[30]See Zech. ix. 9, xi. 12, xiii. 7.
[31]Gethsemane means oil-press.
[32]Observe the emphatic word, "began to be sorrowful" (ver. 37).
[33]The word "friend" is too strong. It is not the same word our Lord uses when He says: "I have not called you servants, I have called you friends"; it is a word which indicates not heart-friendship, but that familiar intercourse which is supposed to take place only between friends. The selection of the word is a striking illustration of our Lord's carefulness of the claims of sincerity and truth, while He is anxious if possible to use a word that will touch the traitor's heart.
[34]It is most instructive at this point to note the extreme condensation of this report of the trial before Pilate. This is especially noticeable at the first stage of the trial. In the fuller reports by St. John (xviii. 29-38) we find indeed the question, "Art thou king of the Jews?" (v. 33), and the answer, "Thou sayest" (v. 37); but how much more besides! So is it beyond question in many other places where there is not the same opportunity of supplying what has been omitted. If this were always borne in mind in reading the Gospels, we should avoid many difficulties, which have often needlessly perplexed the best of people. There is often much to read between the lines, and not only so, but much between the lines we cannot read, the knowledge of which would make crooked things straight and rough places plain. The difficulty of accurately realising a complex scene from a report of it which, however accurate, is highly condensed, ought to be always present to the minds of readers of the Gospels, and ought to be a check on those who attribute to the "mistakes" of the writers what in all probability is due to the ignorance of the readers—ignorance, it may be, of some little matter of detail, or some comparatively unimportant saying, the knowledge of which would at once clear up a difficulty which to the unaided imagination may appear insoluble.
[35]The reference is inserted in our Authorised Version, but without sufficient authority. The Revised Version properly omits it.
[36]"From the top to the bottom,"—rent, therefore, by no human hand.
XX.
THE THIRD DAY.
Matt. xxvii. 57-xxviii. 15.
NOW that the atoning work of Christ is finished, the story proceeds with rapidity to its close. It was the work of the Evangelist to give the history of the incarnate Son of God; and now that the flesh is laid aside, it is necessary only to give such notes of subsequent events as shall preserve the continuity between the prophetic and priestly work of Christ on earth which it had been His vocation to describe, and the royal work which, as exalted Prince and Saviour, it still remained for Him to do. We need not wonder, then, that the record of the three days should be quite brief, and of the forty days briefer still.