Bibelkommentare

Matthew 27:40 Ἔλεγον δὲ τὰ τοιαῦτα κωμῳδοῦντες ὡς ψεύστην, Euthymius Zigabenus. We should not fail to notice the parallelism in both the clauses (in opposition to Fritzsche, who puts a comma merely after σεαυτόν, and supposes that in both instances the imperative is conditioned by εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τοῦ θεοῦ), ὁ καταλύων, κ.τ.λ. being parallel to εἰ υἱὸς εἶ τ. θ., and σῶσον σεαυτόν to κατάβηθι ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ.

ὁ καταλύων, κ.τ.λ.] is an allusion to Matthew 26:61. For the use of the present participle in a characterizing sense (the destroyer, etc.), comp. Matthew 23:37. The allegation of the witnesses, Matthew 26:61, had come to be a matter of public talk, which is scarcely to be wondered at considering the extraordinary nature of it.

Observe, moreover, that here the emphasis is on υἱός (comp. Matthew 4:3), while in Matthew 27:43 it is on θεοῦ.

Matthew 27:42 Parallelism similar to that of Matthew 27:40.

καὶ πιστεύομεν (see the critical remarks) ἐπʼ αὐτῷ: and we believe on Him (at once), that is, as actually being the Messiah. ἐπί with the dative (Luke 24:25) conveys the idea that the faith would rest upon Him. So also Romans 9:33; Romans 10:11; 1 Timothy 1:16; 1 Peter 2:6.

Matthew 27:43 In the mouth of the members of Sanhedrim, who in Matthew 27:41 are introduced as joining in the blasphemies of the passers-by, and who, Matthew 27:42, have likewise the inscription over the cross in view, the jeering assumes a more impious character. They now avail themselves even of the language of holy writ, quoting from the 22d Psalm (which, moreover, the Jews declared to be non-Messianic), the 5th verse of which is given somewhat loosely from the LXX. (ἤλπισεν ἐπὶ κύριον, ῥυσάσθω αὐτόν, σωσάτω αὐτόν, ὅτι θέλει αὐτόν).

θέλει αὐτόν] is the rendering of the Heb. חָפִץ בּוֹ, and is to be interpreted in accordance with the Septuagint usage of θέλειν (see Schleusner, Thes. II. p. 51, and comp. on Romans 7:21): if He is the object of his desire, i.e. if he likes Him; comp. Tob 13:6; Psalm 18:19; Psalm 41:11. In other instances the LXX. give the preposition as well, rendering the Hebrew (1 Samuel 18:22, al.) by θέλειν ἔν τινι. Fritzsche supplies ῥύσασθαι; but in that case we should have had merely εἰ θέλει without αὐτόν; comp. Colossians 2:18.

ὅτι θεοῦ εἰμι υἱός] The emphasis is on θεοῦ, as conveying the idea: I am not the son of a man, but of God, who in consequence will be certain to deliver me.

Comp. Wis 2:18.

Observe further the short bounding sentences in which their malicious jeering, Matthew 27:42 f., finds vent.

Matthew 27:44 Τὸ δʼ αὐτό] not: after the same manner (as generally interpreted), but expressing the object itself (comp. Soph. Oed. Col. 1006: τοσαῦτʼ ὀνειδίζεις με; Plat. Phaedr. p. 241: ὅσα τὸν ἕτερον λελοιδορήκαμεν), for, as is well known, such verbs as denote a particular mode of speaking or acting are often construed like λέγειν τινά τι or ποιεῖν τινά τι. Krüger, § xlvi. 12; Kühner, II. 1, p. 276. Comp. on Php 2:18.

οἱ λῃσταί] different from Luke 23:39; the generic interpretation of the plural (Augustine, de cons, ev. iii. 16; Ebrard, Krafft) is precluded by the necessary reference to Matthew 27:38. The harmonists (Origen, Cyrill, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Zeger, Lange) resorted to the expedient of supposing that at first both of them may have reviled Him, but that subsequently only one was found to do so, because the other had in the meantime been converted. Luke does not base his account upon a later tradition (Ewald, Schenkel, Keim), but upon materials of a more accurate and copious character drawn from a different circle of traditions.

Matthew 27:45 Ἀπὸ δὲ ἕκτης ὥρας] counting from the third (nine o’clock in the morning), the hour at which He had been nailed to the cross, Mark 15:25. Respecting the difficulty of reconciling the statements of Matthew and Mark as to the hour in question with what is mentioned by John at Matthew 19:14, and the preference that must necessarily be given to the latter, see on John, John 19:14.

σκότος] An ordinary eclipse of the sun was not possible during full moon (Origen); for which reason the eclipse of the 202d Olympiad, recorded by Phlegon in Syncellus, Chronogr. I. p. 614, ed. Bonn, and already referred to by Eusebius, is equally out of the question (Wieseler, chronol. Synops. p. 387 f.). But as little must we suppose that the reference is to that darkness in the air which precedes an ordinary earthquake (Paulus, Kuinoel, de Wette, Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 448, Weisse), for it is not an earthquake in the ordinary sense that is described in Matthew 27:51 ff.; in fact, Mark and Luke, though recording the darkness and the rending of the veil, say nothing about the earthquake. The darkness upon this occasion was of an unusual, a supernatural character, being as it were the voice of God making itself heard through nature, the gloom over which made it appear as though the whole earth were bewailing the ignominious death which the Son of God was dying. The prodigies, to all appearance similar, that are alleged to have accompanied the death of certain heroes of antiquity (see Wetstein), and those solar obscurations alluded to in Rabbinical literature, were different in kind from that now before us (ordinary eclipses of the sun, such as that which took place after the death of Caesar, Serv. ad. Virg. G. I. 466), and, even apart from this, would not justify us in relegating what is matter of history, John’s omission of it notwithstanding, to the region of myth (in opposition to Strauss, Keim, Scholten), especially when we consider that the death in this instance was not that of a mere human hero, that there were those still living who could corroborate the evangelic narrative, and that the darkness here in question was associated with the extremely peculiar σημεῖον of the rending of the veil of the temple.

ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν] Keeping in view the supernatural character of the event as well as the usage elsewhere with regard to the somewhat indefinite phraseology πᾶσα or ὅλη ἡ γῆ (Luke 21:35; Luke 23:44; Romans 4:17; Romans 10:18; Revelation 13:3), it is clear that the only rendering in keeping with the tone of the narrative is: over the whole earth (κοσμικὸν δὲ ἦν τὸ σκότος, οὐ μερικόν, Theophylact, comp. Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus), not merely: over the whole land (Origen, Erasmus, Luther, Maldonatus, Kuinoel, Paulus, Olshausen, Ebrard, Lange, Steinmeyer) though at the same time we are not called upon to construe the words in accordance with the laws of physical geography; they are simply to be regarded as expressing the popular idea of the matter.

Matthew 27:46 Ἀνεβόησεν] He cried aloud. See Winer, de verbor. cum praepos. compos, usu, 1838, III. p. 6 f.; comp. Luke 9:38; LXX. and Apocr., Herod., Plato.

The circumstance of the following exclamation being given in Hebrew) is sufficiently and naturally enough accounted for by the jeering language of Matthew 27:47, which language is understood to be suggested by the sound of the Hebrew words recorded in our present passage.

σαβαχθανί] Chald.: שְׁבַקְתַּנִי = the Heb. עֲזַבְתָּנִי. Jesus gives vent to His feelings in the opening words of the twenty-second Psalm. We have here, however, the purely human feeling that arises from a natural but momentary quailing before the agonies of death, and which was in every respect similar to that which had been experienced by the author of the psalm. The combination of profound mental anguish, in consequence of entire abandonment by men, with the well-nigh intolerable pangs of dissolution, was all the more natural and inevitable in the case of One whose feelings were so deep, tender, and real, whose moral consciousness was so pure, and whose love was so intense. In ἐγκατέλιπες Jesus expressed, of course, what He felt, for His ordinary conviction that He was in fellowship God had for the moment given way under the pressure of extreme bodily and mental suffering, and a mere passing feeling as though He were no longer sustained by the power of the divine life had taken its place (comp. Gess, p. 196); but this subjective feeling must not be confounded with actual objective desertion on the part of God (in opposition to Olshausen and earlier expositors), which in the case of Jesus would have been a meta-physical and moral impossibility. The dividing of the exclamation into different parts, so as to correspond to the different elements in Christ’s nature, merely gives rise to arbitrary and fanciful views (Lange, Ebrard), similar to those which have been based on the metaphysical deduction from the idea of necessity (Ebrard). To assume, as the theologians have done, that in the distressful cry of abandonment we have the vicarious enduring of the wrath of God (“ira Dei adversus nostra peccata effunditur in ipsum, et sic satisfit justitiae Dei,” Melanchthon, comp. Luther on Psalms 22, Calvin, Quenstedt), or the infliction of divine punishment (Köstlin in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. III. 1, p. 125, and Weiss himself), is, as in the case of the agony in Gethsemane, to go farther than we are warranted in doing by the New Testament view of the atoning death of Christ, the vicarious character of which is not to be regarded as consisting in an objective and actual equivalent. Comp. Remarks after Matthew 26:46. Others, again, have assumed that Jesus, though quoting only the opening words of Psalms 22., had the whole psalm in view, including, therefore, the comforting words with which it concludes (Paulus, Gratz, de Wette, Bleek; comp. Schleiermacher, Glaubensl. II. p. 141, ed. 4, and L. J. p. 457). This, however, besides being somewhat arbitrary, gives rise to the incongruity of introducing the element of reflection where only pure feeling prevailed, as we see exemplified by Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 309, who, in accordance with his view that Jesus was abandoned to the mercies of an ungodly world, substitutes a secondary thought (“request for the so long delayed deliverance through death”) for the plain and direct sense of the words. The authenticity of our Lord’s exclamation, which the author of the Wolferibüttel Fragnents has singularly misconstrued (in describing it as the cry of despair over a lost cause), is denied by Strauss (who speaks of Psalms 22 as having served the purpose of a programme of Christ’s passion), while it is strongly questioned by Keim, partly on account of Psalms 22 and partly because he thinks that the subsequent accompanying narrative is clearly (?) of the nature of a fictitious legend. But legend would hardly have put the language of despair into the mouth of the dying Redeemer, and certainly there is nothing in the witticisms that follow to warrant the idea that we have here one legend upon another.

ἵνατι] the momentary but agonizing feeling that He is abandoned by God, impels Him to ask what the divine object of this may be. He doubtless knew this already, but the pangs of death had overpowered Him (2 Corinthians 13:4),—a passing anomaly as regards the spirit that uniformly characterized the prayers of Jesus.

ἐγκαταλείπω] means: to abandon any one to utter helplessness. Comp. 2 Corinthians 4:9; Acts 2:27; Hebrews 13:5; Plat. Conv. p. 179 A; Dem. p. 158, 10, al.; Sir 3:16; Sir 7:30; Sir 9:10.

Matthew 27:47 A heartless Jewish witticism founded upon a silly malicious perversion of the words ἠλί, ἠλί, and not a misunderstanding of their meaning on the part of the Roman soldiers (Euthymius Zigabenus), or illiterate Jews (Theophylact, Erasmus, Olshausen, Lange), or Hellenists (Grotius), for the whole context introduces us to one scene after another of envenomed mockery; see Matthew 27:49.

οὗτος] that one there! pointing Him out among the three who were being crucified.

Matthew 27:48 f. A touch of sympathy on the part of some one who had been moved by the painful cry of Jesus, and who would fain relieve Him by reaching Him a cordial. What a contrast to this in Matthew 27:49! According to John 19:28, Jesus expressly intimated that He was thirsty. Mark 15:36 makes it appear that the person who reached the drink to Jesus was also one of those who were mocking Him, a discrepancy which we should make no attempt to reconcile, and in which we can have no difficulty in detecting traces of a more corrupt tradition. Luke omits this incident altogether, though in Matthew 23:36 he states that by way of mocking our Lord the soldiers offered Him the posca just before the darkness came on. Strauss takes advantage of these discrepancies so as to make it appear that they are but different applications of the prediction contained in Psalms 69, without, however, disputing the fact that drink had been given to Jesus on two different occasions.

ὄξους] poscae, sour wine, the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers. Comp. Matthew 27:34 and Wetstein thereon.

ἄφες] stop! don’t give him anything to drink! we want to see whether Elias whom he is invoking as his deliverer will come to his help, which help you would render unnecessary by giving him drink.

ἔρχεται,] placed first for sake of emphasis: whether he is coming, does not fail coming!