4. Jesus Denied by Peter, 26:69–75

4. Jesus Denied by Peter, 26:69–75

With the Son of man Jesus uses his favorite name for himself with reference to his mission on earth.‍¹¹⁴‍ He says that he will be sitting at the right hand of The Power, that is, in the place of highest honor in the court of God. God is often said to be powerful, but it is not often that he is called simply The Power, as here (and in the equivalent in Mark). This was the kind of reverent periphrasis that was often used in order to avoid pronouncing the divine name, and it would thus be readily recognized by his hearers as meaning God. Jesus is clearly claiming a relationship to God such as is shared by no other. He adds, “coming on the clouds of heaven,” in which he looks forward to the consummation of the age and the place he will have in that great day. These last words were very important for Caiaphas. It was not blasphemy for anyone to claim to be the Messiah (it might be mistaken, but it was not blasphemous), and there was a sense in which a man might be called a son of God (cf. 2 Sam. 7:14; 1 Chron. 22:10). But what Jesus had now said went far beyond that.

65. In fact this gave Caiaphas all he needed. These words represented a far-reaching claim; the ordinary first-century Jew would not concede anything remotely resembling what Jesus had just said. He had affirmed a kinship with God closer by far than any human could possibly claim in the judgment of Caiaphas and his helpers. So at these words the high priest tore his robes, an act that signified horror at what he had just heard and vigorous repudiation of the man and his words (was it because words were regarded as blasphemy that clothes were torn in 2 Kings 18:37? cf. Acts 14:14). A high priest must not normally tear his clothes, not even in mourning for the dead (Lev. 21:10–11); it was an action reserved for extreme cases, and, of course, blasphemy was such an extreme case. Caiaphas went on to say, “He has blasphemed” (only Matthew records this verdict). According to the Jewish law recorded in the Mishnah this was incorrect—blasphemy involved the use of the sacred name of God, the name we transliterate as Yahweh. The Mishnah is explicit on this: “ ‘The blasphemer’ is not culpable unless he pronounces the Name itself” (‍Sanh.‍ 7:5).‍¹¹⁵‍ Jesus had not used that name; thus according to the Jewish law what he had said might be inadvisable, but it was not blasphemy. But we have seen that this tribunal was looking not for justice but for a guilty verdict; so what Jesus had said sufficed them. Caiaphas led them in viewing the words as blasphemy, and he went on to ask what more was needed. There was now no necessity for calling witnesses: “you have now heard the blasphemy.”

66. After that, sentencing became a formality. “What do you think?” asked the high priest; in other words, “What is your verdict?” He was met by a chorus, “He is worthy‍¹¹⁶‍ of death.” Once blasphemy was established there was no question about the sentence: “He who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall be put to death” (Lev. 24:16). The law was quite clear, and the Sanhedrin had no hesitation.

67–68. Some very unedifying scenes followed. In the context it seems that the words that follow refer to members of the Sanhedrin; in Luke 22:63 it seems that the guards are meant, but Matthew here implies that some at least of the members of the Sanhedrin joined in. It is possible to make out some form of defense of the conduct of the assembly up to this point. They had been led by the high priest, they had heard Jesus say things that doubtless shocked them, and when Caiaphas said that this was blasphemy they were not disposed to argue. They gave sentence as it was written in Scripture. But from our perspective there was no excuse for their spitting in Jesus’ face (cf. Isa. 50:5–6) and hitting him.‍¹¹⁷‍ No matter how serious the crime, no matter how guilty the prisoner, it seems to us that there could be no justification for the judges behaving in this manner. The slaps followed by a call to Jesus to prophesy may mean that they challenge Jesus to name them, or the meaning may be as in Luke, who tells us that they blindfolded Jesus, then hit him and demanded that he, as a prophet, should say who it was who struck the blow (Luke 22:63–64). But there may be more to it than we see. Perhaps, as ‍Patte‍ thinks (p. 374), we should see in these actions the denial of Jesus’ claims: the spitting on him refutes the claim that he has authority, the blows show that he has no power, and the failure to prophesy as to who hit him is for them clear proof that he has no gift of prophecy about what will happen in the future. Derrett goes further; he maintains that something like this was necessary: “had the elders not struck Jesus or at least spat on him (we are told they did both), they could not have cleared themselves from the implications of condoning his (apparently) outrageous behaviour, which every pious Jew must abhor” (‍Law‍, p. 408). It is, of course, possible that Matthew has left the Sanhedrin and is referring to the conduct of the servants. But if so, it is somewhat curious that he has given no explicit indication. On the whole it appears that we should understand this scandalous behavior to be a vigorous repudiation of Jesus and all he stood for.

4. Jesus Denied by Peter, 26:69–75

⁶⁹Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard; and a slave girl came up to him and said, “You, too, were with Jesus the Galilean.” ⁷⁰But he denied it, saying before them all, “I don’t know what you are saying.” ⁷¹And another girl saw him when he had gone out into the gateway, and she says to those who were there, “This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.” ⁷²And again he denied with an oath, “I do not know the man.” ⁷³And after a little time those who were standing around came and said to Peter, “Certainly you also are one of them, for your speech makes it clear.” ⁷⁴Then he began to curse and to swear, saying, “I do not know the man.” And immediately a rooster crowed. ⁷⁵And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, who had said, “Before a rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

The mockers have denied that Jesus can prophesy. Immediately after their words Matthew records the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy that Peter would deny him three times before cockcrow. That Peter denied Jesus three times is told us in all four Gospels, but there are quite a number of differences in the accounts. Thus John puts quite an interval between the first and second denials (John 18:17, 25), and Luke says that about an hour elapsed between the second and third (Luke 22:59), while the others mention nothing of either interval. But a little reflection enables us to say that there is no likelihood that the three denials went off in close succession. Matthew and Mark recount them together, but there is nothing unlikely in seeing them spread out over quite an interval of time, nothing unlikely either in the Synoptists telling of all the denials in one paragraph. All three agree that the first person to challenge Peter was a slave girl, but after that there are differences. But we should not think that on each occasion everyone was silent but one speaker. There was a group of servants gossiping around a fire, and nothing is more likely than that when one made an accusation against Peter others took it up. The main thing is the impressive agreement that three times the leading man in the apostolic group said that he did not know Jesus.

Why did Peter deny Jesus? He may have been in some danger, but there is little to indicate this. When the enemies came to Gethsemane, they arrested Jesus but they did nothing more; no action against the apostles is recorded. Even when Peter cut off the ear of one of them, there seems to have been no retaliation. All the hostility of which we read was directed against Jesus, not against those who followed him. But with Jesus in the hands of people who were clearly determined to have him executed, evidently Peter thought this was no time for taking risks. He made sure of his safety by denying any connection with Jesus.

It is remarkable and significant that the story of the denials should have been recorded at all. When the Gospels were written, Peter was regarded as the leading apostle, the chief man in the church. It would have been very natural to pass over in silence this man’s fall from grace. But all four of our Gospels recount it. They do not do this by way of demoting Peter, for in due course he repented, was reinstated, and continued in a position of leadership. But the church knew that its leader was a fallible sinner like all others and that he had had a dreadful fall. The church knew, too, that he had repented and by the grace of God had gone on to greater and better things. Moreover, there cannot have been others of Jesus’ followers in the group in the courtyard. It would seem that Peter himself is the origin of the story. He knew how badly he had fallen, and he confessed it before the church.

69. Matthew has already told us that Peter had followed Jesus and was in the courtyard of the high priest’s house (v. 58). Now he returns to the leading man among the Twelve. He tells us that as Peter was sitting there,‍¹¹⁸‍ a slave girl accosted him. Notice that this challenge was as gentle as could be imagined. It was not a man but a woman, not a mature woman but a girl, not a free woman but a slave. Perhaps it was the very gentleness of it all that led Peter astray in the first instance. We must bear in mind that Matthew’s account is abbreviated, and, for example, he does not tell us as Mark does that Peter was warming himself, or as Luke does that the slave girl looked at him attentively, or as John does that she was the doorkeeper. Throughout the denials Matthew sticks to the main facts; we find many details only in the other Gospels. The slave girl said, “You, too [in addition to whom?]‍¹¹⁹‍ were with Jesus the Galilean.” She made no accusation of rebellion, blasphemy, or the like; she simply said that he was with Jesus.

70. But Peter was not going to be known as belonging to Jesus, not in that group of hostile Jerusalemites and in the very courtyard of the leader of Jesus’ enemies. He denied it and did so publicly, before them all. But on this first occasion he did not deal with what the girl actually said; he contented himself with “I don’t know what you are saying.” Her words seem clear enough, but Peter prefers to find it a mystery why she should say such a thing. He takes refuge in an evasion rather than in an outright denial of what she had said, and this is psychologically plausible. But what is clear is that he refused to identify himself with Jesus, and that was effectively a denial.

71. But evidently the encounter made Peter feel uncomfortable; therefore he left the warmth of the fire and removed himself to the gateway. This was clearly the main entrance, and it would have been an elaborate affair (‍NRSV‍ has “the porch”); certainly it was an area where people might still gather and where Peter would still be able to pick up the gossip as he tried to find out what was happening to Jesus. But again he struck trouble, and again it came from a slave girl (Mark seems to imply that it was the same girl, but Matthew says it was another). This one did not speak to Peter, but to the other people there. “This man,” she said (and the expression may be contemptuous, “This fellow”), “was with Jesus the Nazarene.”‍¹²⁰‍ Again there is no accusation of any crime; it is just that he was an associate of Jesus.

72. Peter’s denial this time is more emphatic. He denied with an oath; clearly he felt that something more than his bare word was needed. And he went further in his statement, “I do not know the man.” Now he says not only that he does not know what the girl is talking about, but that he does not know Jesus. Embarked on this course of denial he is led further into evil; the first denial involved a lie, the second time Peter perjured himself. The first was no more than a declaration that he did not know what the girl was talking about; the second was a clear repudiation of Jesus.

73. A little time later (Luke says that it was about an hour, Luke 22:59) some bystanders renewed the charge. They came‍¹²¹‍ and spoke to Peter. They speak confidently with their “Certainly,” their “you also,”‍¹²²‍ and their reference to Peter’s accent. We do not know in what way Peter’s speech differed from that of the Jerusalemites, but there is no reason for doubting that there were Galilean characteristics that this apostle shared.‍¹²³‍ That he spoke with such an accent did not, of course, prove that he was a follower of Jesus, for there were many Galileans who opposed him. But people like these bystanders have never been noted for their logic, and it was enough for them that Peter’s speech differed from their own. That, they thought, made it clear‍¹²⁴‍ that he was a supporter of Jesus.

74. Peter may have become a little rattled at this third accusation, or it may have been the kind of men who made it together with their seriousness that bothered him. For whatever reason, his reaction is much more vigorous than in the face of the previous two. This time he began to curse and swear,‍¹²⁵‍ evidently trusting that vigorous and earthy language might persuade his hearers that he had nothing to do with Jesus, Galilean though he might be. His statement, “I do not know the man,” is as thorough a repudiation as could be conceived; not only does he not follow Jesus, he is saying, but he has no knowledge of him whatever. It is a comprehensive repudiation of the prisoner being unjustly condemned and rudely mocked.

And immediately a rooster crowed. Jesus’ prediction was fulfilled to the letter.

75. Matthew does not have Luke’s statement that Jesus looked at Peter at this moment (Luke 22:61), but he makes it clear that the crowing of the rooster brought home to Peter the fact that what Jesus prophesied had indeed taken place. He had been so confident that he would never deny his Lord, and now he had done so three times. Matthew joins Luke in saying that Peter went outside (the courtyard was no longer a place for the heart-broken apostle) and wept bitterly.‍¹²⁶‍ But we should understand Peter’s tears as an expression of grief and repentance; by the following Sunday he was back with the followers of Jesus. It was his loyalty to Jesus, not his temporary repudiation of his leader, that showed the real Peter.‍¹²⁷‍

Matthew 27

5. Jesus Handed Over to the Romans, 27:1–2

¹When it was early morning all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus so as to put him to death. ²And they bound him, and led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor.

As we saw earlier, it was the Romans who had the power to put people to death. Since the Jewish leaders wanted to have Jesus executed, they had to bring him to the Roman authorities and persuade them to carry out the execution. They had reached the limits of what was possible within their own jurisdiction, and the story now moves to what they could persuade the Romans to do.

1. The Jewish leaders acted in early morning. As the Roman officials tended to do their business in the early part of the day, it was necessary to move promptly. Moreover, early morning means daylight hours; it was required in Jewish trials that the sentence be given in the daytime, not at night. It was also required that the verdict not be given until the second day the accused was before the judges, but time was pressing and apparently nobody raised this objection. Even if there was not the time to comply with all the regulations, at least it was something that the assembly convened again during the daytime and thus gave a semblance of legality to what was being done. All the chief priests indicates a full assembly of ecclesiastical dignitaries,‍¹‍ while the elders of the people points to the eminent laypeople who formed part of the highest Jewish assembly in the land. Matthew is talking about an official meeting of the Sanhedrin. That they took counsel‍²‍ may mean that they discussed the accusation made against Jesus, but if so, that they took counsel against him shows that they had no intention of coming to an unbiased conclusion; they “met together to plan the death of Jesus” (‍REB‍). Alternatively the expression may mean that they “met in full council” (Rieu). However we translate, Matthew is telling us that the Sanhedrin gathered in the morning to ratify the decision made during the night (the basic discussion was the one that took place during the previous night); they met to frame the accusation they would bring to the governor. Their discussion was so as‍³‍ to put him to death. Matthew conveys the meaning that the assembly had no intention of reaching any other verdict. Rieu translates, “the Chief Priests and Elders of the people met in full council to decide on measures against Jesus that would ensure his execution”; while this goes beyond the Greek at some points, it does give the sense of it all.

2. It is not clear why they bound Jesus,‍⁴‍ for he had not tried to escape or to put up resistance. It may have been standard procedure (John tells us that they bound Jesus at the time of his arrest [John 18:12], and either that he was still bound or bound again when he was sent from Annas to Caiaphas [John 18:24]). They handed him over,‍⁵‍ which appears to mean that from this point he was in the custody of the Romans; now everything depended on what the Roman authorities decided. We should notice a literal fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy (20:18–19) that he would be “handed over” to the chief priests and scribes and that they would “hand him over” to the Gentiles. The Roman governor at this time was Pilate; he held the position for about ten years, which was longer than the normal term for a governor. From this Sherwin-White concludes that Tiberius must have been satisfied with the way he managed affairs.‍⁶‍ An inscription from Caesarea shows that his title was “prefect.” Prefects were army officers “ ‘placed in charge’ (praefecit) of difficult or isolated districts.”‍⁷‍ Such a governor was often a military man (as Pilate was), and his primary responsibility was that of maintaining order; he “supervised rather than managed the government as an executive” (Sherwin-White). We see something of this in the trial of Jesus, where the prosecution was not initiated by Roman officials, but by Jewish leaders (the Romans would have called them delatores). They argued the case before Pilate, though, of course, it was he who made the final decision.

Pilate had his limitations as a governor. Josephus records an occasion when this man sent troops to Jerusalem with standards displaying images of the emperor (earlier governors had respected Jewish scruples and refrained from bringing images into the holy city). The Jews protested strongly. At first Pilate refused to withdraw them, though he later gave way (Ant. 18.55–59). He also ran into trouble when he constructed an aqueduct to bring water to Jerusalem but paid for it out of temple funds. There was a strong protest against the use of temple funds for such a project, and Jews were killed in the protest (Ant. 18.60–62). Such incidents indicate that Pilate was apt to act somewhat hastily, though he tried not to antagonize the Jews unduly and he could be constrained to change his mind. It was before this man that Jesus was now brought for trial.‍⁸‍

6. The Death of Judas, 27:3–10

³Then when Judas, who betrayed him, saw that he was condemned, he was filled with remorse and brought the thirty silver pieces back to the chief priests and elders, ⁴saying, “I sinned; I betrayed innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” ⁵And he hurled the money into the temple and departed; he went away and hung himself. ⁶But the chief priests took up the money and said, “It is not lawful to put it into the temple treasury, since it is blood money.” ⁷So they took counsel and bought with it the potter’s field for a burial place for foreigners. ⁸Therefore that field was called “Field of Blood” to this day. ⁹Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty silver pieces, the price of him who was priced, whom some of the sons of Israel priced. ¹⁰And they gave them for the potter’s field as the Lord directed me.”

Before moving on to the treatment of Jesus at the hands of the Romans Matthew finishes the story of Judas. He tells of that man’s remorse and suicide and of the curious mental processes of the hierarchy who had not scrupled to use the money at their disposal to procure the arrest of Jesus so that he could be killed, but who did scruple to put this same money back into the temple treasury. Characteristically Matthew sees a fulfilment of prophecy in their ultimate use of the funds. The incident is found in this Gospel and in Acts 1 only. Stendahl thinks that Matthew’s placing of the death of Judas at this point “indicates that he understands the decision of the Sanhedrin as the crucial one” (in v. 3 Jesus is already spoken of as “condemned”).

3. It was now apparent that Jesus was not going to put forth any of his powers to deliver himself from his enemies. He had been condemned by the Jews and handed over to the Romans, and he had not tried to prevent any of this. So it was quite clear that what Judas had done had led inexorably to the condemnation of Jesus. Matthew has his characteristic Then (see on 2:7), which this time does seem to denote sequence. It was after Judas had seen that Jesus was condemned that the rest followed. The condemnation by the Jews was not final, for only the Romans could put Jesus to death, but once the Jews had agreed on their course of action it was apparent that his execution would follow in due course. Once again Judas is characterized as who betrayed him; we have seen that he used this verb 10 times in the previous chapter, and he will use it twice more in this chapter of Judas (and 3 times of other ways of delivering Jesus up; all told Matthew uses the verb 31 times).

Judas was filled with remorse‍⁹‍ as he now realized what his conduct had led to. If he had been motivated by a desire to precipitate action that would lead to Jewish independence, he now saw that nothing of the sort was going to happen. If, as we have seen, he had simply tried to get what he could out of it all, then he now saw that the damage he had done was out of all proportion to the small gain he had made. Interestingly, the result of his remorse was a return to the Jewish leaders,‍¹⁰‍ bringing with him the thirty silver pieces they had paid him for the betrayal. They, of course, were religious leaders as well as politicians, and it may be that in his spiritual anguish Judas was looking for guidance and help. If so, he was to be bitterly disappointed, for these men were not particularly interested in helping people like Judas. Their minds were set on getting Jesus executed, and that was not yet accomplished.

4. Judas’s confession, “I sinned,” shows that he had come to appreciate something of the enormity of the evil thing he had done.‍¹¹‍ He spells it out with, “I betrayed innocent blood.” Most translations read, “I have sinned,” but Judas’s use of the aorist tense rather concentrates attention on the one great act of sin rather than on the man’s general sinfulness (Moffatt renders, “I did wrong”). The enormity of his betrayal of Jesus had come home to his conscience, and it is this that he is now confessing.‍¹²‍ But those who had paid the bribe to get Jesus into their hands were the wrong people to bring spiritual comfort to this remorseful sinner. They disclaim responsibility. “What is that to us?” they ask. It is a question to which they might well have given attention, for it was a very great deal to their discredit that they had paid money for the arrest of a man who was innocent and whom they were in the process of handing over to the Romans for execution. Their you is emphatic; they are saying that Judas’s conscience is a problem for him alone. People like the Jewish leaders had much more important things to bother about than that. To their eternal discredit these spiritual leaders of the people thought of Judas as a tool that had served its purpose and could be discarded, not as a man in desperate spiritual need.

5. So Judas hurled the money into the temple, or perhaps we should translate, “threw the coins down in the temple” (cf. ‍NRSV‍).‍¹³‍ We do not know exactly where Judas was when this conversation took place; if he was in the temple, then ‍NRSV‍ could give the sense of it. Rieu points to a pious act with “Whereupon Judas left the money as an offering in the Temple,” but this seems very unlikely. The language seems to point to an irrational act of throwing the coins with some force into some holy place nearby, but not where Judas was at the point of his act.‍¹⁴‍ There is nothing to indicate an exercise in piety, only a reckless desire to repudiate his evil act. Then he went off and committed suicide by hanging.‍¹⁵‍ It is this, rather than the linguistics in verse 3, that makes it clear that Judas was remorseful rather than repentant. We might contrast him with Peter. That apostle had likewise sinned grievously, but he was moved by genuine repentance that led to amendment of life rather than to the further sin of suicide.

6. The hurling of the money into the temple presented the ecclesiastics with a problem. They gathered up the coins but immediately realized that they could not put them into the temple treasury.‍¹⁶‍ Judas’s words had made it clear that this was the money they had paid to get him to betray Jesus and not some other money that he had come by in some lawful and honest fashion. They regard it as not lawful and explain that these coins are blood money. Since they were the price paid to secure a death (and they must have known that the death in question was the death of an innocent man), it was not right that it should be put into a treasury dedicated to holy uses. It is not without its interest that apparently they had not scrupled to take the money out of the temple treasury to bring about Jesus’ death, but they now had tender consciences about putting it back! To them it was no crime to use it to bring about a death, but it was a crime to put it into their treasury when it had been used for the purpose for which they expended it.‍¹⁷‍

7. So they took counsel (the same noun and verb as used in v. 1 for their plan to put Jesus to death). The result of their deliberations was that the money was used to buy some land that they call the potter’s field and that was thenceforth to be used as a cemetery for foreigners, perhaps people who were not numbered among the people of God and who made no attempt to live according to the law, more probably Jews from other lands who died while in Judea.‍¹⁸‍ We have no way of knowing which field was the potter’s field or why it was given this name, apart, of course, from the obvious connection of some kind with a particular potter.

8. Matthew says that it was on account of this (Therefore) that the field was given the name “Field of Blood.” The land was purchased with money that had come from the price paid to have Jesus delivered up to death, and it was hurled into the temple by a man who proceeded to go and hang himself. Since it was clearly associated with violent death, the name is not surprising. And Matthew indicates that the name stuck; that was what the field was called to this day.

9–10. Characteristically Matthew sees a fulfilment of prophecy in these happenings. But he presents his readers with a problem in that he says the words were spoken through Jeremiah the prophet when in fact they appear to be a rather free citation of Zechariah 11:13 with the addition of some words that seem to have been derived from Jeremiah (see Jer. 18:2–3; 19:1–13; 32:6–15; this prophet speaks about potters and about buying a field). The explanation may be that Matthew was making a composite quotation and considered the parts that came from Jeremiah significant enough for him to cite that prophet as his authority. He is including words from Zechariah, but he is pointing his readers to Jeremiah. Another view starts from the fact that Jeremiah came first in rabbinical lists of prophets and, as ‍Lightfoot‍ puts it, “When … Matthew produceth a text of Zechariah under the name of Jeremy, he only cites the words of the volume of the prophets under his name who stood first in the volume of the prophets” (p. 363; he cites Luke 24:44 as another example of this sort of thing, for there “Psalms,” the first book in the third division of the Hebrew Scriptures, is used to include all that follows).‍¹⁹‍ It is also possible that Matthew was using a book of Testimonies, a collection of proof texts from the Old Testament.‍²⁰‍ While many scholars agree that such books existed, it is not certain how they were cited. In our present state of knowledge there is nothing improbable in thinking that such a collection may well have been headed by some words from Jeremiah and thus be cited by his name, even though it contained words from other prophets as well (Robinson thinks that the quotation is probably from “a book of ‘Testimonies’ ”). But for our present purpose the important thing is not the precise source from which Matthew derived the words, but the fact that for this Evangelist God was causing prophecy to be fulfilled even in such a detail as the disposal of the money the Jewish leaders paid Judas to betray his Master.

The passage in Zechariah is itself difficult. The Hebrew text signifies “Throw it to the potter” (‍NIV‍), but many translators think that the Hebrew is defective at this point and prefer the reading in the Syriac, “Throw it into the treasury” (‍NRSV‍). In either case there is some irony about the “thirty shekels,” which is described as “this lordly price at which I was valued by them” (‍NRSV‍). Whichever reading we accept and however we understand the message of Zechariah to his readers, Matthew is saying that the use of the money paid to Judas took place in accordance with the words of the prophecy; the purpose of God was not overthrown in the deeds that Zechariah was recording, and it was not overthrown in the actions of Judas and the Sanhedrin that disposed of his bribe money. “In Zechariah the payment of thirty pieces of silver was made in order to get rid of Israel’s Shepherd. That same price was paid to get rid of Jesus who is Israel’s Shepherd. At such a miserable price the Jews valued Jesus and gladly paid it to get rid of him” (‍Lenski‍, p. 1083). The prophecy cited ends with the words, “as‍²¹‍ the Lord directed me.” These are important for Matthew. He is recording the fulfilment of the Lord’s purposes.

7. Jesus before Pilate, 27:11–26

¹¹And Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor questioned him, saying, “Are you the King of the Jews?” But Jesus said, “You are saying it.” ¹²And when he was accused by the high priests and elders, he answered nothing. ¹³Then Pilate says to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” ¹⁴And he did not answer him, not even a single word, so that the governor was greatly astonished.

¹⁵Now at festival time the governor was accustomed to release to the crowd one prisoner whom they wanted. ¹⁶They had then a notable prisoner named Barabbas. ¹⁷When therefore the crowd had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Messiah?” ¹⁸For he knew that they had handed him over out of envy. ¹⁹But as he was seated on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man; for I have suffered many things in a dream today on account of him. ²⁰But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. ²¹And the governor answered them, saying, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” ²²Pilate says to them, “What therefore will I do with Jesus who is called Messiah?” They all say, “Let him be crucified.” ²³But he said, “What evil did he do?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified.” ²⁴But when Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that rather a tumult was starting, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this man; you see to it.” ²⁵And all the people answered, saying, “His blood on us and on our children.” ²⁶Then he released Barabbas to them, but Jesus he scourged and handed over to be crucified.

Matthew proceeds to what happened when Jesus came before Pilate, the governor and the man who could determine whether Jesus was executed or not. He makes it clear that there was little in the way of a formal trial and concentrates on the fact that Pilate does not seem to have thought Jesus guilty of any crime, but that there was unrelenting pressure from the Jewish leaders to bring about his crucifixion. He mentions Pilate’s attempt to get Jesus freed by utilizing the custom of releasing a prisoner at Passover and the failure of this ploy. He tells of the dream of Pilate’s wife and of Pilate’s washing his hands of the whole affair as in the end he did what the Jewish leaders wanted. There was not much in the way of a formal trial, but then, that was not strictly necessary. A Roman governor in a province had considerable latitude and was able to pursue justice in almost any way he thought suitable. He would take into consideration all the facts of the situation and act as he saw fit.

We should bear in mind that Pilate was in a difficult situation. He was answerable to the Emperor Tiberius, a man who would show no mercy to a governor who condoned treasonable activities; it was dangerous for him to take a soft line where treason was alleged. But on the other hand, Tiberius could take a strong line against a governor who treated his subjects badly.‍²²‍ Thus when Jesus came before him, he had to be on his guard against doing anything too harsh or too lenient.

11. After the interlude about Judas, Matthew returns to the narrative he had left at the end of verse 2, where Jesus was handed over to Pilate. Now Matthew says that Jesus stood before the governor.‍²³‍ Nothing is said about the formalities of a trial, and at this point Matthew does not mention any formal accusation; Luke, however, tells us that Jesus was accused of sedition (Luke 23:2). None of the Gospels gives a complete account of what happened when Jesus stood before Pilate, and John in particular gives more information about the discussion on kingship that took place between the governor and the prisoner (cf. John 18:33–38). But Pilate had been informed of the views of the Jewish authorities, and he began by asking, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Evidently this is the form in which the Jewish leaders expressed Jesus’ claim to messiahship or, perhaps better, the way in which they led Pilate to understand it (cf. 2:2; Jews would say “King of Israel,” as in v. 42). Pilate’s question is identical in all four Gospels: in all four it is the first thing he said when confronted with Jesus, and in all four you is emphatic. Clearly one sight of Jesus was enough to tell this experienced governor that this was no terrorist, no leader of a revolt aimed at overthrowing the Romans. Pilate would also have known that Jesus had no high position, no wealth, no soldiers, a preposterous position for anyone claiming to be a king. Except that he now used the present tense instead of the aorist Jesus made the same reply to this question as he had earlier done to Caiaphas’s question as to whether he was the Messiah (26:64): “You are saying it.” Either “Yes” or “No” would have been misleading. Had he said “Yes,” Pilate would inevitably have understood that Jesus was claiming to be an earthly king and that he was indeed the rebel the Jewish leaders claimed he was (‍NIV‍’s “Yes, it is as you say” is a trifle too definite). But to say “No” would negate the fact that he was indeed King, King in the kingdom of God. So his answer means that he was indeed a king, but not in the sense that Pilate used the term.‍²⁴‍

Three times Jesus has used much the same words to say “You say so”—when Judas asked whether he was the betrayer (26:25), when Caiaphas asked whether he was the Christ (26:64), and now when Pilate asks whether he is King of the Jews. As ‍Patte‍ puts it, this means “that as Jesus does not need to reveal to Judas that he will betray him, so he does not need to reveal to the high priest that he is the Christ and to Pilate that he is the King of the Jews, because they already know it (or should know it)” (p. 378).

It seems clear that Matthew is following his customary practice of abbreviating the narrative. If all that happened was that Pilate asked whether Jesus was king of the Jews and received an affirmative answer, even a hesitant one, surely the trial would have been over and Pilate would have given a sentence that would have gotten rid of this “king.” But John tells us of a discussion between Jesus and Pilate about the nature of kingship in which Jesus made it clear that he had no intention of fighting against the Romans.

12. Now we come to the accusation that we would expect. The Jewish leaders kept accusing him (the present infinitive points to a continuous process);‍²⁵‍ they could not, of course, hand a man over to the Romans without laying charges against him. Matthew does not bother to say what these charges were; he leaves his readers to reason from such facts as Jesus’ admission that he was the Messiah (26:63–64) and Pilate’s question whether he was a king. There is not much doubt about the nature of the Jewish accusations, and Matthew does not stay to spell them out. All the more so in that Jesus answered‍²⁶‍ nothing. In all the accounts of his trial he remained silent at some stage. Matthew lets us see that he was not in the slightest concerned about the matters the members of the Sanhedrin raised. The specific allegations did not matter; they were determined to have him executed, and to refute their accusations was irrelevant. If those charges were shown to be false, they would raise others. They were not concerned with justice but with an execution. In the trial before the Sanhedrin Jesus was silent when a variety of allegations were made, but he spoke when the high priest put to him a question he was perfectly entitled to put by virtue of his office. Similarly, he responded to Pilate when the governor asked the question he was bound to ask because of his office.‍²⁷‍ But when Pilate drew attention to the accusations of these Jewish officials it was another matter; he did not reply to Pilate then.

13. Jesus’ silence provoked an intervention from Pilate. He could probably not understand why any prisoner should make no attempt to refute accusations brought against him, especially when, as in this case, the prisoner would be executed if he was convicted. So he interjected a question of his own: “Do you not hear how many‍²⁸‍ things they testify against you?” Clearly the Jewish authorities were casting their net as widely as they could.

14. But just as Jesus did not answer the Jewish leaders, so he did not answer the Roman governor. Neither Pilate nor the Sanhedrin was interested in what Jesus had come to teach and to do, and Jesus was not concerned to waste time over the kind of accusation that was being brought against him. He did not answer, not even a single word.‍²⁹‍ None of it had any relevance to the truth of the situation, so why should Jesus concern himself with what they were saying? Prisoners on trial for their life normally must have been very vocal; they would have tried to refute any and every accusation brought against them. This kind of accusation, alleging crimes that involved the death sentence, would normally have elicited a vociferous defense. So Pilate was greatly astonished. This was clearly not going to be the sort of trial to which he was accustomed.

15. Now Matthew tells us that there was a custom that a prisoner be released at festival time.‍³⁰‍ The custom is not attested outside the Gospels, but there is nothing unlikely about it since in the ancient world prisoners were sometimes released as a gesture of goodwill. There is, moreover, a provision in the Mishnah that a Passover sacrifice might be offered “for one whom they have promised to bring out of prison” (‍Pes.‍ 8:6), which may well be an echo of the custom. Matthew tells us that the custom was to release, not a prisoner whom the governor selected, but one whom the crowd chose. There is no information about how the choice was normally made, but if what happened on this occasion is any guide, it was done by the crowd shouting for the man they wanted.

16. At that time‍³¹‍ they (the term is not explained, but evidently it means the Romans) had a prisoner whom Matthew calls notable.‍³²‍ His name, according to most manuscripts, was Barabbas, but there is manuscript evidence for the name “Jesus Barabbas.”‍³³‍ This presents us with an interesting textual problem. If the reading “Jesus Barabbas” was original, the reason for its absence in most MSS would be that reverence for the name of the Savior caused many scribes to shrink from including it as the name of a criminal. If it was not original, why did some MSS include it? If we are impressed by the consensus of the MSS we will omit it, but if we give the deciding vote to what the scribes were likely to have done we will include it (the word “Jesus” is included in ‍GNB‍, ‍REB‍, ‍NRSV‍, and Rieu, but omitted in ‍RSV‍, ‍NIV‍, and ‍JB‍; ‍JB‍ has a note that the reading “appears to have its origin in an apocryphal tradition”). Verse 20 is hard to reconcile with the reading “Jesus Barabbas” here. Barabbas is an Aramaic expression meaning “son of a father,” so it is not unlikely that it was preceded by a name. Sometimes great rabbis were called “father,” and it is possible that Barabbas was the son of such a scholar. But if that scholar’s name was “Jesus,” we may well ask why it has left no trace in the textual tradition of the other three Gospels. It is also relevant that so many MSS of this Gospel do not have the name, and it is not found in any of them in verses 20, 21, and 26.

17. The way Matthew puts it, When therefore the crowd had gathered, it appears that not many people were about when the members of the Sanhedrin brought their prisoner to Pilate. But in due course the Jerusalem mob made its appearance. Pilate saw in this an opportunity. He took advantage of the presence of the people and the nearness of the feast to suggest that according to the custom he release a prisoner, and he nominated two: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Messiah (if the longer reading be accepted, the question asks which “Jesus” he shall release, “Jesus Barabbas or Jesus called Christ”). No indication is given why only these two prisoners should be considered for release. We may conjecture that Barabbas would have had popular appeal, for Mark tells us that this man had been involved in a rebellion in which he had committed murder. It is possible that the reason why the crowd was there was that supporters of Barabbas had come together to ask for Barabbas to be the man released at the customary amnesty at Passover. For whatever reason, a crowd was assembled, and Pilate put to them the choice of Barabbas or Jesus. He may have thought that since Jesus had committed no crime and since he was said by some at least to be the Messiah, the people would want to have him set free. But perhaps he did not give sufficient consideration to the fact that a Jerusalem crowd was unlikely to call for a Galilean to be released when some of their own people were in custody. And it may well be that the Jewish leaders had made sure that some of their supporters were in the crowd urging the people to call for Barabbas. By adding that Jesus was “called Messiah,” Pilate was quietly urging a consideration that he might well have thought would weigh heavily with many in the crowd. No answer from the crowd is recorded at this point; it may be that Pilate put the alternatives before the people and allowed them time to think about it.

18. Matthew adds that Pilate was not taken in by what the Jewish leaders were saying. He knew that it was not consideration for the security of Roman rule that had motivated them, but envy.‍³⁴‍ Their envy at the success of Jesus in Jerusalem during the past few days would have reinforced their long-standing hatred of him. It may well be that Pilate knew of this and reasoned that since the leaders were jealous of Jesus’ popularity with the crowd, he must have sufficient support among the people for them to ask for his release. Ordinary people would surely side with Jesus rather than with a criminal like Barabbas. So he put the choice before them, thinking that in this way he would be able to release Jesus. If the leaders were jealous of Jesus’ popularity with the crowd, then the “Messiah” must have sufficient support in the crowd for them to ask for him to be set free.

19. Now comes an interruption. Matthew alone tells us that Pilate’s wife‍³⁵‍ sent him a message as he was seated on the judgment seat. She clearly regarded it as urgent, for to interrupt the governor while he was in the act of judging was obviously a serious matter. She urged him that he “Have nothing to do”‍³⁶‍ with Jesus, whom she describes as “that righteous man” (this appears to be a messianic title in Acts 7:52; cf. 1 John 2:1). She gives as the reason that she had suffered many things in a dream because of him, but she gives no indication of the nature of her sufferings nor of why she felt that her husband should have no dealings with the man. But since people in antiquity took a good deal of notice of dreams, it is not surprising that Pilate’s wife felt that her dream was of some importance. And if it was important, she would believe that she should lose no time in communicating the fact to her husband. She would not have been able to enter the court, but she was able to send a message to the judge. We may well feel that it is astonishing that an aristocratic Roman lady should intercede on behalf of a Galilean peasant. She had clearly been deeply impressed by her dream, and she did what she could. The incident is often dismissed as legendary,‍³⁷‍ a view on which our verdict will depend on our understanding of Matthew’s method. There is this in favor of accepting it, that Pilate went to a good deal of trouble for the friendless Galilean when it would have been easy for him to agree with the suggestions of the Jewish leaders. It may be that his efforts on behalf of Jesus owed something to this domestic message. The wife speaks of her dream as having occurred today, which probably indicates that she slept on after her husband went to work. As we have seen, Roman officials tended to begin their day early, so there is no great problem with this.‍³⁸‍

20. The crowd was not left to make up its mind by itself. The crowd never is. There are always people who try to manipulate public opinion, and in this case they were the chief priests and the elders, the Jewish leaders who had brought the accusation against Jesus. There was no doubt which answer they wanted. Matthew gives no indication as to the methods employed to convince the crowds, but tells his readers that they were successful. The crowds were persuaded.‍³⁹‍ The leaders left the people in no doubt as to what this involved; they should ask for Barabbas, and that meant that they should destroy‍⁴⁰‍ Jesus. They were left with the clear understanding that they were not only to seek freedom for Barabbas, but death for Jesus.

21. The time for reflection being up, Pilate asks the people for their choice. He is called the governor, designated by his office in the asking of this significant question. He is said to have answered them, a form of expression that seems to indicate that from the sounds emanating from the crowds outside Pilate realized that the people had had long enough to make up their minds (or have them made up for them!). So he asked the people which of the two they wanted him to release. There was apparently no hesitation as they called out, “Barabbas” (“They preferred the man of violence to the man of love,” ‍Barclay‍, II, p. 362).

22. On hearing this answer Pilate may well have felt that the authorities had persuaded the mob to ask for a terrorist to be released without their understanding what this meant for the fate of one of their own people who was guiltless. At any rate, he went on to ask what they wanted him to do with Jesus.‍⁴¹‍ Therefore is important: Pilate is inquiring about what the answer the crowds had just given meant for Jesus; what is the consequence of their decision. He speaks of “Jesus who is called Messiah,” which seems to be a way of reminding them that Jesus was highly thought of, at least in some circles. A person who was called Messiah with the meaning that term had for loyal Jews had much going for him. Did these clamorers for Barabbas realize what they were doing to a man whom many of their own compatriots saw as the Messiah? They did. Matthew says, “They all say” (notice that the decision is unanimous—as far as the crowd went there was no dissenting voice): “Let him be crucified.” This is the first use of this verb in the passion story (Jesus had used it earlier in prophecies, 20:19; 23:34; 26:2), but Matthew will use it 6 times in this chapter. It shows here that the mob were well aware of what was involved and were content to clamor for the spectacle that a crucifixion afforded. It is not at all surprising that they went along with what their leaders urged rather than accept the suggestion of the Roman governor. Subject peoples will normally prefer the advice of their own leaders to that of the conqueror where they have a choice. It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves that right from the beginning Matthew has written of the Messiah (1:17). But he here makes it clear that there is more to being Messiah than possessing Davidic descent.

23. Pilate made one more ineffectual attempt. The But with which Matthew begins this verse is adversative; it sets Pilate over against the mob. “What evil did he do?”‍⁴²‍ asked the governor. Crucifixion was a dreadful penalty, and even though the age was accustomed to it, it was a way of dying that should surely be used only as a punishment for some serious offense. As far as Pilate could see, Jesus had done nothing wrong. No crime had been demonstrated by his accusers. But it was useless to ask the mob for reasons. Their worst passions had been aroused, and they were baying for blood. They shouted all the more, repeating their demand, “Let him be crucified.” The question of what to do with Jesus was not to be settled by reasoned examination of the evidence. It had been decided by mob hysteria.

24. Only Matthew has this incident.‍⁴³‍ He pictures for us an increasingly frustrated Pilate. Evidently the governor had been acting on the assumption that releasing Jesus would be no great problem. The chief priests were clearly determined to get him executed, but they were jealous of him (v. 18), and in a situation like this, with high officials being jealous of a man who held no office, it must have seemed obvious to Pilate that Jesus had strong support among the people. Why else should they “envy” Jesus? The governor would have had his informers who kept him abreast of what was going on in the realm over which he exercised authority, and accordingly he would have known of those who on Palm Sunday shouted their acclamations of Jesus. But he did not reckon sufficiently with the facts that the crowd now before the praetorium were the Jerusalem mob, not the Galilean pilgrims who shouted for Jesus, and that the mob’s sympathies were with the freedom fighters, not with a religious figure like Jesus. So Pilate’s well-meant attempts to have the people clamor for Jesus’ release misfired and he was left with the mob’s demand that the Galilean be crucified. Apparently he saw no way of getting around that; mob passions were high and to oppose the crowd would have been to stir up opposition. Since he had no great stake in Jesus’ release, that meant that Jesus’ execution was inevitable. But Matthew makes it clear that the governor had not wanted this by recording Pilate’s washing of his hands in front of the crowds, together with his words, “I am innocent‍⁴⁴‍ of the blood of this man;‍⁴⁵‍ you see to it.” The washing of the hands as a gesture to indicate one’s innocence of an offense was a Jewish custom (Deut. 21:6–9; Pss. 26:6; 73:13),‍⁴⁶‍ although ‍Plummer‍ finds it also in Virgil and Ovid (p. 391). Pilate apparently used it as something that would be comprehensible to those who saw it; in any case, his words are plain enough.‍⁴⁷‍ He clearly regarded Jesus’ death as the crime of murder, and equally clearly he did not wish to be held responsible for it. In this, of course, he was mistaken. He did not have the primary responsibility (that lay with the Jewish leaders). But in the last resort it was Pilate who said “Crucify” or “Release,” and there was no way he could avoid responsibility for that. The picture we get is that of a mob out of control and baying for blood, and in that emotional atmosphere a governor who was not thinking clearly and who was ready to take the easy way out.‍⁴⁸‍ He tried to evade accountability for a decision that in the last resort was his and his alone. “You see to it,” like the hand-washing, is an attempt to evade a responsibility that could not be shrugged off. The very similar words the Jewish leaders spoke to Judas (v. 4) did not exonerate the chief priests, and these words do not exonerate Pilate.‍⁴⁹‍

25. The mob cheerfully accepted the responsibility, saying, “His blood on us,” and for good measure adding, “and on our children.” Most translations insert “be” and make the words a prayer, but perhaps we should understand them as a statement: “the responsibility is ours” (so ‍France‍). This can mean only that they did not take seriously any suggestion that Jesus was an innocent man. Nobody calls down on his children the responsibility for the unjust killing of a righteous person. It would seem that the mob had been completely taken in by the propaganda of the high priests. After all, the high priests were the religious leaders. They of all people could be expected to know the truth about Jesus, and they had taken the initiative in handing him over to the Roman authorities and clamoring for the death sentence. Pilate had held before them the possibility of releasing Jesus and executing Barabbas, but they themselves had been largely responsible for overturning that suggestion. They had yelled for Barabbas to be free. They had yelled for Jesus to be crucified. They had caused the Roman governor to do something he did not want to do. They must have felt on top of the world. What did it matter that they should be charged with responsibility for what they had brought about? They had been successful, and for all the good it would do, they were happy to relieve Pilate of the responsibility.

This verse has been greatly misused throughout the centuries, being made a proof text to justify all manner of horrific practices against the Jews. But we should bear in mind that this was no more than a thoughtless assumption of responsibility by an unruly mob. They had no authority to commit their nation for the evil thing that they were doing. And even if they could do this, they could not bind God to punish subsequent generations of the chosen people. Evils have been perpetrated against the Jews through the centuries, and in some places they still are. But Scripture gives us no justification for any such thing. It is relevant that all the first Christians were Jews; the writer of this Gospel cannot possibly have meant that punishment for this mob’s outrageous behavior would fall on every Jew in every place at every time.‍⁵⁰‍

26. It remained only to put the sentence into execution. Pilate released Barabbas to them, an expression that indicates that the mob received that murderer into their number. But Jesus he scourged. Matthew dismisses this horror in a single word. Scourging was the normal preliminary to crucifixion, and it was a horrible punishment in itself. It was inflicted with multithonged whips, each thong being laced with pieces of metal or bone. Josephus speaks of a certain Jesus, son of Ananias, who was “flayed to the bone with scourges” (War 6.304).‍⁵¹‍ Men sometimes died under scourging, and it is not difficult to understand why. Matthew devotes to this horror no more than one word, and he will later do the same with crucifixion. None of the biblical writers dwells on the dreadful sufferings Jesus endured. Popular piety in modern times, both Catholic and Protestant, often does. We sing hymns like “O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded,” and listen to sermons in which we are harried with emphasis on the “bitter pains” that Jesus endured. But the biblical writers are much more interested in the meaning of Jesus’ death than in enlarging on the suffering he endured.

Not as much is known about crucifixion as we might have expected. Indeed, the Gospel narratives appear to be the fullest accounts we have from antiquity of this method of execution. Ancient writers regarded it as the most shameful of deaths, and they refused to dwell on it. All the more was this the case in that it was regarded as the appropriate method of execution for slaves and criminals, and it was used extensively for this purpose.‍⁵²‍ Important people might be executed, but it was done decently, perhaps by beheading. So for the most part we are left to guesswork. Crucifixion was carried out in a variety of ways. It might be done on a cross in the shape Christians have conventionally adopted, but again the “cross” might be in the shape of an I or a T or an X. The object of the exercise was to kill a person, not to conform to any standard form of cross.‍⁵³‍ The person being crucified was fastened to the cross with cords or nails. There was a projection called the sedile that the crucified person straddled; this enabled him to take some of the weight off his arms (when John tells of the legs of those with Jesus being broken, John 19:31–33, he points to the removal of this slight alleviation and to the hastening of death as a consequence). In 1968 some archaeologists discovered the remains of a young man who had been crucified between A.D. 7 and 66 (judging by the pottery in the find). His forearms were nailed to the cross and his legs were bent at the knees and broken. An iron nail was driven through both heels together (the legs were twisted to make this possible).‍⁵⁴‍

It is not known what caused death. The body would have been weakened by the scourging, and further by prolonged exposure, and both the respiration and the circulation would have been affected. One suggestion is that the combination of all this brought on heart failure; another, that the brain would be damaged through the reduced supply of blood that reached it. Whatever the reason, death was sure, and it might take a long time.

D. The Death of Jesus, 27:27–66

Each of the Evangelists tells the story of Jesus’ death in his own way, though Matthew keeps fairly close to Mark’s account. But he has a few details that we find in this Gospel only, and we will note them as we come to them. We may divide his account into three sections in which he deals successively with the mockery Jesus underwent before being crucified, the actual crucifixion together with what happened while Jesus hung on the cross, and the reverent burial his followers brought about.

1. The Mockery, 27:27–31

²⁷Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole company to him. ²⁸And they stripped him and put a scarlet cloak on him, ²⁹and they plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. They knelt before him and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews.” ³⁰And they spat on him, and took the reed and hit him on the head. ³¹And when they had mocked him, they took off the cloak and dressed him in his own clothes, and led him away to crucify him.

Curious as it seems to us, Matthew says very little about the crucifixion. We regard it as the central happening, but Matthew uses only a participle to describe it all! His description singles out three things: the division of Jesus’ clothes (in accordance with Scripture), the inscription over his head that proclaimed him King, and the mockery, before and after he was put on the cross, in which ironically a number of things are said in jest that in fact express profound truths. Bonnard underlines this aspect of Matthew’s treatment of the crucifixion.

The decision that Jesus be crucified having been taken, he was given over into the hands of the soldiers. They would look after him until he was taken out to the place of execution and then carry out the sentence of crucifixion. While they were waiting, they amused themselves with some horseplay. The prisoner had been found guilty of being a king; very well, they would pay homage to the king in their own way. Matthew makes more of this mockery than does any of the other Evangelists. He has 64 words to Mark’s 49, while Luke, of course, does not mention it at all (he has another account of mockery, namely when Jesus was before Herod), and John deals with it very shortly. It is important for Matthew’s purpose, and he lets us know what the soldiers did.

27. The governor’s soldiers were, of course, members of the Roman legion. Since Jesus was out of the control of the Jews, from this point on the Romans dictated all that was done. It is possible that Matthew is mocking these mockers. Patte reminds us that “Mockeries, like caricatures, involve portraying a person by selecting a few actual characteristics of that person and excluding his or her other characteristics.” He sees mockery in Matthew’s reference to “soldiers of the governor.” “Matthew expects his readers to perceive not only that the soldiers are insensitive and cruel in their treatment of Jesus but also that the soldiers are ridiculous and thus wrong in their assessment of Jesus. … The soldiers, apparently under the political authority of the Roman governor, are actually under the authority of the Jewish people whose orders they will carry out by crucifying Jesus” (‍Patte‍, pp. 381, 382).

The soldiers then took Jesus into the praetorium,‍⁵⁵‍ which presents us with a small difficulty. The word referred to the official residence of the governor, but it is not known where Pilate resided when he came to Jerusalem. He lived in Caesarea, where his real praetorium was, but the name was given to whatever residence he used while he was in Jerusalem. Some commentators hold that this would have been Herod’s palace, others that it would have been the tower of Antonia. Whichever it was, it would seem that there was attached to it a place where soldiers could be garrisoned, and it was to this part of the palace that Jesus was taken. They gathered the whole company‍⁵⁶‍ to him, which will signify all the garrison at the residence (Moffatt translates “regiment”; ‍RSV‍, “battalion”; and ‍NRSV‍, “cohort”; all bring out the point that it was a recognized military term). Matthew is saying that all the legionaries at the praetorium gathered for some fun at the expense of the condemned prisoner.

28. Their horseplay centered around the fact that Jesus had been convicted of being a king. Matthew is describing a highly ironical situation; the soldiers went out of their way to produce trappings of royalty as a means of ridiculing one who was to be crucified as a King, whereas he really was King in a fuller and wider sense than they had any idea of. They decided that his clothing was not suitable for royalty, so they took it off‍⁵⁷‍ and replaced it with a scarlet cloak‍⁵⁸‍ (only Matthew has this detail; Mark speaks of their clothing Jesus with purple, the color of royalty,‍⁵⁹‍ but he does not mention the cloak). Since this kind of cloak was used by military officers, there would have been no great difficulty in getting one, perhaps an old one, discarded by an officer. The point of it was apparently that the color was somewhere near purple, the color of royalty.‍⁶⁰‍ By getting a cloak of a color not quite that of royalty the soldiers were mocking Jesus’ claim to be a king.

29. A crown was needed for a king, so these funny fellows got some thorny material and plaited a crown out of it.‍⁶¹‍ They pressed this on Jesus’ head, which would have both mocked his kingship and increased his sufferings. For a scepter they put a reed in his right hand. So they had all the outward trappings of royalty, but every one a piece of cruel mockery. They carried this further in that they knelt before him (only Matthew tells us this), a parody of the respect routinely offered to a king. Only Matthew speaks of the reed; accompanied by the kneeling, it points to all the outward trappings of royalty. Evidently he took this whole episode seriously; it was a dreadful part of what they had done to his Master. Mark and John join Matthew in telling us that they greeted Jesus with “Hail, King of the Jews,” but only this Evangelist includes the information that the mockery included the soldiers kneeling before their helpless captive. Hail could be used in ordinary greetings, but it was also a proper method of saluting royalty (cf. “Hail, Caesar”); ‍GNB‍ substitutes “Long live the King of the Jews” to bring out the force of it (cf. ‍Phillips‍, “Hail, Your Majesty, King of the Jews!”).

30. Their contempt for their captive is shown by the facts that they spat on him and that they hit him on the head with the reed they had given him for a scepter. There would have been no serious physical violence about this part of the incident, but there was contemptuous mockery of all that Jesus stood for. The soldiers make it clear that nobody should take seriously the bedraggled figure in their charge (cf. Isa. 50:6).

31. How long the mockery lasted we do not know. But it could go on only until the time came for the crucifixion. When that time approached, the soldiers removed the cloak and put Jesus’ own clothes back on him. The fun was over and the serious business was about to begin. They led Jesus off to crucify him. There would not have been as many involved in the actual crucifixion as in the mocking (normally four soldiers crucified a man), but it would have included some of the same men.

2. The Crucifixion, 27:32–56

³²And as they were going out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon; him they compelled to carry his cross. ³³And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means “Place of a Skull,” ³⁴they gave him wine mixed with gall to drink; and when he had tasted it, he would not drink it. ³⁵And when they had crucified him, they divided his clothes, casting lots, ³⁶and they sat down and watched him there. ³⁷And over his head they put the written charge against him: “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” ³⁸Then they crucify with him two bandits, one on the right hand and one on the left. ³⁹And the passersby jeered at him, shaking their heads ⁴⁰and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” ⁴¹Likewise also the chief priests, mocking with the scribes and elders, were saying, ⁴²“He saved others, himself he cannot save. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. ⁴³He put his trust in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him; for he said, ‘I am God’s Son.’ ” ⁴⁴And the brigands who were crucified with him were upbraiding him in the same way.

⁴⁵And from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani”; which means, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” ⁴⁷But when some of those standing there heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” ⁴⁸And immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink. ⁴⁹But the rest said, “Let be. Let us see whether Elijah is coming to save him.” ⁵⁰But Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

⁵¹And look, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were split; ⁵²and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints that were asleep were raised; ⁵³and after his resurrection they came out of the tombs, went into the holy city, and appeared to many. ⁵⁴But when the centurion and those who were with him watching Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that happened, they were very much afraid, and said, “Truly this was the Son of God.”

⁵⁵Now there were there many women watching from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, providing for him; ⁵⁶among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.

In the crucifixion narrative Matthew follows Mark closely. There are a few details that he alone has, but for the most part he tells the same story as his fellow Evangelist. The narrative is strictly factual. There is no attempt to play on the heartstrings of the readers, but a plain account of what happened. A noteworthy feature of Matthew’s account is the large number of places where the language echoes Old Testament passages; they show us that Matthew sees the fulfilment of Scripture in what took place that fateful day. Through all the posturing of the Jewish leaders, the blustering of the Roman governor, and the yelling of the Jerusalem mob the divine purpose was worked out.

32. Matthew does not define his they, but clearly he is still referring to the military personnel charged with responsibility for carrying out the execution. Somewhere along the way to the place where the crucifixion was to take place they came across a man of Cyrene named Simon, and they pressed him into service by making him carry Jesus’ cross. It was customary for the condemned person to carry the cross beam of his cross to the place of execution, and John tells us that as they went out Jesus was carrying his cross. But evidently the burden was too great for him to bear. He had been subjected to a great deal of stress. He had been up all night and had undergone the agony in the garden, the various sessions with the Jewish authorities, and the mockery of a trial before Pilate. He had endured the scourging, which, as we noted before, could be a very brutal affair. He had been mocked and hit by the soldiers. It may well be that Jesus had been more severely treated than the others who were crucified with him. Whether that is the reason or not, he needed help (we cannot think that the soldiery who had carried out the mockery of which we have just been reading would have allowed him to have help if it had been at all possible for him to bear the burden himself). They themselves, of course, would not perform such a service, so they compelled‍⁶²‍ a passerby to carry the cross beam. In all three Synoptic accounts it appears that this was a chance meeting; Simon just happened to be there at the time. Mark tells us that this man was “the father of Alexander and Rufus,” evidently people known in the church of his day, and probably Christians (would the Evangelists bother naming people like this unless they were Christians? Did what he heard and saw that day lead Simon to become a follower of Jesus?). He and Luke add the information that Simon was coming from the country (or possibly from the field). That he was a man of Cyrene may mean that he was a Gentile, but more probably that he was a Jew of the diaspora, now in Jerusalem for the Passover festival. He may, of course, have been resident in Jerusalem at this time; we have no way of knowing.

33. They came to a place called Golgotha,‍⁶³‍ which Matthew explains means “Place of a Skull.” This does not help us much in identifying the place. It has been suggested that the place of crucifixion was a hill in the shape of a skull (one reason for favoring “Gordon’s Calvary”). This may have been the case, but (despite many of our hymns and our constant references to “the hill called ‘Calvary’ ”) there is no evidence in any of the Gospels that the place of crucifixion was a hill. It has been suggested that skulls from executed criminals were left there, but it is highly improbable that the Jews would have allowed parts of unburied bodies to lie around. In any case, if this were the reason, it would be “the place of skulls,” not “of a skull.” Further, we must not overlook the fact that there was a garden there (John 19:41), and it is impossible to think that skulls were left lying around in a garden. The name of the place is well documented in the Gospel tradition, but with the information at our disposal we are not able to identify it with any certainty.

34. When they reached the place of execution, they offered Jesus wine mixed with gall.‍⁶⁴‍ This appears to be a reference to a custom mentioned in the Talmud: “When one is led out to execution, he is given a goblet of wine containing a grain of frankincense, in order to benumb his senses, for it is written, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul. And it has also been taught: The noble women in Jerusalem used to donate and bring it” (‍Sanh.‍ 43a; the passage quoted is in Prov. 31:6). The alternative is a reference to the ordinary sour wine used by the soldiers, and Carson suggests that this wine had been made so bitter that Jesus refused to drink it; it would then have been part of the soldiers’ mockery of their prisoner (so also Gundry, “the offer of the bitter drink is not an act of mercy, but an act of mockery” (‍Use of the OT‍, p. 202).‍⁶⁵‍ That Jesus tasted it but then refused to drink it seems to mean that he preferred to keep his senses undulled as he came to the supreme moment when he would give his life as a ransom for the many (cf. 20:28).

35–36. It is noteworthy that Matthew dismisses in a single word one of the most dreadful ways of dying people have ever devised, and that word is a participle forming a subordinate clause.‍⁶⁶‍ In this he is doing the same as the writers of the other Gospels; as we noticed earlier, none of them tries to harrow the feelings of his readers by going into detail about “what pains he had to bear.” Popular Christian piety through the ages has not followed this example, and many have attempted to bring out what we owe to our Savior by dwelling on his sufferings for us. But what mattered for the New Testament writers was that in his death Jesus dealt with our sins; they try to bring out the meaning of his death and leave their readers to work out for themselves that crucifixion was such a painful way of dying.

Having performed their task, then, the soldiers proceeded to divide up his clothing. Those crucified were crucified naked, and their clothing was a perquisite of the soldiers who performed the execution. Matthew says no more than that they did this by casting lots. He reports this in the words of Psalm 22:18, without indicating that he is quoting Scripture, but since he is so fond of seeing the fulfilment of Scripture this can scarcely be accidental. John notes that they divided the clothes into four parts, one for each of the four soldiers involved in the execution, and that the gambling was done over the tunic, which was seamless and thus more valuable (John 19:23–24). Matthew adds that they sat down and watched him. Presumably they waited until he died and thus made sure that there was no rescue on the part of his followers. A crucified man might be taken from his cross and revived; the guard ensured that nothing of the sort occurred in the case of Jesus. None of the other Evangelists has this small point.

37. The charge against Jesus was affixed to the cross over his head. This is sometimes used as a proof that his cross was in the conventional shape and not, for example, a T-shaped cross. But this is not conclusive, for with a T-shape the body would hang down sufficiently to enable the placard to be affixed above the head. It seems that the charge was not invariably affixed to a cross, but it was not unusual. Each of the Gospels differs slightly from the others in the wording of the charge: Mark has “the King of the Jews”; Luke, “This is the King of the Jews”; and John, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The gist is the same in all of them, of course, and in any case John tells us that the inscription was in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, so there was room for small variations. The writing made clear to anyone who could read the identity of this crucified person and the reason for his execution. We notice again that the Gentile inscription refers to “the King of the Jews,” where the Jewish form would be “the King of Israel.”

38. Then moves us on to the next part of the story to which Matthew draws attention; it does not mean that this happened immediately after the events he has just narrated. Jesus was not crucified alone, but two others underwent this form of execution at that same time. Matthew says that they were bandits;‍⁶⁷‍ clearly they were convicted criminals, and with one on Jesus’ right and the other on his left he was in the middle of criminals when he was executed. The prophet had spoken of him as being “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12), and the position of his cross gives meaning to the fulfilment of this prophecy (though Matthew does not specifically draw attention to it).

39–40. In Matthew’s account Jesus is mocked‍⁶⁸‍ (cf. Ps. 22:7) by three groups of people: the passersby, the chief priests and their allies, and those crucified with Jesus (‍Tasker‍ calls them “ignorant sinners,” “religious sinners,” and “condemned sinners,” p. 265). In addition to suffering crucifixion Jesus had to put up with the mocking of thoughtless onlookers. The passersby were people who had no business at the place of the crucifixion but who saw what was going on and joined in the general abuse of the man on the central cross. It is possible that Matthew’s choice of the term is reminiscent of Lamentations 1:12: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. …” Probably many of these people had been in the crowds that clamored for Jesus’ death; having done what they could to bring about his crucifixion, it is not likely that they would pass by the spectacle of the execution.‍⁶⁹‍

They jeered at him, where the verb is one that is more usually translated “blasphemed.” It seems best not to translate it that way here because the people in question did not consciously regard Jesus as the Son of God and therefore were jeering rather than blaspheming as they understood the situation. But Matthew’s choice of word is the right one, for what they were doing was indeed blasphemy, even if they did not fully understand what they were saying. The reason why they shook their heads is not clear, but it indicates at least that they were entering wholeheartedly into what they were doing; their words were accompanied by what they regarded as suitable gestures. They picked up the accusation that Jesus had said that he would destroy‍⁷⁰‍ the temple and build it in three days (cf. 26:61). As we noted earlier, Jesus had not said this, but the accusation evidently persisted. A garbled version of what Jesus had said had clearly gained currency, and it was now hurled at him as he hung on the cross. “Save yourself” is a call to the one who, they said, had claimed great things for himself to do something much smaller, but which they considered more relevant to the plight in which he found himself. “If you are the Son of God,” they say, where interestingly they repeat the words of Satan at the temptation (4:3, 5). Their conditional points to something they are admitting for the sake of the argument, “If you are the Son‍⁷¹‍ of God,” then prove it by coming down from the cross.‍⁷²‍ It is indeed blasphemy when mortals in this way dictate to the Son of God how he should exercise his divine sonship.

41–42. The mockery is continued by the chief priests and their associates; Matthew alone records that with the chief priests were the scribes and elders (Mark has “the scribes”; elsewhere in chs. 26 and 27 scribes are mentioned only in 26:57) and thus brings out the complete rejection of Jesus by official Judaism. It is surprising that people of this eminence should be present at a crucifixion, and the fact that they were is an indication of the depth of their hostility and vindictiveness toward Jesus. The taunts of the general public were directed straight at Jesus, but it is in character that these aristocratic folk did not address the sufferer, though no doubt they made sure that the words were loud enough for him to hear. They spoke ostensibly to one another, not to him, as they joked among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “himself he cannot save.” The opening words are amply documented in this Gospel; again and again Matthew has recorded Jesus’ saving acts (e.g., 9:21–22; 14:30–31). And there is a profound truth in their next words, though they were quite unaware of it. If he would bring salvation to others, then himself he cannot save. They were witnesses of the greatest saving act in the history of the world and indeed had taken a leading part in the events that brought it about, but they were quite unaware of its significance.‍⁷³‍ Matthew seems once more to be mocking the mockers.

They move from salvation to kingship. Sarcastically they say, “He is the King‍⁷⁴‍ of Israel” — a King on a cross? Put there by his loyal subjects? From their point of view it was fantastic, and yet once again they have given expression to an important truth. He was and is the King of Israel, his rejection by his own nation notwithstanding. They go on to challenge him to show the power he claimed to have by coming down from his cross. Then, they said, “we will believe in him.”‍⁷⁵‍ They probably would not have, for they did not believe when the resurrection took place. But in any case (to quote words I have written elsewhere): “their outlook was wrong. They said they would have believed He was the Son of God had He come down from the cross. We believe He was the Son of God because He stayed up.”‍⁷⁶‍

43. Matthew adds a further statement that is not in the other Gospels. In words reminiscent of Psalm 22:8 these mockers bear witness to the fact that Jesus put his trust‍⁷⁷‍ in God; even his foes could testify to that. Trust in the heavenly Father had characterized Jesus throughout his whole life. But then they go on to show that they know as little about the character and the purposes of God as they do about those of Jesus. “Let him deliver him now if he wants him,” they say. Despite the Scriptures that they studied so assiduously and reverenced so wholeheartedly, they had not penetrated to the great truth that the purposes of God are often worked out through suffering.‍⁷⁸‍ They could not understand that God was really working out his purpose of salvation through the sufferer on the cross. They conclude with, “for he said, ‘I am God’s Son.’ ” They had correctly discerned that Jesus claimed a special relationship to God, though it is not clear to what occasion or to what speech of Jesus they are referring.

44. Briefly Matthew records mockery from a third source, those who were crucified with Jesus. He says no more than that the brigands who were crucified on either side of him were upbraiding him in the same way. It is curious that men in the same plight should join in the mockery, but we should bear in mind that brigands were probably freedom fighters and may well have been exasperated with people like Jesus who were strong enough critics of the establishment but did nothing to help those who risked their lives against the enemy. They had also doubtless heard something of the miracles of Jesus and might well feel inclined to say, as Luke reports one of them did, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself—and us!” (Luke 23:39). But Matthew makes little of the incident. He says nothing about the words the brigands actually used, or indeed about anything they said apart from the fact that they were upbraiding‍⁷⁹‍ Jesus and thus joining in the general chorus of his enemies. Matthew is making the point that on all sides there was antagonism as Jesus went to his death. Luke tells us that one of these men was repentant and rebuked the other for his upbraiding of Jesus. It may be that both did this at the beginning but that one, impressed by the way Jesus bore it all, repented and found forgiveness. Or Matthew may be referring to only one of the criminals crucified with him.‍⁸⁰‍

45. All three Synoptists tell us that there was darkness over all the land from the sixth hour‍⁸¹‍ (i.e., noon) until the ninth hour (3 p.m.). This cannot be explained as an eclipse, for it was Passover time and with a full moon an eclipse is not possible. It has been suggested that the darkness was due to a sandstorm, but this is unlikely; nothing in the passage indicates sand. We should understand the darkness as supernatural, leading up to the time when the Son of God breathed his last. It was not a local phenomenon, peculiar to Jerusalem and its immediate environs, for all three Synoptists tell us that it was over all the land (the word could mean “all the earth,” but the land of Israel seems more likely). They clearly mean that it was not a natural phenomenon but the result of divine intervention. Matthew is probably mindful of the darkness mentioned in Exodus 10:22 and Amos 8:9. Darkness is sometimes associated with the end of all things (cf. 24:29), and accordingly it has been suggested that we are to see such a meaning here. But nothing in the context leads us to think that Matthew has eschatological considerations in mind; furthermore, we should remember that the darkness was followed immediately by the cry of dereliction, which does not fit an eschatological situation. Darkness is associated with judgment in several places in Scripture (Isa. 5:30; 13:10–11; Joel 3:14–15, etc.), and it appears that we are to understand it here as pointing to God’s judgment on sin that is linked with the cross.

46. Then at about the ninth hour Jesus died. Matthew and Mark both tell us that Jesus uttered a loud cry.‍⁸²‍ The words, which seem to be a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic,‍⁸³‍ form the opening of Psalm 22 and are slightly different in Mark, where they are more clearly Aramaic. It may be that Jesus quoted the Psalm in Hebrew and that Mark put it into Aramaic, the language of the people. But it is likely that a dying man would use his own language rather than another, and this favors Aramaic as original. Since they are the only words Matthew and Mark record Jesus as speaking from the cross, they must be taken as very significant for these Evangelists (there are six other sayings, but they are all in Luke and John). Speaking loudly as he did, Jesus evidently meant the words to be heard.

There is no great difficulty in translating Jesus’ words (as Matthew did for his non-Hebrew-speaking readers): “My God, my God, why‍⁸⁴‍ did you abandon‍⁸⁵‍ me.” But understanding what they mean is a much more difficult problem.‍⁸⁶‍ For some modern readers the words are so shocking and so different from anything Jesus said throughout his ministry that they feel it is impossible to accept them.‍⁸⁷‍ One way of doing this is to point out that the Psalm that begins in this way goes on to praise God for deliverance as the Psalmist says, “From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me … in the midst of the congregation I will praise you” (vv. 21–22). The suggestion is made accordingly that in his hour of need Jesus was reciting a psalm that brings comfort and that we are to understand from the words quoted that he went through the whole psalm. To this it may well be retorted that if this was the case almost any other verse in the whole psalm would convey the meaning better than those Jesus actually quotes.‍⁸⁸‍ But in any case it is perilous to argue from the use of one verse that Jesus was quoting the whole psalm; indeed, he may not have been quoting at all. Many religious people express their thoughts in the language of Scripture, and it is possible that Jesus was doing just that.

Another view is that Jesus was mistaken: in this desperate hour he felt abandoned, but, of course, God had not really forsaken him.‍⁸⁹‍ But it is almost blasphemous to say that we know the situation, and specifically the relationship between Jesus and the Father, better than he did. It is better to face the words honestly and to accept the fact that this was part of the putting away of sin.‍⁹⁰‍ There must always be mystery here. We who are finite and sinners do not understand, and cannot even begin to understand, how evil appears to a holy God. The prophet Habakkuk could say in his prayer, “Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing” (Hab. 1:13). And the apostle Paul adds, “him who knew no sin, he [i.e., the Father] made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21); and again, Christ became “a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ ” (Gal. 3:13). When we put such passages of Scripture together, it seems that in the working out of salvation for sinners the hitherto unbroken communion between the Father and the Son was mysteriously broken. It is surely better to accept this, knowing that we do not understand it fully, than to attempt some rationalization of the saying so that it becomes more palatable to the prejudices of modern Westerners.‍⁹¹‍

But abandonment is not the whole story. We must bear in mind that Jesus cried out, “My God, my God.” The human Jesus felt and gave expression to the abandonment, but he also retained his trust. “My” points to a continuing relationship; according to Bengel, he “adds ‘My’ with confidence, patience, and self-resignation.” E. Stauffer has further pointed out that there can be a crying out after God as well as a crying to God for help.‍⁹²‍ In the anguish of godforsakenness Jesus still cries out in trust. The human Jesus might still be puzzled (“Why…?”). But he trusts, and we should not miss this aspect of the cry of dereliction.

47. Despite the loudness of Jesus’ cry, it was not understood. In Hebrew the word for “my God” is not so very different from the word for “Elijah,” and some of those near the cross thought that Jesus was calling for Elijah. That prophet, of course, had not died in the usual way but had been taken up into heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11). He came to be viewed as a worker of miracles and one who might conceivably come to the help of the oppressed on earth.‍⁹³‍ This does not mean that any of the bystanders held that Elijah would come to help Jesus, but only that they thought that Jesus might have hoped for help from the prophet. They were convinced that Jesus was in a situation from which he could not have escaped and could not escape; therefore it was only logical that he should appeal to some heavenly being to help him. So far were they still from understanding what was happening before their very eyes.

48. Perhaps with some confused idea that Elijah might respond and that if he did it would be well to be on the right side, one of them (which may mean one of the spectators or one of the soldiers) took action to help Jesus. Immediately‍⁹⁴‍ he ran, showing that he was in haste to do what he could (and would be seen to be in haste), and filled a sponge with sour wine. The sour wine was the ordinary cheap beverage that the soldiers used, and it would have been available there where the soldiers were at work. He put it on a reed (John says that he put it on hyssop). It has been objected that a crucified person was too high above the earth for this to take place, but it must not be forgotten that a cross need not be very high (and, we are told, normally was not, except for especially heinous prisoners). All that was necessary was to get the crucified person’s feet off the ground, and he would die. Thus a sponge … on a reed was quite adequate for the purpose. This man then gave Jesus a drink (and thus fulfilled Ps. 69:21).

49. But giving a drink was a one-man affair. The rest discouraged him; they preferred to see whose side Elijah was on before they started helping the crucified.‍⁹⁵‍ Their use of the present tense is coming indicates that if there was to be help from that source it would have to be quick, but the notion of futurity is conveyed with the unusual future participle of the verb “to save.”‍⁹⁶‍ They put in general terms the possibility that the prophet will come “saving” Jesus (Mark has “come to take him down,” Mark 15:36). The “Wait and see” attitude apparently was the popular one, for we hear no more of any activity on the part of the bystanders. Some commentators (e.g., Schweizer) regard this whole incident as a further piece of mockery. They may be right, but the way Matthew has put it, it seems rather that one person at any rate was trying to help the sufferer by giving him a drink and that the others were simply waiting to see what would happen.

50. But, in Matthew’s characteristic way, is adversative and sets Jesus in contrast to these uncommitted watchers. Both Matthew and Mark say that Jesus gave a loud cry, though neither indicates what he said. It seems likely that this is the cry that John reports immediately before Jesus’ death, “It is finished” (John 19:30). If so, it points to the completion of the saving work that Jesus came to do. He had taught and he had healed and he had set the example in his own life, and now he gave his life “a ransom for many” (20:28). With that loud cry Jesus yielded up‍⁹⁷‍ his spirit. None of the Evangelists uses any of the usual ways of saying that Jesus died, and this may be part of the way they bring out the truth that there was something in his death that set it apart from all other deaths. There appears to be an element of voluntariness (cf. ‍Chrysostom‍, “for this cause He cried with the voice, that it might be shown that the act was done by power,” p. 521). Most of the crucified were in a state of absolute exhaustion at the end, but Jesus’ utterance of a loud shout does not comply with this and supports the view that to some extent his death was voluntary. To the end all four Evangelists refrain from trying to harrow our feelings; they tell their story simply and let the facts speak for themselves.

51. Matthew’s characteristic And look (see on 1:20) makes for a vivid introduction to what follows, as the Evangelist goes on to speak of some unusual happenings that accompanied the death of Jesus.‍⁹⁸‍ He starts with the temple and speaks of the curtain, which appears to mean the curtain that separated the holy of holies, into which even the priests might not go (except the high priest, and he only one day in the year), from the holy place, into which only the priests might go (most interpreters accept this view, for the meaning is surely that by the death of Jesus the way into the holiest has been opened). Alternatively it might signify the curtain that separated the holy place to which priests had access from the adjoining court to which lay Israelite men were admitted (McNeile favors this view on the grounds that it must have been visible to people in general and not only to the priests; Ridderbos also thinks of this curtain). Either way the thought is of judgment on the temple, and Matthew is indicating that symbolically the way into the holy place was opened by the death of Jesus (cf. Heb. 10:19–20). He emphasizes this truth by saying that the curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, which indicates more than a minor tear. He is speaking of a bisected curtain, a curtain that no longer functioned to keep what lay on the other side of it a secret from all those outside. Religion was never to be the same now that Jesus the Messiah had died for sinners. This phenomenon, Matthew says, was accompanied by an earthquake, the earth being shaken and the rocks split. He leaves his readers in no doubt that what had happened was no minor event, but, in the literal sense of the word, earth-shaking.‍⁹⁹‍

52. Up to the tearing of the temple curtain Matthew’s narrative has run parallel to that of Mark, but with the earthquake he is using material not found in Mark, or, for that matter, anywhere else. This continues with his reference to the opening of the tombs. This would not be surprising in an earthquake; indeed, it is not easy to see how it could possibly be avoided. Rock tombs were not like graves where bodies would be buried under mounds of earth. Normally these rock tombs were above the surface, and when the earth shook great strains would be put on them. Many would burst open in a large earthquake. But Matthew is not speaking of the natural consequences of a big earthquake, for he goes on to say, many bodies of the saints that were asleep were raised. The normal New Testament position is that the faithful departed will be raised at the last great day when this earthly life as we know it will give place to the life of the new order in the new heavens and the new earth. But Matthew speaks of some being raised at the time of the crucifixion, information that we find in none of the other Gospels, and indeed nowhere else at all. Donald Senior regards this as important, for it indicates “an implied soteriology.” Matthew is telling his readers something about salvation. “It is the death of Jesus which triggers the resurrection of the saints—this is the new feature Matthew brings to the synoptic tradition.”‍¹⁰⁰‍

53. But he goes on to say that after his resurrection they came out of the tombs, so that their rising may possibly not be connected with the earthquake. We could put a full stop after were opened (there is no punctuation in the oldest MSS) and understand the breaking of the tombs as occurring on Good Friday and the rising of the saints on Easter Day. Carson cites J. W. Wenham for this view and says: “On the one hand, Jesus’ sacrificial death blots out sin, defeats the powers of evil and death, and opens up access to God. On the other, Jesus’ victorious resurrection and vindication promise the final resurrection of those who die in him.” This may be the way of it, but perhaps we should bear in mind that we too easily separate the death and the resurrection of Jesus and tend to attribute some things to the one and others to the other. There may be some scope for this, but the two go together. The death of Jesus was that of one who would in due course rise again; the rising of Jesus was the rising of one who had died for sinners. The one would be meaningless without the other. It seems that here Matthew has the great death-and-resurrection in mind and links his raising of the saints to the whole happening. Thus he mentions it when he speaks of the death of Jesus but goes on to what he says happened at the time of the resurrection: some of the saints that were asleep … came out of the tombs. Nobody else mentions this, and we are left to conclude that Matthew is making the point that the resurrection of Jesus brought about the resurrection of his people. Just as the rending of the temple curtain makes it clear that the way to God is open for all, so the raising of the saints shows that death has been conquered. Those so raised went into Jerusalem and appeared to many. Since there are no other records of these appearances, it appears to be impossible to say anything about them. But Matthew is surely giving expression to his conviction that Jesus is Lord over both the living and the dead.‍¹⁰¹‍

54. Matthew returns to the time when Jesus died and gives us the reaction of the centurion and those who were with him. Mark and Luke speak of the reaction of the centurion, but only this Evangelist includes his associates, evidently the soldiers who had actually performed the crucifixion and who were watching the sufferer. The earthquake and its accompaniments impressed them, and they linked these happenings with Jesus, for not only were they very much afraid (the earthquake by itself would have caused fear) but they went on to say, “Truly this was the Son of God,”‍¹⁰²‍ the same confession as that made by the disciples earlier (14:33). Their Truly points to certainty; they were not making a tentative suggestion (cf. ‍GNB‍, “He really was the Son of God!”). They understood that the death of Jesus showed him to be the Son of God, and this is important. Even to these Gentiles it was clear that there was something in the death of Jesus, together with the attendant phenomena, that showed that he was not just another man. He had a special relationship to God, and it was important for Matthew that this be made clear.

55–56. Matthew rounds off his account of the crucifixion by telling his readers of the presence of a group of ladies. All the Gospels tell us that women were present to the end, but after Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus the only male disciple mentioned is “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” and he only in the Fourth Gospel. Against the background of the failure of the male disciples the devotion and the courage of the women shine out. Matthew says that there were many of them, and that they were watching from a distance (cf. Ps. 38:11). It may not have been safe to go too close to that execution where Jesus’ enemies were in control, and it may not have been proper for ladies to be close to a crucifixion; they may also have chosen not to be associated in any way with the mockers. For whatever reason, they kept their distance, but they remained there to the end, demonstrating by their very presence their continuing loyalty to their crucified Lord. It is worth noticing that there is no mention of any woman at any time taking action against Jesus; all his enemies were men. Matthew says that these women had followed Jesus from Galilee, where followed, as often in this Gospel, has the nuance of being followers, disciples, and from Galilee shows that their following was constant. They had come a long way in their service and obviously at some personal sacrifice, for the way was long and it took time. Matthew also says that they had come providing for him. The expression might be understood as “serving him,”‍¹⁰³‍ but in this context and taking into consideration what we learn from other passages (e.g., Luke 8:1–3) it appears that Matthew is referring to the way these women provided the penniless Jesus with what he needed for survival. Matthew proceeds to mention three of them. He does not indicate why he picked these three, but evidently they had some importance for Matthew or his readers or both. Mary Magdalene (listed also by Mark and John as having been at the crucifixion) is prominent in the resurrection narratives, but apart from that we know little about her. But obviously she was devoted to Jesus, and it is interesting that Matthew names her first. He has another Mary, this one the mother of James and Joseph (Mark has James and Joses), but unfortunately we have no other information about her or her sons. The mother of Zebedee’s sons has appeared before in this Gospel (cf. 20:20–21). Since two of her sons, James and John, were among the Twelve, she was an important person among the followers of Jesus (she is apparently the Salome whom Mark mentions). These women then, and others, were faithful to the end and watched the last moments of their Lord.‍¹⁰⁴‍

3. The Burial, 27:57–66

⁵⁷Now when evening had come, a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was himself a disciple of Jesus, came; ⁵⁸this man approached Pilate and requested the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded that it be given. ⁵⁹And Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean linen, ⁶⁰and put it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. And when he had rolled a big stone to the door of the tomb, he went away. ⁶¹Now Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

⁶²But the next day, that is, after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered with Pilate. ⁶³And they said, “Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was alive, ‘After three days I will be raised.’ ⁶⁴Command, therefore, that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him and say to the people, ‘He was raised from the dead,’ and the last error will be greater than the first.” ⁶⁵Pilate said to them, “Take a guard; go, make it as secure as you know.” ⁶⁶And they went off and made the tomb secure, having sealed the stone, together with the guard.

Matthew prepares us for the resurrection narrative by recounting the way Jesus’ burial was carried out and the precautions that were taken to ensure that nobody stole the body out of the tomb. We might have expected family members to arrange for the burial, or if not, then some of his close followers, but Matthew brings into the narrative Joseph of Arimathea, who went to see Pilate to get permission to bury Jesus and then placed him in his own tomb. This was an action of some generosity, for a rock tomb was expensive, and it was not permitted to bury a criminal in a family grave (‍Sanh.‍ 6:5; cf. ‍Daube‍, pp. 310–11); the tomb could probably not be used afterward for anyone else. Matthew goes on to tell us that the Jewish leaders recalled Jesus’ prophecy that he would rise from the dead and persuaded Pilate to secure the tomb until the third day after the crucifixion.

57. Nothing further could be done until those on the crosses died, but according to Jewish law they could not be left on the crosses overnight (Deut. 21:22–23); the Romans would be happy to leave the bodies on their crosses indefinitely as a warning to others, but Josephus tells us that even the bodies of crucified malefactors were taken down and buried before sunset (War 4.317). But burial had to be completed by sunset, for that marked the beginning of the Sabbath, on which no labor should be performed (specifically a corpse might not be moved on the Sabbath, nor even any member of it, ‍Shab.‍ 23:5). Thus evening would be late afternoon according to our way of reckoning time. Then a certain Joseph,‍¹⁰⁵‍ described as a rich man (in mentioning this Matthew may be drawing attention to the fulfilment of Isa. 53:9) from Arimathea, makes his appearance in the narrative. He is mentioned in all four Gospels in connection with the burial of Jesus, but in none of them does he make his appearance before that time (John says that he was a secret disciple, John 19:38). It is not without its interest that the crucifixion that sent most of Jesus’ followers into hiding had the opposite effect on Joseph and brought him out into the open. We have no information about how he came to hear Jesus and became a disciple,‍¹⁰⁶‍ as Matthew tells us he was; John also has this information, and adds, “secretly for fear of the Jews” (John 19:38). Luke informs us that he was “a councillor,” which presumably means a member of the Sanhedrin, and that he had not agreed to the plan to have Jesus executed (Luke 23:50–51). The location of Arimathea is not known; it has been thought to be identical with Ramathaim (1 Sam. 1:1), but this does not help us much because the site of that city is not certain. The same is true of other suggested identifications. Wherever it was, it would seem that he had left it and moved to Jerusalem; otherwise why would he have a rock tomb near that city?

58. One might have thought that someone from Jesus’ family or from his close followers would have been making funeral arrangements, for the Jews took very seriously the importance of a decent burial. But it was this man Joseph who took the initiative. Since Jesus had been crucified, it was necessary to get permission from the Romans before access to the body would be permitted. Joseph went to the top and approached Pilate. That he was able to speak to the governor gives us some indication of his importance. He asked for the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. Mark adds that Pilate was surprised that Jesus had died so soon and that Pilate checked with the centurion to make sure that he was in fact dead (Mark 15:44). When this had been verified, he commanded that it be given.

59–60. Joseph then took the body (John says that he was accompanied by Nicodemus, who brought spices for the burial, John 19:39), which presumably means that he took it down from the cross (Mark and Luke say explicitly that he took it down, Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53). He wrapped it in clean linen; Mark and Luke say that the body was wrapped in linen, but only Matthew specifies, what the others presumably left to be understood, that it was clean linen, which “suggests the respect and reverence with which he performed the burial” (‍Filson‍); it probably means that this linen had not been used before. The tomb was Joseph’s own new tomb (only Matthew tells us that it was his own and that a big stone was needed to close it). This did not mean of itself that Joseph would have had to have another tomb hewn out for himself, for a rock tomb was normally large enough to hold several bodies. But since Jesus had been condemned as a criminal, Jews would not allow other bodies to be buried there; therefore Joseph would in fact have had to have another tomb made for himself. Matthew says that the tomb was new, and both Luke and John add that nobody had been buried in it. The burial was completed by rolling a big stone to the door of the tomb, the normal way of closing a rock tomb.

61. Matthew rounds off this section of his narrative with the information that two Marys, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, were there. Apparently the burial was carried out by the men, for the women are not said to have done anything and apparently were simply sitting opposite the tomb‍¹⁰⁷‍ to watch what was done. Matthew does not say so, but it is clear that the burial had to be hurried because at sundown it would be the Sabbath, and the beginning of the Sabbath severely limited what could be done. The women would have been observing the scene and planning to come back after the Sabbath to complete anything that was lacking for a fitting burial. Matthew does not explain who the other Mary was, but we should understand her to be “the mother of James and Joseph” (v. 56).

62. In a paragraph peculiar to this Gospel Matthew turns now to the opposition (his But will have adversative force as he turns from what Jesus’ friends did to the activity of the enemy). The story of the guard at the tomb is often assailed as a fictitious invention of the early church, but we must bear in mind that from the earliest days of the church the resurrection of Jesus was at the center of the proclamation (as Acts makes clear). Had the authorities been able to point to a body in the tomb where Jesus was placed on Good Friday, that preaching would have been shown to be ridiculous. Though they could not have known how central the preaching of the resurrection would be, there is nothing outrageous in the suggestion that the Jewish leaders would have taken precautions to see that the body of Jesus remained where it was buried. Some such happening as Matthew relates here must have taken place. He speaks of the next day and calls it the day after the Preparation, but he does not say that that day was the Sabbath. Perhaps he did not wish to speak openly of the holy day in connection with the kind of activity he was about to describe. The Preparation was the day when people prepared for the Sabbath, that is, Friday.‍¹⁰⁸‍ On this Sabbath, then, the chief priests and the Pharisees met with Pilate. There is no mention of the elders, so Matthew is not speaking of an official delegation from the Sanhedrin. But both the chief priests and the Pharisees were religious personages, and they may have been expected to be interested in what Jesus taught and how they might combat it. The word rendered were gathered is often used to describe the coming together of assemblies,‍¹⁰⁹‍ and it hints that there was something formal and solemn about this meeting with Pilate.

63. We have seen that on a number of occasions Jesus had prophesied that he would rise from the dead. His disciples seem consistently to have misunderstood these prophecies, and there is no evidence that they had them in mind at this time. But his enemies did remember them, and they ascribed to Jesus’ followers better memories than they apparently had. These Jewish leaders did not anticipate a resurrection; they speak of Jesus as that deceiver when they are referring to his predictions of his resurrection (incidentally, a marked contrast to the polite “Sir” with which they address Pilate).‍¹¹⁰‍ But they recalled Jesus’ prophecies and feared that the disciples might attempt to stage a mock resurrection by causing Jesus’ body to disappear. They had taken notice of exactly what Jesus had said, they recalled the interval of three days that he had mentioned, and they have the passive be raised (not “I will rise”),‍¹¹¹‍ which refers the resurrection to the action of the Father. They knew exactly what they were up against, even though it does not seem to have occurred to them that what Jesus had thus prophesied would in fact take place. Some commentators say that Jesus’ predictions that he would rise always took place among his followers and that the Jewish leaders would not have known this. But in the first place, one such prediction was specifically made in their hearing (12:40), in the second there is nothing against the suggestion that this may have happened on other occasions, in the third place the leaders would certainly have heard reports spread by Jesus’ hearers, and, fourthly, Judas may have given them such information.

64. They were probably uneasy that the body had been given to friends of Jesus for burial, so they wanted to make sure that no one removed the body from the tomb where it had been placed. Accordingly they asked Pilate to take steps to ensure that the body was not stolen. “Command,” they say, for it was only the governor who could order troops to be stationed at the tomb. There was, of course, no reason why they should not have put some of the temple police there, but evidently they felt that some Roman soldiers would be preferable. In any case, once they had handed Jesus over to the Romans he would have been removed from their control and they might not have any rights at the sepulchre. Therefore looks to Jesus’ prophecies. They are not saying that there was a danger that the ordinary kind of grave robber would remove Jesus’ body (and they probably would not have been greatly concerned had this taken place). But because of the prophecies they wanted a guard. They wanted the tomb to be made secure; they did not specify that they wanted soldiers to be there, but security demanded no less. They wanted help until the third day, for that was the time specified in the prophecies, and if the disciples stole the body after that time they could point out that Jesus’ words had not been fulfilled. But if the body was stolen within that time, the disciples could claim that he was raised from the dead. It is, of course, true that the disciples would have had a difficult time claiming a resurrection when all they had was a dead body, but the leaders did not want to give them the opportunity. If such a claim were made, they thought, “the last error‍¹¹²‍ will be greater than the first.” Presumably they saw Jesus’ claim to messiahship as the first error and a claim to resurrection as a possible last. They were castigating his teaching and specifically they called his prophecy of his resurrection an error and held that a claim to resurrection would be an even greater error. They did not consider for a moment that there was any element of truth in what Jesus had said.

65. Pilate responded to their plea in words that may be understood in more ways than one. The verb seems to be an imperative with the sense “Take a guard” (literally, “Have a guard,” i.e., “I grant you a guard”), but it could be understood as an indicative, in which case it would mean, “You have a guard of your own”; in other words, “Rely on your own temple guard” (‍M. Green‍ takes the words in this sense, p. 288). It seems probable that we should take the words in the former sense (they would not need Pilate to tell them that they had the temple guard).‍¹¹³‍ In 28:11–14 it appears that they are answerable to Pilate. He tells them to go off and to make the tomb as secure‍¹¹⁴‍ as they can. Presumably this means that they are to choose the best dispositions of the force to guard against the possibility they foresaw.‍¹¹⁵‍ With a free hand in this matter they would not be able to complain that Pilate had let them down if things went wrong.

66. Matthew rounds off this section of his narrative with the Jewish leaders happy and secure. They went off, away from Pilate, and proceeded to do as he had suggested. They made the tomb secure, and Matthew tells us that they did this, having sealed the stone. That was the important thing. If the stone was not moved, there could be no ill-founded rumor of a resurrection. They had the stone sealed and they had the guard, so from their point of view all was well. They had neatly defeated any attempt the disciples might make to empty the tomb and to start stories of a resurrection.

But in doing this they did more than they knew. They ensured that there could be no nonsense about disciples stealing the body when in due course Jesus did rise from the dead. The precautions of his enemies would underline the truth of his resurrection. It is not without interest that, after all their precautions to ensure that the body was not stolen, in the event they themselves spread reports that that had indeed happened; they said that his disciples had stolen the body. Justin tells us that in the middle of the second century the Jews were still claiming that the disciples had stolen the body (Trypho 108), despite the fact that the Jews themselves had made it clear that there was no possibility of the body of Jesus being stolen. On the third day the tomb was empty; the only question was how this came about.

Matthew 28

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