Bible Commentaries

Matthew 26:52. Put back thy sword into its place (θήκην, John 18:11; κολεόν, 1 Chronicles 21:27). A pictorial representation; the sword was uplifted.

πάντες γὰρ, κ.τ.λ.] All, who have taken a sword, will perish by the sword,—an ordinary axiom in law (Revelation 13:10) adduced for the purpose of enforcing His disapproval of the unwarrantable conduct of Peter, not a προφητεία τῆς διαφθορᾶς τῶν ἐπελθόντων αὐτῷ Ἰουδαίων (Euthymius Zigabenus, comp. Grotius), nor “an ideal sentence of death” (Lange) pronounced upon Peter—all such interpretations being foreign to our passage. Luther, however, fitly observes: “Those take the sword who use it without proper authority.”

Matthew 26:53. Ἤ] or, in case this should not be sufficient to induce thee to thrust back thy sword.

ἄρτι] this instant. See on Galatians 1:10.

The interrogation does not extend merely as far as μου, in which case it would lose much of its significance, while the language would be rendered too abrupt, but on to ἀγγέλων; yet not as though καί (for that, ὅτι) introduced a broken construction, but thus: Thinkest thou that I am not able … and He will (not) place at my side, etc.? so that I can thus dispense entirely with thy protection! The force of the negative runs through the whole sentence.

πλείω δώδεκα λεγεώνας ἀγγέλων (see the critical remarks) is a genuine Attic usage, according to which it is permissible to have the neuter πλεῖον or πλείω without a change of construction, or even without inserting ἤ. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 410 f.; Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. p. 17 D; Kühner, II. 2, p. 847. The number twelve corresponds to the number of the apostles, because of these only one had shown a disposition to defend him.

Matthew 26:54. Πῶς οὖν] How, in that case, could it be, if, that is, I were to be defended by thee or angel hosts, how could it be possible that, etc. In his comment on οὖν, Euthymius Zigabenus aptly analyses it as follows: εἰ μὴ οὕτως ἀναιρεθῷ. For πῶς, comp. on Matthew 23:33.

ὅτι] states the purport of the γραφαί, so that to complete the sense a λέγουσαι or γράφουσαι may be understood (Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc. p. 58 f.; Maetzner, ad Antiph. p. 215): how shall the Scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must happen thus, and not otherwise? Jesus here alludes to the fact of His arrest, which, according to Scripture, is a necessary part of the destiny assigned Him; comp. Acts 4:28; Luke 24:25 f. We must not expect to find what is here referred to in any passages of Scripture in particular; suffice it to know, that all the predictions relating to the sufferings of the Messiah find their necessary fulfilment in the historical events of our Lord’s life, the arrest itself not excluded. Comp. Matthew 26:31.

The healing of the wounded servant is peculiar to Luke 22:51. It probably came to be engrafted upon the tradition at a later period; for this act of healing, in virtue of the peculiarity of its alleged occasion and character, as well as in virtue of its being the last which Jesus performed, would otherwise scarcely have been omitted by all the other evangelists; see also on Luke as above.

Matthew 26:55. Ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ] in that hour, in which that was going on which is recorded between Matthew 26:47 and the present passage, subsequently, however, to the scene with Peter, and while the arrest was taking place. Comp. Matthew 18:1, Matthew 10:19.

τοῖς ὄχλοις] not to the high priests, etc., as Luke 22:52 would have us suppose. What is meant is the crowds of which the ὄχλος πολύς of Matthew 26:47 was composed.

Matthew 26:56. Τοῦτο … προφητῶν] It is still Jesus who speaks, and who with these words closes His address. Comp. also Mark 14:19. In Luke 22:53 we find a somewhat different conclusion given. Erasmus, Jansen, Bengel, Fritzsche, de Wette, Schegg, Bleek, Weiss, Holtzmann, Hilgenfeld, regard the words in question as a remark by the evangelist (comp. Matthew 1:22, Matthew 21:4); but if that were so, we should have expected some specific quotation instead of such a general expression as at αἱ γραφαὶ τ. πρ., and what is more, our Lord’s words would thus be deprived of their proper conclusion, of that which contains the very point of His remarks. For the gist of the whole matter lay in this avowal of His conviction as the God-man that all that was now taking place was a carrying out of the divine purpose with regard to the fulfilling of the Scriptures, and—thus the mystery of Matthew 26:55 is solved.

τότε οἱ μαθηταὶ, κ.τ.λ.] Observe the πάντες. Not one of them stood his ground. Here was the verification of the words of Jesus, Matthew 26:31; comp. John 16:32.

Matthew 26:57 f. The Synoptists make no mention of the judicial examination before Annas (John 18:13); their narrative is for this reason incomplete, though it does not exclude such examination (Luke 22:66). As for the trial before the members of the Sanhedrim, which took place at the house of Caiaphas, John merely alludes to it, Matthew 18:24, where, however, ἀπέστειλεν is not to be taken as a pluperfect.

ἀπὸ μακρόθεν] a well-known pleonasm: in later Greek the ἀπό is dropped. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 93. Bengel appropriately observes: “medius inter animositatem Matthew 26:51 et timorem Matthew 26:70.”

τῆς αὐλῆς] not the palace but the court, as in Matthew 26:3.

εἰσελθὼν ἔσω] see Lobeck, ad Aj. 741; Paralip. p. 538.

τὸ τέλος] exitum rei; 3Ma 3:14, common in classical writers. Luther renders admirably: “wo es hinaus wollte” (what the upshot would be).

Matthew 26:59 f. Καὶ τὸ συνέδριον ὅλον] and the whole Sanhedrim generally. This is a legitimate enough use of the words, even although certain individual members (Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea) did not concur in this proceeding.

ψευδομαρτυρίαν] so called from the historian’s own point of view. Euthymius Zigabenus well remarks: ὡς μὲν ἑκείνοις ἐδόκει, μαρτυρίαν, ὡς δὲ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, ψευδομαρτυρίαν.

ὅπως θανατ. αὐτ.] with a view to putting Him to death, which could only be effected by their pronouncing in the first instance a capital sentence, and then having it ratified by the authority of the imperial procurator.

καὶ οὐχ εὗρον καὶ πολλῶν προσελθόντων ψευδομαρτύρων (see the critical remarks): and they found no means of doing so, even though many false witnesses had come forward. There were many who presented themselves to bear witness against Jesus; yet the Sanhedrim did not find what it wanted to find, doubtless because of the lack of that agreement between two of the witnesses at least which the law required (Numbers 35:30; Deuteronomy 17:6; Deuteronomy 19:15). See what immediately follows: ὕστερον δὲ προσελθ. δύο, and comp. Mark 14:56. Though there was a show of complying with the ordinary forms of judicial process, they were nevertheless shamefully violated (in opposition to Salvador, Saalschutz), in that exculpatory evidence (John 18:20 f.) was never called for.

Matthew 26:61. The expression John 2:19, which Jesus had made use of with reference to His own body, was not only misunderstood by those witnesses, but also misrepresented (John: λύσατε): whether wilfully or not, cannot be determined. But in any case the testimony was objectively false, and even in the case of the two who agreed it was in all probability subjectively so. Comp. Acts 6:13 f.

διὰ τριῶν ἡμερ.] not: after three days (Galatians 2:1), but: during three days. The work of building was to extend over this short period, and would then be complete. See on Galatians 2:1.