Matthew 27
DODDMatthew 27:1-11
Parallels: John 18; Luke 23; Mark 15
Jesus is brought before Pilate : The Jews demand judgment against him, and Pilate examines him. Mat. XXVII. 1, 2, 11—14. Mark XV. 1—5. Luke XXIII. 1—4. John XVIII.—28—38.
MAT. XXVII. 1.
SUCH were the vile proceedings of this clxxxvi. horrid and malignant night, and thus was Mat. Jesus condemned, and treated as a malefactor xxvii. 1 by the Jewish rulers. And as soon as morning was come, all the chief priests, having put Jesus out of the room where the sanhedrim met, consulted with the elders of the people, and the scribes, and the whole sanhedrim, what method they should take to execute this sentence they had passed against Jesus, and how they might contrive to put him to death in the most severe and contemptuous manner.
And after he had been insulted by the servants at the council chamber, when for the greater security they had bound him again, the whole multitude of them arose, and led him away from thence to the praetorium (as it was properly called), or to the judgment hall, in which the Roman magistrate was used to sit for the dispatch of public business : for the Jews being now a
MAT. XXVII. 1.
[AND straightway] when the morning was come, all the chief priests [held a consultation with the] elders of the people, [and scribes, and the whole council,] against Jesus, to put him to death. [MARK XV. 1.—]
And when they had bound him, [LUKE, the whole multitude of them arose, and] they led him away [JOHN, unto the hall of judgment]
All the chief priests consulted, &c.] Many critics explain this of their adjourning to consult together, from the house of Caiaphas, to the place where the sanhedrim used to meet : but it appears from Luke this was the place where they had before assembled and passed sentence upon Jesus after his first examination in the house of Caiaphas ; and his account of this matter is so circumstantial, that I think it more reasonable to take these words in the order in
which they are explained in the paraphrase. Compare Luke xxii. 66, page 506.
b When they had bound him again.] They bound him when he was first apprehended, but had, perhaps, loosed him while he was under examination : or else they now made his bonds stricter than before, that so they might secure him from any danger of a rescue or escape as he passed through the streets of Jerusalem.
carry him to late, to order his execution.
conquered people, and not having the power of life and death in their hands, they could not execute Jesus without a warrant from the Romans; ᶜ and therefore, to procure their order for his death, as well as to render it the more ignominious and painful, they determined immediately to carry him to them; and to ask, not a confirmation of the sentence which they had passed upon him as a blasphemer, but a new sentence of crucifixion against him, as a seditious enemy to Cesar’s government. Accordingly, having conducted him to the prætorium, they in a solemn way delivered him, as a state prisoner of considerable importance, to Pontius Pilate the procurator or governor, whom Tiberius Cesar had, some years before this, sent among them.
And though by this time it was broad daylight, yet it was very early in the morning, and much sooner than the governor used to appear: he was therefore called up on this extraordinary occasion, but they themselves went not into the palace, of which the judgment hall was apart, because it was the house of a Gentile, and they were apprehensive lest they should be polluted, and so prevented from eating those sacrifices which were offered on this first day of unleavened bread, and were looked upon as a
ᶜ Not having the power of life and death in their hands, [C.] That the Jewish anhedrim had a power of trying and condemning men for crimes which the Jewish law made capital, cannot I think be doubted, and has all along been taken for granted in this work: and since the publication of the first edition it has been abundantly confirmed by Mr. Biscoe’s learned and elaborate dissertation on the subject, in his Sermons at Boyle’s Lecture, chap. vi part i. p. 123, I seq. But that they had at this time a power of executing such sentences without the express consent of the Roman governor, neither Mr. Manne’s remarks (Essay i. p. 13, —19), nor Mr. Biscoe’s much larger argumentation, seem to me satisfactorily to prove. I still think what Dr. Lardner has written on the other side of the question unanswerable; and indeed wonder that any can doubt of the matter after reading this story. For surely nothing but a sense of necessity could, on the whole, have brought the Jewish rulers to Pilate on this
occasion; since the rendering the execution itself precarious would have balanced the argument their cruelty might find, in the contingency of its being more painful, if it should in fact be obtained. Compare John xviii. 31, p. 512. (See Dr. Lardner’s Credib. part i. book i. chap. 2, § 5, 6, Vol. I. p. 65 —106, and Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. xx. cap. 9 (al 8), § 1.) And indeed the Jewish writers own that no such power was exercised by the sanhedrim for forty years before the destruction of the temple, as Dr. Lightfoot shews by several quotations from the Talmud (Hor. Heb. on Mat. xxvi. 3, and John xviii. 31); though he supposes it was only lost by their disuse of it, and was not taken from them by the Romans. The chief arguments for their having such a power (from Mat. xxvi. 66; John viii. 33; xviii. 31; Acts vii. 57, 58; xii. 2; xxii. 4, 5; xxiii. 27; xxiv. 6; xxvi. 10) are either directly answered in the notes, or obviated in the paraphrase, on those places.
VOL. 2.
But Pilate endeavours to shift off the af
very considerable part of the passover, of which the paschal lamb, which they had eaten the evening before, was only the beginning.
Pilate therefore, willing in this instance to oblige the heads of the nation he governed, complied so far with their religious scruples that, leaving the prætorium, he came out of his house to them; and finding it was an affair of solemnity, he erected his tribunal in an open place adjoining to it, as the Roman magistrates often did: and when Jesus was presented as a prisoner before him, Pilate said to them, What accusation do you bring against this man?
They answered and said to him, with some indecent smartness in the expression (the consequence of a secret indignation to find themselves curbed by a superior power), We could not but have hoped you were so well acquainted with the sanctity of our court, and the integrity of our character, as to conclude, that if this man were not a notorious offender,ᵈ we would not have brought and delivered him to thee; for as we would be far from any thought of punishing an innocent man, so if his crime had not been very great, we might have dealt with him ourselves without thy concurrence.
Then Pilate said to them, Take ye him back to your own court again, and judge him according to your law; for I am by no means desirous of interfering with you in the regular exercise of your judicial power. And this he said with a view of shifting off from himself an affair to which in the general he could be no stranger;ᵉ
ᵈ A notorious offender.] So I render ex-
ᵉ With a view of shifting off from himself, etc.] Pilate could not be entirely ignorant of the case before him; for he began his government at Jerusalem before Jesus entered on his public ministry; and, besides many other extraordinary things which he must formerly have heard con-
cerning him, he had, no doubt, been informed at large of his public entrance into Jerusalem the beginning of the week; and also of his apprehension, in which the Jewish rulers were assisted by a Roman cohort, which could hardly be engaged in that service without the governor’s express permission. It plainly appears by his whole conduct how unwilling he was to engage in this cause; he seems therefore cautious not to enter into the full sense of what the Jewish rulers intended when they called him a malefactor; and answers them in ambiguous language, which they might have interpreted as a warrant to execute
ccuse him to Pilate as setting up for a king.
and which he easily saw would be attended with many perplexing circumstances.
Then the Jews said to him again, You well know that it is not now lawful for us to put any man to death without your concurrence (compare Mat. xxvii. 2, p. 510): but it is a capital crime of which the prisoner here before you is convicted, and as, after a fair trial, he has received such a sentence in the sanhedrim, we only wait your warrant to proceed to execution.
And, as Pilate could not but inquire of what crime he had been convicted, they resolved to mention that charge which might render him most obnoxious to the Roman power, and to represent the matter in its most malignant view; and accordingly they began with great violence to accuse him, saying, It is not merely on a religious account that we have brought him before you, but we have also found this seditious [fellow] perverting the whole Jewish nation, from one end of the country to the other, and in effect forbidding to pay tribute to Cesar, by saying, that he himself is Messiah, a King, whom many of the Jews have expected to rescue them from all subjection to a foreign power: and this claim he has had the assurance to avow in open court; so that it is but a necessary piece of respect to thee, and to the emperor, whose lieutenant thou art, to bring him hither to be condemned, and indeed to leave him to be executed by you. And though they aimed at nothing more by this than to make sure of their murderous designs, and to add new circumstances of shame and agony to the execution, yet Providence was pleased to overrule it with a wise intent, that the saying of Jesus might thus be fulfilled, which he spake more than once (see John iii. 14; xii. 32, 33; and Mat. xx. 19), signifying or implying by what kind of death he should die, even by being lifted up from the earth, or by crucifixion, which was a Roman punishment whereas according to the Jewish law (Lev
Christ, if they found it necessary, and yet, which a man of his character might have which would have left them liable to be wished. Their reply shews they were questioned for doing it, and might have more aware of this artifice than commentators have generally been. given him some advantage against them;
s Jesus was silent, Pilate takes him and exam
xxiv. 16) he would have been stoned (as his servant Stephen afterwards was), having been impiously adjudged by them to have deserved death as a blasphemer. (Compare Mat. xxvi. 65, 66, and Mark xiv. 64, p. 507, 508.)
And when he was thus accused by the chief priests and elders, who aggravated the matter by the addition of many other things, either entirely false, or grossly misrepresented; reproaching him as a blasphemer, a sabbath-breaker, and a magician; and, in a word, omitting nothing which they thought might blacken his character, he made them no answer at all. Then Pilate said to him, Dost thou answer nothing to all this? Hearest thou not the several charges they produce against thee, or hast thou no concern to vindicate thyself from what they have alleged? Behold, and consider, how many and how great things they witness against thee. But still, as Jesus knew how little all his apologies would signify, he continued silent, and did not answer him to any one word; so that Pilate the governor was greatly astonished, and knew not how to account for so uncommon a behaviour.
But yet, as the governor had heard an honourable report of Jesus, and observed in this silence an air of meek majesty and greatness of spirit, rather than any consciousness of guilt or any indication of a fierce contempt, he was willing to discourse with him more privately before he proceeded farther. Pilate therefore entered again into the praetorium, which he had quitted to oblige the Jews (ver. 29, p. 512), and called Jesus in: and [as] Jesus stood before the governor there, Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou indeed the king of the Jews, and dost thou really pretend to any right to govern them?
Jesus answered him, Dost thou say this of thyself, from the knowledge of any seditious practices which thou hast ever observed in me? or is it only what thou hast gathered from the present clamour made against me, and have others told it thee concerning me?
And when he was thus accused, &c.] The reader may perhaps observe that I have transposed Mat. xxvii. 11, and Mark xx. 2. But it is only because I think the other evangelists relate the story in such an order, as to shew the propriety of this little transposition.
declares his kingdom is not of this world.
Pilate immediately replied, Am I a Jew? or do I know any thing of your peculiarities, further than I am informed by others? I do not at all pretend to it: but thou knowest that thine own nation, and those who are esteemed the most sacred persons in it, even the chief priests themselves, have delivered thee to me as a malefactor, and have charged thee, among other crimes, with treason against Cesar, in setting up for king of the country: tell me therefore freely what thou hast done to deserve such a charge? for the more frank thou art in thine acknowledgment, the greater favour mayest thou expect.
Jesus answered him, My kingdom is not of this world, nor is it my business or design to erect a temporal dominion, and to establish any claim which should at all interfere with that of Cesar, or of which any prince has reason to be jealous. Indeed if I would have entertained such views, I might have found support and encouragement from the very persons who are now my accusers: and if I had asserted that my kingdom was of this world, and had favoured such methods of defence, my servants, who professed of late so great and so public a regard to me, would resolutely have fought, that I might not have been delivered to the Jews,⁵ or would attempt even now to rescue me out of their hands: but now my kingdom is not from hence, nor to be erected here; and therefore I have been so far from arming my followers with secular weapons, that the guard who came to apprehend me know I forbade their making use of those they had.
⁵ My servants would have fought; &c.] Though our translation of Ἰησοῦ may be more literal, yet, considering that our Lord was now actually in the hands of his enemies, I think it plain that it is to be taken in such an extent. It may be objected, that the number of Christ’s disciples, had all the five hundred been assembled in arms, could have been no match for the Jewish and Roman power at Jerusalem. But it is to be remembered, that (as Dr. Lardner with his usual good sense observes) the
populace appeared zealously on Christ’s side but a few days before; and the reason of their turning against him was his not assuming a temporal kingdom, as they certainly expected he would have done. (See Lardn. Credib. part i. book i. chap. 5, Vol I. p. 301.) And we may farther add, that a very small body of forces, under a leader endowed with such miraculous power as Jesus lately exercised, might have been sufficient to vanquish all the Roman legions. Compare note ¹ on John vi. 14, Vol. I. p. 436.
Pilate comes out and tells the Jews he found no fault in him.
Pilate therefore said to him, Thou speakest however of thy kingdom and thy subjects: art thou then really a king?
And Jesus answered him and said, therein courageously witnessing a good confession (1 Tim. vi. 13), Thou sayest [right]; I am indeed, as thou hast said, a King; the king of the Jews, and the appointed Head and Governor of the whole Israel of God; nor will I ever basely seek my safety by renouncing my Divine claim to the most excellent majesty and extensive dominion: nay, for this purpose was I born, and for this end I came into the world from another and much better abode, that I might bear witness to the cause of truth in general; and in particular to this great and fundamental branch of it: and I have given such ample proof of this, that every honest and well disposed person, who is indeed a friend of the truth, heareth my voice, and pays an entire deference to my instructions.h
Pilate says to him, What is the truth which thou referrest to, and speakest of as thy business to attest? And when he had said this, as Jesus made a pause, and did not immediately make him any answer, his hurry would not allow him to wait for it: so he went out again to the Jews, and said to the chief priests, and the people assembled with them abroad, I have examined the prisoner you brought me in private; and I must freely declare that I find no fault at all in this man, nor can I perceive that he is any enemy either to the rights of Cesar, or the tranquillity and happiness of the Jews; and therefore do not see how I can with any justice condemn him to die. But his accusers refused to acquiesce in this, and advanced a more circumstantial charge against him, which gave occasion to that examination before Herod, which will be related in the next section.
[Every person who is a friend of the truth all simplicity, dependeth my voice.] What our Lord here says which he and his but mentally is to be regarded as an univer- their mission from C xim; all sincere lovers of the truth will same test. 1 John in xim: and accordingly St. John, with he that knoweth God hu
Reflections on Christ’s examination by Pilates.
IMPROVEMENT.
How much exactness in the ceremonials of religion may be found in those who have even the most outrageous contempt for its vital principles and essential duties! Yea, how much of that exactness may be made subservient to the most mischievous and diabolical purposes! These wolves in sheep’s clothing would not enter into the house of a heathen, lest they should be polluted, and become unfit to eat the passover; yet they contrive and urge an impious murder, which that very heathen, though he had much less evidence of Christ’s innocence than they, could not be brought to permit without strong reluctance, and a solemn, though vain, transferring of the guilt from himself to them.
Justly might our Lord say in the words of David, They laid to my charge things which I knew not. (Psal. xxxv. 11.) But what can defend the most innocent and excellent against malicious slanders and defamations! Or who can expect, or even wish, wholly to escape, when such accusations are brought against Christ, even by the rulers of his nation, who should have been men of distinguished generosity and honour! But instead of this they were all an assembly of murderers, and lay in wait for their prey, like so many devouring lions.
Pilate would renew the examination of the cause; and so far he acted a cautious and an honourable part. Yet, alas, how many that set out on such maxims, want courage and resolution to pursue them! But the courage of Christ never failed. He witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession we have now been reading (1 Tim. vi. 13); and owned himself a King, though at the same time he declared (what it were to be wished all his followers had duly regarded) that his kingdom is not of this world. Greatly do we debase it, if we imagine it is; and most unworthy is it of those that call themselves the ministers of his kingdom to act as if they thought it was. Yet such is the wickedness of some, and such the blindness of others, in the Roman church, that, though of all the churches in the world it is manifestly the most secular kingdom,¹ it arrogates to itself the name not only of a part, but of the whole, of Christ’s kingdom here below.
Christ came to bear witness to the truth; and a careful attendance to his testimony will be the best proof we can give that we love the truth, and the best method we can take to make ourselves acquainted with it. And of so great importance is the truth, that it surely deserves the attentive inquiry and the zealous patronage of the greatest and the busiest of mankind. Let
clxxxvi. John xviii. 28
Luke xxiii. 2
Mat. xxvii.12
John xviii. 29-33
¹ It is manifestly the most secular king- finely illustrated in his most ingenious disdom.] This Mr. Boyse of Dublin has course on these words.
The Jews accuse him of seditious practices.
us not therefore, when we begin to ask what it is, like Pilate, clxxxvi. hurry on to some other care before we can receive a satisfactory ver. 38 answer; but joyfully open our minds to the first dawnings of that celestial day, till it shine more and more to irradiate and adorn all our souls. On the whole, imperfect as the character of this unhappy governor was, let us learn from him candidly to confess the truth, so far as we have discovered it; let us learn Luke more steadily than he to vindicate the innocent and worthy, and xxiii. 4 on no terms permit ourselves, in any degree, to do harm to those in whom, on a strict and impartial inquiry, we can find no fault.
Matthew 27:3-62
Judas confessing his guilt, returns the money he had received from the chief priests, and then hangs himself. The Jews the next day demand, and procure a guard to be set on Christ’s sepulchre. Mat. XXVII. 3—10, 62, to the end.
MAT. XXVII. 3.
HAVING thus finished the account of the death of Jesus, it may be convenient here to mention the miserable end of that perfidious disciple by whom he was betrayed into the hands of his enemies. The Jewish rulers having delivered Jesus to the Roman governor, and having prevailed upon him to give orders for his execution, then Judas, who had betrayed him, when he saw to his surprise that he was condemned by Pilate, and that they were leading him forth to die upon the cross, to which he seemed determined to submit, though he could so easily have rescued himself from it,³ was seized with great terror and
MAT. XXVII. 3.
• Then Judas, &c.] For the proper place of this story, which is here inserted out of its order, see note on John xix. 16, p. 536. Matthew has introduced it immediately after the Jews had delivered Jesus to Pilate; but after this the Jews were so intent on persuading Pilate to consent to his death, that there was hardly time for the sanhedrim’s adjourning to the temple, where this occurrence happened, before they had prevailed with Pilate to condemn him: and as Judas must have often heard his Master say he should be crucified, Pilate’s order for his execution
must have more sensibly affected him than the Jews passing sentence on him, who had not then the power of putting any one to death. The word יהוה, then, with which the evangelist begins this story, may be taken in some latitude to introduce the mention of an occurrence which happened about that time, whether a little before or after, and need not be interpreted with so much rigour as to determine it to an assertion of observing the exactest order in all circumstances. See note on Mat. xxvii. 27, p. 524.
vs down the money, and goes and hangs himself.
agony of conscience; and repenting of the fatal bargain he had made, whereby he had brought such a load of guilt on his own soul, he carried back the thirty pieces of silver which they had given him to the chief priests and the elders, while they were together in the temple that morning; for they resorted thither with a specious appearance of piety, before they followed the multitude to Calvary to see the execution. And coming in among them in a wild disorder, he said to them, Oh Sirs! I have sinned in a most desperate manner, in that I have betrayed innocent blood to you; for I am well convinced, that Jesus my Master has done nothing to deserve this punishment to which you have delivered him: and I am not able to bear the thought of the concern I have had in it. And they answered with the steady coolness of those who knew no shame or remorse for their wickedness, What [is that] to us, whether thou thinkest him innocent or not? See thou [to that]: it is sufficient for us that we know he is guilty, whether such a wretch as thou art approves or condemnest our sentence. And throwing down the pieces of silver money in the temple, in their very presence, with all the marks of agony and distress, he withdrew; and going away to the brow of a hill, in some retired and melancholy place, he there hanged himself; but the rope breaking by the force with which he threw himself off, he fell down the precipice, and burst asunder with the force of his fall, so that all his bowels gushed out;ᵇ and he lay expiring, in a most painful and terrible manner, a spectacle of horror to all that beheld him, alive, or dead, as a multitude of spectators did. (Compare Acts i. 18, 19.)
ᵇ And going away, he hanged himself; but the rope breaking, &c.] This method which Mr. Le Clerc (H. m. p. 527) and several other learned critics have taken, of reconciling Matthew with what is afterwards said of this fact (Acts i. 18), that falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out); appears to me much preferable to that of those who would render ἀπηξέθο, he was stifled, or
suffocated, with excess of grief (see La Motte of Inspir. p. 155); a version, which none of the authorities I have seen seem sufficient to justify. Nor is it necessary to suppose with Dr. Lightfoot (Hor. Heb. on Mat. xxvii. 5, and Acts i. 18), that Judas was carried away by the devil, and strangled in the air, and being thrown from thence in the sight of all the city, was dashed in pieces by the violence of the fall.
OL. 2.
The potters field is purchased with the men
And the chief priests, taking up the pieces of silver, were at some loss how they should dispose of them; for they said, it is not lawful for us to put them into the chest which is called Corban, or the sacred treasury, because it is the price of blood, and would in effect be offering to God the life of a man. And these hypocrites scrupled such a point of ceremony, while they still persisted in their resolution to destroy Jesus, which, if they had desired it, they might yet have prevented. But afterwards, when they met in a body about some other business, having consulted together what they should do with those pieces of money, they bought with them that close in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which is called The potters field, for a burying place of foreigners who had no sepulchres of their own, and whose bodies they scrupled to lay with those of their own holy nation. And therefore, by the way, that field was called, in the Syriac language, Aceldama, that is, The field of blood (Acts i. 19); and it bears that name even to this day, because it was purchased with that money which was the price paid for the blood of Jesus, and was in effect the purchase of the blood of Judas too.
Then was that fulfilled in a very remarkable manner, which was spoken by the prophet,
The potters field.] Thirty pieces of silver may seem a very inconsiderable price for a field so near Jerusalem: but as Grotius well observes, the ground was probably much spoiled by digging it up for earth to make potters vessels; so that it was now un-t for tillage or pasture, and consequently f small value.
Which was spoken by the prophet.] Most copies read it, by Jeremiah the prophet; yet it is universally known that these words re found no where in Jeremiah, but in echariah (chap xi. 13): it appears to me ery unnatural to say with Dr. Lightfoot (Hor. Heb. in loc.) that all the prophetic rittings might be called the book of Jeremiah; because in ancient times the prophecy of Jeremiah was put at the beginning f the volume of the prophets: nor would he granting this fact account for the ex-ression of its being spoken by him. Nor m I at all convinced by Mr. Joseph Mede’s casonin s (see his Works, p. 963), that
these words, though recorded by Zechariah, or rather found in his book, were originally spoken by Jeremiah, and by some accident displaced: a principle on which the whole credit of the prophecies might be destroyed. It would be a much less dishonour to the sacred writings, to suppose a small error in the pen of some early transcriber, who might (as Bishop Hall prettily conjectures), by the mistake of one letter only (supposing the word to be contracted), write 1ᵉʳ for 2ᵉʳ. And though it is certain that Jeremiah was the received reading, as early as Origen’s time, yet there is room to doubt whether any prophet was named in the first copies, as the Syriac version, which is allowed to be made in the most early times, says only, It was spoken by the prophet, without mentioning by whom. On the whole, I think it more respectful to the evangelist, to suppose that some officious transcriber mi ht either insert or change the
And thus what Zechariah said was fulfilled.
prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.
And gave them for the potters field, as the Lord appointed me.)
(Zech. xi. 13), saying, “And I took the thirty pieces of silver” (which sum, the reader will observe, was the usual price of one who was sold for a slave, or of one whom the children of Israel did sell, being esteemed among them on an average but the equitable price of such a one; and was here the price of the blood of the Son of God himself, that infinitely valuable Person): “And they were given for the potters field, as (saith the prophet) the Lord commanded me in vision, in token of his just displeasure against those who had put such an affront on his pastoral care.”
prophet’s name, than to impute it, as Dr. Mill seems to do, to a slip in the author’s memory.
The price of one who was sold, &c.] We may either render the words, [τῆ τῇμνημῇ, οὐ τῇμνημῇ ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ,] of one who was sold, even of one whom the children of Israel did sell; and so consider them as expressive of the common price a slave was rated at among them: or we may render them, of him that was sold, or valued (even their own Messiah) whom the very children of Israel sold at this shameful price. And I think, either of these versions would suit the original, and convey a lively and proper sense: I have therefore suggested both in the paraphrase, though in the version, which could not well be equally ambiguous, I have preferred the former.
And they were given for the potters field, as the Lord commanded me.] It is plain these words are not exactly quoted, either from the Hebrew or the Septuagint; yet I cannot think the difference so great, as it at first appears; since those words in the parenthesis (τῆ τῇμνημῇ τῇ τῇμνημῇ, οὐ τῆ τῇμνημῇ ἀπὸ υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ,) which are not in either, may be considered as the words of the evangelist himself (to which he was naturally led by those of the prophet, A loody price that I was prized at of them); and if, which might easily happen, ἔσθασεν be written for ἔσθασεν, as ἐκέδιν is ambiguous, it may be rendered yet nearer to the original, I took—and gave them, &c. As for the general propriety of applying these words to this occasion, I think it may well be vindicated; for the connection and sense of the prophecy in the Old Testament seems to be this. In order to represent to Zech-
The priests desire to have the sepulchre s
But to return now to the main story. When, notwithstanding the confession of Judas, the Jews had crucified Christ, and his friends had taken down his body from the cross, and laid it in Joseph’s tomb on the evening of the sixth day of the week, on the morrow, or on the sabbath itself, which followed the day of preparation, the chief priests, and other Pharisees who belonged to the grand sanhedrim, assembled together in a body to wait upon Pilate, as with an address of solemn importance: Saying, Sir, we remember that this notorious deceiver, who was yesterday put to death for his crimes, and is well known to have practised many arts to impose upon the people, while he was yet living, said, After three days I will rise again from the dead: We desire therefore, that since his friends have been intrusted with the care of interring him, thou wouldst order that the sepulchre where he is laid may be strictly guarded and secured till the third day is past; lest his disciples should come by night and steal him away, and upon this should tell the people that, according to his own prediction, he is risen from the dead: and so the last deceit will be worse than the first, and the deluded populace will be more eager to profess their regard to him after his death, than they ever were while he was living.
And Pilate said to them, You have a guard in waiting about your court in the temple; go your way therefore, and order as many of them as you think fit to march to the sepulchre, and to keep century there all night, and thereby make [it] as secure as you possibly can.
And accordingly they went and took a detachment of soldiers with them to the garden of Joseph; and having first satisfied themselves that the corpse was there, they secured the
iving the pieces of silver to this event. I do not remember ever to have seen this matter set in, what seems to me, its just and most natural light; but Grotius has some valuable hints upon it, which I wonder he did not pursue farther.
g After three days I will rise again.] Their intending to make the sepulchre secure only till the third day ended, shewed that the
understood our Lord’s expression of rising after three days to be (as indeed it was) equivalent to a declaration that he would rise on the third day. See note f on Mat. xii. 40, Vol. I. p. 347. Compare also Deut. xiv. 28, with xxvi. 12.
h Having first satisfied themselves that the corpse was there.] Common prudence would teach them to do this; and perhaps
sealed the stone, a guard is set upon it.
sepulchre as well as they possibly could, sealing the stone, that it might not be broke open without a discovery of the fraud;¹ and also setting a guard near it, who took care to place themselves so that they could not but take an immediate alarm if any had presumed to make the least attempt to open the sepulchre, and remove the body, or even to embalm it.
IMPROVEMENT.
manner does the way of transgressors deceive doubt, but a few hours before, was thinking ence of receiving this sum of money, which was ighteousness: but though he might for a little sweet morsel under his tongue, yet how soon the gall of asps within him? (Job xx. 12—14.) ce of conscience, even in the worst of men. He all the warnings that his Master gave him, and ed by the remembrance of his goodness to him, f his displeasure, while he was set upon accom- tous design, no sooner comes to feel the sting conscience, but he is filled with horror, and is
they might feed their cruelty with view- ing the dead body, as Herodias did with that sad spectacle the baptist’s head. See note 3 on Mark vi. 28, Vol. I. page 427.
¹ Sealing the stone.] Some have conjec- tured they might also cement it with lead, or bind it with iron; but the sabbath would hardly have allowed this. The guard would prevent violence; and the seal would be a security against any fraud of theirs in confederacy with the disciples, if that could possibly have been suspected. I have also hinted in the paraphrase above, that this precaution of sealing the sepulchre might prevent any attempt, not only to re- move the body, but to embalm it. For it is to be considered, that they had great rea- son to believe, that when two such emi- nent persons as Joseph and Nicodemus had already paid such a public honour to the corpse, they would desire also to em- balm it; which accordingly they did really design. This would be such an addi- tional reflection on the proceedings of the sanhedrim as they would certainly desire to prevent. A mandate from Pilate for this purpose they could not be sure of ob- taining had they asked it; nor would an
act of their own court have been free from uncertainty and inconvenience This meth- od of sealing the stone was therefore the most artful expedient that could be imagin- ed; which would effectually prevent it, without letting it be publicly known that they had the least suspicion of any such design. I state the matter thus largely, in regard to one of the most learned per- sons of the age, who seems to think this a very considerable difficulty. But with respect to the principal point of his rising from the dead, it is surely most senseless to say, with that wretched opposer of the miracles of Christ, who has brought upon himself such just infamy, that this sealing the stone intimated a contract between Christ and them, that he should rise in the sight of the Jewish rulers on the third day. Probably their design was on the fourth day to have opened the sepulchre, and have exposed the corpse to public view; which, had it been in their power, had been the most prudent step they could have taken. But they do not seem to have been mad enough to think, that if Jesus rose from the dead, it must be just when they thought fit to attend.
Reflections on the miserable end of Judas.
unable to endure the cutting anguish of his own reflections. And excili. thus could God, in a moment, drive the most hardened sinner into all the agonies of remorse and despair, by letting loose his own thoughts upon him, to prey upon his heart like so many hungry vultures, and make him a terror to others, and an executioner to himself.
ver. 4 We must surely admire the wisdom of Providence, in extorting even from the mouth of this traitor so honourable a testimony of the innocence of Jesus, though to his own condemnation. And who could have imagined that the supreme court of Israel itself should have been so little impressed with it, as coldly to answer, What is that to us? See thou to that. Is this the language of rulers, yea, of priests? But they had cast off the fear of that God whose ministers they were, and had devoted themselves to gain and ambition. They therefore felt no remorse, even when Judas trembled before them, and appeared almost distracted under the sense of a crime in which they had been confederates with him. But their consciences were seared as with a red hot iron, and all their familiar converse with Divine things served only, in such a circumstance, to harden their hearts: as tempered steel gathers strength from the furnace and the hammer.
Judas repents; he confesses his crime; he throws away the reward of his guilt: yet was there nothing of godly sorrow in all this. Despairing, he becomes his own executioner; and flies to death, and to hell, as a refuge from the rage and fury of an awakened conscience. Fatal expedient! thus to seal his own damnation! But the righteous judgment of God erected him as a monument of wrath, and verified our Saviour’s declaration, It had been good for that man if he had never been born. (Mat. xxvi. 24; and Mark xiv. 21, sect. clxx.) Tremble, O our souls, at this thought! that Judas, even one of the twelve, should fall into such depths of sin and ruin! May we each of us be jealous over ourselves! and may we never presume to censure whole bodies of men for the fault of particular members, when we find there was a traitor and reprobate among the holy band of the apostles.
63, 64 We see the restless and implacable malice of Christ’s enemies, which pursued him even to his tomb, and there endeavoured to blast his memory by fixing upon him the character of an impos-
65, 66 tor. They demanded, and procured a guard for his sepulchre. And here also we have a repeated instance of God’s taking the wise in their own craftiness. (Job v. 13.) The seal and the guard served only more fully to attest the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection, which they were set to overthrow, and to grace the triumph they were intended to oppose. Thus shall all the rage, and all the artifice of his enemies, at length promote the purposes of his glory: thus shall meat at length come out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong. (Judg. xiv. 14.) The
bath, the women prepare to embalm the body.
Lord, shall praise thee; and the remainder of it in, and shalt triumph over it, either by thy vengeance. (Psal. lxxvi. 10.)
Matthew 27:35
Christ’s garments are divided by lot; and while he is himself insulted on the cross, he shews his mercy to the penitent thief. Mat. XXVII. 35—37, 39—44. Mark XV. 24, 26, 29—32. Luke XXIII. —34—43. John XIX. 19—24.
JOHN XIX. 23.
THE soldiers therefore, when they had thus crucified Jesus, took his garments, which according to custom they had stripped off, that the shame of suffering naked might be added to JOHN XIX. 23. THEN the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garxix.23
e soldiers divide his garments by lot.
all the agony of the cross; and, as it was usual for the executioners to have the garments of the criminal whom they put to death, they made our parts of his clothes, assigning to each soldier of the quaternion employed on that occasion a part, and casting lots upon them which of the four each man should take: and they took also the vest, or inner garment; now the vest had this curious circumstance attending it, that it was without any seam at all, being woven from the top throughout in one whole piece.ᵃ And as this was considered by them as more valuable than ordinary, they said therefore one to another, Let us not spoil this coat, as we must do if we go about to tear it into four parts, but let us cast lots for it, whose the whole of it shall be: and accordingly they did so, that the scripture spoken by the prophet David in the person of the Messiah might thus be literally fulfilled, which saith (Psalm xxii. 18), “They divided my garments among them, and casts lots for my vesture.“ᵇ These things therefore the soldiers did, though with the utmost freedom as to themselves, yet by the secret disposal of Providence, which, by an undiscerned influence on their minds, led them to act in a remarkable correspondence to the Divine oracle. And, having done thus, they sat down near the cross, and guarded him, and the other two who were crucified with him, that none might come there to rescue them before they were quite dead.ᶜ
ᵃ Woven from the top throughout in one whole piece.] Perhaps this curious garment might be the work and present of some of the pious women who attended him, and ministered to him of their substance (Luke viii. 3). The hint here given of its make has set some mechanical heads to work to contrive a frame for weaving such a vest; and a good cut of it may be seen in Calmet’s Dictionary, on the word vestments, Vol. III. p. 19.
ᵇ They divided my garments among them, &c.] We are no where told that David’s goods were thus divided; and there are several other passages in the xxiiᵈ psalm, particularly that in which mention is made of piercing his hands and his feet, to which no circumstance of David’s personal suf-
ferings seems to have borne any resemblance. It therefore seems to me exceeding probable that in this scripture, and some others, the mind of the prophet was thrown into a preternatural ecstasy, in which, on some secret intimation given to him that he therein personated the Messiah, he wrote expressly what the Spirit dictated, without any particular regard to himself; so that David might, for any thing I can find, with equal propriety have written such a psalm, if his whole life had been as prosperous and peaceable as the reign of Solomon his son. (Compare 1 Pet. i. 10-12.)
ᶜ That none might come to rescue them, &c.] This was the more necessary in this kind of execution, because the wounds
VOL. 2.
244The title of King of the Jews is put over him on the cross.
And, as the usual method was in cases of crucifixion, they put upon the cross over his head a superscription in capital letters,ᵈ containing the substance of his pretended crime, written in these remarkable words, THIS IS JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And indeed it was Pilate who wrote [this] title, and ordered them to put it on the cross; which, howsoever it was designed as a reproach to Jesus, was in effect a declaration of his real character; and by the secret providence of God was overruled in a remarkable and public manner to proclaim the kingdom of Christ, while it was only meant to expose and ridicule his title to it. *Many of the Jews therefore that came up to the feast of the passover, read this inscription; because the place where Jesus was crucified was near to the city, and lay but just without the gates: and that the inscription might be generally understood, it was expressed by Pilate’s order in three languages, and written both in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin letters, so that it might easily be read by Jews, Romans, and most other foreigners.*ᵉ
Now when this inscription was drawn up, the chief priests of the Jews were very much offended at the form in which it was expressed; and therefore objected against it, and said to Pilate, Do not write, The king of the Jews; for we entirely disown him under that character, as thou well knowest; but rather write, that he said, I am the king of the Jews. But Pilate, who was very much displeased at the importunity by which, contrary to his inclination and judgment, they had extorted
given in crucifixion were not generally mortal. The person crucified died partly by the loss of blood, if any large vessel was pierced by the nails, when nails (as here) were used; but chiefly by the violent distortion of the limbs, which were stretched forth as on a rack; a circumstance which must, no doubt, occasion exquisite anguish.
ᵈ They put over his head a superscription] This Bishop Pearson (on the Creed, p.205), and Dr. Lardner (Credibility, part i. book i. chap. 7, § 10, Vol. I. p. 347), have abundantly proved to be usual in cases of any extraordinary punishment.
ᵉ In Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin letters.] It was written in Latin, for the majesty of the Roman empire; in Greek, for the information of the vast number of Hellenists who made use of that language, as indeed most provinces of the Roman empire did; (see Brerewood’s Inquiries, chap. i—iv.) and in Hebrew, as it was the vulgar language of the place. Thus the inscription set up in the temple, to prohibit strangers from coming within those sacred limits, was written in all these three languages. See Joseph. Bell. Jud., lib. vi. cap. 2 [al. vii. 4], § 4.
The chief priests and rulers mock and deride him.
ed, What I have written, I have written. from him the sentence of death he had passed upon Jesus, answered with some warmth, What I have written, I have written, and, whoever may object against it, I am determined it shall stand as it is.
When therefore they were unable to procure any alteration, they were determined publicly to turn it into a jest; and therefore some of them went in person to Calvary to insult and scoff at Jesus even in his last moments. And the common people, that stood beholding the execution, reviled him; and even they that passed by on the road blasphemed him, shaking their heads at him, in an upbraiding, scornful manner; And saying, Ah thou vain boaster, that wouldest destroy the temple, and build it again in three days! let us now see if thou canst save thyself; and if thou art indeed the Son of God, give us a proof of thy power now, and come down from the cross; for in thy present circumstances that will be the most proper miracle thou canst work in confirmation of thy pretended mission. And in like manner also the chief priests, together with the scribes and elders, and the rulers also themselves, the malice of whose hearts had made them to forget the dignity of their characters, and to attend among the mob upon this base and barbarous occasion, joined with them in their scoffs, and with a scornful sneer derided him; [and] mocking, said one to another, Ay, this is he that saved others, and undertook to give them perfect deliverance and everlasting happiness; [but] now you see he cannot save himself from the most infamous execution: if he be really the true Messiah, the Elect of God, and in consequence of that Divine choice be the king of Israel, as he has so often pretended, let him now come down from the cross, [and] save himself from death, that we may see a demonstration of his saving power, and we will then believe him. Nay, they were
He saved others, &c.] Nothing could be baser than thus to upbraid him with this saving power, which was not a vain pretence, but had produced so many noble and stupendous effects. And it was equally unreasonable to put the credit of his mission on his coming down from the cross: a vigorous spring might possibly have forced the nails from the hands and feet of a crucified person, so that he might have leaped from the cross. What Christ had so lately done before their eyes, and in part on themselves in the garden, was a far more convincing display of a Divine power than merely to have descended now could have been. And though they promis
One malefactor reviles him; the other is p
at once so profane and stupid as to borrow on this occasion the words foretold by David (Psalm xxii. 8), and to say, “He trusted in God, and boasted of his interest in him; let him deliver him now, if he will have him, or if he delighteth in him;” for he has often said, I am the Son of God: the priests themselves not observing that this was the very language which the murderers of the Messiah are there described as using.
And the soldiers also, who kept guard at that time, joined with the rest of the spectators, and mocked him; coming to him, and offering him vinegar to drink in the midst of his agonies. (Compare John xix. 29, p. 553.) And saying, as the rulers and people had done, If thou art really, as thou hast frequently pretended, the King of the Jews, before thou undertakest to deliver them, save thyself from our power, and so begin to assert thy claim to a supreme authority.
And one of the malefactors also, who hung on the cross with him, regardless of that innocence and dignity which Jesus manifested under all his sufferings, and unaffected with a sense of his own aggravated guilt, upbraided him with the same [reproach, and] scornfully blasphemed him as an impostor, saying, If thou art the Messiah, why dost thou not save thyself and us, who are now dying with thee? But the other, awakened to a sense of his sin, and convinced in his heart that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah, answered his companion, and rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, even now when thou thyself art in the same condemnation? In
upon this to believe him, there is no room to think they would have yielded to conviction; but all they meant was to insult him by it, as thinking it impossible he should escape out of their hands.
c If thou art the king of the Jews.] As this claim seemed to them the most derogatory to the Roman authority, it is no wonder that the soldiers grounded their insults on this, rather than on his professing himself the Son of God.
h One of the malefactors also.] We are old indeed by Matthew, in the plural num-
ber, that the thieves cast the same in his teeth; and Mark also says, that they that were crucified with him reviled him; and hence some infer that he who afterwards proved penitent, at first joined in the blasphemy: but had that been the case, surely Luke, in so particular a narrative as his, would not have omitted it. I therefore rather conclude, with most critics, that it is what is commonly called an enallage of numbers, the plural being (as elsewhere) put for the singular. (See note f on Mark xiv. 5, sect. cxlv. p. 276, and note g on Mark i. 21, sect. xxxv. Vol. I. p. 198.)
is told he should be that day in paradise.
such an awful circumstance as this, dost thou dare to increase thy crimes with thy dying breath, and to behave thyself so insolently in the immediate view of God’s righteous tribunal? *And we indeed are justly thus condemned; for we receive no more than what is due for the notorious crimes we have committed: but this [man] has done nothing by any means amiss, nor is there the least insolence or absurdity in that high claim which he has made, though appearances be for the present so much against it. And, having thus rebuked his companion, and testified his full persuasion of the innocence of Jesus, he then directed his discourse to him, and said to Jesus, looking upon him with the humblest and the most contrite regard, Lord, though this wretch deride thy mission, I firmly believe it; and I beg that thou wouldst graciously remember me when thou comest into that thy kingdom, to which I doubt not but God will raise thee in spite of death and hell.*ⁱ And Jesus, turning towards him, said to him, with a mixture of the greatest dignity and mercy, Verily I say unto thee, and solemnly assure thee of it as a most certain truth, that This very day thou shalt be with me in paradise, sharing the entertainments of that garden of God, the abode of happy spirits when separate from the body;
ⁱ When thou comest into thy kingdom.] Some have inferred from hence, that this malefactor had learnt something of Christ in prison, and have urged the possibility of his having exercised, perhaps, a long and deep repentance there, against the supposition of a sudden change that most have supposed in this case. But Christ’s kingdom was now the subject of so much discourse, that he might, on that day, indeed in a few minutes of it, have learnt all that was necessary, as the foundation of this petition. I cannot therefore but look on this happy man (for such, amidst all the ignominy and tortures of the cross, he surely was) as a glorious instance of the power as well as sovereignty of Divine grace, which (as many have observed) perhaps, taking the first occasion from the preternatural darkness, wrought so powerfully as to produce, by a sudden and astonishing growth in his last moments, all the virtues which could be crowded into so
small a space, and which were eminently manifested in his confessing his own guilt, in his admonishing his companion for crime which he feared would prove fatal to him, in his vindicating the character of Christ, and reposing his confidence in him as the Lord of a kingdom beyond the grave, when his enemies were triumphing over him, and he himself, abandoned by most of his friends, was expiring on cross. The modesty as well as the faith of his petition may also deserve our attentive remark.
ᵏ Thou shalt be with me in paradise.] Bos has shewn (in his Exercit. Philol. page 49, 50) that this expression, μετ’ ιυκ εσπ, thou shalt be with me, was the language used when inviting guests to an entertainment; and the word paradise originally signified a garden of pleasure, such as those in which the eastern monarchs made their magnificent banquets. See Raphel. Annot. ex Xenoph. p. 119.
Reflections on the mercy of Christ to the penitent thief.
and there shall thy departing soul, as soon as CXC. thou hast breathed thy last, immediately begin to reap the fruits of that faith which breaks through so dark a cloud, and honours me in the midst of this infamy and distress.
IMPROVEMENT.
John How great and glorious does the Lord Jesus Christ appear in xix. the midst of all those dishonours which his enemies were now 23,24 heaping upon him! While these rapacious soldiers were dividing the spoils, parting his raiment among them, and casting lots for his vesture, God was working in all to crown him with a glory which none could take from him, and to make the lustre of it so much the more conspicuous by that dark cloud which now surrounded him.
Mat. His enemies upbraided him as an abandoned miscreant, desertxxvii. ed both by God and man; but he (though able to have come 39-43 down from the cross in a moment, or by one word from thence to have struck these insolent wretches dead on the place, and to have sent their guilty spirits to accompany the fiends under whose influence they were), yet patiently endured all, and was as a deaf man, who heard not their reproaches, and as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. (Psal. xxxviii. 13.) But as soon Luke the penitent thief addressed him with that humble supplication, xxiii.42 the language of repentance, faith, and hope, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom, he immediately hears and answers him: and in how gracious and remarkable a phrase!
This day shalt thou be with me in paradise! What a triumph was here, not only of mercy to the dying penitent, but of the strongest faith in God, that when to an eye of sense he seemed to be the most deserted and forgotten by him, and was on every side beset with the scorn of them that were at ease, and with the contempt of the proud, he should speak from the cross as from a throne, and undertake from thence, not only to dispense pardons, but to dispose of seats in paradise!
Most ungrateful and most foolish is the conduct of those who take encouragement from hence to put off their repentance perhaps to a dying moment: most ungrateful in perverting the grace of the Redeemer into an occasion of renewing their provocations against him, and hardening their hearts in their impieties: and most foolish to imagine that what our Lord did in so singular a circumstance is to be drawn into an ordinary precedent. This criminal had, perhaps, never heard of the gospel before; and now how cordially does he embrace it? Probably there are few saints in glory who ever honoured Christ more illustriously than this dying sinner, acknowledging him to be the Lord of life, whom
Jesus’s mother and other women standing near the cross,
he saw in the agonies of death; and pleading his cause when his friends and brethren forsook him, and stood afar off. (Compare Mat. xxvi. 56, and Luke xxiii. 49.)
But such is the corruption of men’s hearts, and such the artifice of Satan, that all other views of him are overlooked, and nothing remembered, but that he was a notorious offender, who obtained mercy in his departing moments. The Lord grant that none who read this story here may be added to the list of those who, despising the forbearance and long suffering of God, and not knowing that his goodness leads to repentance, have been emboldened to abuse this scripture, so as to perish, either without crying for mercy at all, or crying for it in vain, after having treasured up an inexhaustible store of wrath, misery, and despair; (Rom. ii. 4, 5.)