Chú giải Kinh Thánh

Matthew 26:62. With the sublime calm of one who is conscious of his own superior worth, Jesus meekly abstains from uttering a single word before this contemptible tribunal in the way of self-vindication, εἰδὼς δὲ καὶ, ὅτι μάτην ἀποκρινεῖται παρὰ τοιούτοις, Euthymius Zigabenus; whereas the high priest who finds, and that with considerable gratification, that the charge of being a Messianic pretender is now fully substantiated by the language of Jesus just deponed to (see Matthew 26:63), quite forgets himself, and breaks out into a passion.

The breaking up of the following utterance into two questions: answerest thou not? what (i.e. how heinous a matter) do these witness against thee? is, so far as the latter question is concerned, neither feeble (de Wette) nor unnatural (Weiss), but entirely in keeping with the passionate haste of the speaker. This being the case, the two clauses should not be run into one. We should neither, on the one hand, following Erasmus, with Fritzsche, take τί in the sense of cur, or (ad Marc. p. 650) the whole sentence as equivalent to τί τοῦτό ἐστιν, ὃ οὗτοί σου καταμαρτυροῦσιν; nor, on the other, with the Vulgate, Luther, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Keim, Weiss, should we adopt the rendering: “nihil respondes ad ea, quae isti adversum te testificantur?” This latter, however, would not be inconsistent with the strict meaning of the terms employed, for it is quite permissible to use ἀποκρίνεσθαί τι in the sense of: to reply to anything (see Ast, Lex. Plat. I. p. 239), and to take τί as equivalent to ὅ, τι (Buttmann, Neut. Gr. p. 216 [E. T. 251], who supposes “hörend” (hearing) to be understood before τί).

Matthew 26:63. The high priest answers this second refusal to speak by repeating a formal oath, in which Jesus is adjured to declare whether He be the Messiah or not. For this confession would determine how far they would be justified in pronouncing a capital sentence, and such as the Roman procurator would not fail to confirm.

ἐξορκίζω] means, like the earlier form ἑξορκόω: I call upon thee to swear, Dem. 1265, 6; Polyb. iii. 61. 10, vi. 21. 1, xvi. 31. 5. Comp. הִשְּׁבִּיעַ, Genesis 24:3, al. To give an affirmative answer to this formula was to take the full oath usually administered in any court of law. Michaelis, Mos. R. § 302; Matthaei, doctr. Christi de jurejur. 1847, p. 8; Keil, Arch. II. p. 256. The fact that Jesus took the oath has been denied, though without any reason whatever, by Wuttke, Döllinger, Steinmeyer.

κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, κ.τ.λ.] by the living God. Comp. 1 Kings 3:24; Jdt 1:12; common in Greek authors, see Kühner, I. 1, p. 434; also Hebrews 6:13, and Bleek thereon. The living God as such would not fail to punish the perjured, Hebrews 10:31. It was the uniform practice in courts of law to swear by God. See Saalschutz, M. R. p. 614.

ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ] ordinary, recognised designation of the Messiah, into which, naturally enough, the metaphysical conception does not enter here, however much it may have been present to the mind of Christ Himself in making the affirmation which follows.

Matthew 26:64. Σὺ εἶπας] see on Matthew 26:25. Mark 14:62 : ἐγώ εἰμι. A distinguished confession on the part of the Son in presence of the Father, and before the highest tribunal of the theocratic nation.

πλήν] not profecto (Olshausen), nor quin (Kuinoel), but: however, i.e. (comp. Klotz, ad Devar. p. 725) apart from what I have just affirmed, ye shall henceforward have reason to be satisfied, from actual observation, that I am the Messiah who was seen by Daniel in his vision (Daniel 7:13).

ἀπάρτι] is not to be taken with λέγω ὑμῖν (Schulz in 3d ed. of Griesbach), but—since in any other connection it would lose its force—with ὄψεσθε; nor is it to be understood in any other sense than that of henceforth, i.e. from the time of my impending death, through which I am to enter into my δόξα. But seeing that ἀπάρτι forbids us to understand ὄψεσθε as denoting only a single momentary glance (comp. on the contrary, John 1:51), we are bound to suppose that Jesus used it somewhat loosely to express the idea of coming to perceive in the course of experience (as in the passage of John just referred to) the fact of His being seated at the right hand of God (in allusion to Psalm 110:1), and that He did not intend ἐρχόμενον, κ.τ.λ. to refer to the second advent, but (Beza, Neander, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Gess, Weissenbach) to a coming in the figurative sense of the word, namely, in the shape of those mighty influences which, from His place in heaven, He will shed upon the earth,—manifestations, all of them, of His sovereign sway. We are shut up to this view by the fact that the sitting cannot possibly be regarded as an object of actual sight, and that ἀπάρτι ὄψεσθε can only be said of something that, beginning now, is continued henceforth.

τῆς δυνάμ.] The Mighty One is conceived of as power (the abstract for the concrete). Similarly in the Talmud הַגְּבוּרָה, Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 385. Such abstract terms (as for instance our: majesty) have somewhat of an imposing character. Comp. 2 Peter 1:17.

Matthew 26:65. As may be seen from 2 Kings 18:17, the rending of the garments as an indication of unusual vexation was indulged in above all on hearing any utterance of a blasphemous nature. See Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 2146; Schoettgen, p. 234; Wetstein on our passage. Maimonides, quoted by Buxtorf as above, thus describes the usual mode of proceeding in such cases: “Laceratio fit stando, a collo anterius, non posterius, non ad latus neque ad fimbrias inferiores vestis. Longitudo rapturae palmus est. Laceratio non fit in interula seu indusio linteo, nec in pallio exteriori: in reliquis vestibus corpori accommodatis omnibus fit, etiamsi decem fuerint.” The last-mentioned particular may serve to account for the use of the plural τὰ ἱμάτια (1Ma 2:14). That part of the law which forbade the high priest to rend his garments (Leviticus 10:6; Leviticus 21:10) had reference merely to ordinary mourning for the dead. Comp. 1Ma 11:71; Joseph. Bell. ii. 15. 4.

ἐβλασφήμησε] in so far as by falsely pretending to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and by further arrogating to Himself participation in divine honour and authority, Matthew 26:64, He had been guilty of insulting the majesty of God; comp. John 5:18; John 10:33. The pain of the high priest no doubt represented the genuine vexation of one who was most deeply moved; but the judgment which he formed regarding Jesus was based upon the gratuitous assumption that He was not the Messiah, and indicates a predisposition to find Him guilty of the capital charge (Leviticus 24:16). For τί ἔτι χρ. ἔχ. μαρτ., comp. Plat. Rep. p. 340 A.

Matthew 26:66. At this point the high priest, notwithstanding the precipitancy with which the trial is being hurried through, and notwithstanding the candid confession just made by the accused, calls for a formal vote, the result of which is a verdict of guilty, and that of an offence deserving to be punished by death. The next thing that had to be considered was the course to be adopted with a view to the carrying out of the sentence. It was this that formed the subject of deliberation at that conclave to which reference is made at Matthew 27:1.

Matthew 26:67. Those to whom Matthew here refers are the members of the Sanhedrim (as are also the τινές of Mark 14:65). Μετὰ γὰρ τὴν ἄδικον καταδίκην ὡς ἄτιμόν τινα καὶ τριωβολιμαῖον λάβοντες, κ.τ.λ., Euthymius Zigabenus. Coarse outburst of passion on the verdict being announced. A somewhat different form of the tradition is adopted by Luke (Luke 22:63), who, moreover, represents the maltreatment here referred to as having taken place before the trial. The way in which harmonists have cut and carved upon the individual features of the narrative is altogether arbitrary. The account in John 18:22 has no connection with that now before us, but refers to an incident in the house of Annas, which the Synoptists have entirely omitted.

ἐκολάφ.] buffetings, blows with the fist. Comp. the Attic expression κόνδυλος.

ἐῤῥάπτ.] slaps in the face with the palm of the hand; ῥαπισμὸς δὲ τὸ πταίειν κατὰ τοῦ προσώπου, Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. Matthew 5:39; Hosea 11:5; Isaiah 50:6; Dem. 787, 23; Aristot. Meteor. ii. 8. 9; 3 Esdr. 4:30; Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 176; Becker, Anecd. p. 300. It is in this sense that the word is usually taken. But Beza, Bengel, Ewald, Bleek, Lange, maintain that it is a blow with a rod that is meant (Herod. viii. 59; Anacr. vii. 2; Plut. Them. xi.), the sense in which the word is commonly used by Greek authors, and which ought to be preferred here, because οἱ δέ (see on Matthew 28:16) introduces the mention of a different kind of maltreatment, and because in Mark 14:65 the ῥαπίζειν is imputed to the officers of the Sanhedrim, which, however, would not warrant us in identifying with the latter the οἱ δέ of Matthew.

Matthew 26:68. Προφήτευσον ἡμῖν] Differently in Mark 14:65. But so far as the προφήτ., τίς ἐστιν, κ.τ.λ. is concerned, Luke 22:64 agrees with Matthew, although the favourite mode of accounting for this would seem to be that of tracing it to the obscuring influence of a later tradition; in no case, however, is this theory to be applied to the exposition of Matthew, for it would involve a point of essential consequence. According to Matthew, the sport lay in the demand that Jesus as Messiah, and consequently as a prophet (Matthew 21:11), should tell who it was that had struck Him, though He had no natural means of knowing. This conduct, of course, proceeds on the assumption that the Messiah possessed that higher knowledge which is derived from divine revelation; hence also the scoffing way in which they address Him by the title of Χριστός. Fritzsche thinks that the prominent idea here is that of foretelling, as being calculated, when thus conjoined with the preterite παίσας, to form an acerba irrisio. But that would be more likely to result in an absurda irrisio, unmarked by the slightest touch of humour.

Matthew 26:69. Ἔξω] with reference to the interior of the particular building in which the trial of Jesus had been conducted. In Matthew 26:58 ἔσω is used because in that instance Peter went from the street into the court-yard.

μία παιδίσκη] μία is here used in view of the ἄλλη of Matthew 26:71 below. Comp. on Matthew 8:19. Both of them may have seen (ἦσθα, ἦν) Peter among the followers of Jesus somewhere in Jerusalem, and may have preserved a distinct recollection of his appearance. παιδίσκη, in the sense of a female slave, corresponds exactly to our (German) Mädchen; see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 239.

καὶ σὺ ἦσθα, κ.τ.λ.] categorical accusation, as in Matthew 26:71; Matthew 26:73, and not a question (Klostermann).

τοῦ Γαλιλ.] which specific designation she may have heard applied to the Prisoner. The other slave (Matthew 26:71) is still more specific, inasmuch as she calls Him ὁ Ναζωραῖος.