Expository Thoughts
27. A large number of people followed him, including women.
Burgon remarks "that no woman is mentioned as speaking against our Lord in his life, or having a share in his death. On the contrary, he was anointed by a woman for his burial, women were the last at his grave and the first at his resurrection, to a woman he first appeared when he rose again, women ministered to his needs, women bewailed and lamented for him, a pagan woman pleaded with her husband, Pilate, for his life, and, above all, of a woman he was born."
31. "When the tree is green . . . it is dry." Our Lord contrasts himself and the Jewish nation. "If the Romans practice such cruelties on me, who is a green tree and the very source of life, what will they do one day to your nation, which is like a barren, withered trunk, dead in trespasses and sins?"
32. Criminals . . . led out with him. This is in literal fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that the Messiah would be "numbered with the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:12).
33. They came to the place called The Skull. The commonly held opinion that Calvary was a mount or hill is destitute of any foundation in Scripture. All four Gospel writers speak of it as a "place." None of them calls it a "mount."
34. "Father, forgive them." These words were probably spoken while our Lord was being nailed to the cross or as soon as the cross was set on end. It is worth noting that as soon as the blood of the great sacrifice began to flow, the Great High Priest began to intercede.
During the six hours that our Lord was on the cross, he showed that he possessed full power as the Son of God and that although he