Page images
PDF
EPUB

knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? 11 Jesus answered, Thou fch. vil. 30. h couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: i therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. 121 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out,

f

read, release.

render, wouldest. krender, delivereth. 1 better, Upon this.

g read, crucify.

i

render, for this cause. Some ancient authorities have delivered.

ch. xviii. 35, Pilate at once recoils from his better conscience into the state-pride of office. As Lampe remarks, this speech is directly contrary to his previous expression of fear. This very boast was a self-conviction of injustice. No just judge has any such power as this, to punish or to loose (see 2 Cor. xiii. 8); but only patiently to enquire and give sentence according to the truth. unto me, emphatic: it perhaps being implied, "Thou hast, I know, refused to reply to others before.'

That Pilate

should put the releasing first, as it stands in the most ancient authorities, seems most natural, as appealing most to the prisoner: the power of crucifying follows as the alternative in case the other is rejected.

11.] This last testimony of our Lord before Pilate is a witness to the truth: opening in a wonderful manner the secret of Pilate's vaunted power, of His own humble submission, and the sinfulness of His enemies. This saying, observes Meyer, breathes truth and grace. The great stress is on the term from above, on which Grotius strikingly says, "thence, that is, from whence I am sprung;" so that it furnishes a remarkable answer to the above. We must not dream of any allusion to Rome, or the Sanhedrim, in this question "Whence art thou?" as the sources of Pilate's power-the word was not so meant, nor so understood: see ver. 12. The word

[ocr errors]

it does not refer to power against me, but embraces in itself the whole delegation from above, power included: and the words 'except it were given thee from above," are equivalent to except by appointment from above. Lampe remarks: "Our Lord concedes to Pilate 1) Power. He acknowledged the authority of a human court, because His kingdom was not earthly, destroying human magistrates: nor did He dispute the authority of Pilate and the Romans over the Jews. 2) He even amplifies that power, as given from above. For this is the Christian doctrine, that all

The I take it

power is from God (Rom. xiii. 1, 2). 3) He acknowledges that that power extended even over Himself, since all concerning Him was being done by divine decree (Acts iv. 28)." for this cause] viz. because of what has just been asserted, Thou wouldest have no power &c." connexion is somewhat difficult. to be this: God has given to thee power over me;-not insight into the character which I claim, that of being the Son of God-but simply power: that insight belonged to others, viz. the Sanhedrim, and their president, whose office it was to judge that claim; they have judged against the clearest evidence and rejected me, the Son of God; thy sin, that of blindly exercising thy power, sin though it be, is therefore less than theirs, who being God's own people, and with God's word of prophecy before them (and the High Priest, with his own prophetic word before him,-see ch. xviii. 14), deliberately gave me over into thy hand.' It is important to this, which I believe to be the only right understanding of the words, to remember that Pilate, from ver. 6, was making himself simply their tool;-He was the sinful, but at the same time the blind instrument of their deliberate malice.

he that delivereth

me unto thee] Beyond question, Caiaphas, -to whom the initiative on the Jewish side belonged; by whose authority all was done. At the same time the whole Sanhedrim are probably included under the guilt of their chief. In this word sin is an implied reference to a higher Judge-nay, that Judge Himself speaks. 12.] Upon this: or from this time: but the words in the original hardly bear so much as this latter meaning. See ch. vi. 66, where the same correction has been made. Pilate himself was deeply struck by these words of majesty and mildness, and almost sympathy for his own weakness; and he made a last, and, as this verse seems to imply, a somewhat longer attempt than before, to

g Luke xxiii.

2.

h Acts xvii. 7.

saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's
hm whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh
friend :
against Cæsar. 13 When Pilate therefore heard that
saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the
judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but
in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. 140 And it was the preparation
of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto
the Jews, Behold your King! 15 But they cried out,

m better, every one that.

n read, these words. read, Now it was the preparation of the passover. It was about the sixth hour.

[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

13.] these words-viz. these two last remarks. In such a perplexity, a man like Pilate could not long hesitate. As Caiaphas had before said, it were better that one even innocent man should die, than that all should perish: so now in like case Pilate decided rather to sacrifice Jesus though innocent, than to expose himself to so great danger." Friedlieb.

forth :

see on ch. xviii. 33. The judgment seat, or bema, was in front of the prætorium, on an elevated platform called Gabbatha, which was paved with a tessellated pavement. Such a pavement, Suetonius informs us, Julius Cæsar carried about on his expeditions. 14. the preparation

of the passover] The signification, Friday in the Passover week,' has found many, and some recent, defenders. But this is not the natural meaning of the words, nor would it ever have been thought of in this place, but for the difficulty arising from the whole Passover question, which I have discussed on Matt. xxvi. 17-19, and on ch. xviii. 28. This preparation day is the vigil of the Passover,' i.e. the day preceding the evening when the passover was killed. And so it must be understood here, espe

[ocr errors]

We cer

cially when connected with ch. xviii. 28. See on the whole matter the notes above referred to. about the sixth hour] There is an insuperable difficulty, as the text now stands. For St. Mark relates, ch. xv. 25, that the crucifixion took place at the third hour: and that it certainly was so, the whole arrangement of the day testifies. For on the one hand, the judgment could hardly have taken the whole day till noon: and on the other, there will not thus be time left for the rest of the events of the day, before the sabbath began. We must certainly suppose, as did Eusebius, Theophylact, and Severus, that there has been some very early erratum in our copies; whether the interchange of 3 and 6, which when expressed in Greek numeral letters, are not unlike one another ( and 5), or some other, cannot now be determined. tainly may bring the two accounts nearer together by recollecting that, as the crucifixion itself certainly did not (see in Mark) take place exactly at the third hour, and as here it is about the sixth hour, some intermediate time may be described by both Evangelists. But this is not satisfactory: see note on Mark xv. 25. The solution given by Dr. Wordsworth, after Townson and others, that St. John's reckoning of the hours is different, and like our own, so that the sixth hour would be 6 A.M., besides being unsupported by any authority (see ch. i. 39; iv. 6, 52; xi. 9, and notes), would leave here the difficulty that there must thus elapse three hours between the hearing before Pilate and the Crucifixion. sides which, we may ask, is it possible to imagine St. John, with the other gospels before him as these expositors believe him to have had, adopting without notice an independent reckoning of his own which would introduce utter confusion into that history which (again on their hypothesis) he wrote his gospel to complete and clear

Be

Pilate

The chief

Away with him, away with him, crucify him. saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? priests answered, We have no king but Cæsar. delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified.

i

16 Then i Gen. xlix. 10.

And they took Jesus [, P and led him away]. 17 And

Heb. xiii. 12.

he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the * Num. xv. 56. place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha : 18 where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. 19 r And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 This title then read many of the Jews for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. 218 Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. 22 Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. 23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was with

P omitted by some ancient authorities. rrender, Moreover.

up?

The words Behold your King seem to have been spoken in irony to the Jews-in the same spirit in which afterwards the title was written over the cross: -partly perhaps also, as in that case, in consequence of the saying in ver. 12,-to sever himself altogether from the suspicion there cast on him. 15.] We have

[ocr errors]

66

:

I render, the.

render, Therefore.

they

20-47. Luke xxiii. 26-56. Compare
the notes on the Four throughout.
took Jesus] viz. the chief priests.
17-22.] His Crucifixion.
on Matt. ver. 33.

answer.

17.] See 19.] Matt. ver. 37. 20-22.] The same spirit of mockery of the Jews shewed itself in the title, as before, ver. 14. They had prevailed on Pilate by urging this point, that Jesus had set Himself up for a king; and Pilate is willing to remind them of it by these taunts. Hence their complaint, and his The Latin was the official language, the Greek that usually spoken,the Hebrew (i. e. Aramaic) that of the common people. What I have written I have written] The first perfect denotes the past action; the second that it was complete and unalterable. 23-30.] His death. 23, 24.] There were four soldiers, a quaternion, Acts xii. 4, and perhaps a centurion, for we read elsewhere of a centurion sent to see punishment inflicted. The garments of the executed were by law the perquisite of the soldiers on duty. The coat was the tunic. It reached from the neck to the feet, and was fastened round the throat Mark xv. with a clasp. It was properly a priest's

no king but Cæsar, was a degrading con-
fession from the chief priests of that people
of whom it was said, The Lord your God
is your King.' 1 Sam. xii. 12. They
were so earnest in repudiating Jesus," says
Bengel, "that they repudiate their Messiah
altogether." However, the cry furthered
the present purpose, and to this all was
sacrificed, including truth itself; for the
confession was not only degrading, but false
in their mouths. Some of those who now
cried this, died miserably in rebellion against
Cæsar forty years afterwards.
Here the scourging seems (Matthew, Mark)
to have taken place, or perhaps to have
been renewed, since the former one was
not that customary before execution, but
conceded by Pilate to the mob in hope of
satisfying them.

16.]

17-42.] Jesus surrenders himself to death. Matt. xxvii. 31-61.

out seam, woven from the top throughout. 24 They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be 1 PSA. xxii. 18. fulfilled, which saith, 'They parted my traiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. 25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the [ wife] of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 y When m ch. xiii. 23: Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, [he] saith unto his mother, " Woman, behold thy son! 27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour a that disciple took her • unto his own home. 28 After this, Jesus knowing that a not expressed in the original.

xx. 2: xxi. 7, 20, 24.

n ch. ii. 4.

o ch. i. 11: xvi. 32.

trender, garments.

[ocr errors]

this should be Clopas, as in the original.
y render, Jesus therefore seeing.
a render, the, as above.

garment, and was woven of linen, or per-
haps of wool. The citation is verbatim
from the LXX. 25.] In Matt. xxvii.
55, 56, and the parallel places, we learn
that two of these were looking on afar off,
after Jesus had expired, with Salome.
Considering then that St. John's habit of
not naming himself might extend to his
mother (he names his father, ch. xxi. 2),
we may well believe that his mother's
sister here represents Salome, and that
four women are designated by this descrip-
tion. So Wieseler and Meyer, Luthardt
opposing them. So also Ewald: and, which
is no mean evidence, the ancient Syriac
version, inserting and between,
"the
mother's sister, and Mary
This Mary was wife of Klopas (Alphæus,
see Matt. x. 3, and Introd. to Ep. of James,
§ i. 4), the mother of James the Less
and Joses; Matt., Mark. 26. behold

دو

thy son] The relationship in the flesh between the Lord and His mother was about to close; hence He commends her to another son who should care for and protect her. Thus, as at the marriage in Cana, when His official independence of her was to be testified, so now,-He addresses her as Woman. 27.] The solemn and affecting commendation of her to St. John is doubly made,-and thus bound by the strongest injunctions on both. The Romanist idea, that the Lord commended all his disciples, as represented by the beloved one, to the patronage of His mother, is simply absurd. The converse is true: He did solemnly commend the care

Z omit.

of her, especially indeed to the beloved disciple, but in him to the whole cycle of disciples, among whom we find her, Acts i. 14. No certain conclusion can be drawn from this commendation, as to the brethren of the Lord' believing on Him or not at this time. The reasons which influenced Him in his selection must ever be far beyond our penetration :-and whatever relations to Him we suppose those brethren to have been, it will remain equally mysterious why He passed them over, who were so closely connected with His mother. Still the presumption, that they did not then believe on Him, is one of which it is not easy to divest one's self; and at least may enter as an element into the consideration of the whole subject, beset as it is with uncertainty. from that hour is probably to be taken literally,-from that time;so that she was spared the pangs of witnessing what was to follow. If so, John returned again to the Cross, ver. 35. The words, he took her to his own home, need not imply that John had a house in Jerusalem. The name would equally apply to his lodging during the feast; only meaning, that henceforth, wherever he was, she was an inmate with him; and certainly that his usual habitation was fixed, and was his own. Ewald remarks, "It was for the Apostle in his later years sweet reward to recall vividly every such minute detail,-and for his readers a sign that he alone could have written all this." 28.] After this is generally, but

all things were now accomplished, P that the scripture p PA. Ixix. 21. might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. 29 [ Now] there was [a set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar,

r

he said, "It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave q ch, xvii. 4.
up the ghost. 31 The Jews therefore, because it was the r ver. 42.
preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the s Deut. xxi. 23.
cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an
high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken,

b render, finished. It is the same word as in ver. 30.
render, accomplished.

h

d omit.

better, then.

e read and render, so they filled a spunge with the vinegar. ↑ render, for perspicuity, fixed it upon a stalk of hyssop. g render, yielded up his spirit. not necessarily, immediate. Here we must suppose the "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" to have been said meantime, and the three hours' darkness to have taken place. Perhaps during some of this time John was absent: see above.

that the scripture might be accomplished] Various needless objections have been raised to the application of these words to the saying of the Lord which follows, and attempts have been made-having it in view to leave no pre-appointed particular of the circumstances of his suffering unfulfilled, thus: that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be accomplished: i. e. that all was now done in order to the accomplishment of Scripture. But it is much more natural to connect them with what follows, and to understand, that Jesus, speaking doubtless also in intense present agony of thirst, but only speaking because He so willed it, and because it was an ordained part of the course which He had taken upon Him, said this word, I thirst. "He would not have sought this alleviation of His sufferings, had He not known that this also pertained to the distinguishing signs of the Messiah as given in the Prophets. Whence this second motive is stated in addition: that the Scripture might be accomplished." Lampe. Notice, it is not, fulfilled, which is always otherwise expressed in the original, but accomplished. 29.] The vinegar was the sour wine, or vinegar and water, the common drink of the Roman soldiers. a stalk of hyssop] An aromatic plant growing on walls, common in the south of England and on the Continent, with blue or white flowers, and having stalks about

1 foot long, which would in this case be long enough, the feet of the crucified person not being ordinarily raised above that distance from the ground. It was much used for sprinkling, Exod. xii. 22; Levit. xiv. 4 &c.; Ps. li. 7. 30.] It is finished expresses the fulfilling of that appointed course of humiliation, obedience, and suffering, which the Lord Jesus had undertaken. That was now over, the redemption of man accomplished,-and from this time 'the joy that was set before Him' begins. It is beyond the purpose of a note to bring out the many meanings of this most important and glorious word. he bowed his head] We have the minuteness of an eye-witness, on whom every particular of this solemn moment made an indelible impression. yielded up his spirit] viz. in the words given by St. Luke, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit-which was also the "loud voice" mentioned by St. Matthew and St. Mark. This "yielding up His spirit" was strictly a voluntary and determinate act-no coming on of death, which had no power over Him,-see ch. x. 18, and note on Luke xxiii. 46. 31-42.7 Jesus in Death: and herein, 31-37.1 Proof of His Death. 31.] On the Jewish custom, see note, Matt. xxvii. 57.

that sabbath day was an high day, being as it was (see note on ch. xviii. 28, and Matt. xxvi. 17) a double sabbath: the coincidence of the first day of unleavened bread (Ex. xii. 16) with an ordinary sabbath. that their legs might be broken] The breaking of the legs was sometimes appended to the punishment of crucifixion, but does not appear to have been inflicted

« PreviousContinue »