ordinary room, and the vail was but a rent cloth. It was also shown that the separation was removed; and that Judaism and Gentilism were no longer two, but one in a universal Christianity, an irrespective and impartial Gospel. Judaism is now dead. From the top to the bottom — The vail or curtain was some sixty feet long; and it was impossible for it to be thus rent, as some have imagined, by the force of the earthquake. And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent — Those who maintain that this earthquake was a mere natural coincidence, might as well go farther and say that the resurrection that followed was also in some way natural. It is indeed very unnatural to say that the darkness, the rending of the vail, the earthquake, and the resurrection, were natural. They are plainly all narrated by the evangelist as supernatural attendants of the transactions of the cross.

V. 52. Some of the tombs were shattered and laid open by the earthquake, and while they continued unclosed (and they must have stood open all the Sabbath, seeing the law would not allow any attempt to close them) many bodies of holy men were raised, (perhaps Simeon, Zacharias, John the Baptist, and others who had believed in Christ, and were known to many in Jerusalem,)

And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, went into the holy city (Jerusalem) and appeared to many-Who had probably known them before: God hereby signifying, that Christ had conquered death, and would raise all his saints in due season.

Verse 52. And the graves were opened] By the earthquake; and many bodies of saints which slept, i.e. were dead, sleep being a common expression for death in the Scriptures.

Verses 52, 53. And the graves were opened — Some of the tombs were shattered and laid open by the earthquake, and doubtless continued open all the sabbath, since the law would not allow of any attempt to close them on that day: but the dead bodies which were in them did not come to life till Christ’s resurrection had taken place, as is implied in the next clause, for he was the first-born from the dead, Colossians 1:18; and the first-fruits of them that slept, 1 Corinthians 15:20. And many bodies of the saints which slept — The bodies of many eminently holy persons; arose and came out of their graves — Or tombs, while they remained unclosed; after his resurrection — Probably immediately after it; and went into the holy city — That is, Jerusalem, called the holy city, on account of the temple and its worship; and appeared unto many — Who knew them; thus attesting the truth of that most important event, Jesus’s resurrection, and declaring their own rescue from the grave, as a kind of first-fruits of his power over death, which should at length accomplish a general resurrection. It is and must remain uncertain who these saints were that had now the honour of being the first-fruits of Christ’s resurrection. Mr. Fleming thinks, that they were some of the most eminently holy mentioned in the Old Testament; and that they appeared in some extraordinary splendour, and were known by revelation to those to whom they appeared, as Moses and Elijah were to the disciples at the transfiguration. But Mr. Pierce, Dr. Macknight, and many others, think it more probable that they were persons who had died but lately, perhaps, such as had believed on Christ, and were well known to surviving disciples. Whoever they were, their resurrection was a most extraordinary event, and doubtless was much spoken of in Jerusalem among those to whom they appeared, and other well-disposed persons to whom they mentioned it. It is not improbable that Christ’s prophecy, recorded John 5:25, referred to this event, and thereby received its accomplishment, being distinguished from the general resurrection predicted in verses 28, 29 of that chapter. As it is only said, these saints appeared to many in Jerusalem, but not that they continued with them, it is probable that as they were undoubtedly raised to immortality, they attended their risen Saviour, during his abode on earth, and afterward accompanied him in his ascension, to grace his triumph over death and the grave, and all the powers of darkness, Ephesians 4:8; Colossians 2:15. Thus, as the rending the veil of the temple intimated that the entrance into the most holy place, the type of heaven, was now laid open to all nations, so the resurrection of a number of saints from the dead demonstrated that the power of death and the grave was broken; that the sting was taken from death, and the victory wrested from the grave; and if they ascended with him too, it was thus shown that the Lord’s conquest over the enemies of mankind was complete, and not only an earnest given of a general resurrection of the dead, but of the kingdom of heaven being opened to all believers.

Ver. 52. Many bodies of the saints arose. These, says Ignatius, were the holy prophets, raised to live with Enoch and Elijah in the paradise of God. To help our weak faith God was pleased to do this, as a sort of firstfruits of the general resurrection.

52. The graves were opened — In the East it is often the case that tombs are broken up by the violence of earthquakes; but this was now the intended effect. The graves are often excavations in a rock, with a stone placed against them for a door, which the shock throws from its place. Many bodies of the saints which slept arose — Here is the third effect of the Saviour’s death. It pierces the domains of death. A few of the blessed saints, who are precious to Christ, are awakened to life as specimens in advance of his resurrection power.

We should put a period after the word opened. Then we shall perceive that the bodies of the saints did not rise and come into the city until after his resurrection. His death opened their graves; his resurrection raised them from the dead. Bodies — Observe, it was not the souls or spirits alone of the dead who were recalled from the domains of death. But their bodies were re-animated by the spirit, and returned again to life. Saints — Some think they were saints lately dead. Otherwise, how should it be known who they were? But this is by no means certain. See note on Matthew 17:3. Slept — A beautiful figurative term for death; used in Scripture, usually in a good sense, of the happy dead.

Verses 52, 53. And the graves were opened, &c. — This was the most extraordinary prodigy of all, and the moral is equally obvious: the death of Christ gives life to the very dead, and the first fruits of the general resurrection appear visibly among men! That the earthquake was the instrument employed in opening the sepulchres is clear from the narrative; that it could not give life to the bodies contained in them is certain; so that in this we have another instance of the direct employment of the power of God, marking the death of his Son with such events as never occurred at the death of a mere mortal, or the holiest martyr, or the most useful apostle. The earthquake opened the tombs, which could not be closed again, because the Sabbath was at hand; and in this state they remained until after our Lord himself had risen from the grave: then many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, the current appellation of Jerusalem, though then most unworthy of it, and appeared unto many. They rose not before Christ, for he was the “first-born from the dead,” and the “first fruits of them that slept;” but they followed as the proof that he was, according to his own profession, “the Resurrection and the Life;” and in fulfilment of his own words, John 5:25, “The hour is coming, and now is,” at hand, or near, “when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” On this miracle we may remark,

1. That, like the other prodigies, it was manifestly emblematical: it showed that the power of death and the grave was vanquished by the death and resurrection of Christ, and that he had obtained, by his submission to death, “the keys,” the supreme dominion, “of death and hades,” or the place of separate spirits, whom he commanded to resume their bodies laid down by death, and quickened into life for that purpose.

2. That it is a proof of the Divinity of our Lord; for the life which was imparted to them was given by him, so that to him belong the words ascribed to Jehovah in the Psalms, “For with thee is the fountain of life;” and this doctrine is intimated also by himself in the verse which follows his own prediction of the event, just quoted from John 5:25, “For as the Father hath life IN HIMSELF, so hath he given to the Son to have life IN HIMSELF.”

3. That it was a strong confirmation of the resurrection of Christ, vouchsafed probably to some of the disciples to whom our Lord did not himself appear. The witnesses were many; they went into the holy city, the burial places of the Jews being all without the walls; and they appeared unto many. That they were the bodies of saints but recently deceased may be gathered from this, that their appearing unto those who never knew them could convey no proof of their being raised from the dead; they might be persons assuming the names of those who had long ago died, for any thing the persons who saw them could determine; but by showing themselves to their acquaintance the proof was complete. To the question, “What became of them?” there is no reasonable reply; but that, as our Lord existed in secret until his ascension, so were they also hidden; and that they returned with him to heaven, and are there as the pledges, to angels and to us, that the general resurrection of all the saints shall most certainly take place in the fulness of time. The bodies of these saints, while yet they tarried upon earth, like the body of our Lord, wore not that glorious appearance which his body assumed after or at the ascension, and to the splendour of which the bodies of his people are to be conformed. There were obvious reasons, in each case, for the delay of this “glorification;” but doubtless, like his, their bodies were even then immortal. — That we hear no more of them, indicates that they did not remain among men, and die a second time; which would have been an evil. On this event Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, has a beautiful passage: “He descended into hades, and broke those bars that had hitherto remained firm and untouched, and raised up together with himself those who for many ages had slept. So that, though he came down from heaven alone, he ascended to his Father with a numerous train, and was honourably seated at his right hand.”

Verse 53. And came out of the graves after his resurrection] Not BEFORE, as some have thought, for Christ was himself the FIRST FRUITS of them who slept, 1 Corinthians 15:20. The graves were opened at his death, by the earthquake, and the bodies came out at his resurrection. And appeared unto many.] Thus establishing the truth of our Lord’s resurrection in particular, and of the resurrection of the body in general, by many witnesses. Quesnel’s reflections on these passages may be very useful. “1. The veil being rent shows that his death is to put an end to the figurative worship, and to establish the true religion. 2. The earthquake, that this dispensation of the Gospel is to make known through the earth the judgments of God against sin and sinners. 3. The rocks being rent declare that the sacrifice of Christ is to make way for the grace of repentance. 4. The graves being opened, that it is to destroy the death of sin, and confer the life grace on sinners. 5. The rising of the bodies of the saints shows that this death of Christ is to merit, and his Gospel publish, the eternal happiness of body and soul for all that believe in his name.” It is difficult to account for the transaction mentioned Matthew 27:52,

53. Some have thought that these two verses have been introduced into the text of Matthew from the gospel of the Nazarenes; others think that the simple meaning is this:-by the earthquake several bodies that had been buried were thrown up and exposed to view, and continued above ground till after Christ’s resurrection, and were seen by many persons in the city. Why the graves should be opened on Friday, and the bodies not be raised to life till the following Sunday, is difficult to be conceived. The place is extremely obscure.

Verses 52, 53. And the graves were opened — Some of the tombs were shattered and laid open by the earthquake, and doubtless continued open all the sabbath, since the law would not allow of any attempt to close them on that day: but the dead bodies which were in them did not come to life till Christ’s resurrection had taken place, as is implied in the next clause, for he was the first-born from the dead, Colossians 1:18; and the first-fruits of them that slept, 1 Corinthians 15:20. And many bodies of the saints which slept — The bodies of many eminently holy persons; arose and came out of their graves — Or tombs, while they remained unclosed; after his resurrection — Probably immediately after it; and went into the holy city — That is, Jerusalem, called the holy city, on account of the temple and its worship; and appeared unto many — Who knew them; thus attesting the truth of that most important event, Jesus’s resurrection, and declaring their own rescue from the grave, as a kind of first-fruits of his power over death, which should at length accomplish a general resurrection. It is and must remain uncertain who these saints were that had now the honour of being the first-fruits of Christ’s resurrection. Mr. Fleming thinks, that they were some of the most eminently holy mentioned in the Old Testament; and that they appeared in some extraordinary splendour, and were known by revelation to those to whom they appeared, as Moses and Elijah were to the disciples at the transfiguration. But Mr. Pierce, Dr. Macknight, and many others, think it more probable that they were persons who had died but lately, perhaps, such as had believed on Christ, and were well known to surviving disciples. Whoever they were, their resurrection was a most extraordinary event, and doubtless was much spoken of in Jerusalem among those to whom they appeared, and other well-disposed persons to whom they mentioned it. It is not improbable that Christ’s prophecy, recorded John 5:25, referred to this event, and thereby received its accomplishment, being distinguished from the general resurrection predicted in verses 28, 29 of that chapter. As it is only said, these saints appeared to many in Jerusalem, but not that they continued with them, it is probable that as they were undoubtedly raised to immortality, they attended their risen Saviour, during his abode on earth, and afterward accompanied him in his ascension, to grace his triumph over death and the grave, and all the powers of darkness, Ephesians 4:8; Colossians 2:15. Thus, as the rending the veil of the temple intimated that the entrance into the most holy place, the type of heaven, was now laid open to all nations, so the resurrection of a number of saints from the dead demonstrated that the power of death and the grave was broken; that the sting was taken from death, and the victory wrested from the grave; and if they ascended with him too, it was thus shown that the Lord’s conquest over the enemies of mankind was complete, and not only an earnest given of a general resurrection of the dead, but of the kingdom of heaven being opened to all believers.

53. After his resurrection — It must be specially noted that these saints appeared only after the resurrection of Christ. The fact that not the slightest allusion is made in any other part of the New Testament to this resurrection, has induced many commentators to think that there is something mythical in these two verses. But let it be remarked that the appearance of these saints to many occurred in the midst of the passover, when thousands if not millions were present from various parts of the world; and that the persons to whom they may have appeared were soon dispersed to their various abodes, so as to leave a much less permanent and public account of the transaction than would otherwise have been the case. Hence it is not strange that Matthew alone notices the fact; and that, too, only to show the immediate effects of Christ’s death and resurrection. Holy city — Jerusalem, so called not from its present wicked character, but from the holy recollections of prophets and holy men in its history. See note on Matthew 4:5. Hence we think that those who were raised from the dead were saints of the olden times, to whom indeed it was a holy city. Appeared unto many — Matthew narrated these facts in Jerusalem, the very city where they are supposed to have taken place; and there were probably those who were able to attest them.

Verses 52, 53. And the graves were opened, &c. — This was the most extraordinary prodigy of all, and the moral is equally obvious: the death of Christ gives life to the very dead, and the first fruits of the general resurrection appear visibly among men! That the earthquake was the instrument employed in opening the sepulchres is clear from the narrative; that it could not give life to the bodies contained in them is certain; so that in this we have another instance of the direct employment of the power of God, marking the death of his Son with such events as never occurred at the death of a mere mortal, or the holiest martyr, or the most useful apostle. The earthquake opened the tombs, which could not be closed again, because the Sabbath was at hand; and in this state they remained until after our Lord himself had risen from the grave: then many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, the current appellation of Jerusalem, though then most unworthy of it, and appeared unto many. They rose not before Christ, for he was the “first-born from the dead,” and the “first fruits of them that slept;” but they followed as the proof that he was, according to his own profession, “the Resurrection and the Life;” and in fulfilment of his own words, John 5:25, “The hour is coming, and now is,” at hand, or near, “when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” On this miracle we may remark,

1. That, like the other prodigies, it was manifestly emblematical: it showed that the power of death and the grave was vanquished by the death and resurrection of Christ, and that he had obtained, by his submission to death, “the keys,” the supreme dominion, “of death and hades,” or the place of separate spirits, whom he commanded to resume their bodies laid down by death, and quickened into life for that purpose.

2. That it is a proof of the Divinity of our Lord; for the life which was imparted to them was given by him, so that to him belong the words ascribed to Jehovah in the Psalms, “For with thee is the fountain of life;” and this doctrine is intimated also by himself in the verse which follows his own prediction of the event, just quoted from John 5:25, “For as the Father hath life IN HIMSELF, so hath he given to the Son to have life IN HIMSELF.”

3. That it was a strong confirmation of the resurrection of Christ, vouchsafed probably to some of the disciples to whom our Lord did not himself appear. The witnesses were many; they went into the holy city, the burial places of the Jews being all without the walls; and they appeared unto many. That they were the bodies of saints but recently deceased may be gathered from this, that their appearing unto those who never knew them could convey no proof of their being raised from the dead; they might be persons assuming the names of those who had long ago died, for any thing the persons who saw them could determine; but by showing themselves to their acquaintance the proof was complete. To the question, “What became of them?” there is no reasonable reply; but that, as our Lord existed in secret until his ascension, so were they also hidden; and that they returned with him to heaven, and are there as the pledges, to angels and to us, that the general resurrection of all the saints shall most certainly take place in the fulness of time. The bodies of these saints, while yet they tarried upon earth, like the body of our Lord, wore not that glorious appearance which his body assumed after or at the ascension, and to the splendour of which the bodies of his people are to be conformed. There were obvious reasons, in each case, for the delay of this “glorification;” but doubtless, like his, their bodies were even then immortal. — That we hear no more of them, indicates that they did not remain among men, and die a second time; which would have been an evil. On this event Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, has a beautiful passage: “He descended into hades, and broke those bars that had hitherto remained firm and untouched, and raised up together with himself those who for many ages had slept. So that, though he came down from heaven alone, he ascended to his Father with a numerous train, and was honourably seated at his right hand.”

V. 54. The centurion-The officer who commanded the guard; and they that were with him feared, saying, Truly this was the Son of God-Referring to the words of the chief priests and scribes, Matthew 27:43: He said, I am the Son of God.

Verse 54. The centurion] The Roman officer who superintended the execution, called centurio, from centum, a hundred, because he had the command of one hundred men.

Truly this was the Son of God.] An innocent, holy, and Divine person; and God thus shows his disapprobation of this bloody tragedy. It is not likely that this centurion had any knowledge of the expectation of the Jews relative to the Messiah, and did not use the words in this sense. A son of God, as the Romans used the term, would signify no more than a very eminent or Divine person; a hero.

Verse 54. When the centurion — The officer who commanded the guard, called centurio, from centum, a hundred, because he had the command of a hundred men; and those that were with him — The soldiers that attended him; watching Jesus — And standing over against him; saw the earthquake, and the things that were done — The other wonders wrought at his crucifixion, together with his meek and patient behaviour under his sufferings, and the composure and confidence with which he committed his departing soul into the hands of his heavenly Father; they feared greatly — Were greatly alarmed and influenced by a religious fear of that Being who had given such awful proofs of his displeasure at what had just taken place. Luke says, The centurion glorified God, and that not only by acknowledging his hand in the prodigies they had witnessed, but by confessing the innocence of Jesus, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man — Gr. dikaiov, the character which Pilate’s wife had given of him before he was condemned, verse 19. According to Mark, chap. 15:39, he said likewise, Truly this man was the Son of God. It is true, because the article is here wanting in the original, and the words, both in Matthew and. Mark, are only uiov qeou, and not o uiov tou qeou, some would render the expression, a son of God; a phraseology which they think perfectly suitable in the mouth of a polytheist and an idolater, such as they take it for granted this Roman centurion was. But it is evident that no argument can be brought in justification of such a sense of the words from the absence of the Greek article, because it is often wanting when the true God is evidently meant, as verse 43, and John 19:7. It is probable this centurion was not now an idolater, but a proselyte to the Jewish religion, and therefore a worshipper of the true God. At least he must have been acquainted with the opinions of the Jews, and have known that Jesus was put to death by them for averring himself to be, not the son of a heathen god, but the son of the God whom the Jews worshipped: and therefore, when he made his confession, he doubtless referred to that circumstance, or to the words of the chief priests and scribes, recorded in verse 43, He trusted in God, &c., for he said, I am the Son of God. Matthew says, They that were with the centurion joined in the same confession. It maybe questioned, indeed, as they seem to have been the same soldiers that crowned Jesus with thorns and mocked him, whether they understood the proper meaning of the expression, The Son of God. They probably, however, were convinced that he was a person approved of, and beloved by, the God of the Jews; and that his heavenly Father would certainly avenge his quarrel very terribly on them, and on the Jewish nation, who had delivered him into their hands to be crucified. In the mean time, though the Roman centurion, and his heathen soldiers, were thus alarmed by the prodigies which they had beheld, these wonders appear to have had no influence on the minds of the Jewish priests, scribes, and elders: their minds, it seems, continued impenetrable and obstinate, and full of unbelief and invincible prejudice against Christ, so that neither the miracles done by him in his life, nor those wrought at his death, could convince them that he was any other than an impostor and deceiver. This, however, was not the case with the common people. From Luke 23:48, we learn that not only the centurion and his soldiers, but all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, for sorrow and remorse; in terrible expectation that some sad calamity would speedily befall them and their country, for the indignities and cruelties they had offered to a person for whom God had expressed so high a regard, even in his greatest distress. “They had, indeed, been instant with loud voices to have him crucified, but now that they saw the face of the creation darkened with a sullen gloom during his crucifixion, and found his death accompanied with an earthquake, as if nature had been in an agony when he died, they rightly interpreted these prodigies to be so many testimonies of his innocence; and their passions, which had been inflamed and exasperated against him, became quite calm, or moved in his behalf. Some could not forgive themselves for neglecting to accept his life when the governor offered to release him; others were stung with remorse for having had an active hand both in his death, and in the insults that were offered to him; others felt the deepest grief at the thought of his lot, which was undeservedly severe; and these various passions appeared in their countenances, for they came away from the cruel execution pensive and silent, with downcast eyes, and hearts ready to burst: or groaning deeply within themselves, they wept, smote their breasts, and wailed greatly. The grief which they now felt for Jesus, was distinguished from their former rage against him by this remarkable character, that their rage was entirely produced by the craft of the priests, who had wickedly incensed them; whereas their grief was the genuine feeling of their own hearts, greatly affected with the truth and innocence of him that was the object of their commiseration. Nor was this the temper only of a few, who may be thought to have been Christ’s particular friends. It was the general condition of the people, who had come in such numbers to look on, that when they parted, after the execution, they covered the roads, and, as it were, darkened the whole fields around.” — Macknight.

Ver. 54. When the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and as Mark adds, that he gave up the ghost, they feared greatly, saying, truly this was the Son of God. In the course of the day, they had understood his claims of divinity, and had mocked him in all his offices, as the prophet, priest, and king of Israel. Now the grandeur and terrors of his death, the earthquake, and the supernatural darkness, which could not proceed from an eclipse, it being then the full moon, drew these expressions from the centurion. Having learnt these words of the jews, they amount to a full confession of his Godhead, as in John 1:49. Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.

54. The centurion — The captain of a hundred men. He was doubtless the commander of the quaternion of soldiers who watched Jesus’s death. Pilate departed after having fixed the superscription. The chief priests had left after they had done mocking; perhaps during the supernatural darkness. And they that were with him — The soldiers under his command. They feared greatly — A deep feeling came over them that they were engaged in a great crime against a good, nay, a divine being. Luke adds: “All the people that came down to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts and returned.” This was the Son of God — No doubt the centurion heard that the prisoner had during his trial laid claim to this title. It is possible that he was present at the trial of Jesus, and heard that announcement by the Jews, that they required his death for making “himself the Son of God.” John 19:7. There was something in this announcement which, as appears from the following verses in John, startled the pagan Pilate, and could very easily impress the memory of Pilate’s centurion. The centurion knew that he was executed for claiming to be Son of God; he now recognizes that, whatever that title meant, (and probably his conceptions in regard to it were very indefinite,) it was divinely attested by these supernatural phenomena. Jesus was the Son of God because he so claimed, and God has affirmed his claim. And this strikingly harmonizes with the centurion’s expression, as reported by Luke: “Certainly this was a righteous man.” He was righteous in that his claim, for which he was executed, was sustained by God. So then the innocence of Jesus is admitted by Pilate, by Judas, by Peter, by even the soldiers that slay him, and by all but the Jewish hierarchy who brought the charges against him.

Verse 54. Truly this was the Son of God. — They were witnesses of the darkening of the sun, the tremendous earthquake, the demeanour of Christ, his meekness, his prayer for the forgiveness of his enemies, his conduct to the penitent thief; and though they saw not the veil of the temple rent, they might yet hear of it. The prodigies struck all the soldiers with fear; but the centurion, as of a more reflecting character, probably revolved all the circumstances in his thoughts, and at length exclaimed, Truly this was the Son of God; and with this testimony the soldiers themselves appear to have consented. According to St. Luke, his words were, “Certainly this was a righteous man.” He might, and probably did, use both expressions, as it is not likely that he restrained his strong emotions unto one exclamation; and the one implied the other. If Christ was the Son of God incarnate, he was also a righteous man, innocent of all guilt; and if a righteous man, he was then the Son of God, because he professed himself to be so, which, in the sense in which our Lord used the term, no mere man could profess and be righteous. It has been disputed in what sense the centurion, who was probably a Pagan, and not a proselyte, as some have conjectured, used the term SON OF GOD; but this is clear, that he attributed it to Christ in the same sense in which Christ had claimed it, and in which the Jews had disputed it. This is indubitable. He had probably heard that Christ had been condemned in the Jewish council, on a charge of blasphemy, because he said, I am the Son of God;” and he had certainly heard the Jews who insulted him in his sufferings taunt him with this profession, which according to them was blasphemy, or it could have been no crime. He knew, therefore, that it was a title implying a claim to a participation of the Divine nature, the nature of that one supreme God whom, as a man of education, he could not but know the Jews alone worshipped, to the exclusion of all belief in the existence of all inferior, subordinate deities. It follows, therefore, that it must have been with reference to this claim, as understood by the Jews, and not with reference to any of the idolatrous notions of Paganism, that he was convinced that God himself was the author of all these prodigies, and that they were all attestations in favour of the sufferer, or the exertions of his own power, and that he therefore acknowledged him emphatically to be that Son of God which the Jews denied. This is plain, not from the use of the mere phrase itself; but from the adverb alhqwv, truly, certainly, indubitably, this was the Son of God, in manifest opposition to the criminality affixed by the Jews to his assumption of that title.

But the phrase used being uiov Qeou, without the article, some would render a son of God; an expression, they think, suitable in the lips of a polytheist; but when the disciples in the ship, after Christ had quelled the storm, came to him and worshipped him, and said, “Truly thou art the Son of God,” the article is wanting, and yet they, being Jews, cannot be charged with polytheistic notions; and even a Socinian critic has acknowledged that the phrases uiov Qeou, and o uiov tou Qeou, or uiov tou Qeou, mean exactly the same thing. As the centurion used the phrase “Son of God” with reference to what Christ had professed himself to be, so he adds what is recorded by St. Luke, “Certainly this was a righteous or just man,” probably with reference to the message of Pilate’s wife, which being delivered to him “on the judgment seat,” might be known to others. She had said, “Have thou nothing to do with that JUST MAN;” and the centurion exclaims, “Truly this was a just man.”

If not precisely the same, yet a powerful effect was produced by the extraordinary events which occurred. Against the impression of the darkness many of the obdurate spectators of the crucifixion, buoyed up, it may be, by the effrontery of the chief priests, and scribes, and elders, maintained an indomitable stubbornness, and continued their mocking of our Lord; but the repetition of these “mighty signs” at length broke down the resolution of the multitude; for it is added by St. Luke, in connection with the confession of the centurion, “And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things that were done, smote their breasts, and returned,” Luke 23:48.

Verse 55. Many women] To their everlasting honour, these women evidenced more courage, and affectionate attachment to their Lord and Master, than the disciples did, who had promised to die with him rather than forsake him.

Beholding afar off] At a distance-apo makroqen. Though this expression may be understood to refer, rather to the distance from which they came, (viz. from Galilee,) than the distance they stood from the cross; yet, as all malefactors were crucified naked, perhaps this may account for the distance at which these modest women stood.

Verses 55, 56. And many women were there, beholding afar off — Viewing these things with weeping eyes and sympathizing hearts: which followed Jesus from Galilee — To Jerusalem, eighty or a hundred miles, out of the great love they had to him, and to his heavenly doctrine; ministering unto him — Liberally assisting him and his disciples with their property. Among which were Mary Magdalene — Or rather, Mary the Magdalene, or Mary of Magdala, as Maria h Magdalhnh, would be more properly rendered; even as Ihsouv o Naxarerhnov, is Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth. “There can be no doubt that this addition, employed for distinguishing her from others of the same name, is formed from Magdala, the name of a city, mentioned Matthew 15:39, probably the place of her birth, or at least of her residence.” — Campbell. And Mary the mother of James, (namely, James the Less, Mark 15:49,) and Joses — Probably our Lord’s mother’s sister, (called, John 19:25, Mary the wife of Cleophas,) and the mother of Zebedee’s children — Namely, Salome. The three evangelists agree in affirming that these women stood afar off, looking on. Yet this is not inconsistent with John 19:25, where two of them, with our Lord’s mother, are said to have stood by the cross. It seems they were kept at a distance a while, perhaps by the guards, or they were afraid to approach. But when the greatest part of the soldiers were drawn off, and the darkness began, they gathered courage, and came so near that Jesus had an opportunity to speak to them a little before he expired. It is greatly to the honour of these excellent women, that they thus manifested more courage and attachment to their Lord and Master, than even the apostles themselves, who, notwithstanding that they had promised to die with him rather than desert him, had forsaken him and fled. But O! who can describe the feelings of these pious females, while they attended Jesus in these last scenes of his sufferings! What words can express, or heart conceive the depth of sorrow, compassion, anxiety, and despondency which must have been excited in their breasts, by what their eyes saw, and their ears heard during these mournful and awful hours! Of some other circumstances which occurred while our Lord hung on the cross, see the notes on Luke 23:39-43; John 19:26, 27, 31-37.

Ver. 55. Many women were there, beholding afar off, conformably to the modesty of the east, attesting all his agony of love, weeping in his tears, and dying in his death. A sight they would never forget, a sight we should always keep in view, and set Christ crucified before the eyes of the people. Galatians 3:1. Many men also who had stood aloof through fear, returned, smiting their breasts in anguish and grief: a cloud of witnesses attesting the love of God to fallen man.

§ 142. — THE FRIENDS OF JESUS, AND HIS BURIAL, 55-61.

Pilate had early disappeared; the chief priests had been driven off by the darkness and earthquake: the revilers had been put to silence; and even the soldiers having confessed, the cross seems now to have been surrounded by the friends of Jesus, and his faithful followers heave in view. His death seems to have conquered all, and to have won the field to his own side. The voice of hostile triumph is changed to consternation, and words of revilings give place to confessions of his divinity. Amid the display of divine power and displeasure, the alarmed supplicators begin to fear that Elias may appear to the rescue; or that Jesus will come down from the cross, and the wrath of Jehovah be executed upon themselves for his murder. Alas! the fulfilment of that fear, predicted indeed in these convulsions of nature, is postponed, not abolished. The same multitudes must undergo the woes of Roman cruelty; and the same men must meet him when he has exchanged the cross for the throne, and “look on him whom they have pierced and mourn.”

55. And many women were there — Relatives, and followers of his doctrines. They stood the ground more firmly than his disciples. Indeed, their weakness was the source of their strength; for, from their sex, they were in less danger than the male followers of the Lord. At a modest distance, now that the worst of the Lord’s enemies are gone, they dare appear conspicuous in sight. These women (as we are informed, Mark 15:41, Luke 8:2, 3) ministered unto Jesus of their substance while he was in Galilee. They had come now to Jerusalem for the same purpose. Mary the mother of Jesus, who previously stood at the cross, and whom Jesus on the cross committed to the guardianship of John, (John 19:25-27,) seems now to have departed.

Verses 55, 56. And many women were there, &c. — These heroic women appear to have been the only disciples, except John, present at the crucifixion. They had followed him out of Galilee, and some of them were in opulent circumstances; they ministered to him, and by their grateful benevolence he appears to have been chiefly supported during the later period of his ministry. So dependent did the Lord of all voluntarily render himself! These beheld afar off, as prevented by delicacy or fear from mingling with the multitude. The mother of Jesus stood by the cross, with John; she being, no doubt, treated with some respect from natural pity, and John being regarded in the light of her protector. Encouraged by the presence of these two, some of these women who at first stood at a distance, seem afterward to have approached nearer: of these was Mary Magdalene, or Mary of Magdala, a respectable woman, out of whom our Lord had cast seven devils, whose power over her was her affliction, not crime; at least the notion that she had been an impure woman has no foundation in what is recorded of her. This notion appears to have arisen from confounding her with the woman who was “a sinner,” but whose name is not mentioned. The mother of Zebedee’s children was Salome.

V. 56. James-The less: he was so called, to distinguish him from the other James, the brother of John; probably because he was less in stature.

Verse 56. Mary Magdalene] She probably had her name from Magdala, a village or district in Lower Galilee. See Matthew 15:39. Some think she was called Magdalene from aldgm magdala, which signifies a plaiter of hair. See Lightfoot.

Mary the mother of James] She was mother of him called James the lesser, or junior, who was son of Alpheus or Cleopas-see Matthew 10:3; Mark 15:40; John 19:25; and she was sister to the holy virgin. Thus it appears that there were four remarkable Marys mentioned in the Gospels. 1. MARY the Virgin, wife of JOSEPH. 2. MARY SALOME, her sister, wife of Cleopas, John 19:25. 3. MARY MAGDALENE, or MARY of Magdala; and, 4. MARY, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, John 11:1. Though Baronius asserts, and Lightfoot is of the same opinion, that Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, was one and the same person. It is difficult to ascertain and distinguish these women where their names occur in the Gospels, so many being called by the name of Mary.

Joses] Several MSS. and versions read Joseph.

Verses 55, 56. And many women were there, beholding afar off — Viewing these things with weeping eyes and sympathizing hearts: which followed Jesus from Galilee — To Jerusalem, eighty or a hundred miles, out of the great love they had to him, and to his heavenly doctrine; ministering unto him — Liberally assisting him and his disciples with their property. Among which were Mary Magdalene — Or rather, Mary the Magdalene, or Mary of Magdala, as Maria h Magdalhnh, would be more properly rendered; even as Ihsouv o Naxarerhnov, is Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth. “There can be no doubt that this addition, employed for distinguishing her from others of the same name, is formed from Magdala, the name of a city, mentioned Matthew 15:39, probably the place of her birth, or at least of her residence.” — Campbell. And Mary the mother of James, (namely, James the Less, Mark 15:49,) and Joses — Probably our Lord’s mother’s sister, (called, John 19:25, Mary the wife of Cleophas,) and the mother of Zebedee’s children — Namely, Salome. The three evangelists agree in affirming that these women stood afar off, looking on. Yet this is not inconsistent with John 19:25, where two of them, with our Lord’s mother, are said to have stood by the cross. It seems they were kept at a distance a while, perhaps by the guards, or they were afraid to approach. But when the greatest part of the soldiers were drawn off, and the darkness began, they gathered courage, and came so near that Jesus had an opportunity to speak to them a little before he expired. It is greatly to the honour of these excellent women, that they thus manifested more courage and attachment to their Lord and Master, than even the apostles themselves, who, notwithstanding that they had promised to die with him rather than desert him, had forsaken him and fled. But O! who can describe the feelings of these pious females, while they attended Jesus in these last scenes of his sufferings! What words can express, or heart conceive the depth of sorrow, compassion, anxiety, and despondency which must have been excited in their breasts, by what their eyes saw, and their ears heard during these mournful and awful hours! Of some other circumstances which occurred while our Lord hung on the cross, see the notes on Luke 23:39-43; John 19:26, 27, 31-37.

56. Mary Magdalene — Mary of the town of Magdala, so called to distinguish her from the other Marys. See note on 5:39. The Lord had delivered her from the dominion of several evil spirits, which may have possessed her more as a sad misfortune than from any guilt. The reputation for impurity of life which has been imputed to her is without any proof, and the habit of connecting her name with ideas of unchastity should be disused. Mary the mother of James and Joses — She was the sister of the virgin mother, and wife of Cleophas. James and Joses were therefore cousins of our Lord. This James was sometimes called James the Less. The mother of Zebedee’s children — This was Salome of Bethsaida. See note on Matthew 20:20.

The crucifixion was now closed. The beloved Jesus is a corpse, still in the hands of his enemies, and upon the cross. But, by the Jewish law, no dead body must lie unburied after sundown. The three crucified are therefore taken down; and of the two thieves the legs are broken, to secure their certain death. But as the Saviour is found apparently dead they break not his body, but a soldier pierces his side. These facts — the actuality of his death — John testifies as seen by his own eyes.

Verses 55, 56. And many women were there, &c. — These heroic women appear to have been the only disciples, except John, present at the crucifixion. They had followed him out of Galilee, and some of them were in opulent circumstances; they ministered to him, and by their grateful benevolence he appears to have been chiefly supported during the later period of his ministry. So dependent did the Lord of all voluntarily render himself! These beheld afar off, as prevented by delicacy or fear from mingling with the multitude. The mother of Jesus stood by the cross, with John; she being, no doubt, treated with some respect from natural pity, and John being regarded in the light of her protector. Encouraged by the presence of these two, some of these women who at first stood at a distance, seem afterward to have approached nearer: of these was Mary Magdalene, or Mary of Magdala, a respectable woman, out of whom our Lord had cast seven devils, whose power over her was her affliction, not crime; at least the notion that she had been an impure woman has no foundation in what is recorded of her. This notion appears to have arisen from confounding her with the woman who was “a sinner,” but whose name is not mentioned. The mother of Zebedee’s children was Salome.

V. 57. When the evening was come-That is, after three o'clock; the time from three to six they termed the evening. Mark 15:42; Luke 23:50; John 19:38.

Verse 57. When the even] This must have been about three o’clock, or a little after; for our Lord having expired about three o’clock, Matthew 27:46, and the Jewish passover beginning about four, it was necessary that Joseph, who would not fail to eat the passover at the usual time, should have obtained and buried the body of Christ some time before four o’clock. But such was the general consternation, occasioned by the prodigies that took place on this most awful occasion, that we may safely conjecture that nothing was done in order, and perhaps the passover itself was not eaten at the usual hour, if at all, that day. See at the end of the preceding chapter. A rich man] He was a counsellor of the great Sanhedrin, Luke 23:50; and, from the accounts given of him by the evangelists we learn that he was a man of the greatest respectability. He now acted a more honourable part than all the disciples of our Lord. He was of Arimathea, or Rama, in the tribe of Benjamin, Matthew 2:18, but lived ordinarily in Jerusalem, as being a member of the great council.

Verse 57-61. When the even was come — That is, when it was past three o’clock; for the time from three to six they termed the first evening: this being Friday, or the day before the sabbath, which began at six o’clock, after which no work could lawfully be done, our Lord’s body must have been applied for and obtained as soon as four, or a little after, otherwise there would not have been time to bury it before the sabbath began. There came a rich man of Arimathea — A city of the Jews, anciently called Ramoth: (Luke says, he was a counsellor; Mark, an honourable counsellor, and a good man and just;) who also himself was Jesus’s disciple — (But secretly, John 19:38,) not having courage openly to profess his faith in him, for fear of the Jews and their rulers. And he also waited for the kingdom of God, Luke 23:51; that is, for the manifestation of the Messiah’s kingdom; and, of consequence, had not consented to the deed of them who condemned Jesus: though a member of the sanhedrim, he had not joined them in their unjust sentence. He had either kept away from the court when they sat on the trial of Jesus, or, if he was present when the sentence was passed, he remonstrated against it. This honourable, just, and pious person went (Mark says, boldly) to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus — Joseph had nothing to fear from the governor, who in the course of the trial had showed the greatest inclination to release Jesus; but he had reason to fear that this action would draw upon him abundance of ill-will from the rulers, who had been at such pains to get Jesus crucified. Nevertheless, the regard he had for his Master overcame all other considerations, and he asked leave to take his body down; because, if no friend had obtained it, it would have been ignominiously cast out among the executed malefactors. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered — Namely, after he had called the centurion to him, and had been assured by him that Jesus was certainly dead, which Pilate had at first doubted. Pilate was probably the more willing to grant the body to Joseph, both because he was thoroughly convinced that Jesus was innocent, and because it was generally thought by the heathen that the spirits of the departed received some advantage from the honours of a funeral paid to their bodies. “In discharging this last duty to his Master, Joseph was assisted (as we learn from John 19:39) by another disciple named Nicodemus, the ruler who formerly came to Jesus by night, for fear of the Jews. But he was not afraid of them now, for he showed a courage superior to that of the apostles, bringing such a quantity of spices along with him as was necessary to the funeral of his Master. These two, therefore, taking down the naked body, wrapped it with the spices in the linen furnished by Joseph. And laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out in the rock — Here we learn that Joseph, though a man of great wealth, and in a high situation of life, lived mindful of his mortality. For he had erected for himself a sepulchre in his garden, John 19:41, the place of his pleasure and retirement, that it might be often in his view, and suggest to him the thoughts of death and eternity. In the description of the sepulchre given by the evangelists, it is particularly remarked, that it was nigh to the place where he was crucified, consequently nigh to Jerusalem. By this circumstance all the cavils are prevented which might otherwise have been occasioned, in case the body had been removed farther off. Moreover, it is observed that the sepulchre was a new one, wherein never any man had been laid. This plainly proves that it could be no other than Jesus who rose out of it, and cuts off all suspicion of his being raised by touching the bones of some prophet buried there, as happened to the corpse which touched the bones of Elisha, 2 Kings 13:21. Further, the evangelists take notice that it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, to show that there was no passage by which the disciples could get into it but the one at which the guards were placed, verse 62, &c., and consequently that it was not in their power to steal away the body while the guards remained there performing their duty. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre — To block up the entrance. The sepulchre, it seems, differed from that of Lazarus, being partly above ground; whereas Lazarus’s being wholly under ground, had a stone laid on the mouth of it, covering the entry of the stair by which they went down to it. The rolling of the stone to the grave’s mouth was with them as filling up the grave is with us; it completed the funeral. Having thus in silence and sorrow deposited the precious body of our Lord Jesus in the house appointed for all living, they departed without any further ceremony. It is the most melancholy circumstance in the funerals of our Christian friends, when we have laid their bodies in the dark and silent grave, to go home and leave them behind; but, it is not we that go home and reave them behind; no, it is they that are gone to the better home, and have left us behind! There was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary — Namely, the mother of James and Joses, verse 56. The mother of Jesus, it appears, was not there, being hindered, probably, by the excess of her sorrow, or, perhaps, she might have been taken to the house of John as to her home, John 19:26, 27. Thus we see the company which attended the funeral was very small and mean. There were none of the relations in mourning to follow the corpse; no formalities to grace the solemnity, but only these two good women, that were true mourners, who, as they had attended him to the cross, so they followed him to the grave, as if they gave themselves up to sorrow; and they sat over against the sepulchre, “not so much,” says Henry, “to fill their eyes with the sight of what was done, as to empty them in rivers of tears:” for true love to Christ will carry us to the utmost in following him: death itself will not, cannot, quench that divine fire.

Ver. 57, 58. When the evening was come, as was the ancient law, Joshua 10:27, Joseph of Arimathea — went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus, the precious grain of wheat, whose resurrection produced a harvest of converts. Joseph buried him in his own new sepulchre, in which, as yet, no corpse had been interred. Nicodemus assisted in all those decencies of haste; for Christ crucified brings the dead to life: and thus without design made the evidences of his resurrection incontestible, by which he was declared to be the Son of God with power. Romans 1:4.

57. Even — The old word for evening. Arimathea — This was probably Rama-thaim Zophim, lying a few miles west of Jerusalem. Joseph was a believer, though a timid one, in Jesus; but at this crisis he dismisses all fear, and goes boldly forward to claim the holy body. As a “noble counsellor,” that is probably, a member of the Sanhedrim, his request would have weight with Pilate; and, as a “rich man,” he could afford an honourable tomb. Thus, according to prophecy, “they appointed him his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich man after his death.” Isaiah 53:9, Hengstenberg’s translation.

Verses 57-60. And when even was come. — The Jews had two evenings, one from three o’clock P.M., or the ninth hour, till sunset, the other from sunset until dark. The evening here mentioned was the second evening. The phrase here used means that this second evening, when the Sabbath began, was at hand, was fast approaching, before which the bodies must be taken down, and, if not dead, despatched by breaking their bones, that they might be buried at the foot of the cross, in the Golgotha on which they were executed. This Joseph, a rich man of Arimathea, or Ramathaim, as the Hebrews named it, the birthplace of Samuel, is said to have been a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, “for fear of the Jews.” He is called “a counsellor,” as being a member of the sanhedrim; but as “a good man and just,” the still more honourable appellations given him by St. Luke, had “not consented to the counsel and deed of them.” His former timidity had probably been removed by the prodigies of our Lord’s death working in him a still stronger conviction that Jesus was the Messiah; and he now avowed himself a friend of Christ by going to Pilate, and begging the body of Jesus for interment. He the more easily prevailed, no doubt, on account of his riches and rank; but hereby was fulfilled another signal prophecy, Isaiah 53:9: “And he made his grave with the wicked, and with THE RICH in his death,” or, as Lowth translates, “And his grave was appointed with the wicked; but with the rich was his tomb:” that is, he was appointed to be buried as well as the malefactors, but with this remarkable distinction, that his tomb should be with the rich man; which was accomplished when Joseph laid him in his own new tomb, “wherein never man was laid.” This tomb was hewn out in the rock: the Jewish sepulchres were frequently caves hollowed out of the rocks with which the country abounded. Joseph’s tomb was near; and the time before the commencement of the Sabbath being short, the body, wrapped in clean linen with a costly mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds’ weight, was hastily deposited in the cave, and a great stone was rolled against the entrance; more complete embalming of the body being reserved until after the Sabbath. In this pious work Nicodemus was also assisting, and thus with Joseph nobly avowed his faith in Christ; and yet neither they nor the women had any idea of his rising again, as appears from the preparations made for a regular embalmment of the body. Was it that they understood all that our Lord had so plainly declared respecting his resurrection in a figurative sense? This is probable; and how and when he, whom they still believed, though put to death, to be the Messiah, was again to manifest himself, they appear to have left to God, without any settled opinion, or perhaps conjecture. One thing was, however, before them, — to show respect to their despised Master; and in this duty they failed not: though their faith was confused and unsettled, yet their love was strong. But the very circumstance of the care of these truly sincere disciples to pay all funeral honours to their Lord, even to embalming, is an incident of great importance in the evidence of the truth of the resurrection; for those who made such anxious preparations for the regular embalming of the body as soon as the Sabbath should be over, and evidently anticipated that he would continue to lie in the grave, could have been no parties to a plot for taking away the body in the night. This is one of those powerful evidences of the veracity of the Gospel which so frequently occur without any design on the part of the writers of these narratives, and so unequivocally stamp them with TRUTH. The linen cloth, sindwn, in which Joseph wrapped the body of Christ, was a square sheet, in which the body was bound up with swathes or bandages. The stones placed at the mouths of sepulchres were large and weighty, designed to defend the bodies laid in the cave within from beasts of prey, and from other intrusion. Hence Matthew says the stone was rolled, indicating the weight, which was done by those who assisted Joseph in carrying away the body and bearing it to the tomb, who were probably his own servants.

Verse 58. Begged the body] That he might bury it honourably otherwise, by the Jewish customs, he would have either been burned, or buried in the common place appointed for executed criminals.

Verse 57-61. When the even was come — That is, when it was past three o’clock; for the time from three to six they termed the first evening: this being Friday, or the day before the sabbath, which began at six o’clock, after which no work could lawfully be done, our Lord’s body must have been applied for and obtained as soon as four, or a little after, otherwise there would not have been time to bury it before the sabbath began. There came a rich man of Arimathea — A city of the Jews, anciently called Ramoth: (Luke says, he was a counsellor; Mark, an honourable counsellor, and a good man and just;) who also himself was Jesus’s disciple — (But secretly, John 19:38,) not having courage openly to profess his faith in him, for fear of the Jews and their rulers. And he also waited for the kingdom of God, Luke 23:51; that is, for the manifestation of the Messiah’s kingdom; and, of consequence, had not consented to the deed of them who condemned Jesus: though a member of the sanhedrim, he had not joined them in their unjust sentence. He had either kept away from the court when they sat on the trial of Jesus, or, if he was present when the sentence was passed, he remonstrated against it. This honourable, just, and pious person went (Mark says, boldly) to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus — Joseph had nothing to fear from the governor, who in the course of the trial had showed the greatest inclination to release Jesus; but he had reason to fear that this action would draw upon him abundance of ill-will from the rulers, who had been at such pains to get Jesus crucified. Nevertheless, the regard he had for his Master overcame all other considerations, and he asked leave to take his body down; because, if no friend had obtained it, it would have been ignominiously cast out among the executed malefactors. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered — Namely, after he had called the centurion to him, and had been assured by him that Jesus was certainly dead, which Pilate had at first doubted. Pilate was probably the more willing to grant the body to Joseph, both because he was thoroughly convinced that Jesus was innocent, and because it was generally thought by the heathen that the spirits of the departed received some advantage from the honours of a funeral paid to their bodies. “In discharging this last duty to his Master, Joseph was assisted (as we learn from John 19:39) by another disciple named Nicodemus, the ruler who formerly came to Jesus by night, for fear of the Jews. But he was not afraid of them now, for he showed a courage superior to that of the apostles, bringing such a quantity of spices along with him as was necessary to the funeral of his Master. These two, therefore, taking down the naked body, wrapped it with the spices in the linen furnished by Joseph. And laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out in the rock — Here we learn that Joseph, though a man of great wealth, and in a high situation of life, lived mindful of his mortality. For he had erected for himself a sepulchre in his garden, John 19:41, the place of his pleasure and retirement, that it might be often in his view, and suggest to him the thoughts of death and eternity. In the description of the sepulchre given by the evangelists, it is particularly remarked, that it was nigh to the place where he was crucified, consequently nigh to Jerusalem. By this circumstance all the cavils are prevented which might otherwise have been occasioned, in case the body had been removed farther off. Moreover, it is observed that the sepulchre was a new one, wherein never any man had been laid. This plainly proves that it could be no other than Jesus who rose out of it, and cuts off all suspicion of his being raised by touching the bones of some prophet buried there, as happened to the corpse which touched the bones of Elisha, 2 Kings 13:21. Further, the evangelists take notice that it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, to show that there was no passage by which the disciples could get into it but the one at which the guards were placed, verse 62, &c., and consequently that it was not in their power to steal away the body while the guards remained there performing their duty. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre — To block up the entrance. The sepulchre, it seems, differed from that of Lazarus, being partly above ground; whereas Lazarus’s being wholly under ground, had a stone laid on the mouth of it, covering the entry of the stair by which they went down to it. The rolling of the stone to the grave’s mouth was with them as filling up the grave is with us; it completed the funeral. Having thus in silence and sorrow deposited the precious body of our Lord Jesus in the house appointed for all living, they departed without any further ceremony. It is the most melancholy circumstance in the funerals of our Christian friends, when we have laid their bodies in the dark and silent grave, to go home and leave them behind; but, it is not we that go home and reave them behind; no, it is they that are gone to the better home, and have left us behind! There was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary — Namely, the mother of James and Joses, verse 56. The mother of Jesus, it appears, was not there, being hindered, probably, by the excess of her sorrow, or, perhaps, she might have been taken to the house of John as to her home, John 19:26, 27. Thus we see the company which attended the funeral was very small and mean. There were none of the relations in mourning to follow the corpse; no formalities to grace the solemnity, but only these two good women, that were true mourners, who, as they had attended him to the cross, so they followed him to the grave, as if they gave themselves up to sorrow; and they sat over against the sepulchre, “not so much,” says Henry, “to fill their eyes with the sight of what was done, as to empty them in rivers of tears:” for true love to Christ will carry us to the utmost in following him: death itself will not, cannot, quench that divine fire.

Ver. 57, 58. When the evening was come, as was the ancient law, Joshua 10:27, Joseph of Arimathea — went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus, the precious grain of wheat, whose resurrection produced a harvest of converts. Joseph buried him in his own new sepulchre, in which, as yet, no corpse had been interred. Nicodemus assisted in all those decencies of haste; for Christ crucified brings the dead to life: and thus without design made the evidences of his resurrection incontestible, by which he was declared to be the Son of God with power. Romans 1:4.

58. Pilate commanded the body to be delivered — It was customary to allow the bodies of deceased criminals to be disposed of by friends, though sometimes wicked rulers exacted money from the friends for the privilege.

Verses 57-60. And when even was come. — The Jews had two evenings, one from three o’clock P.M., or the ninth hour, till sunset, the other from sunset until dark. The evening here mentioned was the second evening. The phrase here used means that this second evening, when the Sabbath began, was at hand, was fast approaching, before which the bodies must be taken down, and, if not dead, despatched by breaking their bones, that they might be buried at the foot of the cross, in the Golgotha on which they were executed. This Joseph, a rich man of Arimathea, or Ramathaim, as the Hebrews named it, the birthplace of Samuel, is said to have been a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, “for fear of the Jews.” He is called “a counsellor,” as being a member of the sanhedrim; but as “a good man and just,” the still more honourable appellations given him by St. Luke, had “not consented to the counsel and deed of them.” His former timidity had probably been removed by the prodigies of our Lord’s death working in him a still stronger conviction that Jesus was the Messiah; and he now avowed himself a friend of Christ by going to Pilate, and begging the body of Jesus for interment. He the more easily prevailed, no doubt, on account of his riches and rank; but hereby was fulfilled another signal prophecy, Isaiah 53:9: “And he made his grave with the wicked, and with THE RICH in his death,” or, as Lowth translates, “And his grave was appointed with the wicked; but with the rich was his tomb:” that is, he was appointed to be buried as well as the malefactors, but with this remarkable distinction, that his tomb should be with the rich man; which was accomplished when Joseph laid him in his own new tomb, “wherein never man was laid.” This tomb was hewn out in the rock: the Jewish sepulchres were frequently caves hollowed out of the rocks with which the country abounded. Joseph’s tomb was near; and the time before the commencement of the Sabbath being short, the body, wrapped in clean linen with a costly mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds’ weight, was hastily deposited in the cave, and a great stone was rolled against the entrance; more complete embalming of the body being reserved until after the Sabbath. In this pious work Nicodemus was also assisting, and thus with Joseph nobly avowed his faith in Christ; and yet neither they nor the women had any idea of his rising again, as appears from the preparations made for a regular embalmment of the body. Was it that they understood all that our Lord had so plainly declared respecting his resurrection in a figurative sense? This is probable; and how and when he, whom they still believed, though put to death, to be the Messiah, was again to manifest himself, they appear to have left to God, without any settled opinion, or perhaps conjecture. One thing was, however, before them, — to show respect to their despised Master; and in this duty they failed not: though their faith was confused and unsettled, yet their love was strong. But the very circumstance of the care of these truly sincere disciples to pay all funeral honours to their Lord, even to embalming, is an incident of great importance in the evidence of the truth of the resurrection; for those who made such anxious preparations for the regular embalming of the body as soon as the Sabbath should be over, and evidently anticipated that he would continue to lie in the grave, could have been no parties to a plot for taking away the body in the night. This is one of those powerful evidences of the veracity of the Gospel which so frequently occur without any design on the part of the writers of these narratives, and so unequivocally stamp them with TRUTH. The linen cloth, sindwn, in which Joseph wrapped the body of Christ, was a square sheet, in which the body was bound up with swathes or bandages. The stones placed at the mouths of sepulchres were large and weighty, designed to defend the bodies laid in the cave within from beasts of prey, and from other intrusion. Hence Matthew says the stone was rolled, indicating the weight, which was done by those who assisted Joseph in carrying away the body and bearing it to the tomb, who were probably his own servants.

Verse 59. Wrapped it in a clean linen cloth] The Jews, as well as the Egyptians, added spices to keep the body from putrefaction, and the linen was wrapped about every part to keep the aromatics in contact with the flesh. From John 19:39, 40, we learn that a mixture of myrrh and aloes of one hundred pounds’ weight had been applied to the body of Jesus when he was buried. And that a second embalmment was intended, we learn from Luke 23:56; 24:1, as the hurry to get the body interred before the Sabbath did not permit them to complete, the embalming in the first instance. See an account of the mode of embalming among the Egyptians, in the note on Genesis 50:2, 26.

Verse 57-61. When the even was come — That is, when it was past three o’clock; for the time from three to six they termed the first evening: this being Friday, or the day before the sabbath, which began at six o’clock, after which no work could lawfully be done, our Lord’s body must have been applied for and obtained as soon as four, or a little after, otherwise there would not have been time to bury it before the sabbath began. There came a rich man of Arimathea — A city of the Jews, anciently called Ramoth: (Luke says, he was a counsellor; Mark, an honourable counsellor, and a good man and just;) who also himself was Jesus’s disciple — (But secretly, John 19:38,) not having courage openly to profess his faith in him, for fear of the Jews and their rulers. And he also waited for the kingdom of God, Luke 23:51; that is, for the manifestation of the Messiah’s kingdom; and, of consequence, had not consented to the deed of them who condemned Jesus: though a member of the sanhedrim, he had not joined them in their unjust sentence. He had either kept away from the court when they sat on the trial of Jesus, or, if he was present when the sentence was passed, he remonstrated against it. This honourable, just, and pious person went (Mark says, boldly) to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus — Joseph had nothing to fear from the governor, who in the course of the trial had showed the greatest inclination to release Jesus; but he had reason to fear that this action would draw upon him abundance of ill-will from the rulers, who had been at such pains to get Jesus crucified. Nevertheless, the regard he had for his Master overcame all other considerations, and he asked leave to take his body down; because, if no friend had obtained it, it would have been ignominiously cast out among the executed malefactors. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered — Namely, after he had called the centurion to him, and had been assured by him that Jesus was certainly dead, which Pilate had at first doubted. Pilate was probably the more willing to grant the body to Joseph, both because he was thoroughly convinced that Jesus was innocent, and because it was generally thought by the heathen that the spirits of the departed received some advantage from the honours of a funeral paid to their bodies. “In discharging this last duty to his Master, Joseph was assisted (as we learn from John 19:39) by another disciple named Nicodemus, the ruler who formerly came to Jesus by night, for fear of the Jews. But he was not afraid of them now, for he showed a courage superior to that of the apostles, bringing such a quantity of spices along with him as was necessary to the funeral of his Master. These two, therefore, taking down the naked body, wrapped it with the spices in the linen furnished by Joseph. And laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out in the rock — Here we learn that Joseph, though a man of great wealth, and in a high situation of life, lived mindful of his mortality. For he had erected for himself a sepulchre in his garden, John 19:41, the place of his pleasure and retirement, that it might be often in his view, and suggest to him the thoughts of death and eternity. In the description of the sepulchre given by the evangelists, it is particularly remarked, that it was nigh to the place where he was crucified, consequently nigh to Jerusalem. By this circumstance all the cavils are prevented which might otherwise have been occasioned, in case the body had been removed farther off. Moreover, it is observed that the sepulchre was a new one, wherein never any man had been laid. This plainly proves that it could be no other than Jesus who rose out of it, and cuts off all suspicion of his being raised by touching the bones of some prophet buried there, as happened to the corpse which touched the bones of Elisha, 2 Kings 13:21. Further, the evangelists take notice that it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, to show that there was no passage by which the disciples could get into it but the one at which the guards were placed, verse 62, &c., and consequently that it was not in their power to steal away the body while the guards remained there performing their duty. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre — To block up the entrance. The sepulchre, it seems, differed from that of Lazarus, being partly above ground; whereas Lazarus’s being wholly under ground, had a stone laid on the mouth of it, covering the entry of the stair by which they went down to it. The rolling of the stone to the grave’s mouth was with them as filling up the grave is with us; it completed the funeral. Having thus in silence and sorrow deposited the precious body of our Lord Jesus in the house appointed for all living, they departed without any further ceremony. It is the most melancholy circumstance in the funerals of our Christian friends, when we have laid their bodies in the dark and silent grave, to go home and leave them behind; but, it is not we that go home and reave them behind; no, it is they that are gone to the better home, and have left us behind! There was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary — Namely, the mother of James and Joses, verse 56. The mother of Jesus, it appears, was not there, being hindered, probably, by the excess of her sorrow, or, perhaps, she might have been taken to the house of John as to her home, John 19:26, 27. Thus we see the company which attended the funeral was very small and mean. There were none of the relations in mourning to follow the corpse; no formalities to grace the solemnity, but only these two good women, that were true mourners, who, as they had attended him to the cross, so they followed him to the grave, as if they gave themselves up to sorrow; and they sat over against the sepulchre, “not so much,” says Henry, “to fill their eyes with the sight of what was done, as to empty them in rivers of tears:” for true love to Christ will carry us to the utmost in following him: death itself will not, cannot, quench that divine fire.

59. A clean linen cloth — A large square shroud, or sheet. Nicodemus came also, as John (John 19:39) tells us, and brought the liberal amount of a hundred pounds of spices to embalm the sacred body. The sindon, or clean linen winding-sheet, was wrapped several times round him, the spices being placed in the first fold so as to bring them in contact with the body. It is well remarked by Olshausen, that a sacred providence seems to watch over the body of our Lord. Christianity does not contemn the corporeal frame in the which the soul resides. Prophecy also had foretold of his body, that not a bone should be broken; and the victims of sacrifice, which typified his body under the old dispensation, must be without bodily blemish.

Verses 57-60. And when even was come. — The Jews had two evenings, one from three o’clock P.M., or the ninth hour, till sunset, the other from sunset until dark. The evening here mentioned was the second evening. The phrase here used means that this second evening, when the Sabbath began, was at hand, was fast approaching, before which the bodies must be taken down, and, if not dead, despatched by breaking their bones, that they might be buried at the foot of the cross, in the Golgotha on which they were executed. This Joseph, a rich man of Arimathea, or Ramathaim, as the Hebrews named it, the birthplace of Samuel, is said to have been a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, “for fear of the Jews.” He is called “a counsellor,” as being a member of the sanhedrim; but as “a good man and just,” the still more honourable appellations given him by St. Luke, had “not consented to the counsel and deed of them.” His former timidity had probably been removed by the prodigies of our Lord’s death working in him a still stronger conviction that Jesus was the Messiah; and he now avowed himself a friend of Christ by going to Pilate, and begging the body of Jesus for interment. He the more easily prevailed, no doubt, on account of his riches and rank; but hereby was fulfilled another signal prophecy, Isaiah 53:9: “And he made his grave with the wicked, and with THE RICH in his death,” or, as Lowth translates, “And his grave was appointed with the wicked; but with the rich was his tomb:” that is, he was appointed to be buried as well as the malefactors, but with this remarkable distinction, that his tomb should be with the rich man; which was accomplished when Joseph laid him in his own new tomb, “wherein never man was laid.” This tomb was hewn out in the rock: the Jewish sepulchres were frequently caves hollowed out of the rocks with which the country abounded. Joseph’s tomb was near; and the time before the commencement of the Sabbath being short, the body, wrapped in clean linen with a costly mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds’ weight, was hastily deposited in the cave, and a great stone was rolled against the entrance; more complete embalming of the body being reserved until after the Sabbath. In this pious work Nicodemus was also assisting, and thus with Joseph nobly avowed his faith in Christ; and yet neither they nor the women had any idea of his rising again, as appears from the preparations made for a regular embalmment of the body. Was it that they understood all that our Lord had so plainly declared respecting his resurrection in a figurative sense? This is probable; and how and when he, whom they still believed, though put to death, to be the Messiah, was again to manifest himself, they appear to have left to God, without any settled opinion, or perhaps conjecture. One thing was, however, before them, — to show respect to their despised Master; and in this duty they failed not: though their faith was confused and unsettled, yet their love was strong. But the very circumstance of the care of these truly sincere disciples to pay all funeral honours to their Lord, even to embalming, is an incident of great importance in the evidence of the truth of the resurrection; for those who made such anxious preparations for the regular embalming of the body as soon as the Sabbath should be over, and evidently anticipated that he would continue to lie in the grave, could have been no parties to a plot for taking away the body in the night. This is one of those powerful evidences of the veracity of the Gospel which so frequently occur without any design on the part of the writers of these narratives, and so unequivocally stamp them with TRUTH. The linen cloth, sindwn, in which Joseph wrapped the body of Christ, was a square sheet, in which the body was bound up with swathes or bandages. The stones placed at the mouths of sepulchres were large and weighty, designed to defend the bodies laid in the cave within from beasts of prey, and from other intrusion. Hence Matthew says the stone was rolled, indicating the weight, which was done by those who assisted Joseph in carrying away the body and bearing it to the tomb, who were probably his own servants.

Verse 60. Laid it in his own new tomb] To all human appearance the body of Christ must have had the same burial-place with those of the two robbers, as he was numbered with the transgressors, and suffered with them; for then he was a sacrifice, bearing the sin of the world in his own body on the tree; but now the sacrifice is offered, the atonement made and accepted, he is no longer to be enrolled with the transgressors, and, according to a prophecy delivered nearly seven hundred years before that time, he is to have the burying-place of a rich man. See Isaiah 53:9,

10. Had our Lord been buried in the common burial-ground of the malefactors, his resurrection could not have been so distinctly remarked, as the chief priests would never have thought of sealing the stone there, or setting a watch; but now that the body is got into the hands of a friend, they judge it necessary to make use of these precautions, in order, as they said, to prevent imposture; and from this very circumstance the resurrection of Christ had its fullest evidence, and was put beyond the power of successful contradiction. What a number of objections would not human prudence have made to Joseph’s conduct, had he consulted it on this occasion! It would have represented to him that, “this was to expose himself, to bring himself into trouble, to render himself suspected, to put himself out of all capacity of doing good, to ruin himself irrecoverably; and now it could do no good to his teacher-he is now dead, and needs no longer any office of kindness from men.” There is, sometimes in our whole life, but one opportunity in which God designs signally to employ us; and, through our general backwardness to every good work, we are for reserving ourselves to other opportunities, in which God neither requires nor will accept our services.

Rolled a great stone to the door] Some are of opinion that this tomb was cut down into the rock, perpendicularly from the surface; and that the great stone spoken of here covered over the entrance to it. The stone, no doubt, was intended to secure the place as much as possible.

Verse 57-61. When the even was come — That is, when it was past three o’clock; for the time from three to six they termed the first evening: this being Friday, or the day before the sabbath, which began at six o’clock, after which no work could lawfully be done, our Lord’s body must have been applied for and obtained as soon as four, or a little after, otherwise there would not have been time to bury it before the sabbath began. There came a rich man of Arimathea — A city of the Jews, anciently called Ramoth: (Luke says, he was a counsellor; Mark, an honourable counsellor, and a good man and just;) who also himself was Jesus’s disciple — (But secretly, John 19:38,) not having courage openly to profess his faith in him, for fear of the Jews and their rulers. And he also waited for the kingdom of God, Luke 23:51; that is, for the manifestation of the Messiah’s kingdom; and, of consequence, had not consented to the deed of them who condemned Jesus: though a member of the sanhedrim, he had not joined them in their unjust sentence. He had either kept away from the court when they sat on the trial of Jesus, or, if he was present when the sentence was passed, he remonstrated against it. This honourable, just, and pious person went (Mark says, boldly) to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus — Joseph had nothing to fear from the governor, who in the course of the trial had showed the greatest inclination to release Jesus; but he had reason to fear that this action would draw upon him abundance of ill-will from the rulers, who had been at such pains to get Jesus crucified. Nevertheless, the regard he had for his Master overcame all other considerations, and he asked leave to take his body down; because, if no friend had obtained it, it would have been ignominiously cast out among the executed malefactors. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered — Namely, after he had called the centurion to him, and had been assured by him that Jesus was certainly dead, which Pilate had at first doubted. Pilate was probably the more willing to grant the body to Joseph, both because he was thoroughly convinced that Jesus was innocent, and because it was generally thought by the heathen that the spirits of the departed received some advantage from the honours of a funeral paid to their bodies. “In discharging this last duty to his Master, Joseph was assisted (as we learn from John 19:39) by another disciple named Nicodemus, the ruler who formerly came to Jesus by night, for fear of the Jews. But he was not afraid of them now, for he showed a courage superior to that of the apostles, bringing such a quantity of spices along with him as was necessary to the funeral of his Master. These two, therefore, taking down the naked body, wrapped it with the spices in the linen furnished by Joseph. And laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out in the rock — Here we learn that Joseph, though a man of great wealth, and in a high situation of life, lived mindful of his mortality. For he had erected for himself a sepulchre in his garden, John 19:41, the place of his pleasure and retirement, that it might be often in his view, and suggest to him the thoughts of death and eternity. In the description of the sepulchre given by the evangelists, it is particularly remarked, that it was nigh to the place where he was crucified, consequently nigh to Jerusalem. By this circumstance all the cavils are prevented which might otherwise have been occasioned, in case the body had been removed farther off. Moreover, it is observed that the sepulchre was a new one, wherein never any man had been laid. This plainly proves that it could be no other than Jesus who rose out of it, and cuts off all suspicion of his being raised by touching the bones of some prophet buried there, as happened to the corpse which touched the bones of Elisha, 2 Kings 13:21. Further, the evangelists take notice that it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, to show that there was no passage by which the disciples could get into it but the one at which the guards were placed, verse 62, &c., and consequently that it was not in their power to steal away the body while the guards remained there performing their duty. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre — To block up the entrance. The sepulchre, it seems, differed from that of Lazarus, being partly above ground; whereas Lazarus’s being wholly under ground, had a stone laid on the mouth of it, covering the entry of the stair by which they went down to it. The rolling of the stone to the grave’s mouth was with them as filling up the grave is with us; it completed the funeral. Having thus in silence and sorrow deposited the precious body of our Lord Jesus in the house appointed for all living, they departed without any further ceremony. It is the most melancholy circumstance in the funerals of our Christian friends, when we have laid their bodies in the dark and silent grave, to go home and leave them behind; but, it is not we that go home and reave them behind; no, it is they that are gone to the better home, and have left us behind! There was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary — Namely, the mother of James and Joses, verse 56. The mother of Jesus, it appears, was not there, being hindered, probably, by the excess of her sorrow, or, perhaps, she might have been taken to the house of John as to her home, John 19:26, 27. Thus we see the company which attended the funeral was very small and mean. There were none of the relations in mourning to follow the corpse; no formalities to grace the solemnity, but only these two good women, that were true mourners, who, as they had attended him to the cross, so they followed him to the grave, as if they gave themselves up to sorrow; and they sat over against the sepulchre, “not so much,” says Henry, “to fill their eyes with the sight of what was done, as to empty them in rivers of tears:” for true love to Christ will carry us to the utmost in following him: death itself will not, cannot, quench that divine fire.

60. Own new tomb — Probably the new-made vault for his own family. Its first service is consecrated to the Lord. The sepulchre, John tells us, was in a garden, which probably belonged to Joseph. The interment of our Saviour here was probably a temporary arrangement, provided hastily on account of the approaching Sabbath. But Joseph’s love was never called upon for further provision. He had the honour of providing the sleeping abode of his Master. Such an interment, and such a hospitality in this, the rocky bed of his own future repose, Joseph could well afford; for his blessed guest would there repose but two brief nights, and would then awake and fly. And in return, when this world’s millennial Sabbath is past, the guest will awake that host from his own repose, that he too may take his undying flight. Hewn out in the rock — We must figure to ourselves a large room cut horizontally into the solid rock for a vault. In this room we enter, from the open air, by a large door. On entering you would see small, long cells, or niches, cut into the solid adamantine sides, as depositories of the corpses: or from this first main room you may enter one or several smaller apartments, in whose walls the niches for corpses are cut. A person could enter into the first main vault, and then into either of the small apartments. See note on Matthew 28:6. Rolled a great stone — The stone probably was flat, and rolled by successive overthrows. And departed — Either to Arimathea or to his dwelling-place in Jerusalem.

Verses 57-60. And when even was come. — The Jews had two evenings, one from three o’clock P.M., or the ninth hour, till sunset, the other from sunset until dark. The evening here mentioned was the second evening. The phrase here used means that this second evening, when the Sabbath began, was at hand, was fast approaching, before which the bodies must be taken down, and, if not dead, despatched by breaking their bones, that they might be buried at the foot of the cross, in the Golgotha on which they were executed. This Joseph, a rich man of Arimathea, or Ramathaim, as the Hebrews named it, the birthplace of Samuel, is said to have been a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, “for fear of the Jews.” He is called “a counsellor,” as being a member of the sanhedrim; but as “a good man and just,” the still more honourable appellations given him by St. Luke, had “not consented to the counsel and deed of them.” His former timidity had probably been removed by the prodigies of our Lord’s death working in him a still stronger conviction that Jesus was the Messiah; and he now avowed himself a friend of Christ by going to Pilate, and begging the body of Jesus for interment. He the more easily prevailed, no doubt, on account of his riches and rank; but hereby was fulfilled another signal prophecy, Isaiah 53:9: “And he made his grave with the wicked, and with THE RICH in his death,” or, as Lowth translates, “And his grave was appointed with the wicked; but with the rich was his tomb:” that is, he was appointed to be buried as well as the malefactors, but with this remarkable distinction, that his tomb should be with the rich man; which was accomplished when Joseph laid him in his own new tomb, “wherein never man was laid.” This tomb was hewn out in the rock: the Jewish sepulchres were frequently caves hollowed out of the rocks with which the country abounded. Joseph’s tomb was near; and the time before the commencement of the Sabbath being short, the body, wrapped in clean linen with a costly mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds’ weight, was hastily deposited in the cave, and a great stone was rolled against the entrance; more complete embalming of the body being reserved until after the Sabbath. In this pious work Nicodemus was also assisting, and thus with Joseph nobly avowed his faith in Christ; and yet neither they nor the women had any idea of his rising again, as appears from the preparations made for a regular embalmment of the body. Was it that they understood all that our Lord had so plainly declared respecting his resurrection in a figurative sense? This is probable; and how and when he, whom they still believed, though put to death, to be the Messiah, was again to manifest himself, they appear to have left to God, without any settled opinion, or perhaps conjecture. One thing was, however, before them, — to show respect to their despised Master; and in this duty they failed not: though their faith was confused and unsettled, yet their love was strong. But the very circumstance of the care of these truly sincere disciples to pay all funeral honours to their Lord, even to embalming, is an incident of great importance in the evidence of the truth of the resurrection; for those who made such anxious preparations for the regular embalming of the body as soon as the Sabbath should be over, and evidently anticipated that he would continue to lie in the grave, could have been no parties to a plot for taking away the body in the night. This is one of those powerful evidences of the veracity of the Gospel which so frequently occur without any design on the part of the writers of these narratives, and so unequivocally stamp them with TRUTH. The linen cloth, sindwn, in which Joseph wrapped the body of Christ, was a square sheet, in which the body was bound up with swathes or bandages. The stones placed at the mouths of sepulchres were large and weighty, designed to defend the bodies laid in the cave within from beasts of prey, and from other intrusion. Hence Matthew says the stone was rolled, indicating the weight, which was done by those who assisted Joseph in carrying away the body and bearing it to the tomb, who were probably his own servants.

Verse 61. Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary] The mother of James and Joses, Matthew 27:56. The mother of our Lord had probably, by this time, been taken home to the house of John. See John 19:26, 27. Sitting over against the sepulchre.] These holy women, filled with that love to their Lord which death cannot destroy, cleaved to him in life, and in death were not divided. They came to the grave to see the end, and overwhelmed with sorrow and anguish, sat down to mourn.

Verse 57-61. When the even was come — That is, when it was past three o’clock; for the time from three to six they termed the first evening: this being Friday, or the day before the sabbath, which began at six o’clock, after which no work could lawfully be done, our Lord’s body must have been applied for and obtained as soon as four, or a little after, otherwise there would not have been time to bury it before the sabbath began. There came a rich man of Arimathea — A city of the Jews, anciently called Ramoth: (Luke says, he was a counsellor; Mark, an honourable counsellor, and a good man and just;) who also himself was Jesus’s disciple — (But secretly, John 19:38,) not having courage openly to profess his faith in him, for fear of the Jews and their rulers. And he also waited for the kingdom of God, Luke 23:51; that is, for the manifestation of the Messiah’s kingdom; and, of consequence, had not consented to the deed of them who condemned Jesus: though a member of the sanhedrim, he had not joined them in their unjust sentence. He had either kept away from the court when they sat on the trial of Jesus, or, if he was present when the sentence was passed, he remonstrated against it. This honourable, just, and pious person went (Mark says, boldly) to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus — Joseph had nothing to fear from the governor, who in the course of the trial had showed the greatest inclination to release Jesus; but he had reason to fear that this action would draw upon him abundance of ill-will from the rulers, who had been at such pains to get Jesus crucified. Nevertheless, the regard he had for his Master overcame all other considerations, and he asked leave to take his body down; because, if no friend had obtained it, it would have been ignominiously cast out among the executed malefactors. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered — Namely, after he had called the centurion to him, and had been assured by him that Jesus was certainly dead, which Pilate had at first doubted. Pilate was probably the more willing to grant the body to Joseph, both because he was thoroughly convinced that Jesus was innocent, and because it was generally thought by the heathen that the spirits of the departed received some advantage from the honours of a funeral paid to their bodies. “In discharging this last duty to his Master, Joseph was assisted (as we learn from John 19:39) by another disciple named Nicodemus, the ruler who formerly came to Jesus by night, for fear of the Jews. But he was not afraid of them now, for he showed a courage superior to that of the apostles, bringing such a quantity of spices along with him as was necessary to the funeral of his Master. These two, therefore, taking down the naked body, wrapped it with the spices in the linen furnished by Joseph. And laid it in his own new tomb, hewn out in the rock — Here we learn that Joseph, though a man of great wealth, and in a high situation of life, lived mindful of his mortality. For he had erected for himself a sepulchre in his garden, John 19:41, the place of his pleasure and retirement, that it might be often in his view, and suggest to him the thoughts of death and eternity. In the description of the sepulchre given by the evangelists, it is particularly remarked, that it was nigh to the place where he was crucified, consequently nigh to Jerusalem. By this circumstance all the cavils are prevented which might otherwise have been occasioned, in case the body had been removed farther off. Moreover, it is observed that the sepulchre was a new one, wherein never any man had been laid. This plainly proves that it could be no other than Jesus who rose out of it, and cuts off all suspicion of his being raised by touching the bones of some prophet buried there, as happened to the corpse which touched the bones of Elisha, 2 Kings 13:21. Further, the evangelists take notice that it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, to show that there was no passage by which the disciples could get into it but the one at which the guards were placed, verse 62, &c., and consequently that it was not in their power to steal away the body while the guards remained there performing their duty. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre — To block up the entrance. The sepulchre, it seems, differed from that of Lazarus, being partly above ground; whereas Lazarus’s being wholly under ground, had a stone laid on the mouth of it, covering the entry of the stair by which they went down to it. The rolling of the stone to the grave’s mouth was with them as filling up the grave is with us; it completed the funeral. Having thus in silence and sorrow deposited the precious body of our Lord Jesus in the house appointed for all living, they departed without any further ceremony. It is the most melancholy circumstance in the funerals of our Christian friends, when we have laid their bodies in the dark and silent grave, to go home and leave them behind; but, it is not we that go home and reave them behind; no, it is they that are gone to the better home, and have left us behind! There was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary — Namely, the mother of James and Joses, verse 56. The mother of Jesus, it appears, was not there, being hindered, probably, by the excess of her sorrow, or, perhaps, she might have been taken to the house of John as to her home, John 19:26, 27. Thus we see the company which attended the funeral was very small and mean. There were none of the relations in mourning to follow the corpse; no formalities to grace the solemnity, but only these two good women, that were true mourners, who, as they had attended him to the cross, so they followed him to the grave, as if they gave themselves up to sorrow; and they sat over against the sepulchre, “not so much,” says Henry, “to fill their eyes with the sight of what was done, as to empty them in rivers of tears:” for true love to Christ will carry us to the utmost in following him: death itself will not, cannot, quench that divine fire.

61. Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting — After Joseph and all others are gone, they may be seen sitting. Their heads are bowed with grief and their eyes are fixed on the tomb. Until the sun falls and the Sabbath shades are upon them, their motionless forms might be descried drooping, yet fixed, as if statues hewn out from the same rock as the sepulchre they watched.

Saturday, the Sabbath Eve.

Verse 61. Sitting over against the sepulchre. — Sitting was the posture of mourners; and in this character these pious women attended the interment. In this again they professed their belief in his innocence; for the Jews are forbidden to show any external marks of mourning at the burial of malefactors. They might “grieve in the heart,” but not “mourn.” That the women retired immediately after the interment, appears from their going into the city to provide the spices for the proper embalming of the body; for sunset, when the Sabbath commenced, was just at hand.

V. 62. On the morrow, the day that followed the day of the preparation-The day of preparation was the day before the Sabbath, whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day then was the Sabbath according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution, to show the Jewish Sabbath was then abolished.

Verse 62. The next day] This was the seventh, or Saturday, and might be what we should term the evening of the sixth, or Friday, because the Jews always ended their day when the sun set, and then began the next. That followed the day of the preparation] That is, of the Sabbath. The victuals, &c., which were to be used on the Sabbath by the Jews, were always prepared the preceding evening before the sun set. It is of this preparation that the evangelist speaks here; and it is the same which is mentioned by Mark, Mark 15:42; by Luke, Luke 23:54; and by John, John 19:31. But there was another preparation which happened in the same day: viz. The preparation of the passover; this began about twelve o’clock, and continued till four, the time in which they ate the paschal lamb. See John 19:14.

Verses 62-66. Now the next day; the day that followed the day of the preparation — That is, after the sun was set, for the Jewish day began then. The day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day, then, (namely, Saturday,) was the sabbath, according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution, to show that the Jewish sabbath was then abolished. The chief priests, &c., came together unto Pilate — The chief priests and Pharisees, remembering that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection more than once, came to the governor and informed him of it begging that a guard might be ordered to the sepulchre, lest the disciples should carry his body away and affirm that he was risen from the dead. But they took this measure not on the morrow, in our sense of the word, but in the evening, after sunsetting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried. To have delayed it to sunrising would have been preposterous, as the disciples might have stolen the body away during the preceding night. Besides, there is no inconsistency between this account of the time when the watch was placed and the subsequent articles of the history, which proceed upon the supposition that the women present at our Lord’s funeral were ignorant that any watch was placed at his grave. For they departed so early, that they had time to buy spices and ointments in the city before the preparation of the sabbath was ended; whereas the watch was not placed till the sabbath began. Saying, Sir — Thus the word Kurie is here very properly rendered, as in many other places it is as improperly translated lord. It should certainly always be translated sir, when no more than civil respect is intended. We remember that deceiver said, After three days — Or, as meta treiv hmerav may be properly rendered, within three days, I will rise again — We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless when he spoke of the temple of his body, (John 2:19, 21.) And if they here refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction on these words, when he was on his trial before the council! Matthew 26:61. Then they seemed not to understand them! Perhaps, however, they may refer to what he said (when the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign of him) respecting the Prophet Jonas, namely, that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, the Son of man should be so long in the heart of the earth. Or, on some occasion not mentioned by the evangelists, our Lord may have made a public declaration of his resurrection in the very terms here set down. But, in whatever way they came to the knowledge of it, certain it is that the chief priests and Pharisees were well acquainted with our Lord’s predictions concerning it; and hence the precaution and care which they used in guarding the sepulchre, all which was overruled by the providence of God to give the strongest proofs of Christ’s ensuing resurrection. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure — This, as being a servile work, it might be thought they would not ask to be done on the sabbath. But we must observe, that they asked this of Romans, whom they did not consider as bound by the law of the sabbath. Jews to this day do not scruple to avail themselves of the work done by Christians on the Jewish sabbath. Pilate said, Ye have a guard — “Pilate, thinking their request reasonable, allowed them to take as many soldiers as they pleased of the cohort which, at the feast, came from the castle Antonia, and kept guard in the porticoes of the temple. For that they were not Jewish but Roman soldiers whom the priests employed to watch the sepulchre, is evident from their asking them of the governor. Besides, when the soldiers returned with the news of Christ’s resurrection, the priests desired them to report that his disciples had stolen him away while they slept; and, to encourage them to tell the falsehood boldly, promised, that if their neglect of duty came to the governor’s ears, proper means should be used to pacify him and keep them safe; a promise which there was no need of making to their own servants.” — Macknight. So they went — The priests and Pharisees having got a party of soldiers, placed them in their post, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone — To hinder the guards from combining in carrying on any fraud. See Daniel 6:17: where we learn that a precaution of the like kind was made use of in the case of Daniel shut up in the lions’ den. “Thus, while the priests cautiously proposed to prevent our Lord’s resurrection from being palmed upon the world, resolving no doubt to show his body publicly after the third day, as a proof that he was an impostor, they put the truth of his resurrection beyond all question; for, besides that there could be no room for the least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found that his body was raised out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a seal, and a guard of soldiers; by appointing this guard, they furnished a number of unexceptionable witnesses to it, whose testimony they themselves could not refuse. See Matthew 28:11.” “The chief priests and Pharisees,” says Bishop Porteus, “having taken these precautions, waited probably with no small impatience for the third day after the crucifixion — when they made no doubt they should find the body in the sepulchre, and convict Jesus of deceit and imposture.”

§ 143. — TRANSACTIONS THE DAY AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION, 62-66.

62. The next day — This began the moment the sun disappeared; it being the eve introducing the Saturday-Sabbath. The day of the preparation — As Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, so Friday, the day of the crucifixion, was the day of preparation, that is, for the Sabbath. The preparation of the Jews began strictly at three o’clock in the afternoon; but the name preparation was popularly applied to the whole day. It is a palpable mistake that some commentators have made, that the watch was not set until the next morning, or after. This would have allowed full time for the commission of the theft of the body. The next day came on at sunset; and the watch of the two Marys had not long ceased when that of the soldiers commenced. Chief priests and Pharisees — A part probably of the Sanhedrim.

Verse 62. The next day that followed the preparation, &c. — The preparation was the day before the Sabbath, so called because they prepared every thing requisite for the Sabbath. It was sometimes called prosabbaton. The next day was therefore the Sabbath itself; not the following morning, as we should say, but immediately after six o’clock the same evening, when the Sabbath commenced. A night did not elapse, as might appear from our mode of computing time, before the chief priests and Pharisees came to Pilate to urge him to set a guard upon the tomb, for then it would have been left many hours unguarded; but as our Lord was buried just on the eve of the commencement of the Sabbath, that is, close upon six o’clock in the evening of Friday, they would go almost immediately to Pilate, before the darkness had set in, which would have been favourable to the removal of the body. They intruded indeed somewhat upon the Sabbath, which had commenced before they reached Pilate; but though they might not employ themselves in any business on the Sabbath, they made no scruple of requiring the Romans to do so, or they might conclude that the importance of the case created a lawful necessity.

V. 63. That impostor said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again-We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless when he spoke of the temple of his body, John 2:19, 21. And if they here refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction on these words, when he was on his trial before the council? Matthew 26:61. Then they seemed not to understand them!

Verse 63. Sir, we remember, &c.] While these wicked men are fulfilling their own vicious counsels, they are subserving the great cause of Christianity. Every thing depended on the resurrection of Christ; if it did not appear that he rose from the dead, then the whole system was false, and no atonement was made. It was necessary therefore that the chief priests, &c., should make use of every precaution to prevent an imposture, that the resurrection of Christ might have the fullest evidence to support it. See Clarke on “Matthew 27:60”.

The word kurie is here very properly translated sir, which, in many other places, is as improperly translated Lord. When a Roman is the speaker, or the person addressed, kurie should always be translated sir; when strangers address our Lord, the word is a title of civil respect, and should, in general, be translated in the same way.

After three days I will rise again.] This they probably took from his saying, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up. If so, they destroyed, by their own words, the false accusation they brought against him to put him to death; then they perverted the meaning, now they declare it. Thus the wise are taken in their own craftiness. Neither the devil nor his servants ever speak truth, but when they expect to accomplish some bad purpose by it.

Verses 62-66. Now the next day; the day that followed the day of the preparation — That is, after the sun was set, for the Jewish day began then. The day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day, then, (namely, Saturday,) was the sabbath, according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution, to show that the Jewish sabbath was then abolished. The chief priests, &c., came together unto Pilate — The chief priests and Pharisees, remembering that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection more than once, came to the governor and informed him of it begging that a guard might be ordered to the sepulchre, lest the disciples should carry his body away and affirm that he was risen from the dead. But they took this measure not on the morrow, in our sense of the word, but in the evening, after sunsetting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried. To have delayed it to sunrising would have been preposterous, as the disciples might have stolen the body away during the preceding night. Besides, there is no inconsistency between this account of the time when the watch was placed and the subsequent articles of the history, which proceed upon the supposition that the women present at our Lord’s funeral were ignorant that any watch was placed at his grave. For they departed so early, that they had time to buy spices and ointments in the city before the preparation of the sabbath was ended; whereas the watch was not placed till the sabbath began. Saying, Sir — Thus the word Kurie is here very properly rendered, as in many other places it is as improperly translated lord. It should certainly always be translated sir, when no more than civil respect is intended. We remember that deceiver said, After three days — Or, as meta treiv hmerav may be properly rendered, within three days, I will rise again — We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless when he spoke of the temple of his body, (John 2:19, 21.) And if they here refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction on these words, when he was on his trial before the council! Matthew 26:61. Then they seemed not to understand them! Perhaps, however, they may refer to what he said (when the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign of him) respecting the Prophet Jonas, namely, that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, the Son of man should be so long in the heart of the earth. Or, on some occasion not mentioned by the evangelists, our Lord may have made a public declaration of his resurrection in the very terms here set down. But, in whatever way they came to the knowledge of it, certain it is that the chief priests and Pharisees were well acquainted with our Lord’s predictions concerning it; and hence the precaution and care which they used in guarding the sepulchre, all which was overruled by the providence of God to give the strongest proofs of Christ’s ensuing resurrection. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure — This, as being a servile work, it might be thought they would not ask to be done on the sabbath. But we must observe, that they asked this of Romans, whom they did not consider as bound by the law of the sabbath. Jews to this day do not scruple to avail themselves of the work done by Christians on the Jewish sabbath. Pilate said, Ye have a guard — “Pilate, thinking their request reasonable, allowed them to take as many soldiers as they pleased of the cohort which, at the feast, came from the castle Antonia, and kept guard in the porticoes of the temple. For that they were not Jewish but Roman soldiers whom the priests employed to watch the sepulchre, is evident from their asking them of the governor. Besides, when the soldiers returned with the news of Christ’s resurrection, the priests desired them to report that his disciples had stolen him away while they slept; and, to encourage them to tell the falsehood boldly, promised, that if their neglect of duty came to the governor’s ears, proper means should be used to pacify him and keep them safe; a promise which there was no need of making to their own servants.” — Macknight. So they went — The priests and Pharisees having got a party of soldiers, placed them in their post, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone — To hinder the guards from combining in carrying on any fraud. See Daniel 6:17: where we learn that a precaution of the like kind was made use of in the case of Daniel shut up in the lions’ den. “Thus, while the priests cautiously proposed to prevent our Lord’s resurrection from being palmed upon the world, resolving no doubt to show his body publicly after the third day, as a proof that he was an impostor, they put the truth of his resurrection beyond all question; for, besides that there could be no room for the least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found that his body was raised out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a seal, and a guard of soldiers; by appointing this guard, they furnished a number of unexceptionable witnesses to it, whose testimony they themselves could not refuse. See Matthew 28:11.” “The chief priests and Pharisees,” says Bishop Porteus, “having taken these precautions, waited probably with no small impatience for the third day after the crucifixion — when they made no doubt they should find the body in the sepulchre, and convict Jesus of deceit and imposture.”

63. We remember — It seems strange that these men should remember a prophecy of our Lord which his own disciples seemed to forget. But the disciples did not forget that our Lord made this prophecy. They were only doubtful as to its true meaning, and so practically allowed it no meaning at all. It required high faith in them to believe that he would rise on the third day; but it required little faith for these men to believe that Jesus had made this prophecy, and that his disciples might try by deception to render it apparently fulfilled. Deceiver — Literally, strolling juggler.

Verse 63. That deceiver. — The word is highly opprobrious, and signifies an impostor and vagabond.

After three days I will rise again. — Our Lord does not appear to have explicitly conversed with any but his disciples on the subject of his resurrection; so that the chief priests probably concluded that he had professed that he would rise again after three days, that is, according to the Jewish mode of speaking, on the third day, verse 64, from his having publicly said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days will I raise it up again;” and thus these base hypocrites showed that they well enough knew that in these word she did not threaten the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, the interpretation which they forced upon them at his trial.

Verse 64. Lest his disciples come by night] Nuktov, by night, is wanting in ten of the uncial MSS., and in several others, and in most of the versions. Erasmus, Aldus, Bengel, and Boghard, with Griesbach, leave it out of the text.

Verses 62-66. Now the next day; the day that followed the day of the preparation — That is, after the sun was set, for the Jewish day began then. The day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day, then, (namely, Saturday,) was the sabbath, according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution, to show that the Jewish sabbath was then abolished. The chief priests, &c., came together unto Pilate — The chief priests and Pharisees, remembering that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection more than once, came to the governor and informed him of it begging that a guard might be ordered to the sepulchre, lest the disciples should carry his body away and affirm that he was risen from the dead. But they took this measure not on the morrow, in our sense of the word, but in the evening, after sunsetting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried. To have delayed it to sunrising would have been preposterous, as the disciples might have stolen the body away during the preceding night. Besides, there is no inconsistency between this account of the time when the watch was placed and the subsequent articles of the history, which proceed upon the supposition that the women present at our Lord’s funeral were ignorant that any watch was placed at his grave. For they departed so early, that they had time to buy spices and ointments in the city before the preparation of the sabbath was ended; whereas the watch was not placed till the sabbath began. Saying, Sir — Thus the word Kurie is here very properly rendered, as in many other places it is as improperly translated lord. It should certainly always be translated sir, when no more than civil respect is intended. We remember that deceiver said, After three days — Or, as meta treiv hmerav may be properly rendered, within three days, I will rise again — We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless when he spoke of the temple of his body, (John 2:19, 21.) And if they here refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction on these words, when he was on his trial before the council! Matthew 26:61. Then they seemed not to understand them! Perhaps, however, they may refer to what he said (when the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign of him) respecting the Prophet Jonas, namely, that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, the Son of man should be so long in the heart of the earth. Or, on some occasion not mentioned by the evangelists, our Lord may have made a public declaration of his resurrection in the very terms here set down. But, in whatever way they came to the knowledge of it, certain it is that the chief priests and Pharisees were well acquainted with our Lord’s predictions concerning it; and hence the precaution and care which they used in guarding the sepulchre, all which was overruled by the providence of God to give the strongest proofs of Christ’s ensuing resurrection. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure — This, as being a servile work, it might be thought they would not ask to be done on the sabbath. But we must observe, that they asked this of Romans, whom they did not consider as bound by the law of the sabbath. Jews to this day do not scruple to avail themselves of the work done by Christians on the Jewish sabbath. Pilate said, Ye have a guard — “Pilate, thinking their request reasonable, allowed them to take as many soldiers as they pleased of the cohort which, at the feast, came from the castle Antonia, and kept guard in the porticoes of the temple. For that they were not Jewish but Roman soldiers whom the priests employed to watch the sepulchre, is evident from their asking them of the governor. Besides, when the soldiers returned with the news of Christ’s resurrection, the priests desired them to report that his disciples had stolen him away while they slept; and, to encourage them to tell the falsehood boldly, promised, that if their neglect of duty came to the governor’s ears, proper means should be used to pacify him and keep them safe; a promise which there was no need of making to their own servants.” — Macknight. So they went — The priests and Pharisees having got a party of soldiers, placed them in their post, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone — To hinder the guards from combining in carrying on any fraud. See Daniel 6:17: where we learn that a precaution of the like kind was made use of in the case of Daniel shut up in the lions’ den. “Thus, while the priests cautiously proposed to prevent our Lord’s resurrection from being palmed upon the world, resolving no doubt to show his body publicly after the third day, as a proof that he was an impostor, they put the truth of his resurrection beyond all question; for, besides that there could be no room for the least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found that his body was raised out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a seal, and a guard of soldiers; by appointing this guard, they furnished a number of unexceptionable witnesses to it, whose testimony they themselves could not refuse. See Matthew 28:11.” “The chief priests and Pharisees,” says Bishop Porteus, “having taken these precautions, waited probably with no small impatience for the third day after the crucifixion — when they made no doubt they should find the body in the sepulchre, and convict Jesus of deceit and imposture.”

64. The last error — Namely, the triumph of the disciples of Christ in creating a faith in the resurrection. The first — The temporary faith produced by Christ’s miracles and preaching in the popular mind that he was the Messiah. The Jews talk as if a previous error or mismanagement had allowed Jesus a temporary triumph while living; they fear that a worse oversight may give a permanent triumph to his cause after his death. How much worse has proved that error and how much greater the triumph, than they could have imagined!

V. 65. Ye have a guard-Of your own, in the tower of Antonia, which was stationed there for the service of the temple.

Verse 65. Ye have a watch] The Jews had a corps of Roman troops, consisting of several companies, as a guard for the temple, Acts 4:1. These companies mounted guard by turns, see Luke 22:4. Some of these companies, which were not then on duty, Pilate gave them leave to employ to watch the tomb.

Verses 62-66. Now the next day; the day that followed the day of the preparation — That is, after the sun was set, for the Jewish day began then. The day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day, then, (namely, Saturday,) was the sabbath, according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution, to show that the Jewish sabbath was then abolished. The chief priests, &c., came together unto Pilate — The chief priests and Pharisees, remembering that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection more than once, came to the governor and informed him of it begging that a guard might be ordered to the sepulchre, lest the disciples should carry his body away and affirm that he was risen from the dead. But they took this measure not on the morrow, in our sense of the word, but in the evening, after sunsetting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried. To have delayed it to sunrising would have been preposterous, as the disciples might have stolen the body away during the preceding night. Besides, there is no inconsistency between this account of the time when the watch was placed and the subsequent articles of the history, which proceed upon the supposition that the women present at our Lord’s funeral were ignorant that any watch was placed at his grave. For they departed so early, that they had time to buy spices and ointments in the city before the preparation of the sabbath was ended; whereas the watch was not placed till the sabbath began. Saying, Sir — Thus the word Kurie is here very properly rendered, as in many other places it is as improperly translated lord. It should certainly always be translated sir, when no more than civil respect is intended. We remember that deceiver said, After three days — Or, as meta treiv hmerav may be properly rendered, within three days, I will rise again — We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless when he spoke of the temple of his body, (John 2:19, 21.) And if they here refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction on these words, when he was on his trial before the council! Matthew 26:61. Then they seemed not to understand them! Perhaps, however, they may refer to what he said (when the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign of him) respecting the Prophet Jonas, namely, that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, the Son of man should be so long in the heart of the earth. Or, on some occasion not mentioned by the evangelists, our Lord may have made a public declaration of his resurrection in the very terms here set down. But, in whatever way they came to the knowledge of it, certain it is that the chief priests and Pharisees were well acquainted with our Lord’s predictions concerning it; and hence the precaution and care which they used in guarding the sepulchre, all which was overruled by the providence of God to give the strongest proofs of Christ’s ensuing resurrection. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure — This, as being a servile work, it might be thought they would not ask to be done on the sabbath. But we must observe, that they asked this of Romans, whom they did not consider as bound by the law of the sabbath. Jews to this day do not scruple to avail themselves of the work done by Christians on the Jewish sabbath. Pilate said, Ye have a guard — “Pilate, thinking their request reasonable, allowed them to take as many soldiers as they pleased of the cohort which, at the feast, came from the castle Antonia, and kept guard in the porticoes of the temple. For that they were not Jewish but Roman soldiers whom the priests employed to watch the sepulchre, is evident from their asking them of the governor. Besides, when the soldiers returned with the news of Christ’s resurrection, the priests desired them to report that his disciples had stolen him away while they slept; and, to encourage them to tell the falsehood boldly, promised, that if their neglect of duty came to the governor’s ears, proper means should be used to pacify him and keep them safe; a promise which there was no need of making to their own servants.” — Macknight. So they went — The priests and Pharisees having got a party of soldiers, placed them in their post, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone — To hinder the guards from combining in carrying on any fraud. See Daniel 6:17: where we learn that a precaution of the like kind was made use of in the case of Daniel shut up in the lions’ den. “Thus, while the priests cautiously proposed to prevent our Lord’s resurrection from being palmed upon the world, resolving no doubt to show his body publicly after the third day, as a proof that he was an impostor, they put the truth of his resurrection beyond all question; for, besides that there could be no room for the least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found that his body was raised out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a seal, and a guard of soldiers; by appointing this guard, they furnished a number of unexceptionable witnesses to it, whose testimony they themselves could not refuse. See Matthew 28:11.” “The chief priests and Pharisees,” says Bishop Porteus, “having taken these precautions, waited probably with no small impatience for the third day after the crucifixion — when they made no doubt they should find the body in the sepulchre, and convict Jesus of deceit and imposture.”

65. Ye have a watch — The imperative construction which the Greek verb would bear, Have a watch, is not natural. Yet the indicative mood of the verb possesses essentially the same force as the imperative. The Jews desired that a custodia or guard of Roman soldiers should be placed at their command to watch the body. Pilate gives his consent by reminding them that they have one already; alluding probably to the quaternion who watched the crucifixion. Compare Acts 12:4 and John 19:23. The Jews by this measure intended to prevent the existence of any proof of the divinity of Christ, but they furnished in fact, by their precaution, an additional confirmation. Here, as previously, Pilate appears chary of having any thing to do in the transaction, and determined to leave all action and responsibility with them.

Verse 65. Ye have a watch. — The koustwdia consisted of sixty soldiers. These were Roman soldiers, as the term used, which is the Latin custodia, shows, as well as other circumstances. But they hereby unwittingly mightily strengthened the evidence of the resurrection; not only by adding sixty independent witnesses to the number, but by making it certain that sixty men could not all at once be asleep on guard, and that a feeble band of disciples could not overcome sixty armed and disciplined men. The word used by Pilate admits of being taken either in the indicative or imperative. The latter is to be preferred; for if they had had a guard at their disposal already, they need not have applied to the governor. The sense therefore is, “Take a guard.”

V. 66. They went and secured the sepulchre, sealing the stone, and setting a guard-They set Pilate's signet, or the public seal of the sanhedrim upon a fastening which they had put on the stone. And all this uncommon caution was overruled by the providence of God, to give the strongest proofs of Christ's ensuing resurrection; since there could be no room for the least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found, that his body was raised out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a seal, and a guard of soldiers.

Verse 66. Made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.] Or rather, made the tomb secure by the guard, and by sealing the stone. I follow Kypke, in construing meta thv koustwdiav, with hsfalisanto. The guard was to take care that the disciples should not steal him away; and the seal, which was probably the seal of the governor, was to prevent the guards from being corrupted so as to permit the theft. So every thing was done which human policy and prudence could, to prevent a resurrection, which these very precautions had the most direct tendency to authenticate and establish. How wonderful are the wisdom and goodness of God!-and how true is it, that there is neither might nor counsel against him!

1. The death of Christ was ordered, so as to be witnessed by thousands; and if his resurrection take place, it must be demonstrated; and it cannot take place without being incontestable, such are the precautions used here to prevent all imposture.

2. The more the circumstances of the death of Christ are examined, the more astonishing the whole will appear. The death is uncommon-the person uncommon-and the object uncommon; and the whole is grand, majestic, and awful. Nature itself is thrown into unusual action, and by means and causes wholly supernatural. In every part, the finger of God most evidently appears.

3. How glorious does Christ appear in his death! Were it not for his thirst, his exclamation on the cross, and the piercing of his side, we should have found it difficult to believe that such a person could ever have entered the empire of death; but the divinity and the manhood equally appear, and thus the certainty of the atonement is indubitably established.

4. But who can reflect on the state of the poor disciples, during the whole of the time in which our blessed Lord lay under the empire of death, without sharing their sorrows! When he expired on the cross their expectation was cut off; and when his body was laid in the grave their hopes were buried; and nothing but the resurrection of Christ from the dead could have given a resurrection to their hopes. It is true they had heard him say that he would rise again the third day; but in this it is evident their faith was very imperfect; and the uncertainty, perplexity, anxiety, and distress which they in consequence must have suffered, can neither be described nor imagined. Though we know the glorious result, yet who can help sympathizing with the pious father, the virgin mother, and the disconsolate disciples!

ST. MATTHEW

Verses 62-66. Now the next day; the day that followed the day of the preparation — That is, after the sun was set, for the Jewish day began then. The day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day, then, (namely, Saturday,) was the sabbath, according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution, to show that the Jewish sabbath was then abolished. The chief priests, &c., came together unto Pilate — The chief priests and Pharisees, remembering that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection more than once, came to the governor and informed him of it begging that a guard might be ordered to the sepulchre, lest the disciples should carry his body away and affirm that he was risen from the dead. But they took this measure not on the morrow, in our sense of the word, but in the evening, after sunsetting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried. To have delayed it to sunrising would have been preposterous, as the disciples might have stolen the body away during the preceding night. Besides, there is no inconsistency between this account of the time when the watch was placed and the subsequent articles of the history, which proceed upon the supposition that the women present at our Lord’s funeral were ignorant that any watch was placed at his grave. For they departed so early, that they had time to buy spices and ointments in the city before the preparation of the sabbath was ended; whereas the watch was not placed till the sabbath began. Saying, Sir — Thus the word Kurie is here very properly rendered, as in many other places it is as improperly translated lord. It should certainly always be translated sir, when no more than civil respect is intended. We remember that deceiver said, After three days — Or, as meta treiv hmerav may be properly rendered, within three days, I will rise again — We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless when he spoke of the temple of his body, (John 2:19, 21.) And if they here refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction on these words, when he was on his trial before the council! Matthew 26:61. Then they seemed not to understand them! Perhaps, however, they may refer to what he said (when the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign of him) respecting the Prophet Jonas, namely, that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, the Son of man should be so long in the heart of the earth. Or, on some occasion not mentioned by the evangelists, our Lord may have made a public declaration of his resurrection in the very terms here set down. But, in whatever way they came to the knowledge of it, certain it is that the chief priests and Pharisees were well acquainted with our Lord’s predictions concerning it; and hence the precaution and care which they used in guarding the sepulchre, all which was overruled by the providence of God to give the strongest proofs of Christ’s ensuing resurrection. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure — This, as being a servile work, it might be thought they would not ask to be done on the sabbath. But we must observe, that they asked this of Romans, whom they did not consider as bound by the law of the sabbath. Jews to this day do not scruple to avail themselves of the work done by Christians on the Jewish sabbath. Pilate said, Ye have a guard — “Pilate, thinking their request reasonable, allowed them to take as many soldiers as they pleased of the cohort which, at the feast, came from the castle Antonia, and kept guard in the porticoes of the temple. For that they were not Jewish but Roman soldiers whom the priests employed to watch the sepulchre, is evident from their asking them of the governor. Besides, when the soldiers returned with the news of Christ’s resurrection, the priests desired them to report that his disciples had stolen him away while they slept; and, to encourage them to tell the falsehood boldly, promised, that if their neglect of duty came to the governor’s ears, proper means should be used to pacify him and keep them safe; a promise which there was no need of making to their own servants.” — Macknight. So they went — The priests and Pharisees having got a party of soldiers, placed them in their post, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone — To hinder the guards from combining in carrying on any fraud. See Daniel 6:17: where we learn that a precaution of the like kind was made use of in the case of Daniel shut up in the lions’ den. “Thus, while the priests cautiously proposed to prevent our Lord’s resurrection from being palmed upon the world, resolving no doubt to show his body publicly after the third day, as a proof that he was an impostor, they put the truth of his resurrection beyond all question; for, besides that there could be no room for the least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found that his body was raised out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a seal, and a guard of soldiers; by appointing this guard, they furnished a number of unexceptionable witnesses to it, whose testimony they themselves could not refuse. See Matthew 28:11.” “The chief priests and Pharisees,” says Bishop Porteus, “having taken these precautions, waited probably with no small impatience for the third day after the crucifixion — when they made no doubt they should find the body in the sepulchre, and convict Jesus of deceit and imposture.”

Ver. 66. They went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. God takes the wise in their own craftiness. All those precautions were collateral proofs of the Saviour’s resurrection. Death liberates from the persecutor’s arm, but malice operates unceasingly in the heart. Paradise and the tomb gave the Saviour repose, but a guilty conscience allowed no rest to his murderers. Their honour was now at stake; and if he had not risen they would have exposed his body to the public, as Achilles exposed the body of Hector around the walls of Troy.

66. Sealing the stone — A cord was fastened, with sealing-clay at each end, to the sepulchre, being drawn across the door. Upon the clay the seal of Pilate, or of the priests, was stamped. The door could not be opened, therefore, without breaking the seal; which was a crime against the authority of the proprietor of the seal. The guard was to prevent the duplicity of the disciples; the seal was to secure against the collusion of the guard. So in Daniel 6:17: “A stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords.” A watch — Probably a guard of four soldiers. Such certainly was the number who watched the crucifixion. John 19:23.

Verse 66. Sealing the stone. — This custom is mentioned in Daniel 6:17: “And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet.” The seal used in this case was either that of Pilate or some public seal, so that the stone could not be removed but by the authority which the seal represented. The seal would be so fixed as that the stone could not be moved out of its place without breaking it. For this purpose a band of leather or cord was in such cases used, to each end of which the seal was attached.

The enemies of our Lord had now completed their plot against the Lord’s anointed: they had obtained his blood; silenced his reproving voice; seen him laid in the sepulchre; secured the stone at its entrance by a seal; placed over it a numerous guard of soldiers; and one thing only seemed wanting to complete their triumph, and that they no doubt eagerly anticipated, — to throw open the tomb on the third day, bring forth the body, and prove to all the people that he was “a deceiver.” How truly then did the resurrection of the rejected and persecuted Saviour illustrate the words of their own Psalm, addressed to all the enemies of Messiah, “he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision!” The next and concluding chapter of this gospel narrates this event, the grand foundation of the Christian faith. The accounts of the four evangelists present some apparent discrepancies, which, however, but more strongly mark their veracity as witnesses. The manner in which they are to be harmonized will be stated at the conclusion of the notes upon the gospel of St. John.