Matthew 27:46

And about the ninth hour,.... Or three o'clock in the afternoon, which was about the time of the slaying and offering of the daily sacrifice, which was an eminent type of Christ.

They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof he would not drink They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.

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46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Ver. 46. Jesus cried with a loud voice] Therefore he laid down his life at his own pleasure; for by his loud outcry it appears that he could have lived longer if he had listed, for any decay of nature under those exquisite torments that he suffered in his body, but much greater in his soul. That which for the present seems to have expressed from him this doleful complaint, was the sense of his Father’ s wrath in the darkening of the body of the sun over him; which though God causeth to shine upon the just and unjust for their comfort, yet was not suffered to shine upon him for those three sorrowful hours together. When Theodorus, the martyr, was racked and tortured by the command of Julian the Apostate, an angel, in the form of a young man, stood by him and comforted him, wiping off his sweat with a fine linen cloth, and pouring cold water on his vexed limbs. When Mr Saunders, martyr, was examined before Stephen Winchester, he felt a most pleasant refreshing issuing from every part of his body to his heart, and from thence ebbing and flowing to each part again. William Hunter, martyr, cried out at the stake, Son of God, shine upon me, and immediately the sun shone out of a dark cloud so full in his face that he was constrained to look another way; whereat the people mused, because it was so dark a little before. And I myself was an eyewitness of a like answer returned from heaven, to a like prayer made by a penitent malefactor executed at Evesham in Worcestershire, many years since. But our Lord Christ was forsaken of all these creature comforts; and (which was worse than all) of his Father’ s favour, to his present apprehension; left forlorn and destitute for a time, that we might be received for ever. Howbeit, perplexed though he were, yet not in despair; persecuted, yet not forsaken; cast down, yet not destroyed. He could say My God, in the midst of all, by the force of his faith, which singles out God (as a father saith) and appropriateth him to a man’ s self. And Hilary hath a good note, which here comes in not out of place. Habes conquerentem relictum se esse, quia homo est; habes eundem profitentem latroni in paradiso regnaturum, quia Deus est. As man, he cries out My God, my God, &c., when, as God, he promiseth paradise to the penitent thief. εγκατελιπες est plus quam κατελιπες, ut deserere quam derelinquere. ηπιστιςιδιοποιειταιτονθεον.

(46) Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.—The cry is recorded only by St. Matthew and St. Mark. The very syllables or tones dwelt in the memory of those who heard and understood it, and its absence from St. John’s narrative was probably due to the fact that he had before this taken the Virgin-Mother from the scene of the crucifixion as from that which was more than she could bear (John 19:27). To the Roman soldiers, to many of the by standers, Greeks or Hellenistic Jews, the words would be, as the sequel shows, unintelligible. We shrink instinctively from any over-curious analysis of the inner feelings in our Lord’s humanity that answered to this utterance. Was it the natural fear of death? or the vicarious endurance of the wrath which was the penalty of the sins of the human race, for whom, and instead of whom, He suffered? Was there a momentary interruption of the conscious union between His human soul and the light of His Father’s countenance? or, as seems implied in John 19:28, did He quote the words in order to direct the thoughts of men to the great Messianic prophecy which the Psalm contained? None of these answers is altogether satisfactory, and we may well be content to leave the mystery unfathomed, and to let our words, be wary and few. We may remember (1) that both the spoken words of His enemies (Matthew 27:43) and the acts of the soldiers (Matthew 27:35) must have recalled the words of that Psalm; (2) that memory thus roused would pass on to the cry of misery with which the Psalm opened; (3) that our Lord as man was to taste death in all its bitterness for every man (Hebrews 2:9), and that He could not so have tasted it had His soul been throughout in full undisturbed enjoyment of the presence of the Father; (4) that the lives of the saints of God, in proportion to their likeness to the mind of Christ, have exhibited this strange union, or rather instantaneous succession, of the sense of abandonment and of intensest faith. The Psalmist himself, in this very Psalm, is one instance; Job (Job 19:6-9, Job 19:23-26) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:7-9; Jeremiah 20:12-13) may be named as others. Conceive this conflict—and the possibility of such a conflict is postulated in John 12:27 and in the struggle of Gethsemane—and then, though we cannot understand, we may in part at least conceive, how it was possible for the Son of Man to feel for one moment that sense of abandonment, which is the last weapon of the Enemy. He tasted of despair as others had tasted, but in the very act of tasting, the words “My God” were as a protest against it, and by them He was delivered from it. It is remarkable, whatever explanation may be given of it, that as these words are recorded by the first two Gospels only, so they are the only words spoken on the cross which we find in their report of the Crucifixion.

Verse 46. My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me!] These words are quoted by our Lord from Psalms 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, אלי אלי למה עזבתני Eli, Eli, lamah azabthani, in the words, Ηλι, Ηλι, λαμασαβαχθανι, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. And St. Mark comes nearest the Syriac, Mr 15:34, [Syriac] Alohi, Alohi, l'mono shebachtheni, in the words Ελωΐ, Ελωΐ, λαμμασαβαχθανι, Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabachthani. It is worthy of note, that a Hebrew MS. of the twelfth century, instead of עזבתני azabthani, forsaken me, reads שכחתני 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 Psalms 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 למה lamah, may be translated, to what - to whom - to what kind or sort - to what purpose or profit: Genesis 25:32; Genesis 32:29; Genesis 33:15; Job 9:29; Jeremiah 6:20; Jeremiah 20:18; Amos 5:18; and the verb עזב azab signifies to leave - to deposit - to commit to the care of. See Genesis 39:6; Job 39:11; Psalms 10:14, and Jeremiah 49:11. The words, taken in this way, might be thus translated: My God! my God!

46. Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?] (Psalms 22:1). Eli is the Hebrew form. In Mark 15:34 the Aramaic words are preserved exactly as they were pronounced by Jesus. The repetition, “My God! My God!” gives a deeply pathetic force; cp. ch. Matthew 23:37. It is an expression of utter loneliness and desolation, the depth of which it is not for man to fathom. “It is going beyond Scripture to say that a sense of God’s wrath extorted that cry. For to the last breath He was the well-beloved of the Father, and the repeated ‘My God! My God!’ is a witness even then to His confidence in His Father’s Love” (Canon Perowne. Psalms 22:1). This was probably the fourth word from the cross; the fifth “I thirst” (John); the sixth “It is finished” (John); the seventh “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke). It is thought by some that after these words the darkness, which had lasted to the ninth hour, rolled away; others think that it lasted till the death of Jesus.

Eli, Eli ... - This language is not pure Hebrew nor Syriac, but a mixture of both, called commonly “Syro-Chaldaic.” This was probably the language which the Saviour commonly spoke. The words are taken from Psalms 22:1.

46. About the ninth hour — At the close of the darkness. Eli — These words are the first verse of Psalms 22, quoted by our Lord in the Syro-Chaldaic language, the language in common use.