V. Jerusalem: The Messiah Rejected, Killed and Vindicated (26:1–28:15)
See above pp. 767–68 for my reasons for dividing the Jerusalem section of Matthew’s narrative into two main sections. There is no change of location between the end of the discourse in chs. 24–25 and the following passion narrative. Indeed the latter begins with the concluding formula for the former. But the long-running confrontation between Jesus and the Jerusalem authorities, which ended with his leaving the temple and declaring its impending fate in 23:37–24:2, now reaches its inevitable outcome as their rejection of Jesus turns from words to deeds, and the paradoxical climax of Jesus’ messianic mission, as he has predicted it since Caesarea Philippi (16:21), now unfolds. Throughout ch. 26 we shall be concerned only with Jesus’ Jewish opponents, and by the end of that chapter his fate will have been decided. The necessary involvement of the Roman occupying power in ch. 27 adds a further dimension to the apparently universal rejection of the “king of the Jews,” but even then it will be the Jewish crowd and their leaders who mock Jesus on the cross, while a dissenting opinion is expressed by at least some of the Romans involved (27:54). Matthew leaves us in no doubt where the primary responsibility for the rejection of the Messiah lies (27:24–25).
Throughout this climactic narrative section of the gospel Matthew’s account runs closely parallel with that of Mark, whereas Luke and especially John incorporate substantial independent traditions. Matthew will include a number of short but significant additions of material not found in the other gospels, of which 27:3–10 is the longest, but from this point on there will be no “Q material.” The story is told in a natural sequence which breaks down into a number of clearly distinguishable phases: after an elaborate setting of the scene (26:1–16) we hear first of Jesus’ final hours with his disciples at the last supper and in Gethsemane (26:17–46), after which the disciples will play no further part in the story (apart from the accounts of Peter’s collapse and of Judas’ remorse); Jesus will face his enemies alone. The arrest and trials of Jesus are narrated in 26:47–27:26, with a natural progression from the substantive Jewish trial to the Roman endorsement of their verdict. Then follow the execution and burial of Jesus in 27:27–66, only to be overturned by the evidence of his resurrection which will be set out in 28:1–15.
But all this is not just a chronicle of events, as Matthew will give the reader repeated opportunities to reflect on the significance of what is happening, and in particular on the underlying truth about Jesus. A sustained irony contrasts his apparent helplessness in the hands of his enemies with his ultimate sovereignty. The one who has just been portrayed in 25:31–46 as the king on his glorious throne will undergo this rejection and suffering not because he has no choice but because it is his Father’s paradoxical purpose which he has freely chosen to fulfill (26:39, 42, 52–54). Even as the court condemns him he is entering into his sovereignty (26:64). When the Roman soldiers mock him as King of the Jews (27:27–31) and the Jewish crowds mock him as temple-builder, savior, king of Israel and Son of God (27:39–43) they speak truer than they know. The supernatural events accompanying his death on the cross (27:51–54) reveal in vivid symbolism that this is not the end but the beginning, and the supreme title “Son of God” is declared even by neutral observers. The resurrection reverses the human verdict of Jerusalem (28:1–15) and in the concluding scene of the gospel the resultant sovereignty of the enthroned Son of Man will be triumphantly declared (28:18–20).
Jesus’ death, then, is not a defeat for the divine purpose. It is the basis of his eternal sovereignty. But why was it necessary? There are hints in the titles hurled at Jesus on the cross and in the tearing of the temple curtain and the resurrection of the people of God at the time of Jesus’ death, but the most direct explanation has already been given by Jesus himself at the last supper, where in the redemptive context of the Passover festival, and using the OT language of covenant, he speaks of his blood shed for many for the forgiveness of sins (26:28). This echo of Isaiah’s servant prophecy, picking up that already heard in 20:28, provides a suggestive theological context in which to think about Jesus’ death as the source of life for others, and the “forgiveness of sins” recalls the initial declaration of Jesus’ mission in 1:21. The last supper, then, is much more than a farewell meal. It provides the theological template within which the events which follow are to be understood.
A. Setting the Scene (26:1–16)
The beginning of the passion narrative in Matthew, as in Mark, consists of a “concentric” drawing out of three aspects of the setting. The outer layer, in vv. 1–2 and 17–19, is the approach of the Passover festival, which provides both the historical and the theological context for what is to follow. Within that broader context we hear of the plotting of the priestly authorities against Jesus, and their recruiting of Judas, vv. 3–5 and 14–16. And set within that framework is the symbolic incident of the anointing of Jesus by a woman at Bethany (vv. 6–13). The devotion of this unnamed woman contrasts with the hostility of the priests and the treachery of Judas, while Jesus’ interpretation of her act (v. 12) prepares the reader for the success of their plot. But all this is to be understood in the context of the Passover, the festival of God’s redemption of his people and the occasion of the covenant which constituted Israel as the people of God.
1And then,1 when Jesus had come to the end of all these sayings, he said to his disciples, 2“You know2 that in two days’ time it will be3 the Passover, and the Son of Man will be handed over4 to be crucified.”
The formula which concludes the discourse follows the pattern familiar from 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1 except for the addition of “all,” perhaps to suggest to the reader that it is not just the discourse of chs. 24–25 which is over, but all the discourses.5 After this there will not be any extended teaching by Jesus.
Before we hear of the priests’ plot against Jesus, we hear Jesus himself foretelling what is to come. The order of these verses thus tells us that Jesus will not be taken by surprise, but willingly accepts his fate. The apparently free initiative of the priests (vv. 3–5) is to be understood within the context of an already determined divine plan.
Jesus’ statement to the disciples seems curiously unfinished; its implications will in fact be drawn out for the disciples in vv. 17–18, when the event has moved a day closer, but the preliminary warning at this point serves to alert the reader to the significant context in which the story is now set. See p. 771 for the importance of Passover, and for its historical background and redemptive significance see Exod 12:1–27. An early targumic tradition based on Exod 12:42 identifies four nights which Israel must remember, of which the third is the night of redemption from Egypt at the Passover, and the fourth that of the messianic redemption at the end of the age.6 The original setting of the Passover and the ritual which had developed for its observance were a perpetual reminder to Israel of what it meant to be the chosen people of God. This is the first time Jesus’ death has been directly linked with the Passover, but the significance of the date will become an important part of the meaning of the last supper and of the explanation Jesus then gives of the purpose of his death.
“After two days” probably means “the day after tomorrow,” but it remains unclear on which day these words are understood to have been spoken, depending on whether “the Passover” here refers to Nisan 14, when the lambs were killed in the afternoon ready for that evening’s Passover meal, or to Nisan 15, the “day” on which that meal was held (after sunset when the new day had begun). The properly “Passover” observances thus spanned those two (Jewish) days; see further on v. 17.
2. The Priests Plot to Kill Jesus (26:3–5)
3Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the courtyard1 of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4and discussed how they might arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him: 5“Not during the festival,” they said, “or there might be a riot among the people.”
“Were gathered” probably means no more than that they met together (as it does in 13:2; 22:34, 41), but the passive verb may suggest (as it does in 25:32) that they were deliberately summoned to a meeting by the high priest.2 Only two of the three main component groups of the Sanhedrin (see on 16:21) are mentioned. The chief priests and elders perhaps represent the more “political” grouping. Only when Jesus has been safely secured will Matthew mention the presence of the scribes once the more legal and theological procedures begin (26:57). A meeting in the high priest’s courtyard (see n. 1 below) would not be a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin; this is rather an ad hoc planning group.
Joseph Caiaphas, named here and in 26:57 as the president at Jesus’ trial, is more generally referred to in the NT simply by his office, “the high priest.” The term archiereus has hitherto been used only in the plural, to denote those leading priestly figures who belonged to the Sanhedrin, but the singular designates its president. The office traditionally stemmed from Aaron, but in Maccabean times it had become as much political as religious, and in Herodian and Roman times the high priest was appointed by the ruling power and acted as chief representative of the nation.3 Caiaphas’ political skill and his acceptability to the Roman prefects are indicated by the fact that he held office for 18 years, AD 18–36, by far the longest tenure of any high priest in the period.4
The need for “stealth” (more literally “deceit”) is explained by v. 5. The manner of Jesus’ arrival at the city in 21:1–11 had been enough to alert them to his potential as a popular leader, and his robust performance in debate with Pharisaic and other leaders during the following days in the temple courtyard would be likely to have won further support. Note his popular reputation as a prophet (21:11, 46) like John (21:26). Given the volatile mood of the crowded city during the festival,5 a public arrest of Jesus would be very risky; the reaction of the Galileans among the pilgrims would be particularly likely to erupt into violence. Yet they could hardly have intended to wait until after the full eight-day festival period, as Jesus would be likely to have left Jerusalem by then. J. Jeremias6 has therefore argued that the Greek phrase here means “not in the presence of the festival crowd,” and perhaps that represents the gist of their thinking, even though it is not a natural sense of en tē heortē. It certainly represents what in fact happened, a secret arrest at night away from the crowds, especially Jesus’ Galilean supporters; vv. 14–16 will explain how this proved to be possible, more quickly than they may have expected. According to the chronology for which I shall argue in the comments on v. 17, it was not strictly during the festival but before it began, on Passover Eve, though of course the city was already by then crowded with pilgrims.
3. A Woman Anoints Jesus (26:6–13)
6While Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, 7a woman came up to him carrying a vase1 of very expensive anointing oil and poured it over his head as he was sitting at table.2 8When the disciples saw this they were indignant and said, “Why this waste? 9That could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” 10But Jesus noticed, and said to them, “Why are you giving the woman a hard time? She has done a lovely thing to me. 11For you always have the poor with you, but you won’t3 always have me. 12When this woman poured this oil on my body she did it to prepare me for burial. 13I tell you truly: wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman did will also be told as a memorial for her.”4
Matthew, Mark and John (12:1–8) tell this story at the beginning of their passion narratives, all three locating it in Bethany. Luke (7:36–50) tells a very different story of a prostitute anointing Jesus’ feet at a Pharisee’s house in Galilee; the fact that in both cases the host is called Simon is as likely to be due to coincidence5 as to literary dependence. John’s account, however, shares with Luke’s the anointing of Jesus’ feet rather than his head and the use of the woman’s hair as a towel, while he is independent of Matthew and Mark in naming the woman as Mary (and underlining the identification in John 11:2), in locating the incident in her house6 rather than that of Simon the leper, and in placing it before Jesus’ ride to Jerusalem. The complex literary phenomena are probably best accounted for by two originally separate stories of a woman anointing Jesus, John being aware of elements of both but linking this story with the Bethany family in whom he had a special interest (John 11:1–45; 12:9–11).
The focus on an unnamed woman to the discomfiture of the disciples gives further expression to the gospel principle that the last will be first and the first last, and prepares us for the final act of the story when it will be Jesus’ women followers rather than the men who stay by him (27:55–56, 61; 28:1). The anonymity of this woman in Matthew and Mark is the more remarkable in that her deed is to be a perpetual memorial to her (v. 13). She is to be remembered, but she has no name! Jesus refers to her simply as “the woman” in v. 10 and twice as “this woman” in vv. 12 and 13. It seems that what she did, and its significance in that setting, is more important than her personal identity.7
And it was indeed a memorable act, an act of spontaneous extravagance which horrified the pragmatic disciples, but which Jesus defended as “lovely.” Not for the first time, the disciples’ conventional attitudes are found to be out of step with Jesus’ thinking. Yet most readers feel some sympathy with them, and are equally taken aback by the apparently self-centered response of Jesus when he dismisses the prior claim of the poor. How can he call on one rich man to sell all he has in favor of the poor (19:21) and yet allow this woman to waste a year’s wages on a personal cosmetic? But Jesus is not concerned with personal gratification, but with the symbolism of the act. To anoint him may have been intended merely as an act of social acceptance and gratification, but in this context the reader is likely to think of its symbolism as marking him out as the Messiah, and that may well also have been in the woman’s mind. That, however, is not the aspect which Jesus comments on. Whatever the woman’s intention, she has in fact done for him what his executioners will not do, given him the wherewithal for a decent burial. So Jesus’ interest is not in his present physical comfort, or even in his messianic status, but in his impending dishonorable death. The woman’s extravagant loyalty offsets the shameful horror of crucifixion. That is why it must always be remembered, not simply as a model for uncalculating devotion (though it is certainly that) but as an affirmation of the value of his death from the point of view of faith.
It is a matter of priorities (cf. the rather different lesson on the priority of the spiritual over the mundane, also set in Bethany, in Luke 10:38–42). A definitive moment is upon them, and even the duty of helping the poor must take second place. Once this unique drama has been played out, the claims of the poor will rightly reassert themselves. It is because this unnamed woman has seized on that sense of special occasion that her act is to be remembered. Probably without realizing it, she has provided a pointer to the theology of the cross.
6–7 The scene is set at a meal in a supporter’s house. For Bethany as the base for Jesus and his group during this week see on 21:17. Simon “the leper” is otherwise unknown. Presumably his nickname derived either from some family connection or from his having been previously cured of a skin infection (see p. 305, n. 17); one with active “leprosy” could hardly have hosted a dinner. See above on the identity of the woman; her naming as Mary in John 12:3 depends on his different location for the meal, though Mary was also of course a resident of Bethany. Mark gives a fuller description of the unguent and its value (over 300 denarii, a year’s wages; so also John 12:5). The myron is perhaps oil of myrrh (see on 2:11), or a compound of it,8 but the term was also used more generally for fragrant anointing oils. For perfumed oil as a cosmetic especially in contexts of celebration see Ps 23:5; 45:7–8; 104:15; Isa 61:3; Amos 6:6. Luke 7:46 indicates that oil for the head was an expected part of hospitality at a meal. But the most prominent use of oil in the OT, especially when poured over the head, was for the anointing of kings and priests to mark them out for their divinely-approved office,9 and the woman’s act may have included a “messianic” connotation; at least the reader is likely to understand it so.
8–9 Again the disciples’ instinctive reaction puts them at odds with Jesus; cf. their disapproval of those who brought the children in 19:13–14. That Jesus “noticed” (rather than “heard”) their comment (v. 10) may suggest that it was muttered rather than openly voiced; cf. Matthew’s use of the same participle in 12:15; 16:8; 22:18, in each case with reference to thoughts or intentions not openly expressed. See above on 19:21 for the Jewish tradition of giving alms to the poor. It would be especially on the disciples’ mind at this time since such charitable giving was an obligation particularly associated with pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the festivals10 (cf. John 13:29). Perhaps they also recall Jesus’ recent statement about the importance of acts of kindness to those in need (25:35–40).
10 What for the disciples was “waste” is for Jesus a “lovely” gesture. It may be over translation to render kalos here as “lovely,” since Matthew seems to use kalos equally with agathos in the general sense of “good” (see p. 285, n. 5), and kalos was used for “good deeds” in 5:16. But the original sense of kalos as “beautiful,” “fine” is still sometimes discernible in the NT period, and offers a powerful “aesthetic” contrast here to the disciples’ pragmatic accusation of waste.
11 The thought (though not the wording) echoes the recognition of Deut 15:11 that “the poor will never disappear from the land.” That comment is made in the context of the principal provision for poor relief in the law (Deut 15:1–11): even though ideally poverty should be eliminated among God’s people (Deut 15:4) in practice the need will never go away. Nothing in Jesus’ words detracts from that ethical and social demand, which in our global economy is more pressing now even than it was then. But in contrast with this permanent obligation, the opportunity to care for Jesus in his time of need will be very brief. His expectation of being “taken away” was expressed as early as 9:15, but now in v. 2 it has been given much more specific focus and a clear date has been set. This immediate and short-lived opportunity thus takes priority.
12 Anyone who had heard Jesus’ announcement in v. 2 and who knew the reality of Roman crucifixion should have realized that he must expect to be denied the proper burial rituals which were so important among Jewish people (see below, p. 1088). It is possible that the woman had been there to hear those words and so had consciously planned to make good the lack of due respect to his body, but it is more likely that this is Jesus’ own interpretation of what had been in her intention simply a spontaneous act of love and loyalty. John tells us that Jesus’ body was in fact expensively prepared for burial in the traditional manner (John 19:39–40), while Mark, unaware of that tradition, speaks of the women’s desire to make good the omission after he was buried (Mark 16:1–2). Matthew, perhaps aware of the tension between either of those traditions and this saying of Jesus, will say nothing on the subject.
13 This saying stands alongside 24:14 as envisaging a worldwide11 proclamation of the good news in the period after Jesus’ death and resurrection, and so anticipating the instruction he will give to his disciples in 28:19–20.12 See on 24:14 for this theme, and for what “this good news” may be understood to mean in the context of Jesus’ own time. If the woman’s anticipation of Jesus’ burial is to be part of what is proclaimed the significance of Jesus’ death must itself be integral to the good news. Furthermore, for Jesus to speak of a continuing proclamation of “this good news” immediately after reflecting on his own impending death must indicate that his death is not the end: if Jesus were to remain dead and buried, where would the “good news” be? The resurrection, which has been an insistent element in Jesus’ passion predictions (16:21; 17:9, 23; 20:19), is surely here also assumed. In this saying, unlike in 24:14, the proclamation of “this good news” is not linked with the coming of “the end;” it is simply an unlimited future prospect.
Current preaching of the Christian gospel seldom gives to the woman’s act the place which Jesus says it deserves. In her anonymity she is not much remembered.
4. Judas Offers to Help the Priests (26:14–16)
14Then one of the Twelve, the one called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, “What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you?” And they agreed with him on1 thirty silver coins. 16And from then on he was looking for a good opportunity to hand Jesus over.
The devotion of the unnamed woman is sharply contrasted with the treachery of one of Jesus’ inner circle, and her uncalculating generosity with his sordid bargaining. The reader has been prepared for this development not only by the repeated use of the verb paradidōmi (“hand over,” “betray”) in Jesus’ predictions of what is to come (17:22; 20:18; 26:2) but also by the specific identification of Judas Iscariot in 10:4 as the one “who also betrayed him.” For the translation of the verb see p. 374, n. 3. Here, as used by Judas himself in v. 15, it can hardly be meant to be self-condemnatory, but the reader knows well that in effect what is being talked about is betrayal. Indeed, when a follower of Jesus “hands him over” to his avowed enemies who are known to be plotting his death it is hard to see what else it could mean. This has not, however, prevented some scholars from noting that there is a more specific term for betrayal, prodidōmi, and that with the single exception of Luke 6:16 the gospels do not use this term or its derivatives for what Judas did. So it has been suggested that while later Christian orthodoxy inevitably saw Judas as simply a traitor, and increasingly demonized him, the original reality may have been more nuanced. One of the more daring of these revisionist interpretations2 argues that Judas saw himself as the honest broker, arranging a meeting between Jesus and his opponents with the hope that this might result in a constructive dialogue; when this did not in fact happen Judas was horrified at the result of his well-intentioned mediation, and this was the basis for his bitter remorse in 27:3–5. Whatever may be the merits of this as a historical reconstruction—and I have not yet seen evidence that it has been given much credence—it cannot stand as an exegesis of any of the gospel texts as we have them; even Mark, who is allegedly the least biased against Judas, gives no basis for such a positive view of his motives, and the role of Judas in the accounts of Jesus’ arrest does not sound like the arrangement of an innocuous conference. What made Judas act as he did remains a fascinating area for speculation, and one which has been well exploited, but that he had decisively turned against Jesus and was now determined to help in his elimination seems beyond doubt as the consistent testimony of the gospels.
Among the proposed reasons for Judas’ change of sides, it may be worth noting that Judas may have been the only non-Galilean member of this provincial movement (see on 10:4), and thus, in addition to perhaps resenting the leading role of Galilean fishermen, would have found himself in an awkward position when they came south and found themselves in confrontation with the Judean authorities. At any rate, it seems that his close association with Jesus and his paradoxical values had led Judas to the conclusion that this was not the sort of movement he thought he had signed up to, and that far from being the national deliverer he had hoped for Jesus now seemed determined to pursue a course inevitably destined to end in failure and defeat (as v. 12 has just powerfully underlined). His volte-face might then be seen as the logical conclusion to the way Peter instinctively responded to Jesus’ original announcement of his mission in 16:21–23. Judas may even have come genuinely to believe (like Saul of Tarsus) that Jesus was a threat to Israel’s national interests and religious tradition, in line with the later rabbinic polemic against Jesus as the one who “led Israel astray.” For whatever reason (and it can only ever be guess-work), Judas had concluded that it was in his own best interest, and perhaps in the best interest of Israel, to dissociate himself from Jesus before it was too late. Few have been able to believe that so small a sum as 30 denarii (see below) would in itself have been sufficient to buy the loyalty of a man who had invested so much of his own life into the Jesus movement if he was not already disillusioned, and Matthew significantly describes the offer as preceding the agreement of the price.
The importance to the priests of an inside informer has already been indicated in vv. 4–5, and is underlined by the phrase “looking for a good opportunity to hand him over.” It was a matter of letting the authorities know of Jesus’ likely movements so that he could be arrested away from the crowds. The secluded hillside of Gethsemane would offer the ideal answer. There Judas will act as guide to the arresting party, as well as identifying Jesus to them in the dark. We shall note too that at the trial the high priest seems remarkably well informed about Jesus’ alleged claims, more so than Jesus’ recorded public statements would easily explain, and it may be that Judas’ role as informer included passing on aspects of Jesus’ private teaching as well.
The sum paid to Judas is mentioned only by Matthew, who will use it in 27:9–10 as the basis for a formula-quotation which consists of Zech 11:12–13 (where the same phrase occurs) and related texts. The same text is presumably alluded to here, inviting the reader to compare the “price” of Jesus with that of the rejected shepherd in Zech 11:4–14, who is a paradoxical messianic figure. See further comments on 27:9–10. The insulting sum is ironically described in Zech 11:13 as a “noble price.” Those with a close knowledge of the OT might also recall that thirty silver shekels was the compensation set for the loss of a slave in Exod 21:32,3 but Matthew does nothing to draw attention to that further background, still less to the “twenty silver coins” for which Joseph was sold as a slave (Gen 37:28). The silver coins of Zech 11:12 were probably shekels, but in Roman Palestine “silver coins” would normally denote denarii;4 if a denarius was a fair day’s pay (see on 20:2), this is something like a month’s wages, not a negligible sum (enough to buy a burial plot, 27:7) but surely not enough by itself to alter the direction of a person’s whole life (see above). Whatever his motives, however, Judas will go down in history in the inglorious role of a paid informer.5
B. Jesus’ Last Hours with His Disciples (26:17–46)
Ever since the account of the calling of the four fishermen in 4:18–22 this has been the story not of Jesus alone but of Jesus and his disciples. Even where the focus has been firmly on the actions and teaching of Jesus himself, the disciples have been there as companions and audience, and increasingly, especially during the journey narrative in 16:21–20:34, Jesus has concentrated his attention on them as he prepares them for what lies ahead. Now that close association is about to be broken. In 26:56 the disciples will abandon him, and thereafter they will have no contact with him until after the resurrection in 28:16–20. Jesus will be left alone in the hands of his enemies to go through the experience of rejection, suffering and death. But before he does so, there is one last opportunity to prepare the disciples for what is to come, both to help them to understand what his own sacrifice is all about and also to alert them to the dangers they themselves will face and the pathetic role they are soon to play as deserters.
The context for this final instruction is the Passover meal (see below on v. 17 for its timing), for which this close-knit group of travelling companions forms the “family” group who share the ceremonial meal. It is the group’s last meal together, but already the presence of the traitor casts a cloud over the Passover celebration, and when Jesus goes on to explain the meaning of his own approaching death, by means of a creative reinterpretation of the traditional Passover ceremonial, the atmosphere of foreboding is deepened. By the time the bewildered disciples reach Gethsemane they are already present with Jesus only in body, as they sleep while he struggles. They will be of no help when the crisis comes, and their physical desertion will inevitably follow.
But in the borrowed guest-room they have been given, through Jesus’ demonstration that the coming events will not take him by surprise, and through his profound theological interpretation of the meaning of his coming death and of its benefits for them and “for many,” the resources they will need to enable them to survive the crisis and eventually to rise above their own demoralizing failure. His last words at the supper in v. 29 will leave them with a vision of a brighter future in “the kingdom of my Father,” and in v. 32 he will prepare them for a post-resurrection reunion in Galilee.
1. Preparing the Passover Meal (26:17–19)
17On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover meal?”1 18He replied, “Go into the city to so-and-so’s house2 and say to him, ‘The teacher says, “My time is near; I plan to hold3 the Passover meal with my disciples at your house.” ’ ” 19And the disciples did as Jesus had instructed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
The commemorative meal, prescribed in Exod 12:1–27 as a “perpetual ordinance” for Israel in memory of the events of the exodus from Egypt, and developed in Jewish tradition into a carefully prescribed ritual (see p. 987, n. 12) with explanatory questions and answers accompanying the meal, was the high point of the annual celebration for Jewish families. The meal was normally eaten by a family or “household” group together (Exod 12:3–4), but any appropriate group could form such a “household” for the occasion; Jesus and the Twelve (his “true family,” 12:46–50) would meet the requirement, the average group being about ten to twelve.4 This was the purpose of their visit to Jerusalem, and it is clear from these verses that Jesus has already made his plans for how it is to be celebrated. This particular group would not differ outwardly from many other groups of pilgrims who had made arrangements to eat the meal together in Jerusalem at that time, except for one striking difference: according to the chronology for which I shall argue in the comments on v. 17, they held it one day before the official date. Set within the Passover festival season, it was deliberately planned by Jesus as a Passover meal, but he knew that when the official time came the following evening he would no longer be there to share it with them, and so held it a day in advance. This in itself would give a special poignancy to the occasion, and what Jesus said once the meal began would lift it far out of the ordinary run of Passover celebrations.
17 Originally there was probably a one-day festival of Passover (Nisan 14) immediately followed by a seven-day festival of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15–21). But by the first century the two had effectively merged into a single festival, which might be referred to as a whole either as “Passover” or as “Unleavened Bread” (since the bread used at the Passover meal was unleavened). The expression Matthew uses, “the first day of Unleavened Bread” should strictly mean Nisan 15, but in view of the looser popular usage just mentioned this cannot be pressed, and Mark 14:12 makes clear what the term means in this context by adding “when they used to sacrifice the Passover lamb,” which identifies the day clearly as Nisan 14 (Exod 12:6).5
The Fourth Gospel states that at the time of Jesus’ trial the Passover meal had not yet been eaten (John 18:28), and specifically describes the day of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion as “the preparation of the Passover” (John 19:14); cf. John 13:1 where the last supper is dated “before the Passover festival.” It is therefore generally agreed that John presents Jesus’ last supper as taking place on the evening which began Nisan 14 (remember that the Jewish day ran from sunset to sunset), so that by the time the lambs were killed the following afternoon (in preparation for the Passover meal on the evening which began Nisan 15) Jesus was already on the cross. It has therefore been traditionally supposed that there is a chronological disagreement between John and the Synoptic Gospels as to the date of the last supper and therefore also of Jesus’ trial and death, John dating it one day earlier than the Synoptic writers who are understood to place the last supper at the official time for the Passover meal, the evening which began Nisan 15.6 Scholars then take opposing sides as to whether the “Johannine” or the “Synoptic” chronology is more likely to represent the historical situation, and discuss why either John or the Synoptics should have wished to alter it.
It may seem foolhardy to question the validity of this complex and time-honored debate, but I believe that it is based on a Western cultural misunderstanding: in the Jewish day, which begins at sunset, the evening is the beginning of the day, not its ending as it is for us. So the Synoptic statement that the meal (which was eaten at night, see below) was prepared on Nisan 14 may be understood to mean that it was prepared and eaten during the evening and night which began Nisan 14, rather than that it was prepared late on Nisan 14 (before sunset) and eaten the next (Jewish) day, at the official time for the Passover meal on Nisan 15. This would be an equally natural way for a Jewish reader to understand their words; it is our unfamiliarity with the Jewish method of reckoning days which prevents Western readers recognizing that the evening preceding the killing of the lambs is already the same day, Nisan 14. In that case they are describing the same day as the Fourth Gospel.7 The last supper and the subsequent trial and death of Jesus all take place on the same (Jewish) day as the killing of the lambs in the afternoon which concludes Nisan 14 and thus on the (Jewish) day before the date for the official Passover meal. The last supper is, then, an anticipated Passover meal, in the Synoptics no less than in John.8
The debate is far too complicated to enter fully here.9 I have surveyed the scholarly discussion and spelled out my view in an article in Vox Evangelica 16 (1986) 43–54, and more briefly but with reference to more recent discussion in my Mark 559–562. Since there is no significant difference between Matthew and Mark with regard to this issue, I hope readers who wish to pursue the matter more fully may be willing to look at that discussion. In a nutshell, it seems to me that all the relevant external evidence10 speaks consistently in favor of the “Johannine” dating, and that if due allowance is made for the fact that Nisan 14 began with the sunset which preceded the killing of the lambs the Synoptic writers do not disagree with it.11 Two objections have, however, been urged against this view, first that the preparations for so special a meal could hardly have been begun and concluded between sunset and the time when the meal was eaten, and second that the emphasis on this as a Passover meal is not compatible with its being held a day before the official date. Both objections may be briefly considered.
Many English versions foreclose the discussion by translating opsias genomenēs at the beginning of v. 20 by something like “when evening came.” That rendering suggests that the meal must have been prepared before the “evening,” i.e. during the afternoon. But we have seen above, p. 565, n. 1, that opsias genomenēs, literally “when it had become late,” is not so limited in meaning, and that at least in 14:23 it indicates a time long after dark, which in that case I translated “well into the night.” The Passover meal was traditionally held at night (Exod 12:8; cf. m. Pesaḥ. 10:1), not in the early evening. If Jesus followed that tradition (as 1 Cor 11:23 says he did), there would be time to make preparations for the meal during the evening in order to eat it that night.12 We need not suppose that Jesus’ specially arranged meal, in advance of the official Passover celebration, would demand the detailed preparations required by the later mishnaic regulations as set out in m. Pesaḥim (see p. 987, n. 12), so that it would not take many hours to set it up. Mark 14:15 says that the room was already prepared for the meal before the disciples came, so that all they had to prepare was the food. If the meal was held a day early, it presumably had to be held without the Passover lamb (see below), which would normally be the center-piece of the meal but which could not be officially slaughtered in the temple until the next day;13 having no lamb to roast would also considerably reduce the time needed for preparation.
But was a meal held a day early a “Passover,” especially if it therefore had no lamb? It should be noted that Jews who were not in Jerusalem could not slaughter lambs in the temple, and so for them presumably “there was no slaughter of a paschal lamb and a meal of unleavened bread had to suffice.”14 That does not seem to have prevented them regarding the meal as the Passover. There is no need to invoke the later Christian symbolism of Jesus himself as the Passover lamb (so that no animal was needed) in order to understand how a meal deliberately held a day early could be in all other aspects a “Passover” but without the lamb. If there was a lamb, it is surprising that there is no mention of it15 in any of the gospel accounts of the last supper.16 Nor is it unlikely that Jesus, whom we have seen to be willing to challenge current scribal rules on other issues, should feel free to diverge from the official date for observing the festival.17 Perhaps if circumstances had allowed he would have followed the traditional pattern, but his words at the last supper make it clear that he knew that by the next night he would not be there to eat with his disciples, and, as Luke tells us, he was very keen to eat this last Passover with them (Luke 22:15). To describe this as a Passover meal correctly conveys Jesus’ intention and the context within which his disciples would have understood it, even if it was unavoidably a day in advance.18
The disciples,19 aware of Jesus’ intention, and fulfilling their proper “disciple” role in looking after their teacher’s practical arrangements, want to know where the meal is to be held. This was not a silly question. It was expected that the Passover meal be eaten within “greater Jerusalem,”20 and Jesus and his disciples are from a distant province and have no local property. Their temporary accommodation in Bethany is outside the city. So where can they eat together?
18–19 But, as with the earlier provision of the donkey (see on 21:2–3), Jesus has already made his plans.21 Matthew’s evasive formula (see p. 980, n. 2) does not disclose who this sympathetic householder was, but here is another incidental indication that Jesus already has contacts in the area, despite the impression conveyed by the (artificial?) synoptic outline of the story that Jesus has never been to Jerusalem before (see also on 23:37). This unnamed householder is one who will recognize “the teacher” as a title of Jesus,22 and who has agreed to make available to him a valuable meeting-room at a time of maximum pressure on accommodation. The formula, “My time is near,” suggests that he may also have been privy to Jesus’ announcements to his disciples of his coming passion. Is it also a covert explanation of why Jesus plans to hold his Passover meal before others (see comments on v. 17)? For “my time” (kairos, usually a climactic or special time, as in 8:29; 13:30; 21:34) cf. “the hour has arrived” in v. 45, and the frequent Johannine references to Jesus’ “hour:” this is the time for the fulfillment of a predetermined plan.23
2. Jesus’ Last Meal with His Disciples (26:20–30)
20Later on1 he sat at table with the twelve disciples.2
21And as they were eating he said, “I tell you truly that one of you will betray3 me.” 22And they were horrified4 and every one of them began saying to him, “You don’t mean me, do you, Lord?” 23He replied, “The one who has dipped his hand in the bowl together with me is the one who will betray me. 24The Son of Man is indeed5 going away as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it would be good for that man if he had not been born.” 25Judas, who was betraying him,6 spoke up7 and asked, “You don’t mean me, do you, Rabbi?” Jesus replied, “You have said it.”
26As they were eating Jesus took bread and when he had said a blessing8 he broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take this and eat it. This is my body.” 27And he took a9 cup and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28For this is my blood of the covenant10 which is being poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. 29But I tell you, from now on I will never drink from this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.”
30And when they had sung [the psalms]11 they went out onto the Mount of Olives.
The framing verses 20 and 30 mark the beginning and end of the meal; between them two paragraphs (vv. 21–25 and 26–29) tell of two significant pronouncements, each made by Jesus “as they were eating.” The Passover meal was marked by explanatory dialogue (Exod 12:26–27) which probably already by the first century had developed into a set question from the son followed by an expository response from the father (the Passover haggadah), at the time of the second of the four cups of wine prescribed for the meal.12 Jesus’ second pronouncement in vv. 26–29 fits that setting, as it explains the significance of elements of the meal (bread and wine) in a context of redemptive sacrifice, though in a way quite different from what the father would normally be expected to say at Passover. But Jesus’ first pronouncement, concerning his imminent betrayal, is not directly linked with the symbolism of the meal. It is a matter which Jesus wishes to bring into the open to prepare his disciples for what is to come. In so far as it focuses on the necessary preliminary to his death it provides the background for the following pronouncement in which that death is the central theme.
The symbolism of bread and wine is directly linked to Jesus’ approaching death, which is “for many, for the forgiveness of sins,” language which clearly recalls the earlier pronouncement in 20:28 with its echo of the vicarious death of God’s servant “for many” in Isa 53, but which now makes more explicit that it is deliverance from “sins” which is at the heart of that redemption. As the disciples are instructed to eat the bread and drink the wine which are Jesus’ body and blood, it is clear that they are among the “many” who are to benefit from his death, but the use of “for many” rather than “for you” deliberately extends the benefit more widely than to the immediately present disciple group. All this is said in the context of the Passover meal, when the father would normally have expounded the story of the redemption from Egypt which marked the original formation of Israel as the people of God. The implication is startling, and is underlined by the phrase “my blood of the covenant,” echoing the original covenant ceremony at Sinai (Exod 24:8): Jesus’ death is the redemptive sacrifice which is now to inaugurate a new covenant community. While Matthew does not directly echo Jeremiah’s new covenant prophecy with its promise of the forgiveness of sins (Jer 31:31–34) its thought cannot be far from his mind when he writes of Jesus’ “blood of the covenant.” Here too is the fulfillment of the new exodus typology which we have noted in Matthew’s application to Jesus of exodus-related texts especially in 2:15 and 4:1–11, but now with the addition of a shocking new dimension: Jesus is not only the new Israel, the focus of the restored people of God, but himself also the sacrifice by which it is to be achieved.
But Jesus’ vision is not confined to his coming death, central as that is. He looks beyond it in v. 29 to renewed fellowship with his disciples in “my Father’s kingdom.” As the earlier passion predictions have consistently insisted, death is to be followed by new life (16:21; 17:9, 23; 20:19). Jesus will himself still be at the heart of the new people of God which his death has created.
Matthew includes no words to indicate that the eating and drinking is to continue as a Christian ritual (that is made explicit probably in Luke 22:19 and certainly in 1 Cor 11:24–25), but by the time this gospel was written there would have been no need to spell that out within the Christian community, whose worship had from the earliest days centered on the reenactment of these symbolic acts and words of Jesus. The four verbs concerning the bread (“took,” “blessed,” “broke,” “gave”) which we have seen repeated carefully in the accounts of the feeding miracles in 14:19 and 15:36 (see comments there) represent a familiar liturgical sequence, and the further verb “gave thanks” (as in 15:36) associated with “took” and “gave” in relation to the wine completes the range of eucharistic language.
20 For the time when the meal began see above on v. 17. It would be some time after dark, as was normal for a Passover meal, but in time to allow it to be completed before midnight (m. Pesaḥ. 10:9). There was to be no sleep that night, as the story takes us straight from the meal to Gethsemane and to the arrest of Jesus and the hearing before the Sanhedrin, which will be concluded in time for Jesus to be taken before Pilate early on the morning of Nisan 14, the day when the Passover lambs would be slaughtered in the temple.
The verb anakeimai (“sat at table”) is used especially for more formal or festive meals, when the diners reclined in the Roman style on couches around a central table.13 Matthew’s words suggest that, as Western art has generally assumed, only thirteen people were at the table, which would be a typical size for a Passover meal. But other people, including women (27:55), had followed Jesus from Galilee, and Passover meals were normally family occasions including women and children, so it has been suggested that this too might have been a larger group of Jesus’ supporters.14 But Matthew gives no hint of the presence of others,15 and it is apparently to the Twelve specifically that the next words are addressed.
21–23 Jesus has spoken of being “handed over” or “betrayed”16 to his opponents in 17:22; 20:18–19; 26:2, but has so far given no indication of who is to be the agent, even though Matthew has left his readers in no doubt (10:4; 26:14–16). Given the close-knit nature of the group of the Twelve, especially during the period of travelling from Galilee to Jerusalem in chs. 16–20, it is a deeply disturbing revelation, especially when given “as they were eating” together, an act which especially symbolized close association. The incredulous form of the question17 perhaps indicates an outraged sense of loyalty, though the disciples’ constant failure to match up to Jesus’ high expectations may also have engendered an element of self-doubt, which Jesus will shortly fuel with his pronouncement in v. 31. Jesus’ reply in v. 23 simply repeats more graphically (and possibly with an echo of Ps 41:9, more clearly alluded to in Mark 14:18)18 the prediction of betrayal from within the inner circle; they have been in the habit of sharing meals together, where each dipped his bread into a common dish to scoop up the sauce and herbs. “The one who” is thus general rather than specific; it could be any one of them. Even in the Fourth Gospel, which speaks of a piece of food handed to Judas apparently as a specific identification, the disciples are said to remain unaware of his purpose (John 13:21–30). In the Synoptics there is no such identification, and we may reasonably assume that if Judas had been clearly identified the others would have tried to prevent him.
24 This carefully balanced statement (see p. 986, n. 5) provides a classic expression of the paradox which runs throughout biblical thinking, that what happens according to the declared will of God is nonetheless also a free and responsible human act; neither truth invalidates the other (cf. 18:7 for a similar balance). Jesus has predicted his betrayal and death not as the natural outcome of a political process but as the fulfillment of a scriptural pattern. The earlier passion predictions in Matthew have not been specifically attributed to what “is written” (contrast Mark 9:12; Luke 18:31), but such statements have increasingly been colored by the thought of Isa 53 (see on 16:21 and 20:28), and in 21:42 the pattern of Jesus’ rejection and vindication has been traced to “the scriptures.” His conviction that his suffering and death will fulfill a scriptural mandate is now made explicit and will be further underlined in vv. 31, 54, 56. But that does not mean that the person who initiates the process is merely a pawn in the divine game. He has made a free decision and must take the consequences, as 27:3–10 will demonstrate. See on 11:21–22 for the “woe” formula, and compare 18:6 for another comparison of a worse and a better fate where, as here, the worse is left unspecified (contrast 18:8–9, where the two fates are explicit). That it was better not to have been born was a conventional way of describing the worst possible fate; see Keener, 626, for examples.
25 Judas’ question exactly matches that of the other disciples in v. 22, except that in place of the normal disciple address “Lord” he uses “Rabbi,” the Jewish form of “Teacher,” a title which in Matthew (unlike Mark) is never used by Jesus’ other disciples (in Greek or Hebrew), but is used of Jesus by people outside the group. Judas’ language, here and in v. 49,19 thus befits his status as no longer a true part of the disciple group. We know from vv. 14–16 that Judas’ question is insincere, since he is already contracted to betray Jesus; he merely echoes the other disciples so as not to appear out of line. Perhaps he hopes that while Jesus is aware that he has a traitor in his inner circle he has not yet worked out who it is.
We are probably intended to understand Jesus’ reply as spoken privately (see above on vv. 21–23). “You have said it” is an affirmative response in Greek as it is in English, though on the other occasions when Jesus will use this or a closely similar formula we shall note that it is a qualified affirmative, not in the sense that the truth of the preceding proposal is in doubt, but that what the questioner understands by the words is not the way Jesus himself sees it (see comments on 26:64; 27:11). Here the affirmation does not need to be qualified, but the use of this formula rather than a simple “It is you” may be a way of conveying that Judas’ question, though insincere, has in fact expressed the truth about his intentions. Like Jesus’ opponents in 21:31 and 21:41 he has unintentionally pronounced his own condemnation.
Matthew does not tell us at what point Judas left the group. John 13:30 says that it was during the meal, but in Matthew the immediate sequence from this question and answer to the account of Jesus’ words over the bread and wine (which do not feature in John’s account) more naturally suggests that Judas was still there then. Since Judas’ role was to lead the arresting party to Jesus, we would naturally suppose that he left the group after they arrived at Gethsemane, so that he knew exactly where to take the posse. But the phrase “as was his custom” in Luke 22:39 may suggest that Judas would have known in advance where they would be, and John 18:2 asserts that Gethsemane was their regular rendezvous. The old question whether Judas shared in the “eucharistic” bread and wine20 thus remains open, but Matthew is most naturally read as indicating that he did.
26 In this ominous setting of betrayal and “going away”, Jesus introduces a creative new element to the traditional Passover ritual; his memorable words and actions have become the basis for Christian worship ever since. For the sequence of four “eucharistic” verbs see the introductory comments on 14:13–21, and also p. 562, n. 18 for the meaning of the “blessing.” The form of words traditionally used was “Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the world, who bring forth bread from the earth.” At a Passover meal the bread Jesus took would be unleavened, unlike the leavened loaves presumably used at the feeding miracles in 14:17–20 and 15:34–37. The traditional Passover ritual included an explanation of the meaning of the unleavened bread and herbs (m. Pesaḥ 10:3–5), and Jesus takes that opportunity to introduce a new level of symbolism. The Passover bread did not directly symbolize the killing of the lamb, but when Jesus identifies it as his body21 the symbolism of death is clearly intended,22 and the shedding of blood in v. 28 will confirm this. In breaking the bread he symbolizes his own death, and makes it unmistakably clear that his predictions of death in Jerusalem are to be literally fulfilled. The vicarious words “given for you” are not found here in Matthew and Mark (see Luke 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24),23 but in telling his disciples to take the bread and eat it (see below on vv. 27–28 for the shocking nature of the symbolism) Jesus implies that his death is in some sense for their benefit. Just as eating the Passover lamb identified the participant with the redemption from Egypt, eating the bread and drinking the wine convey the benefits of Jesus’ redemptive death to those who share his table. Only Matthew includes the explicit commands to “eat” and “drink” (though these are of course implied by the giving of the bread and the cup in the other accounts), perhaps reflecting the words used by the eucharistic minister in his own church context, as in subsequent eucharistic liturgies.
Subsequent Christian debate about the sense in which the bread “is” Jesus’ body and the wine “is” his blood (v. 28) cannot be settled by the choice of the verb, since “is” can have a range of meaning from complete identity (surely impossible when Jesus is physically holding the bread) to symbolic equivalence; for a suggestive example of the latter sense from within this gospel cf. the statements “the sower is the Son of Man,” “the field is the world” etc. in 13:36–39 (similarly in 13:19–23).24 It is also relevant that the most vivid NT language about eating and drinking Jesus’ flesh and blood is found in John 6:48–58, where the context makes no reference to literal bread and wine.
27–28 The wording indicates a single cup from which they all drank; rabbinic evidence indicates the use of individual cups at Passover, but it is not clear what practice was normally followed in the first century.25 The traditional formula of benediction for wine was “Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the world, who create the fruit of the vine.” The tradition (see p. 987, n. 12) was that four cups of wine were drunk at the Passover meal. According to m. Pesaḥ. 10:4 it was when the second cup was mixed that the explanatory dialogue took place. Jesus’ words about the cup of wine may have been an extension of or a substitute for that traditional dialogue, or he may have given his own interpretive statement at the time of the third cup when a benediction was traditionally given (m. Pesaḥ. 10:7). Matthew, Mark and Paul mention only one cup; Luke (if we accept the longer text of Luke 22:17–20) mentions two, the eucharistic words being spoken over the second and Luke’s equivalent to Matt 26:29 over the first. All the NT accounts are thus presumably selective descriptions, focusing only on the words of specifically Christian interest within the traditional Passover context.
By identifying the cup of wine as “my blood poured out” Jesus adds to the symbolism of the broken bread in v. 26: it is his own imminent death that is the basis of his new interpretation of the Passover. The blood of the Passover lamb featured prominently in the original Passover ritual (Exod 12:7, 13, 22–23), but now it will be Jesus’ blood which is his people’s salvation. But the lamb’s blood was smeared on the doorposts, certainly not drunk; the idea would have been unthinkable to a Jew, for whom the consumption of any blood was strictly forbidden. Yet now the disciples, who have just been invited to “eat Jesus’ body,” are invited also to “drink Jesus’ blood.” Long familiarity with eucharistic language has blunted the profoundly shocking nature of this imagery, which conjures up ideas of both human sacrifice and cannibalism, as well as overriding the Mosaic taboo on consuming blood. It can be a salutary experience to hear the reactions of those outside the Christian tradition when they first encounter such language.26 The effect on these Jewish disciples when it was first presented to them in that already highly-charged atmosphere can only be imagined. But within a few decades the imagery had become familiar and acceptable enough to be expressed in quite starkly “cannibalistic” terms in John 6:48–58, though with due acknowledgement of its inevitable offensiveness to non-Christian Judaism.
The words by which Jesus explains this extraordinary idea combine three phrases which together draw out the redemptive significance of his death.27 (a) “Blood of the covenant” directly echoes Exod 24:828 (and cf. Exod 24:6 for the “pouring out” of that blood) and so recalls the original basis of Israel’s life as the special people of God;29 mention of “the covenant” also recalls Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jer 31:31–34) that at the heart of God’s restoration of his people there would be a “new covenant,” grounded in a new relationship of “knowing God” and in the forgiving and forgetting of their sins.30 (b) “Poured out for many” recalls the “many” who are repeatedly referred to in Isa 53:11–12 as the beneficiaries of the suffering and death of the servant of God, an allusion already familiar to us from 20:28 (see comments there), where again it was specifically linked to the purpose of Jesus’ death; here the Isa 53 allusion is further suggested by the verb “poured out” which is used in Isa 53:12 of the servant “pouring out31 his life to death.”32 (c) The final phrase “for the forgiveness of sins” not only recalls the servant’s death for the sins of his people (Isa 53:5–6, 8, 10, 11, 12) but also further reinforces the allusion to Jeremiah’s new covenant prophecy, where the basis of this new relationship is that “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more;” it also recalls to the reader the original statement of Jesus’ mission in 1:21, to “save his people from their sins.”33
There is thus a rich mixture of allusive elements in these words. The result is the most comprehensive statement in Matthew’s gospel of the redemptive purpose and achievement of Jesus’ death. And by expressing it in terms of a “covenant,” a relationship between God and his people, Jesus has directed attention to the new community which is to result from his redemptive death. Here then is the essential theological basis for that new community of the restored people of God which this gospel has increasingly set before us as the result of Jesus’ ministry. It is as people are associated with him and the benefits of his saving death that they are confirmed as members of the newly reconstituted people of God.
29 There is a striking contrast between vv. 26–28, with their focus on imminent death, and this final pronouncement which, while it recognizes the end of Jesus’ earthly life (no more drinking of wine), looks forward to a triumphant future for Jesus and his disciples together in “the kingdom of my Father.” Their companionship, which will so soon be broken by death, is to be restored. The wine34 which is a symbol of death will also be the focus of future rejoicing. New wine is a powerful OT symbol of joyful well-being (e.g. Gen 27:28; Deut 33:28; Prov 3:10; Amos 9:13). Jesus has used it in 9:17 as a symbol of the new life his disciples enjoy in contrast with the old wine-skins of religious tradition. Here it speaks of the life of the kingdom of God, understood perhaps (as in 8:11–12, see comments there) as the messianic banquet. This saying does not specify when this future drinking of wine will take place, but “new” is a word often used in connection with the messianic fulfillment and ultimate salvation.35 It is therefore unlikely that Jesus is looking forward only to the forty days during which he will be with them again on earth before his ascension (Acts 1:3; 10:41).36 “The kingdom of my Father” refers rather to the heavenly fulfillment of God’s purpose of blessing for his people. But the phrase “from now on” (for which see on 26:64, and cf. 23:39) indicates that this new situation is now imminent; the life of heaven is already breaking in. The strong negative ou mē, “I will never,” is used to underline the certainty of Jesus’ vision of what is to come; it is overexegesis to find in it a vow of abstinence to account for Jesus’ refusal of wine on the cross (27:34).37
30 The Passover meal traditionally ended with the chanting38 of the latter part of the Hallel (Psalms 113–118), and that is the probable reference of “singing” (hymneō, see p. 987, n. 11) here. According to m. Pesaḥ 10:6–7, Pss 113–114 (or just Ps 113 in the school of Shammai) were chanted after the second cup of wine, the remainder over the fourth. “The Mount of Olives” covers a wide area east of the city, but v. 36 will narrow the reference down to a place on its western slope which, unlike Bethany on the other side of the hill, fell within the extended boundaries of Jerusalem recognized for the observance of Passover. It is possible that this is the place where according to Luke 21:37 Jesus and his disciples had regularly camped “on the Mount of Olives” during the week, but see on 21:17, where I suggest that Luke’s phrase may rather refer to Bethany, which Matthew understands to be their regular camp-site.
3. Jesus Predicts the Disciples’ Failure (26:31–35)
31Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be caused to stumble1 because of2 me tonight, for it is written,
‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
32But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of3 you into Galilee.”
33Peter replied, “If they are all caused to stumble because of you, I will never stumble.” 34Jesus said to him, “I tell you truly that tonight, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” 35Peter replied, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you.” All the disciples also said the same thing.
The sense of foreboding which has resulted from Jesus’ words at the supper about betrayal and death is now underlined as the group makes its way out of the city. But the focus is now not so much on what is to happen to Jesus but on the effect it will have on his disciples. The scriptural pattern which is to be fulfilled includes not only his own death but also their failure, and the imagery of shepherd and flock shows how closely the two are related. Their inability to grasp the seriousness of the situation shows up by contrast Jesus’ own awareness and acceptance of his messianic destiny.
This discouraging scene contains three predictions of Jesus whose literal fulfillment the reader will later be invited to notice, and thus to reflect on how Jesus, apparently the victim of circumstances, is in fact in full control of what is happening. The prediction of the scattering of the disciples will be fulfilled very soon in v. 56. The prediction of a post-resurrection meeting in Galilee will be twice repeated in 28:7, 10 and fulfilled in the gospel’s closing scene in 28:16–20. It serves to remind the reader that the hostility and apparent triumph of Jerusalem is not the end of the story. But alongside that hopeful note for the future stands Jesus’ detailed prediction of how Peter will first succumb to pressure, and again we shall be invited in 26:69–75 to reflect on how precisely that too is to be fulfilled. Jesus, informed by the prophetic model, will not be taken by surprise. Here, by alerting his disciples to what is to come, he aims to prepare them for the shock not only of his own arrest and execution but also of their own inability to stand by him when the test comes.
At the supper Jesus spoke of betrayal by one disciple (vv. 21–25); now he speaks of desertion by all of them, and of denial by Peter. There is thus a sequence of predictions of the failure of disciples (Judas, vv. 21–25; the Twelve, v. 31; Peter, v. 34), which will all be fulfilled in the same sequence in the following narrative (Judas, vv. 47–50; the Twelve, v. 56; Peter, vv. 69–75). And the failure of the disciples, no less than that of Judas (v. 24) has already been foretold in Scripture. The effect is to underline Jesus’ knowledge of the future and of the weakness of his disciples, but also to emphasize that from now on he will be left alone to face his enemies.
31 The metaphor of “stumbling” has been used with varying degrees of seriousness or finality. Sometimes the context indicates a final loss of salvation, as in 5:29–30; 13:21; 18:8–9; 24:10, whereas elsewhere it represents a setback which is not necessarily ultimately fatal (11:6; 13:57; 17:27). Here it falls somewhere between merely “taking offense” and ultimate spiritual disaster. The failure which is predicted for the disciples is as serious as it could be short of final apostasy, but they will eventually be restored to effective discipleship; they will fall to rise again (except Judas, whose presence among the group at this point is possible but not certain, see on v. 25).
The text of Zech 13:7 is quoted in a form which is quite unlike the probable text4 of the LXX, and closer to the Hebrew, but which differs from it in the addition of “of the flock”5 and, more noticeably, in making the opening verb a future indicative, “I will strike,” rather than the imperative, “Strike,” which occurs in all known versions of the OT text.6 This difference, however, is not so significant as it appears, since the imperative is addressed by God to his sword, so that in effect it is God who is striking; the clause which follows the words quoted here reverts to an indicative statement with God as the subject. So when these two clauses are quoted without the opening address to the sword, the change to the indicative is a simple and obvious way to preserve the meaning of the graphic Hebrew idiom.7 Zech 13:7–9 is one of a sequence of passages in Zech 9–14 which appear to present a messianic figure who is nonetheless rejected, wounded and killed, a model which seems to have been important for Jesus in understanding his own messianic suffering, and which Matthew draws on several times in his account of Jesus in Jerusalem (cf. 21:4–5 [Zech 9:9–10]; 24:30 [Zech 12:10–14]; 27:3–10 [Zech 11:12–13]).8 The shepherd in Zech 13:7 is described as God’s shepherd, the man who is God’s “associate” (“who is close to me,” NJB, TNIV). That so exalted a figure should nonetheless be struck down, and indeed by the sword of God himself, expresses in a remarkable way the paradox of a Messiah who is to be killed in accordance with the will of God declared in the scriptures. The sheep in the prophecy are the people of God (as in Ezekiel 34), scattered when they lose their leader, but destined to be refined and restored, even if only one third of them (Zech 13:8–9). So for Jesus his disciples form the nucleus of the new people of God under the leadership of the Messiah.9 The fact that the following clause in Zech 13:7 refers to them as “the little ones” may have appealed especially to Matthew (cf. 10:42; 18:6–14).
32 Just as Jesus’ words about his death at the supper had been followed by a vision of future restoration (v. 29), so again he looks beyond his death which has just been so starkly portrayed. The three passion predictions of 16:21; 17:22–23; 20:18–19 all concluded with a bald statement that he would “be raised on the third day” (cf. also 17:9), but now the picture is filled out a little. His resurrection will be the preface to a reunion with his disciples. The dire prediction from Zech 13:7 is not the end of their story any more than it was of his; their stumbling will not be terminal. Just as the striking of the shepherd will lead to the scattering of the flock, so his restoration will lead to their regrouping.10 And the fact that the reunion is set in Galilee gives new hope to the reader who has followed Matthew’s careful distinction between the northern and southern provinces: Galilee is the place of light (4:15–16). The promise, like the preceding quotation, is shared with Mark, but in Matthew it will be given added emphasis by its double repetition in 28:7, 10 (cf. Mark 16:7) and by its literal fulfillment in 28:16–20.11 Galilee, the place of Jesus’ first preaching (4:17) is also to be the place for a new beginning which will spread out to “all the nations.” And in that process the disciples, restored after their imminent disgrace, are to have the leading role.
33–35 Peter’s outspoken objection (with the other disciples as a mere echo, v. 35) is typical of his role in this gospel as leader and representative of the Twelve (cf. 10:2; 14:28–32; 16:16–19, 22–23; 17:24–27; 19:27–30). But in this case his role is more distinctive. His boast of loyalty will be more nearly fulfilled in that he alone of the Twelve will stay close to Jesus after his arrest (v. 58), but that very boldness will set him up for a more spectacular fall than the rest of them. Peter is a man of extremes, an example and warning written large for the instruction of subsequent disciples. But Jesus’ response raises the stakes: Peter will not merely desert Jesus, like the rest of them, but will even actively “deny” him. This possibility has already been raised in 10:33, where it was envisaged as a potential response to persecution, but one which would have disastrous consequences in that the denier would in turn be denied by Jesus before his Father. We noted there, however, that Peter’s subsequent rehabilitation suggests that the mutual denial spoken of in 10:33 refers to a settled course of dissociation rather than a temporary lapse under pressure; Peter’s bitter remorse in v. 75 shows that he had not permanently turned his back on Jesus and so did not ultimately come under the threat of 10:33. That Peter now squarely faces the possibility of having to die with Jesus shows how much he has learned since 16:22 when he objected so forcefully to Jesus’ prediction of his own death, only to be faced with the subsequent unwelcome demand to “take up one’s cross and follow” Jesus and to lose one’s life in order to preserve it (16:24–26). He is now, he thinks, prepared to do what he then could not face up to.
The crowing of the cock has occasioned an inordinate amount of interest, largely because Mark, unlike the other three evangelists, has a double crowing. This discrepancy has resulted in significant textual variations in Mark,12 but is probably best accounted for by a natural desire on the part of the other three evangelists to simplify their narrative by omitting an unnecessary detail. Attempts to explain why Mark should have wanted to insert an extra cockcrow into an tradition which originally had only one have not been compelling.13 The crowing of the cock, whether once or twice, is not in itself important. It is simply a marker of time: before the night is over you will have denied me three times.14
4. Jesus Prays in Gethsemane While the Disciples Sleep (26:36–46)
36Then Jesus came with them to an estate1 called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go away over there and pray.” 37He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him, and he began to be overcome with distress.2 38Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply distressed to the point of death.3 Stay here and keep awake with me.” 39And he went on a little way and fell on his face in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; and yet not as I wish but as you wish.” 40And he came to the disciples and found them asleep, and he said to Peter, “So you couldn’t keep awake with me for a single hour!4 41Keep awake and pray that you may not be put to the test.5 For the spirit is eager, but the flesh is weak.” 42Again he went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass away without my drinking it, let your will be done.” 43And he came and again found them asleep, because their eyes were weighed down. 44And he left them and went away again and prayed a third time, saying the same thing6 again. 45Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep on and rest!7 Look, the time8 has come,9 and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46Get up, and let’s go. Look, my betrayer has arrived.”
The last scene in which we find Jesus alone with his disciples (until after the resurrection in 28:16–20) has a dual focus. Its primary subject is Jesus’ own prayer as he faces up to the reality of his approaching death, and the reader witnesses the extraordinary emotional turmoil which this situation now evokes in one who up to this point has spoken of it with a sense of purpose and settled resolve. But the spotlight falls also on his disciples, or more particularly on the inner circle of Peter, James and John, in their human weakness and their inability to play even a supporting role when Jesus most needs them. The contrast is profound, and the reader is thus prepared for the different responses of Jesus and his disciples when the crisis comes: his prayer will have restored his sense of purpose and his authority, while the disciples, after an initial futile attempt at resistance, will simply give up and abandon him.
Matthew sets out the succession of three prayers and three return visits to the sleeping disciples more clearly than Mark, who gives no direct speech for the second prayer and says nothing about the third (though his narrative presupposes it). This scheme allows the reader to make an interesting comparison with the threefold testing and threefold failure of Peter in vv. 69–75. It also gives a fuller account of the nature of Jesus’ prayer, with a sequence from the request for removal of the cup if possible in the first prayer to the acceptance that it may not be possible in the second, with the clear conclusion, “Let your will be done.”
Matthew, unlike Mark, has shown us little of Jesus’ emotion up to this point. Jesus’ recorded words have sometimes expressed anger, disappointment, joy or determination, but Matthew has not drawn attention to these emotions in his editorial comments. Jesus has appeared throughout as totally in control of the situation and of himself. The scene in Gethsemane, with its extravagantly expressed emotions in vv. 37–38, thus offers a powerful new insight into what it meant for Jesus to face up in practice to the fate that he had so long predicted as his divinely appointed calling. His agonized plea for some other way reveals a deep inner revulsion at what was to come,10 but even now he looks only for what is “possible” within his Father’s will, and the ultimate “Let your will be done” assures the reader that there was no other way. Only as we are allowed to share Jesus’ deep distress are we enabled to grasp the seriousness of the settled purpose of God which calls for his Son to be rejected and killed in Jerusalem. But even so, the will of God is not imposed on an unwitting victim, but is deliberately faced and shared by the Son himself.11 The relationship of trust and loyalty between Father and Son which was put under scrutiny at the outset of Jesus’ ministry (4:1–11) proves able to survive even this ultimate test. Only in the terrible cry from the cross in 27:46 will we be given a similar insight into Jesus’ emotional turmoil, when for a moment even the hard-won harmony of will achieved in Gethsemane will appear to be disrupted. For profound comment on what this episode reveals about Jesus’ role in salvation see Heb 5:7–9.12
The three fishermen-disciples have already been chosen to share a specially privileged moment with Jesus on the mountain in 17:1–13; see on 17:1. In this case, however, the story is told from the perspective of Jesus, not from that of the three disciples. This time their role is apparently not so much to be witnesses of this intimate moment but to offer human companionship for Jesus when he felt the need for support. These were the three disciples who had declared their willingness to share Jesus’ fate (26:35; 20:22 with the same metaphor of the “cup” as will be used in v. 39), yet now even before the crisis comes their inability to stay awake makes them ineffective even in the role of providing moral support. The repeated emphasis on their sleepiness provides a basis for Jesus’ exhortation and warning in v. 41, which has a wider application to the demands of discipleship than just to that particular situation. It also emphasizes the isolation of Jesus, as the one person who remains alert to face up to the challenge.
The motif of the disciples’ sleepiness has also of course given rise to the problem of historical veracity (the “ ‘village atheist’ objection,” as R. E. Brown, Death 174, delightfully calls it): if all the potential witnesses were asleep, who was responsible for recording how Jesus prayed? It is possible that the prayer was protracted, so that the disciples may have heard the gist of it before they went to sleep; in the crowded state of the Jerusalem area at Passover it is also quite possible that Gethsemane was not as private as the narratives suggest, and that others heard what was happening;13 it is also not unlikely that Jesus himself after the resurrection shared with them some of his memories of this momentous night. At any rate, it soon became clear from Jesus’ demeanor in the face of the arresting party that his earlier emotional turmoil had been resolved as he had faced and overcome it through his prayer.
36 The location of this scene is on the Mount of Olives, v. 30. The specific place-name Gethsemane (probably meaning “oil-press”) is not otherwise known, but Matthew describes it as an “estate,” probably a walled plot, and its name suggests that it was an olive orchard.14 This would tally with John’s description of it as a “garden.” Its exact location on the Mount of Olives is not stated, but the traditional site on the western slope opposite the city would be suitable: unlike Bethany, it was within the bounds of “greater Jerusalem” approved for Passover night (see p. 771), was easily accessible for Jesus and his group after a late Passover meal, and allowed Judas to bring the arresting party there quickly from the city.
Matthew has previously mentioned Jesus going off on his own to pray (14:23), in accordance with his own precept in 6:6, though 11:25–26 has recorded what appears to be a public address to his Father. The intriguing blend here of secrecy (leaving the majority of the disciples behind) and yet his taking of Peter, James and John with him suggests a strong need for human companionship. But even they will also be kept at a distance (v. 39); this is a private transaction between Father and Son.
37–38 It is to Peter, James and John, rather than to the whole group of the Twelve, that Jesus now reveals his emotional stress, just as only they had seen his divine glory in 17:1–8. The statement that he “began to be overcome with distress” perhaps alerts the reader that here is a new note to Jesus’ self-disclosure. Matthew’s descriptive terms reveal the depth of the emotion rather than its cause, but the recorded words of Jesus go further. They echo the refrain of Ps 42:5–6, 11; 43:5,15 using the same uncommon adjective perilypos, “deeply distressed,” which occurs there in the LXX to describe the state of the psalmist’s “soul.”16 For the range of meanings of psychē see on 10:39; 16:25–26, and p. 399, n. 4; here, as in Ps 42–43, it refers to the “inner self” and its use emphasizes that this is real, deeply-felt emotion, not an outward show. The additional phrase which literally means “until death” should probably be taken, as in Jonah 4:9 (“angry to death,” using the same phrase in LXX), as expressing the vehemence of the emotion;17 it might be paraphrased “so very sorrowful that I could die” or even “so very sorrowful that it is killing me.”18 In this context where Jesus’ literal death is imminent and is the cause of his distress, it might be supposed that the phrase means “at the approach of death” or “in the face of death,” but that would not be a natural reading of the Greek preposition. The specific instruction to “stay awake with me” prepares the reader for the disciples’ total failure to do so, and thus their leaving Jesus unsupported in his distress.
39 The “little way” (Luke 22:41 says it was about a stone’s throw) suggests that Jesus was still within earshot of Peter, James and John (prayer was normally aloud, even when praying alone). Falling with one’s face to the ground was a posture of supplication (Luke 5:12; 17:16), and a response to a supernatural experience (17:6; Luke 24:5; cf. Gen 17:3; Dan 8:17), but as an attitude for prayer it underlines the depth of Jesus’ emotion.
Jesus often referred to God as “my Father,” but the vocative “My Father” in prayer here and in v. 42, rather than the simple “Father” as in 11:25–26, further emphasizes that it is the relationship between Father and Son which is here being tested and reaffirmed. “My Father” is Jesus’ personal equivalent of the “Our Father” which he taught his disciples to use corporately in 6:9. This is the first of three echoes of the Lord’s Prayer in this pericope; cf. vv. 41 and 42. For the “cup” as a metaphor for suffering see on 20:22–23;19 we noted there that in the OT the metaphor carried also the connotation of God’s anger and thus of punishment, and in the light of Jesus’ words over the “cup” in v. 28 the metaphor may be used here to focus especially on the element of vicarious punishment in Jesus’ death (though of course the “cup” offered to the disciples was not that of Jesus’ vicarious suffering in itself, but of their participation in its benefits). It was that aspect of his suffering, not merely the physical pain and death in themselves, that most distressed him; perhaps we should understand that in speaking of the cup (of God’s anger) he was already aware of the coming separation from his Father which 27:46 will so graphically describe. That is something he simply does not want to have to go through, but the clause “if it is possible” already recognizes the conflict between his natural revulsion and the purpose of his Father, and the concluding clause, “not as I wish but as you wish,” makes it plain where his ultimate loyalty lies. There is no question of his refusing the will of God once it is clear that there is no “Plan B.” Jesus’ repeated predictions of his death, and his statement in vv. 24 and 31 that this is to happen “as it is written,” show that he was already well aware of his Father’s will; what is happening in Gethsemane is not the discovery of this as a new fact, but the need to come to terms in emotion and will with what he has already known in theory.
40–41 Jesus’ earnest prayer contrasts with the failure of even his closest supporters to stay awake in his support. “The disciples” here must mean only Peter, James and John, who are now separate from the rest of the group, since Peter is directly addressed (though the verbs are plural, including the other two disciples as well). Jesus discovers them already failing in their duty; note the dramatic effect of the historic present tenses of v. 40 (“comes,” “finds,” “says” in the Greek), and the colloquial “So” which introduces Jesus’ ironical comment adds to their discomfiture. To his earlier instruction to “keep awake” Jesus now adds “pray.” Their prayer is not to be for him but for themselves, who have been shown to need it even more than he does. It is the same prayer20 which Jesus had told them to use back in 6:13: “Do not bring us into testing, but rescue us from the Evil One.” See on 6:13 for the nature of the “testing/temptation” which may be in view; here it most immediately refers to the test of their loyalty which will come with the arrival of the arresting party (a “test” which brings also the “temptation” to run away), a test which, because of their failure to keep awake and pray, they will miserably fail.
The aphorism21 about the spirit and the flesh can be applied much more widely than just to the specific situation of the three disciples; it expresses in a nutshell one of the main problems of Christian discipleship (and indeed of human nature in general), and Matthew no doubt expected his readers to apply it to themselves, not only to Peter, James and John. The spirit/flesh contrast does not occur elsewhere in Matthew, and is more typical of Paul (cf. also John 3:6; 6:63); here (unlike in Paul) the “flesh” is not so much evil or in itself opposed to the will of God, but represents human weakness over against the desire of the “inner self” to do the will of God (for a comparable use of “spirit” see 5:3). Initial enthusiasm and professions of loyalty too often succumb to human lethargy or fear of the consequences. Prothymos sounds a more positive note than the traditional translation “willing:” it portrays zeal and commitment, perhaps with special reference to Peter’s unconditional promise of loyalty in vv. 33 and 35. Peter’s problem is not lack of enthusiasm for Jesus, but lack of the moral stamina to face up to what it will mean in practice.
42 The second prayer is not simply a repeat of the first.22 It suggests that Jesus now knows the answer to the request of v. 39, and has accepted that no alternative is possible. In that case there can be only one course for Jesus to take: “Let your will be done.” This is the third echo in this pericope of the wording of the Lord’s Prayer (6:10), and shows that Jesus not only instructs his disciples in how to pray but himself follows the same principle. When we realize the profound consequences of such a prayer for Jesus in Gethsemane, it gives added solemnity to our own use of the words he taught his disciples. From this point on there will be no further indication of reluctance on Jesus’ part to fulfill his God-given role until the cry of 27:46 when Jesus has already accepted and implemented his Father’s will. He will not resist arrest (even though he could easily have done so, vv. 53–54) and at his trials he will offer no defense (26:62–63; 27:13–14), but rather a defiant declaration which will hasten his condemnation (26:64). In Gethsemane the die has been cast.
43–44 The repetition of the same sequence of return to the sleeping disciples and renewed prayer provides no new elements to the story except the brief comment that the disciples’ eyes were weighed down. Despite the opening “because” this does not in itself explain but rather restates the problem of their sleepiness. Any explanation of why they seem to have been exceptionally tired can only be conjectural. It was by now well into the night,23 and they had been through a series of stressful experiences since the meal began. The sense of impending catastrophe may have sapped their energy (cf. Luke 22:45, “sleeping from grief”).
45–46 Jesus’ words on his final return to the sleeping disciples are hard to interpret as a whole; they seem to pull in opposite directions. The opening words, taken at their face value, give permission to the disciples to go on sleeping, while v. 46 tells them to wake up. Two kinds of solution have been pursued: either there is a significant time-lag incorporated within what appears to be a continuous speech, with something occurring in the middle which changes Jesus’ attitude, or the opening words are not to be taken at their face value. The first type of solution may be supported by v. 45b, the announcement of Judas’ imminent arrival. So perhaps after saying “Sleep on and rest” Jesus heard or saw the approach of the arresting party and so concluded that after all there was no more time for sleep. But if that is what Matthew intended, the lack of any narrative indication of an interruption between vv. 45a and 45b is at best clumsy.24 Most interpreters therefore look for an alternative way of understanding Jesus’ opening words. They have been taken as an ironical question (“Are you still sleeping and resting?”), an indignant observation (“You are still sleeping and resting!”), or an ironical command (“Sleep on25 and rest!”) intending that they should in fact do just the opposite. All these suggestions come to much the same conclusion, that Jesus did not in fact want the disciples to go on sleeping at this point any more than he did before, and in that case vv. 45b-46 follow more naturally. Appeals to a supposed ironic intention are of course always suspect as an easy way to avoid an exegetical embarrassment, but in this case, by giving no indication of a time-lag or change of situation between vv. 45a and 45b, Matthew seems to have left us little choice.
The “time” which has now arrived is the time of his betrayal as he has just predicted it in v. 21, together with the time of the scattering of the disciples which he has said will take place “tonight,” v. 31. When Jesus has said previously to whom he would be betrayed he has called them simply “people” (17:22) or more specifically “the chief priests and the scribes.” (20:18) This time the more weighted term “sinners”26 prepares the reader for the clear division between the forces of good and evil which will dominate the following narrative. With the arrival of the betrayer the long-awaited drama has begun. The following narrative will make it clear that Jesus’ command “Let’s go” is not an invitation to try to escape, but a call to be ready to meet the arresting party.
C. The Arrest and Trials of Jesus (26:47–27:26)
Events now move steadily forward to the long-predicted climax of the story. The disciples quickly leave the stage, and Jesus is left in the hands of his enemies. It is they who will take the initiative throughout the remainder of chapters 26–27, and Jesus will offer no resistance; even the pathetic attempt at resistance by one disciple is quickly scotched (vv. 51–52). Jesus’ following words (vv. 53–54) make it clear that it is not that he cannot resist but that he will not. In Gethsemane he has accepted his Father’s will.
After the arrest the story of Jesus’ trial goes through two main phases, one before the Jewish authorities, the other before the Roman prefect. We shall consider the formal and legal characteristics of these hearings as we come to them. Formally speaking it had to be the Roman authorization of the death penalty which ultimately decided Jesus’ fate, but it is clear that for Matthew the Jewish hearing is the one that really matters. It is there that Jesus finally confronts the assembled dignitaries of Jerusalem and his defiant declaration of his messianic authority brings about the predicted condemnation to death. The subsequent transfer to Roman jurisdiction is presented as a formality required to effect the execution the Jewish leaders have already decided on, a process which does not go as smoothly as they might have wished but which they are able to manipulate to achieve the desired outcome. Pontius Pilatus appears almost as a stooge rather than as the ultimately responsible authority. Even though Jesus will ultimately die by Roman execution under a Roman charge as “the king of the Jews,” we are left in no doubt as to whose initiative has brought this about. In a striking (and much abused) cameo in 27:24–25 Matthew will set out clearly his understanding of who was responsible for Jesus’ death.
Set within this continuous narrative are two interludes in which the spotlight shifts briefly from Jesus himself to one of his disciples. Both involve a disciple repudiating Jesus, and then regretting his decision. In the first case, Peter (26:69–75), subsequent history will tell us that the lapse was only temporary, though the story as we read it in this pericope does not spell that out. The second story, Judas (27:3–10), by contrast ends in despair and suicide. The reader is thus invited to learn from the stories of these two failing disciples both by discerning how their experiences differed and by noting their very different ultimate fates. And both stand out by contrast with Jesus, within the story of whose trial they are set: Peter buckles under pressure, Judas has deliberately changed sides, but Jesus remains true to his calling and to his Father’s will.
1. The Arrest of Jesus (26:47–56)
47And while Jesus was still speaking Judas, one of the Twelve, did indeed1 arrive, bringing a large crowd armed with swords and sticks, sent by the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48Jesus’ betrayer had given2 them a signal: “The person I kiss is the one; arrest him.” 49So he went straight up to Jesus and said, “Hello, Rabbi,” and kissed3 him. 50Jesus said to him, “My friend,4 [do] what you’ve come for.”5 Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and arrested him.
51Just then6 one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the high priest’s slave, cutting off his ear. 52Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back where it belongs; for all those who take up the sword will die by the sword. 53Or do you imagine that I am not able to call on my Father, and he would provide7 me here and now with more than twelve8 legions of angels? 54How then would the scriptures be fulfilled which say that this is how it must be?”
55At that time Jesus said to the crowds, “You have come out with swords and sticks to overpower9 me as if I were a bandit.10 Each day11 I have been sitting teaching in the temple, and you did not arrest me. 56But all this has happened so that the scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled.”12
Then all the disciples left him and ran away.
While I am treating 26:47–27:26 as a new section of the narrative, in which the predictions of the preceding pericopes begin to come true and Jesus is seen no longer with his disciples but in the hands of his enemies, there is nonetheless no break in the continuity of the story. The scene is still Gethsemane, and the action follows immediately from Jesus’ warning in vv. 45–46. Judas’ arrival has been signaled, and now he appears and fulfills his bargain with the priests.
For Judas’ role and motivation see above on vv. 14–16. His betrayal of Jesus has been well signaled in advance (10:4; 26:14–16, 21–25, 46) and is now carried out with a degree of armed support which leaves nothing to chance. But while Jesus now has no chance of escape, the narrative nonetheless reads as if he is in charge of the situation. The contrast with his emotional prayer in the preceding pericope is striking. The Jesus whom Judas and his posse meet is now resolute, calm and authoritative. He himself makes no attempt to resist arrest, and when one of his disciples tries to defend him it is Jesus himself, not the arresting party, who puts an end to the attempt. He speaks of the supernatural resources available to him, and declares that it is his choice not to call on them, because his purpose is that the scriptures should be fulfilled. He even reprimands those who have come to arrest him for supposing that he would need to be overcome by armed force, and his challenge remains unanswered. While Matthew does not go so far as John in depicting the arresting party as recoiling in fear from Jesus’ supernatural authority (John 18:5–6), his Jesus seems able to lecture them from a superior height even while he is being led away. Jesus is taken into the power of the Jerusalem authorities not because he had no choice but because this is the will of his Father, declared in the scriptures, which he has accepted as his messianic calling.
47 To describe Judas as “one of the Twelve” is hardly necessary after 10:4 and 26:14, but underlines the shocking fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction in v. 21. See on v. 25 for Judas’ movements since the Passover meal. Matthew’s silence on when he left the group allows for the possibility that he went with them as far as Gethsemane so that he knew exactly where Jesus would be, and then went and collected his troops to bring them there while Jesus prayed and the rest of the disciples slept. But if, as John 18:2 says (cf. Luke 22:39), Gethsemane was a regular rendez-vous for the group, he may have known in advance where to take the arresting party that night. A force sent out by the “chief priests and the elders of the people” sounds like an official posse recruited by or on behalf of the Sanhedrin (and including, perhaps led by, “the high priest’s slave”), and so would probably have consisted of some of the temple guards,13 perhaps augmented by less formal recruits or volunteers; v. 55 appears to be addressed to temple guards. There is no suggestion here of Roman troops being involved,14 and their fairly basic armaments suggest something less strictly military—the word translated “sticks” means pieces of wood, perhaps clubs or staves, or possibly something more makeshift (think of baseball bats?). The armed group was “a large crowd” in comparison with the unprepared disciples, but this remained an undercover operation, as had been planned in vv. 3–5.
48–49 It was dark, and to the Jerusalem guards one Galilean visitor would look much like another. Hence Judas’ notorious kiss, which in a culture less restrained in physical contact than ours may not have stood out as an unusual greeting;15 the point of the “signal” lies in whom Judas greets rather than how. His verbal greeting is also not out of the ordinary (see on 28:9), but again, as in v. 25, he addresses Jesus by the occupational title “Rabbi” rather than the more theologically weighted “Lord” which the other disciples habitually use. Here, as already in v. 25, the title betrays his alienation from Jesus and what he stands for.
50 Unlike the clear reproach of Luke 22:48, “Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?,” Jesus’ response in Matthew is so concise as to be quite obscure.16 The literal meaning, “My friend,17 for which you are present,” requires the supply of a main verb, which could be indicative, interrogative, imperative or exclamatory. Most versions opt for an imperative, “Do what you have come to do” (i.e. “Get on with it!”; cf. John 13:27), but other suggestions include “So this is why you are here,” or “What an errand you have come on!” A question, “What have you come for?” (KJV, RSV, NIV mg.) is less likely, as it would naturally be expressed with an interrogative rather than a relative pronoun;18 moreover, Jesus is already well aware of Judas’ purpose, though of course a sarcastic question might be possible. The account of the actual arrest emphasizes its physical nature; the Hebraic expression “to lay hands on” is perhaps intended to echo Jesus’ words about the “hands” of people/sinners (17:22; 26:45). We are thus prepared for Jesus’ protest about the unnecessary use of force (v. 55).
51–52 The expression “one of those who were with Jesus” avoids specifically mentioning the disciples, perhaps in order to suggest that others were there in the orchard with Jesus and the Twelve.19 It is only John who names the attacker as Peter (and also names the high priest’s slave as Malchus). Luke 22:38 tells us, however, that, surprisingly, there were at least two swords among the group who ate the Passover meal, so the attacker may have been a disciple,20 and such impulsive action would suit the character of Peter, especially after his declaration of loyalty even to death (v. 35). The reference to “the (rather than “a”) slave of the high priest” may indicate a person of some consequence, perhaps the leader of the arresting party; as such he would be an obvious object of attack.21 The redundant Hebraic expression “stretched out his hand and” (cf. 8:3; 14:31; the idiom is frequent in the OT, e.g. Gen 22:10; Exod 3:20; Judg 3:21 etc.) perhaps echoes the “hands” laid on Jesus in v. 50.
Jesus’ indignant repudiation of this natural show of loyalty stems from his earlier acceptance that his Father’s will was not to be averted. But while it is his particular situation which makes the use of force inappropriate here, his words about “those who take up the sword” are quite general and provide prima facie support for the belief that physical violence, and particularly retaliatory violence, is incompatible with following Jesus (see 5:39 for the principle of non-resistance). Whether these words (reported only by Matthew) can be taken as the basis for a thorough-going pacifism will depend on a wider assessment of the relevant biblical material. But as a proverbial observation (cf. Rev 13:10) on the tendency of violence to recoil on those who perpetrate it22 Jesus’ aphorism reflects common experience, even though not every historical example conforms to this pattern.
53–54 Physical resistance was not only wrong in principle but also unnecessary, since Jesus had far more force at his disposal, if he chose to summon it, than a few human supporters could offer. Angels are available to help God’s people in need (see 4:6, quoting Ps 91:11–12; also 4:11), and are envisaged in military terms in the OT phrase “the host (army) of heaven,” (1 Kgs 22:19) and especially in the angelic armies led by Michael in Dan 10:13, 20–21; 12:1; Rev 12:7. The idea of angels fighting for the cause of God and his people is prominent in the Qumran literature. While “legions” here might be understood primarily as a term for vast numbers (there were 6,000 men in a Roman legion),23 the choice of such a military term in connection with defense against an armed posse is surely deliberate. If there is to be fighting, it is to be done by supernatural forces, not by human volunteers. But Jesus will not ask his Father for such help because he now knows what is his Father’s will. Indeed he had known it already, even before the struggle in Gethsemane (see on v. 39), because his fate was already prescribed in “the scriptures.” The reference may be especially to Zech 13:7–9, just quoted in v. 31, but the plural term suggests the wider scriptural motif to which he has referred in v. 24, and which we considered above in relation to the statement in 16:21 (see comments there) that his suffering was “necessary.” Verse 54 is rather awkwardly connected with what precedes by a “therefore” where we might have expected “but in that case:” the two preceding scenarios of human or angelic resistance would equally have prevented the working out of God’s declared purpose.
55–56 Jesus’ protest over the manner of his arrest serves to underline the contrast between the Jerusalem establishment, which depends on stealth and physical force, and Jesus’ open and non-violent presentation of his claims in the temple courtyard. They have failed to silence him in public debate, so instead they have resorted to coercion, avoiding a public arrest because of their fear of crowd reaction (26:5). So they are treating him like a “bandit,” probably meaning simply a common thief (cf. its use in 21:13), though this is the term Josephus would regularly use for the violent supporters of Jewish nationalism, more generally known as the Zealots. If Matthew has the latter usage in view, its modern equivalent might be “terrorist.” In view of Jesus’ clear repudiation of the bandit image here it is ironical that he would eventually finish up crucified along with two such bandits (27:38, 44).
“All this has happened so that … may be fulfilled” closely echoes the quotation formula in 1:22; 21:4;24 here as there it refers to the specific details of the immediately preceding narrative, which are understood within the wider context of the fulfillment of God’s purpose, even though in this case no particular text is cited to indicate in what way the manner of Jesus’ arrest “fulfills the scriptures of the prophets.”25 Matthew may be thinking, as Luke did (Luke 22:37), of the statement that God’s servant would be “counted among the lawbreakers” (Isa 53:12), but perhaps the logic is not meant to be as tight as that. A further repetition of the general theme of scriptural fulfillment (in this chapter already in vv. 24, 31, 54) reinforces the conviction that nothing is happening by chance, so that even underhand human schemes serve only to advance the declared purpose of God.
After what Jesus has said, there is clearly no point in further resistance, nor is there anything to be gained by staying with Jesus; the disciples all run away, though one of them, we shall find out in v. 58, does not go very far.
2. The Hearing before the Sanhedrin (26:57–68)
57Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together.
58But Peter was following Jesus at a distance as far as the high priest’s courtyard, where he went in and sat inside among the servants to see the end.
59The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they could have him executed, 60and they did not find any even though when many false witnesses came forward. But in the end two came forward 61and said, “This man said, ‘I can destroy God’s sanctuary and rebuild it1 in three days.’ ” 62Then the high priest stood up and said to him, “Have you no answer to these men’s testimony against you?”2 63But Jesus said nothing. And the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath by the living God to tell us whether you are the Messiah, the son of God.” 64Jesus replied, “You have said it. And yet I tell you,3 from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
65Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has blasphemed. Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard his blasphemy; 66what do you think?” And they replied, “He deserves to die.” 67Then they spat in his face and beat him, and some slapped him 68saying, “Prophesy to us, Messiah, who was it that hit you?”
This is the point at which Jesus’ death is sealed; all that follows involving the Roman prefect is only the formal implementation of a verdict already decided by the Jewish authorities. And the final basis of the Jewish verdict is Jesus’ own words in v. 64, in which far from retracting his supposed messianic claims he defiantly escalates them to a level which they cannot pass over—even if they had wished to do so, and Matthew has made it clear in v. 59 that they were only too willing to convict. Here then is the climax of the tussle over authority which has been developing ever since Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, and it ends in a remarkable paradox, with Jesus asserting his superior God-given authority in ringing tones, but the Jerusalem leaders in fact having the upper hand in terms of the legal process and its outcome. The reader is left feeling that this is not a proper resolution of the conflict, and Jesus’ words themselves direct our attention beyond the earthly judgment scene to one of heavenly authority, where those who are now his judges “will see” him as the heavenly judge. Nor is this a vision for the distant future. It will be true “from now on.” So the reader is prepared for the climax when, only a few days later, the vindicated Messiah can declare that he now has “all power in heaven and on earth” (28:18); his reign at the right hand of power has begun.
But for now he is in their power, “so that the scriptures may be fulfilled.” (vv. 54, 56) The scene will finish with Jesus as the apparently helpless butt of the rough justice of his outraged captors. Except for his defiant declaration in v. 64 Jesus remains resolutely silent throughout in the face of false accusation, ill-treatment and insult. Apart from a two-word response to Pilate’s formal charge he will say nothing more until his terrible cry from the cross in 27:46. He seems aloof from what is going on around him. After the protest in Gethsemane about the way his arrest has been set up (v. 55) there is no more to be said. They know where they are going, and Jesus lets events take their course, and even helps them on their way by the undiplomatic language he uses in v. 64.
Yet it is, paradoxically, in this setting of the apparent helplessness and defeat of Jesus that we reach the climactic statement of who he is. The setting could not be more dramatically effective. Jesus has spoken frequently of his coming confrontation with the chief priests, the elders and the scribes, those who represent the official leadership of the people of God. Now he stands before them, not in the relatively neutral territory of a crowded Court of the Gentiles but on their own ground, with no one to take his side. And here, in response to the high priest’s challenge the element of secrecy concerning Jesus’ messianic claim is finally discarded, and the three titles “Messiah,” “Son of God” and “Son of Man” are brought together in an open self-disclosure, which then goes beyond any mere title to assert Jesus’ unique place at the right hand of God. The gauntlet is openly thrown down, and they are not slow to take it up.
In contrast to this high drama in front of the high priest, a brief insert in v. 58 turns the spotlight onto the very different figure of Peter as he sits outside in the courtyard “to see the end.” The spotlight will return to him in the next pericope, but for now the mention of his presence outside alerts the reader to a secondary story-line which is developing alongside the central drama. Peter is to face his “trial” among the servants, just as Jesus does among the Sanhedrin, and the contrast between the response of the two Galileans gives a dramatic tension to the whole scene.4 The reader is invited to choose between two models of how the man of God behaves under pressure, the one who escapes death but with his spiritual reputation in tatters and the one who will be killed only to live again in triumph; so the reader is reminded that “anyone who finds their life will lose it, and anyone who loses their life will find it.” (10:39; 16:25)
The “Sanhedrin trial” has been the subject of immense historical debate, which has focused on three main areas of disagreement. (a) What was the nature of the hearing which led up to Jesus’ transfer to the Roman prefect? (b) How does the gospel record relate to such evidence as we have for legal process at the time? (c) On what charge was Jesus condemned? Fortunately the debate has recently been well surveyed and judiciously assessed by Darrell Bock,5 so that only a few summary remarks need be given here.
(a) The nature of the hearing. Only the Synoptic Gospels relate the hearing in Caiaphas’ house.6 Apart from one significant nuance (see below on v. 60b) Matthew follows Mark’s account closely. Luke 22:66–71 has a similar, though differently structured, account of the Sanhedrin hearing, but places it in the early morning rather than when Jesus was first brought to the high priest’s house at night, whereas Mark and Matthew apparently have the hearing at night followed by what is sometimes taken to be a second session early in the morning (Mark 15:1; Matt 27:1). If, however, the phrase symboulion poiēsantes / symboulion elabon is understood not to refer to convening a separate meeting but to the conclusion of a judicial process which has continued through the night, and in particular to forming a plan as to how their previously agreed decision could best be presented to the prefect to obtain his official sanction for the execution, there is no need to think in terms of two separate hearings in Mark and Matthew either.7 This commentary will therefore read Matthew’s account as of a single all-night hearing.
There is now widespread agreement8 with John’s statement that at this time the Jews did not have the right to carry out a death sentence (John 18:31), as indeed was the general policy with regard to subject nations in the Roman empire. The Synoptic accounts all assume that even after agreeing on the death penalty the Sanhedrin had no option but to go to the Roman prefect to have it implemented. The well-known exceptions of the lynching of Stephen (Acts 7:54–60) and the execution of James the Just and his associates (Josephus, Ant. 20.200) are probably to be understood as unauthorized exceptions, the latter being explicitly attributed to the high priest’s seizing his opportunity when there was no procurator in place (he was deposed as a result). The right to execute Gentiles who crossed the barrier into the restricted area of the temple is specifically noted as an officially sanctioned exception to the general rule (Josephus, War 6.126). So a hearing by the Sanhedrin, however clear its verdict, could not be formally a capital trial. It was, legally speaking, Pilate’s verdict which sentenced Jesus to death. From the Jewish point of view, no doubt, what happened in Caiaphas’ house was the “real” trial, but formally speaking it was more in the nature of a preliminary hearing to determine firstly that Jesus deserved to be brought before Pilate on a capital charge, and secondly to agree the nature of that charge so as to ensure its success.9 This dual role then accounts for the two phases of the hearing as they are described by Mark and Matthew. The first phase (26:59–68) determined that Jesus was guilty and must be put to death; the second (27:1–2) formulated an appropriate charge to bring to the prefect. But the two phases are closely connected, and there seems no reason to suppose that they were separated, or that anyone went to bed between 26:68 and 27:1.
(b) The legality of the proceedings. It has often been noted that the details of the Sanhedrin hearing do not conform at several points to the rules laid down for capital trials in m.Sanhedrin. In particular such trials must be held during the day time, must take place in one of three specified courtrooms (which do not include the high priest’s house), must begin by hearing the case for the defense, must not reach a conviction on the same day as the trial began, and therefore must not be held on the eve of a festival or of the Sabbath (m.Sanh. 4:1; 11:2); at all these points the hearing as described in the gospels is defective. But it is questionable what currency these rules formulated at the end of the second century AD might have had in the period before the destruction of the temple; indeed, it is hard to see how they could have been practically applied since the Roman occupation prevented a Jewish court from carrying out the kind of capital sentences the Mishnah prescribes.
In any case, however, if, as has been argued above, this was not a formally constituted capital court but a less formal preliminary hearing, the issue does not arise.10 It is unlikely that the whole membership of the Sanhedrin was present at least for the earlier stages of this hastily convened hearing, and it is probably more realistic to suppose that members continued to arrive to join the assembly during the night. Indeed Mark’s listing of “the chief priests with the elders and scribes and all the Sanhedrin” as present at the final stage of the hearing early in the morning (Mark 15:1) may be taken to imply that not all of them had been there for the earlier phase, despite his phrase “the whole Sanhedrin” in 14:55. This does not mean however that even in its earlier stages this gathering could dispense with all concern for correct procedure. Matthew’s account does not suggest an impartial search for justice (see especially 26:59), but the dismissal of false testimony suggests that at least the form of a proper judicial hearing was observed, and the high priest’s ritual tearing of his robes conforms to the mishnaic convention for a trial on the charge of blasphemy (m.Sanh. 7:5). The hearing thus carried legitimacy as an official expression of Jewish repudiation of Jesus as a blasphemer, but it did not need to observe the formal procedure of a capital court since it was at the Roman trial that the legal verdict would be given.
(c) The charge against Jesus. This is of course quite specifically stated twice in v. 65 as “blasphemy.” There has nevertheless been considerable disagreement as to how this relates to what actually happened at the hearing. Part of the problem has been the assumption that the mishnaic “definition” of blasphemy would already have been current and accepted at the time of Jesus: m.Sanh. 7:5 says that “the blasphemer is not culpable unless he pronounces the Name itself.” Since Jesus’ reply to the high priest has conspicuously avoided pronouncing the name of God by referring to him as “the power” (v. 64), whereas the high priest’s question, in its Matthean form, has used the name of God,11 this is clearly too restrictive to make sense of the present scene, and it is unlikely that at this time any such precise usage was established. Darrell Bock’s detailed study12 has concluded that “blasphemy” was at this time more widely understood, and therefore argues convincingly that Jesus’ “blasphemy” consisted not in a formal misuse of God’s name but in claiming for himself a unique association with God, sitting at his right hand. While a claim to be the Messiah was not in itself blasphemous,13 what Jesus said in response to the high priest went far beyond that claim: he was not only Messiah and Son of God but also, as the Son of Man predicted in Dan 7:13–14, he was now to share God’s throne. Such outrageous claims must either be accepted, which was unthinkable, or repudiated as blasphemous and their author eliminated as a threat to orthodox religious belief. That he had also, as part of this radically subversive agenda, threatened the destruction and replacement of the temple was also not a side-issue; that alone came dangerously close to “blasphemy.” (See further below on vv. 65–66.)
57 For Caiaphas see above on v. 3. Matthew says that Jesus was taken to him, rather than to his house, but it becomes clear in the next verse that this episode is set at his house, the same place where we have seen the members of the Sanhedrin plotting together in vv. 3–5. This is not, therefore, a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin, which would take place in the “chamber of hewn stone” on the western side of the temple mount,14 not at the high priest’s house (the location of which is debated). Matthew mentions two of the three component groups of the Sanhedrin (see on 16:21), perhaps because the mention of the high priest renders a further mention of the “chief priests” unnecessary here (but they will reappear in v. 59). The scribes would, of course, be an important element in any legal decisions reached. See introductory comments above on the nature of this gathering; if Judas had been able to give only short notice of when the arrest might be possible, the number present may have been limited, probably augmented as the night went on.
58 A brief mention of Peter outside in the courtyard sets the scene for vv. 69–75 when his informal “trial” will follow that of Jesus. So far his boasted loyalty (vv. 33, 35) has persisted at least to the extent of not wishing to lose touch with Jesus altogether, though the imperfect tense “was following” perhaps conveys a note of tentativeness, as does the phrase “at a distance.” The courtyard was probably a semi-public unroofed area15 where those not involved in the hearing, slaves and lesser members of the household, would gather. The assertion by two of the women that Peter had been “with Jesus” (vv. 69, 71) probably indicates (as John 18:26 makes explicit) that they had been with the arresting party who had now returned successfully and were waiting outside, like Peter, to see what happened to their prisoner in the house.
59–60a The spotlight moves back from Peter in the courtyard to Jesus on trial in the house. For a useful brief overview of what is known about the Jerusalem Sanhedrin (to which this is the only reference by name in Matthew) see Keener, 614–616.16 If the above discussion of the nature of this gathering is correct, “the whole Sanhedrin” here and in Mark 14:55 must be a broad generalization rather than claiming that all 71 members of the Sanhedrin were present, which would be unlikely for a meeting convened at night at short notice. The point is that it was not just the priests, who had taken the initiative, who were present but representatives of all the constituent parts of the Sanhedrin; a third of the membership was recognized as the quorum for a capital case (m.Sanh. 1:1). This is thus a body competent to represent official Jewish opinion.
There is as yet no charge against Jesus; it is the purpose of this gathering to formulate one. Matthew’s phrase “looking for false testimony against Jesus” sounds loaded, but is perhaps a compressed way of saying that they wanted to find evidence against Jesus but what they found proved to be false; it was not in their interest that it should prove inadmissible. If two or more witnesses failed to agree under cross-examination,17 that charge could not be admitted and must be declared false (Deut 19:15 etc.; see above on 18:16). What they failed to find was not false witnesses, of which there were “many,”18 but two witnesses whose testimony, whether strictly true or not, could at least be admitted as valid because they agreed. But the final clause “so that they could have him executed” indicates that this was not to be an impartial hearing: the verdict has already been decided (see v. 4) and the only problem is how it may be justified. When the verdict precedes the charge, a proper “trial” is not to be expected.
60b-61 After the fiasco of inconsistent false testimonies, a more serious charge is now put forward. Whereas Mark presents the temple charge also as “false witness,” specifically saying that this too was not in agreement (Mark 14:57–59), Matthew sees it differently. Those who brought this charge are distinguished from the earlier “false witnesses” by the phrase “but in the end” (hysteron de), and two of them are presented as speaking together. This then was legally valid evidence,19 as the high priest’s challenge in v. 62 makes clear: unlike the previous attempts, this charge requires an answer. And it is a charge which goes to the heart of Jesus’ mission and of the radical ideology with regard to the temple which was one of the main reasons why Jerusalem had repudiated his message. The phrasing, “I can destroy,” clearly focuses the charge on Jesus’ claim to personal authority over the temple.
Formally speaking, of course, this charge too is false, as far as our records go: Jesus had not said that he himself would or could destroy the temple,20 only that it would be destroyed,21 nor had he spoken of rebuilding it. And the only thing which he has predicted as happening within three days is his own resurrection (12:40; 16:21; 17:23; 20:19). John 2:19 does indeed record Jesus as speaking of the restoration of “this temple” in three days with reference, John says, to his own body (John 2:21), and since that prediction is set in the context of Jesus’ demonstration against the temple régime it is not surprising that it was taken literally; but it attributes the destruction not to Jesus but to “you.” That is John, however, and Matthew has given no such basis for this charge.22 But it is not impossible that Jesus had used the sort of imagery John 2:19–21 presupposes, speaking of his own resurrection in connection with the replacement of the temple.23 Something of the sort may well be implied in his reference to “something greater than the temple” in 12:6. Such language, together with his clear prediction that the temple would be destroyed, and his “anti-temple” demonstration in 21:12–13, would give a basis for this charge in the minds of those who did not, or would not, follow through the logic of Jesus’ imagery. The crowd at the cross will show that this is the sort of thing people were saying about Jesus (27:40), and that popular understanding of Jesus’ anti-temple agenda will reemerge in the charge against Stephen in Acts 6:13–14, which shows how central this motif was to early opposition to the Jesus movement.
This is the only substantive charge brought against Jesus in this hearing other than his “blasphemy” in v. 64, and it will remain in the public consciousness as the (or at least a) reason for his execution (27:40). That is why Matthew cannot simply dismiss it as just another “false testimony.” Jesus, like Jeremiah before him, is on trial for his unpatriotic and sacrilegious threats to the temple. And since to purify and restore the temple was a prerogative of the Messiah,24 the question of the high priest in v. 63 is not a non sequitur, but rather a follow-up to the theological implications of Jesus’ alleged intention to replace the existing Jerusalem temple. The two charges will both be recalled in the mockery of Jesus on the cross, the temple charge by the passers-by and the Messiah and Son of God charge by the Sanhedrin members (27:39–43).
62–63 By emphasizing Jesus’ silence both here and in 27:14 Matthew portrays Jesus as allowing events to take their course; had he wished he could no doubt have disputed the accuracy of the wording attributed to him, and explained that his polemic against the temple did not involve a personal demolition project. Matthew probably also expects his readers to catch the echo of Isa 53:7, which speaks of God’s servant, oppressed and afflicted and about to be “led to the slaughter,” remaining silent and not opening his mouth.25 But Jesus’ apparent aloofness, even in the face of a legally admissible charge, only exasperates the high priest. He stands up to signal that he is taking personal control of the investigation, and demands a response under oath,26 not now to the temple charge alone but to an even more fundamental question about the nature of Jesus’ claim. The oath “by the living God” uses none of the evasive formulae which Jesus has dismissed in 5:34–36 and 23:16–22, but imposes the strongest possible sanction, echoing God’s own oath formula in the OT: “As I live, says the Lord.”27
Jesus’ own public teaching and actions have perhaps given sufficient basis for the high priest to press him on the two alleged claims, to be “Messiah” and “Son of God.” His approach to the city as the messianic king of Zech 9:9, and the resultant Hosannas which he refused to repudiate (21:9, 15–16), would alone have been enough, but his demonstration in the temple and his subsequent teaching have increased the impression that he is putting himself in a unique category of authority, even though there has been no overt verbal claim to be the Messiah. His one reference to the title in 22:42–45 has teasingly avoided applying the question about the Messiah as Son of David directly to his own status, but in context it was clearly not just an academic argument (see introductory comments on 22:41–46). As for “Son of God,” Jesus’ one direct reference to himself under this title since coming to Jerusalem was in private with the disciples (24:36), but the figure of the landowner’s son in the parable of the vineyard (21:37–39) was a transparent reference to his own status and his coming rejection and execution by the Jerusalem authorities. And Jesus’ argument about the status of the Messiah in 22:42–45 has given a broad hint that he regards himself as “Messiah, Son of God.” So even in Jesus’ public words and deeds since coming to Jerusalem there was probably enough to justify the high priest’s question. It may reflect what ordinary people in Jerusalem were already beginning to say about the claims of the Galilean preacher (see on 27:40). But we have noted above that Judas’ role may also have included the provision of inside information to the priests, and Jesus’ language in private with his disciples has been less guarded, in particular his frequent references to God as “my Father” in a way which implied a unique relationship (notably 11:25–27).
In Luke 22:67, 70 the questions “Are you the Messiah?” and “Are you the Son of God?” are asked separately, though the second is provoked by the answer to the first. It has sometimes been suggested that this must have been so, since there was no Jewish belief in the Messiah as Son of God. In the light of evidence from Qumran28 this objection has now been generally abandoned, but it was always insecurely based in that the Qumran usage is based on two OT passages which already spoke of the anointed king as God’s son (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7). In any case, the high priest is not asking a general theological question, but is probing Jesus’ alleged claims, and the parable of the vineyard alone would have been enough to suggest that he saw himself as “the Messiah, the Son of God.” Judas may also have informed him that it was with this same combination of titles that Peter had hailed Jesus in 16:16,29 and that Jesus has accepted the declaration with pleasure.30
64 In the light of his own teaching in 5:34, 37 we might expect Jesus to repudiate the high priest’s oath formula and to maintain his silence. But the question goes to the heart of his mission and the time has come to bring his claim into the open before the highest court of Israel. True to 5:34, 37, however, he himself, unlike the high priest, uses no oath formula, but simply states his position.31 In Mark 14:62 his reply begins with a clear “I am,” conforming to the simple “yes” or “no” which Jesus has demanded of his disciples (5:37); why then does his reply in Matthew sound more evasive? The formula “You have said it” has already appeared at v. 25, where it is Jesus’ reply to Judas’ question, “You don’t mean me, do you?,” and it will appear again (with a change of tense which does not affect the meaning) in 27:11 in response to Pilate’s “Are you the king of the Jews?” In the former case it is clearly affirmative, but the affirmation is expressed by turning the questioner’s words back on himself. Here and in 27:11 it has the same effect, but it is a qualified affirmative32 in that by drawing attention to the questioner’s own words Jesus probably indicates that the proposition, while correct, is not phrased as he would have phrased it, or that he does not accept the connotations which he assumes to be in the questioner’s mind. It might be paraphrased “Yes, but that’s not how I would have put it” or “Yes, but I don’t mean by that what you mean.”33 In this case the element of reluctance probably stems especially from the term “Messiah,” which in popular Jewish thought would have had nationalistic connotations which did not correspond to Jesus’ understanding of his messianic mission (see above on 16:16, 20, 22–23), and which could easily be construed, as indeed it will be in 27:11ff, as a mark of political ambition. Caiaphas’ question arises not from a search for understanding but from a search for ammunition to use against Jesus.
But the words he has used nonetheless express the truth, and Jesus now goes on to build on it. The opening “And yet” places a clear distinction between what “you have said” and what “I tell you:” Jesus is now going to explain his messianic mission in his own preferred terms. He is not disagreeing with what the high priest has said, but is reformulating it in a way which goes far beyond it. In place of the title “Messiah” he uses his own preferred title “the Son of Man” (see on 8:20), and in place of the sort of earthly power the high priest’s question probably implied he speaks of a heavenly glory and authority. Two OT texts provide the language for this bold assertion: sitting at God’s right hand derives from Ps 110:1, which Jesus has already referred to in connection with the status of the Messiah in 22:42–45; coming with the clouds of heaven takes up the allusion to Dan 7:13–14 already implicit in the title “the Son of Man,” a vision to which Jesus has already referred several times (10:23; 16:27–28; 19:28; 24:30; 25:31). See comments on 10:23 and 22:43–45 for the OT context and meaning of these two texts. Uniquely in the OT,34 they share the motif of the heavenly enthronement of someone invited by God to share his authority,35 so that by bringing them together Jesus is making a remarkable claim. He, who appears now to be the helpless victim of a biased human court, is soon to be seen as the highest authority next to God himself. The implication in the phrase “you (plural) will see” is that the tables will be turned, and that he who is now being judged by the Sanhedrin will soon be recognized as himself their judge. This is the same reversal of roles which was the message of the first part of Jesus’ discourse on the Mount of Olives (24:4–35): the imminent collapse of the existing régime will be the prelude to the universal sovereignty of the Son of Man.
On this understanding of the imagery the “coming on the clouds of heaven” cannot be read as a reference to the parousia, as has been the traditional exegesis until relatively recently.36 See on 24:30 for a parallel issue, where exactly the same words are used (without the intervening reference to Ps 110:1) with reference, as I argued there, to the enthronement of the Son of Man in contrast to the destruction of the temple. There the event predicted was to take place within “this generation,” and here too Matthew’s wording demands a fulfillment which is imminent rather than set in the indefinite future:37 it is something which “you” (the current Sanhedrin members) “will see,” and it will come true “from now on.”38 It is fully consonant with this prediction that in 28:18, only a few days later, the risen and vindicated Jesus will declare the fulfillment of Dan 7:14 in his assertion that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (28:18) In the vindication of the repudiated Messiah and in the powerful growth of the movement which they have attempted to suppress,39 they “will see” that it is he who is now seated on the heavenly throne. There may also be an echo here of the mourning of the tribes of the land when they “see” the triumph of the one they have pierced (24:30).
Jesus’ use of “power”40 to refer to God may reflect the reticence of a pious Jew in uttering the actual name of God,41 and as such may have made the high priest’s charge of “blasphemy” less easy to establish (see introductory comments above). But Jesus has hitherto shown no diffidence about using God’s name, in public as well as in private (see 22:21, 29, 31–32, 37; 23:22; and “kingdom of God” [not “heaven”] in 21:31, 43), so that the substitution here may be for the more positive purpose of emphasizing that the seat at God’s right hand places him in a position to exercise power and authority (the “dominion” and “kingship” predicted in Dan 7:14). Note how “power” is associated elsewhere with the fulfillment of the Daniel vision (24:30; 28:18 [“authority”]; Mark 8:38–9:1).
65–66 The high priest at last has enough evidence to justify a guilty verdict. See introductory comments above for the nature of the “blasphemy” contained in Jesus’ words. By placing himself at God’s right hand he had overstepped the boundary of what might properly be claimed by any human being, however exalted, let alone a Galilean village preacher of questionable orthodoxy.
Darrell Bock, in applying his massive study of blasphemy to the condemnation of Jesus, concludes that this was the main focus of the charge, but he also goes on to suggest a secondary element of “cultural blasphemy” which added to the offense. Blasphemy included speaking and acting not only against God but also against his temple and his appointed leaders in Israel (note Exod 22:28).42 The record of Jesus’ teaching and actions in Jerusalem has provided ample evidence of both these offenses, and his climactic declaration in v. 64 has been directed against the members of the Sanhedrin (“you”), over whom he now claims the ultimate sovereignty. This was at least undiplomatic, but according to Bock it also contributed to the overall charge of blasphemy.43
According to m.Sanh. 7:5 when blasphemy is uttered “the judges stand up and tear their robes, and they may not mend them again.” Tearing one’s clothes was a traditional gesture of mourning (Gen 37:29, 34; Josh 7:6; 2 Sam 1:11 etc.), which was also a way of dissociating oneself from what one has heard (Num 14:6; 2 Kgs 18:37; 19:1; cf. Acts 14:14), but its use by the high priest is a mark of how seriously blasphemy was taken, since the law forbade the high priest to tear his robes in mourning even for a close personal relative (Lev 21:10–11).44 Despite the later mishnaic regulation we are not told here that the rest of the Sanhedrin followed the high priest’s lead in this. But they are required to express their response verbally, and it is not just that Jesus is guilty but that the crime carries the death penalty,45 as indeed the law demanded (Lev 24:11–16). They do not specify how Jesus should be executed, and indeed this was out of their jurisdiction; the method of execution laid down in Leviticus was stoning (so also m.Sanh. 7:4), but this was not a Roman procedure. It is interesting to note, however, that at Qumran the penalty for one who “slanders his people” was to be hung on a tree to die (11Q19 64:7–9), “the first century cultural equivalent of which was crucifixion.”46 If this principle was known outside the closed community of Qumran, it may suggest that the demand of the Jewish crowd, inspired by the priests, that Jesus be crucified (27:20–23) was not as culturally alien as it has often been thought.47 This hearing, however, does not have the legal competence to pronounce the sentence; that will be for the Roman prefect. “He deserves to die” simply expresses their agreement that Jesus is guilty on a capital charge.
67–68 The quasi-official proceedings of the preceding verses now descend into undignified physical abuse. This seems such inappropriate behavior for the members of the Sanhedrin that Mark has softened the impact by saying it was done by “some people” (unspecified) with the participation also of “servants,” while Luke attributes it to “the men who were holding Jesus.” Matthew allows no such latitude: the subject of these verbs is the same as for the declaration of Jesus’ guilt. Perhaps we expect too great a sense of decorum in this gathering of influential people of Jerusalem, particularly as this was probably not a formal trial (see above). But perhaps also there is a closer connection between the judicial verdict and the physical abuse than we would expect in our culture. An interesting case is made by J. D. M. Derrett,48 that the spitting49 and physical ill-treatment were, like the tearing of the clothes, an accepted symbol of dissociation from the blasphemer. He suggests also that the striking of Jesus with a demand to “prophesy”50 by saying who had struck him derives from the popular belief, based on Isa 11:3, that a true Messiah should be able to identify his assailant by smell without seeing him (Mark mentions that they blindfolded him, Mark 14:65).51 Jesus, we are left to assume, did not rise to the bait, but the reader is left with the irony that the Messiah whose “prophetic” abilities they are mocking has in fact predicted the very rejection and condemnation that he is now undergoing (16:21; 20:19). The spitting in the face and the blows recall Isaiah’s prophecy of the physical abuse of God’s servant (Isa 50:6),52 and the use of the verb “slap” not only echoes the LXX of Isa 50:6 but also invites the reader to reflect on how Jesus here exemplifies his own teaching in 5:39 (the only other use of the verb in the NT). The mocking of Jesus’ claimed title “Messiah”53 by the Jewish leaders here parallels the mocking of his alleged claim to be “king of the Jews” by the Roman soldiers in 27:27–31.
69Meanwhile Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. One servant girl came up to him and said, “You too were with Jesus the Galilean.” 70But he denied it in front of them all, saying, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” 71He went out into the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, “This man1 was with Jesus the Nazorean.”2 72He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man.” 73But a bit later the people standing there came up to Peter and said, “Yes, you really are one of them: your accent3 gives you away.” 74Then he began to curse,4 and to swear “I don’t know the man.” And just then the cock crowed. 75Peter remembered Jesus’ prediction,5 “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times;” and he went outside and wept bitterly.
Here is the culmination of the parallel “trial” of Peter for which we were prepared in v. 58 (see above, p. 1017), and which was signaled by Jesus’ prediction in v. 34. The detailed fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction shows him to be a true prophet, despite the jibe of v. 68. Despite Peter’s earlier bravado, and his willingness to stay closer to Jesus than any of the other disciples have done, he will collapse under pressure. His name will not appear again in this gospel (contrast Mark 16:7), and his bitter weeping is left uninterpreted for the moment. But the Christian reader already knows that this is not the end of the story of Peter, and so is prepared to read a more positive repentance into Peter’s weeping than into the unavailing remorse of Judas (27:3–5), and the careful specification that it was eleven disciples who met Jesus in Galilee (28:16) ensures that Peter is included in the “disciples” of 28:7 and the “brothers” of 28:10. The careful reader may remember that a word spoken against the Son of Man is forgivable (12:32), and may even find in 14:28–32 a parable of Peter’s restoration after nearly sinking.6 For the contrast between the apparently parallel failures of Peter and of Judas see below on 27:3–10.
The story is told with a vivid simplicity, in three escalating scenes. The pressure builds as the first challenge comes from a single servant girl, the second from another girl now appealing to the bystanders, and the third from a group of those bystanders coming at him together. And Peter’s response escalates accordingly: first comes an evasive denial, then a direct denial on oath, and finally a much stronger response which (see below) is probably to be understood as actually uttering a curse against Jesus. There is also physical movement “further and further away from Jesus” (Davies & Allison, 3.542), in that Peter is at first in the courtyard, then moves out to its gateway, and finally (v. 75) escapes right outside. So Peter has comprehensively failed the test of loyalty, and Jesus’ prediction has been exactly fulfilled.
69–70 For Peter’s situation in the courtyard see on v. 58. The phrasing of the first two challenges, “You were [this man was] with Jesus,” suggests that the speakers were present at Jesus’ arrest and had seen Peter there, though the reference might be to the earlier period when they were seen together in the temple courtyard. The kai which introduces the first challenge links Peter directly with the man now on trial: “you too.” But the first challenger does not seem to be a significant threat: the Greek might be translated “one little servant girl.” “One” serves to differentiate her from “another” in v. 71, but perhaps also emphasizes that so far she stands alone. Matthew often uses “one” to stress that it is “only one” that is in view; cf. 5:18, 19; 6:27; 10:29 etc., and see p. 323, n. 3. And paidiskē, while it is the regular term for a female servant, is diminutive in form, and probably carries a dismissive connotation—only a servant girl.
The three challenges all in different ways point out the “foreignness” of Jesus and his group in Jerusalem. The two epithets for Jesus, “the Galilean” and “the Nazorean,” mark him as a visitor from the north, and pick up the terms used by the pilgrim crowd when they introduced Jesus to the sceptical people of Jerusalem in 21:11, and Peter himself is marked out as a foreigner by the way he speaks (see on v. 73): he has got to be “one of them,” not one of us. There is, probably, an element of xenophobia in the way these Jerusalem servants react to the presence of this provincial group of troublemakers.
“Denied in front of them all” echoes 10:33.7 In the narrative context it indicates a group of people listening, though not yet directly involved in the exchange. Peter’s response is not an explicit repudiation of his relationship with Jesus (as it is in Luke and John), but rather a pretense of ignorance, but in reply to a challenge which explicitly linked him with Jesus it is in effect a denial.
71–72 Verbal evasion is followed by physical evasion: Peter is trying to avoid being noticed. But the gateway is no less crowded, and another girl recognizes him and appeals to the bystanders for confirmation. This time Peter feels obliged to utter a direct denial, and underlines it with an oath. Matthew’s readers will note the irony of Jesus’ leading disciple failing to follow his master’s teaching about oaths (5:34, 37), particularly in view of Jesus’ own response in v. 64 to the high priest’s attempt to put him on oath.
For the description Nazōraios see above on 2:23, where we noted the likely derogatory connotations of a person being so described. Now we see the predicted fulfillment of “what had been declared through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazorean.” (2:23)
73–74a The two previous exchanges have drawn in the listening crowd of servants as a whole, and they now present a united challenge. Peter is the odd man out. As soon as he opens his mouth it is clear that he does not belong in Jerusalem. A different dialect of Aramaic was spoken in Galilee, and Judeans made fun of the slovenly pronunciation of consonants by Galileans (b. ʿErub. 53b).8 Peter’s northern accent, especially in the high priest’s courtyard, marked him out as “one of them.”
Again Peter denies, and again he uses an oath. But this time Matthew’s wording goes further, and the verb “began” indicates a new element in this third denial. The verb “swear” alone would have indicated merely another oath as in v. 72, but it is preceded by katathematizō, a verb which occurs only here but is generally agreed to be synonymous with the verb used in the Marcan parallel, anathematizō, “to curse, anathematize” (and in the LXX “to devote,” especially to destruction). Anathematizō elsewhere is always a transitive verb9 requiring a direct object to denote the person cursed; cf. Paul’s use of anathema as a curse formula in 1 Cor 12:3; 16:22; Gal 1:8, 9, in each case applied to a person other than the speaker. If the verb here meant, as some versions have suggested, that Peter is putting himself under a curse if he is lying, it would require “himself” as object, as it has in Acts 21:12, 14, 21. Here, where the object is not expressed, it means that Peter is cursing someone other than himself, and the most natural sense in this context would be that he now began to curse Jesus, as a way of dissociating himself from him; this was precisely what Pliny later required those accused of being Christians to do, in order to prove their innocence (Pliny, Ep. 10.96.5; cf. also Justin, Apol. 1.31.6). Matthew and Mark, by leaving the object unexpressed, refrain from stating in so many words that Peter cursed Jesus, but it is hard to see what else the choice of these transitive verbs could be meant to convey.10
74b-75 Under the pressure of the moment Peter has allowed his loyalty to be compromised. The crowing of the cock reminds him of his earlier boast (vv. 33, 35), and he realizes how far he has fallen short. His bitter weeping, once he has got safely away from the place of danger (“he went outside,” following his already “going out” to the gateway, v. 71, marks the final stage of withdrawal) arises perhaps from a mixture of self-disgust and true sorrow for what he has done. See 2 Cor 7:10 for the “godly sorrow” of repentance which leads to salvation contrasted with the “worldly sorrow” which ends in death; Peter and Judas may be seen as examples of the two.
4. Jesus Brought to the Roman Prefect for Trial (27:1–2)
1Early in the morning all the chief priests and the elders of the people consulted together1 against Jesus to have him executed; 2they tied him up and took him off to hand him over to Pontius Pilate,2 the governor.
I have argued above (pp. 1018–19) that this is not a new hearing but the culmination of an all-night session which has already agreed that Jesus deserves to be executed, but must now formulate a plan to get the Roman prefect, who alone had the power to order his execution, to endorse and implement their verdict. A charge of blasphemy, which was the basis of their verdict, would carry no weight in Roman law; they needed a charge which was sufficiently political and sufficiently alarming to the occupying power to ensure a capital sentence, and in v. 11 we shall see how they have gone about formulating it. It was the formulation of this charge, and perhaps also agreeing a tactic for making sure that Pilate took it seriously (see below on v. 20), which took up the final part of their gathering in the high priest’s house before the prefect would be prepared to receive them first thing in the morning.
Matthew’s phrase is literally “when it had become early,” probably meaning at first light;3 this follows appropriately from the cockcrow of 26:74. This is the first time we hear of Jesus being tied up, though the verb krateō used for his arrest in 26:48, 50, 57 indicates that they took no chances. Now, as they have to take him through the crowded streets, they make sure that he cannot escape or be rescued. Besides, a firmly secured prisoner will lend credibility to their charge that he is a political danger. The Roman prefects probably used Herod’s former palace, on the west side of the city, as their headquarters when in Jerusalem.4 There Jesus is “handed over” to Pilate in fulfillment of his own prediction in 20:19.
Pontius Pilatus was prefect5 of Judea AD 26–36, directly appointed from Rome but under the supervision of the legate of the imperial province of Syria. He is better known to us than most minor Roman governors of the period not only from the NT accounts of Jesus’ trial but also because Josephus and Philo record several examples of his insensitive style of government which led to brutal clashes with his Jewish and Samaritan subjects (Josephus, Ant. 18.55–59, 60–62, 85–87; Philo, Legat. 299–305; cf. what appears to be a separate such incident in Luke 13:1). He was eventually deposed following a complaint against his heavy-handed suppression of a supposed Samaritan insurrection. His aim was, of course, to keep the peace while maintaining the Roman occupation, but he seems to have had little understanding of or sympathy for his oriental subjects and their religious differences.6 It was not likely to be easy for the Sanhedrin delegation to get him to rubber-stamp their decision, especially if he suspected, like a later Roman governor placed in a similar position, that their complaint concerned merely “questions about words and names and your own law.” (Acts 18:14; cf. Acts 25:19–20)
5. The Remorse and Suicide of Judas (27:3–10)
3Then Judas, his betrayer, when he saw that Jesus had been condemned, regretted what he had done and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and elders, 4saying, “I was wrong: I have betrayed innocent1 blood.” “What has that to do with us?” they replied; “that’s your problem.”2 5So he threw the money into the sanctuary and left them, and went off and hanged himself.
6The chief priests took the money and said, “It would not be right to add this to the treasury,3 since it is the price of blood.” 7They consulted together, and bought the potter’s field with the money, as a place to bury strangers. 8That is why that field is4 still known as Blood Field even today.
9Then was fulfilled what had been declared through Jeremiah5 the prophet, who said,
“And I took6 the thirty silver coins, the price of the one whose price was set, on whom they had set a price from7 the sons of Israel, 10and I paid8 them for the potter’s field, as the Lord had instructed me.”
This digression, the only substantial addition by Matthew to the structure of Mark’s passion narrative, delays the action between Jesus’ transferral to the prefect’s palace and the beginning of his trial there. Matthew may have intended to create dramatic suspense, though that would be more typical of Mark’s style than of Matthew’s. At any rate, the incident described is chronologically out of place. Formally speaking Jesus will not be condemned to death until v. 26, though perhaps for Judas, whose agreement was with the priests rather than with the Romans, it is the verdict of the Sanhedrin that counts. However this incident cannot have taken place between the Sanhedrin hearing and the Roman trial since it locates the chief priests in the temple rather than on the way between Caiaphas’ house and the prefect’s palace, involving them in a commercial transaction just at the time they are supposed to be presenting their case before the prefect. It would more likely have followed Jesus’ official condemnation and death, but for Matthew to have reported it there would have interrupted the flow of the narrative from Jesus’ trial and execution to his burial and resurrection. So Matthew’s plan here is certainly not simple chronological sequence. There are perhaps three main purposes in inserting this strange pericope here.9 (a) It sets the treachery of Judas alongside the failure of Peter, and allows the reader to compare and contrast their faults and their different fates. (b) It narrates the fulfillment of Jesus’ dire prediction about the fate of his betrayer (26:24), just as his prediction of Peter’s failure (26:34) has also been precisely fulfilled. (c) It allows Matthew to introduce the most complex and creative of his formula-quotations, to show that even in the betrayal of the Messiah and in the fate of his betrayer Scripture continues to provide the pattern, even to the most incidental details.
This pericope introduces a theme which will be picked up again in vv. 24–25, the question of who is responsible for the shedding of Jesus’ “innocent blood.” Judas tries, and fails, to rid himself of the responsibility. The priests refuse to accept it, but by using the blood money become themselves complicit.10 Later Pilate will wash his hands to disclaim responsibility and will explicitly transfer it to the people, who will formally accept it. R. E. Brown appropriately compares this “haunting … scene of blood that cannot be easily eradicated” with the famously guilty conscience of Lady Macbeth.11
The whole pericope appears only in Matthew; Luke’s account of Judas’ death (Acts 1:18–19) is quite different in detail, though it also involves the buying of ground (by Judas himself) and the explanation of the name Blood Field. Clearly there was a tradition linking Judas (and his death) with the field called Akeldama, but the link was differently explained, and there seems to be no way of deciding which of the two versions (if either) is the more factual. Attempts to interpret them as literally compatible (involving a suicide attempt complicated by the breaking of the rope or the tree branch) do not inspire confidence, nor do they account for Matthew’s involvement of the priests.12
But to explain Matthew’s story as simply spun out of the OT text is no more convincing here than it was in the case of the infancy narratives which culminated in formula-quotations. In each case Matthew’s story is indeed told in the light of the following quotation in such a way as to maximize the claim of fulfillment. Yet the “quotation” itself is so creatively compiled, from a variety of scriptural texts, that it is hard to see how it could have come about if the narrative tradition were not already in place to supply the data for the claim to fulfillment.13 See above pp. 40–45, for the nature of the the formula-quotations of 1:18–2:23; the same dialectic between narrative tradition and scriptural text seems to be even more creatively at work in this final formula-quotation.14
As we have noted, Matthew’s placing of this pericope invites the reader to compare Judas with Peter, and to reflect why the one story ends in despair and suicide and the other eventually in the full rehabilitation of the future leader of the church. In both stories there is failure, followed by regret. Peter’s bitter weeping does not in itself sound more heartfelt than Judas’ “regret,” followed by his confession of guilt (“I have done wrong”), his acceptance that he is responsible for the death of the innocent, and his restitution of the proceeds of his treachery. But all this is, it seems, “the worldly sorrow that leads to death” rather than “the godly sorrow which leads to repentance for salvation.” (2 Cor 7:10)15 Peter has sinned by words, under the pressure of the moment, and for him there can be a new start; Judas has sinned in deed, in a premeditated, settled course of action which has now borne fruit which, too late, he wishes he could have undone. Alongside the constant scriptural testimony to the extraordinary mercy of God, there is also, as the Letter to the Hebrews insists so memorably, a point of no return, a time when it is too late to repent.
3–4a For the relation of this scene to Jesus’ official “condemnation” see introductory comments above. The verb for “regret” is metamelomai (not metanoeō, the normal term for “repent”) which need mean no more than a change of mind (as in 21:29; Heb 7:21), but here, as in 2 Cor 7:8, it surely denotes sorrow or remorse, or, as BDAG 639b put it, “to have regrets about something, in the sense that one wishes it could be undone.” His attempt to return the money is presumably a tangible way of trying to abdicate responsibility (like Pilate’s washing in v. 24).16 For the suggestion that Judas had been trying to arrange a constructive meeting and never intended Jesus to be executed see above on 26:14–16; more likely the actual occurrence of what he had willingly set in motion has at last brought home to him the enormity of what he has done. It is possible that he has heard from his priestly contacts about Jesus’ behavior and declaration before the Sanhedrin, and that that has at last convinced him of Jesus’ truly messianic character. The phrase “shed innocent blood” (LXX uses the same adjective athōos) is a standard OT expression (Dt 27:25; 1 Sam 25:31; 2 Kgs 21:16; Ps 106:38 etc.), which occurs several times in Jeremiah to condemn the sins of Israel (Jer 2:34; 7:6; 19:4; 22:3, 17; 26:15); see below on vv. 9–10 for this as an element in the scriptural mosaic Matthew has created. Both words will recur in 27:24, again with reference to responsibility for Jesus’ death, though there the “innocence” is claimed by Pilate, not attributed to Jesus.
4b-5 The priests have achieved their end, and have no further interest in the man whose disloyalty they had profited from. For “that’s your problem” cf. v. 24, where Pilate will use the same formula in the plural to transfer responsibility for Jesus’ death to the people. The priests conveniently forget that it was they who had initiated the deal. Their refusal to accept Judas’ gesture seals his despair. Not being himself a priest he was allowed to go only as far as the Court of Israel, not into the sanctuary17 itself, but Matthew (or Judas) may not be concerned about exact protocol, or we may be intended to visualize Judas throwing the money across the Court of the Priests toward the sanctuary entrance. The location in the temple (which fits awkwardly at this point in the narrative, see above) is important for the following “quotation” because the scene of Zech 11:13 is “in the house of the Lord,”18 even though Matthew’s “quotation” does not include that phrase.19 The two words “he went off and hanged himself” echo the LXX of 2 Sam 17:23, where that was the fate of Ahithophel who had betrayed King David by siding with his rebellious son Absalom. Judas, by turning against the Son of David, has thus joined the ranks of the great traitors.20
6–8 The priests receive and use the blood money (which had come from them in the first place), thus also implicating themselves in the responsibility for Jesus’ death. Their concern to maintain ritual purity in the use of the blood money provides an ironical counterpoint to their willingness to allow the innocent blood to be shed. Their decision to use the money for a burial ground is in itself quite plausible; when visitors, who had no family to look after them, died in Jerusalem (as must have happened especially among the huge crowds at festival times), Jewish piety demanded that they be given a proper burial, and since most burials would be in family tombs or plots a designated area for the burial of outsiders would be needed. But as Matthew tells this part of the story the word-play becomes more intense. The “treasury”21 perhaps prepares for the citation of Zech 11:13, where the repeated word “potter” is rendered “treasury” in the Syriac version (the two words differ by only one letter in Hebrew), and this seems to have been a recognized interpretation of what the surprising term “potter” referred to, possibly even a known variant of the Hebrew text.22 If so, both variant readings (“treasury” in v. 6 and “potter” in vv. 7 and 10) may be involved in Matthew’s word-play.23 The phrase “price of blood” picks up both the “innocent blood” of v. 4 and name Blood Field in v. 8, while the Greek word for “price” will be thrice repeated in cognate forms in Matthew’s version of the quotation in v. 9. The buying of the potter’s field will be picked up in v. 10. By the time we get to v. 9 therefore the ground has been well prepared for the formula-quotation.
In view of the other echoes of Jer 19:1–13 in this passage, v. 8 recalls another such naming in Jer 19:6: “Therefore … this place shall … be called … ‘the Valley of Slaughter’.” “Blood Field” (Akeldama, Acts 1:19) has been traditionally located near the foot of the valley of Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem on the south. See above on 5:22 for the unsavory reputation of this valley, as a place of blood, death and destruction. This too will feed into Matthew’s creative scriptural mosaic in vv. 9–10, particularly as a place already scripturally associated with potters, and lying just outside the Potsherd Gate (Jer 19:1–2). The valley was apparently a source of potters’ clay, hence perhaps the previous name “potter’s field.” Jews would not want to live in such a site, so that the land would be readily available to buy for the burial of strangers, even if it might not have been acceptable for a Jewish cemetery.24 Unclean money25 is thus used for what would become, by its use as a cemetery, an unclean site.
9–10 The story of Judas’ unavailing remorse has been told in such as way as to provide the cue for a creatively compiled formula-quotation. The introductory formula is identical with that of 2:17 (see comments there), but whereas there a recognizable quotation from Jeremiah followed, here the words that follow are primarily based on Zechariah 11:13. This is, however, not a simple quotation of a single text, but a mosaic of scriptural motifs,26 some of which do in fact come from Jeremiah (see below). Like the combined quotation of Mark 1:2–3, it is attributed to the better known of the prophets concerned, even though its opening words are from the minor prophet. As a “quotation” about a potter’s field it was naturally associated with Jeremiah as the prophet most memorably associated with potters and with the buying of a field. Note that Matthew’s attributed quotations name only the major prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah (2:17; 3:3; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:14; 15:7; 27:9), together with one specific allusion to Daniel (24:15), while formal quotations drawn from the minor prophets are elsewhere left anonymous (2:5, 15; 11:10; 21:4; 26:31); see above on 2:17.27
The most obvious scriptural motif is the thirty silver coins, already noted in 26:15, and a prominent feature of Zech 11:12–13. From that text too come the motifs of a valuation (“this noble price at which I was valued by them”), the “taking” of the coins and throwing them into the treasury in the house of the Lord (see above vv. 5–6), and the payment made to a mysterious potter. That is sufficient to form the basis of the “quotation,” though Matthew’s wording is seldom identical with that of LXX Zech 11:13.28 But woven into this base text are a number of other elements reflecting well-known Jeremiah motifs. In Jer 18:1–11 Jeremiah went to the house of the potter (the same Greek word as Matthew uses) and based a sermon on the potter’s work. In Jer 19:1–13 he used a potter’s jug as a visual aid for a sermon delivered in the valley of Hinnom (by the Potsherd Gate) denouncing the people of Jerusalem for shedding “innocent blood” (v. 4, the same phrase as in Matt 27:4); and there in Topheth, in the valley of Hinnom, “they shall bury until there is no more room to bury.”29 And in Jer 32 Jeremiah famously bought a field (a narrative in which another earthenware jar features, Jer 32:14, though with no explicit reference to a potter).30 Echoes of all these Jeremiah passages, especially Jer 19:1–13, would no doubt be heard by readers well-versed in the OT, so that they would recognize Matthew’s adapted version of Zech 11:13 not as a quotation of that text alone but as a mosaic of familiar and related prophetic motifs. This is not simple proof-texting, but the product of a long and creative engagement with scripture which delights to draw connections between passages and to trace in the details as well as in the basic meaning of the text the pattern of God’s fulfillment of his prophetically declared agenda.
But two parts of Matthew’s “quotation” do not derive from these Jeremiah passages and do not correspond closely to either the Hebrew or the LXX of Zech 11:13. The concluding clause, “as the Lord had instructed me,” probably picks up, though in a different position, the opening clause of Zech 11:13, “And the Lord said to me.”31 More striking is the cumbersome phrase which describes the thirty silver coins as “the price of the one whose price was set, on whom they had set a price from the sons of Israel,” which I have translated in this rather wooden way in order to bring out the threefold repetition of the word “price” (timē) in either noun or verb form. This long description corresponds to a simpler phrase in the Hebrew, literally meaning probably “the splendor of the value which I was valued by32 them;” this is normally understood to be an ironic aside33 commenting on the derisory wages paid to the messianic shepherd. Matthew’s version has expanded and thus emphasized the phrase, in particular by providing a triple repetition of the root timē against the double occurrence of the yqr root in the Hebrew; it owes nothing to LXX, which uses the root dokimos (twice) rather than timē, so that Matthew’s clumsy phrase looks like an independent rendering.34 It is apparently designed to draw attention to the fact that Jesus, like the rejected shepherd of Zech 11, was despised and undervalued by or among35 “the sons of Israel.”36
The Zechariah text is expressed throughout in the first person, the speaker being the rejected shepherd. In Matthew it can be so understood as well, as in my translation above, but the ambiguity of the verb-form elabon (see p. 1037, n. 6) and the textual variant “they paid” for “I paid” (see p. 1037, n. 8) allow it to be read as a description of the action of the priests, which more naturally fits the narrative which introduces the quotation. Most interpreters take it that way. That reading is hampered, however, by the “me” in the concluding clause, which is present in all textual witnesses. That seems to me to swing the balance in favor of a first-person reading throughout, corresponding to the meaning of the OT text. In that case Matthew has left it for his readers to work out how the first-person (messianic) subject of the OT text can be related to the actions of Judas (throwing down the money) and the priests (buying the field). Like everything in this extraordinary scriptural argument, the correspondence is not straight-forward!
While it was the thirty silver coins which presumably first drew Matthew’s attention to Zech 11:12–13, his reference to that passage also makes a more substantial contribution to his theme of the fulfillment of scripture in the life and passion of Jesus. We have noted already three references to apparently messianic figures in Zech 9–14 as fulfilled in Jesus’ coming to Jerusalem and what is happening to him there. See above on 21:4–5 (Zech 9:9–10); 24:30 (Zech 12:10–14); 26:31 (Zech 13:7). Many interpreters of Zechariah take these three passages together with 11:4–14 as parts of a unified concept of a shepherd-king whose coming will lead paradoxically to his rejection and death; that all four passages should have been taken up into Matthew’s Jerusalem narrative strongly indicates that he too saw them in that light, and found in this mysterious rejected and suffering Messiah a powerful scriptural model which could stand alongside the suffering servant of Isaiah and the suffering righteous figures of some of the psalms as a model for understanding why Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, must suffer and die in Jerusalem.37 How much of that underlying theology his readers might be expected to discern through this altered “quotation” with its associated reminiscences of Jeremiah, and in relation to a relatively minor element in the passion story, would presumably depend on how familiar they were with the scriptural material Matthew is working on, and with the creative tradition of interpretation which he has employed to produce this complex interweaving of biblical motifs with the story of Judas and the priests.
11Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor questioned him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “You say it,”1 Jesus replied. 12And as he was being accused by the chief priests and the elders he made no reply. 13Then Pilate said to him, “Don’t you hear how much testimony they are giving against you?” 14Jesus made no reply to him, not even to a single charge,2 so that the governor was very surprised.
15At festival time it was the governor’s custom to release to the crowd one prisoner, chosen by them. 16At that time they had a well-known prisoner called Jesus3 Barabbas. 17So when they were gathered together Pilate asked them, “Which do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is known as Messiah?” 18For he was aware that it was out of rivalry4 that they had handed him over. (19While he was hearing the case5 his wife sent him a message: “Don’t get involved with6 that righteous man; I’ve had a really bad dream about him today.”)7 20But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and have Jesus executed.8 21So when9 the governor asked them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” they replied, “Barabbas.” 22Pilate asked them, “So what shall I do with Jesus who is known as Messiah?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” 23“Why?10 What has he done wrong?” asked Pilate. But they just shouted the more loudly, “Let him be crucified!”
24When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this11 man’s blood; it’s your responsibility.”12 25And all the people replied, “His blood is13 on us and on our children.”
26Then he released Barabbas for them, but he had Jesus flogged and then handed him over to be crucified.
While the hearing before the Sanhedrin established Jesus’ guilt in Jewish eyes and called for the death penalty, it is the Roman prefect who must actually implement that verdict, and this scene relates the formal trial and pronouncement of sentence. Yet that formal business takes up only a small part of the pericope, an apparently perfunctory examination by Pilate in vv. 11–14 and the sentencing in v. 26.14 The intervening verses focus not on the trial of Jesus as such but on Pilate’s abortive attempt to find a convenient way to avoid pronouncing the sentence demanded on a man he has apparently concluded is not guilty from a Roman point of view but who is clearly anathema to the Jewish establishment. The narrative will focus on the primary responsibility of the Jewish leaders and people for Jesus’ death, but Pilate does not come out of it well; first he tries to evade his official responsibility, then, despite his wife’s warning, he cynically gives orders for an admittedly guiltless man to be executed. His theatrical abdication of responsibility (v. 24) is not likely to convince anyone but himself.15
The charge which the Sanhedrin members have agreed to present to Pilate is phrased in political language: Jesus has claimed to be “the king of the Jews”. This term, which we have so far met only in 2:2 as the title used by the magi for the new-born ruler, now becomes central to the story, as the basis of Jesus’ condemnation, of his mockery by the Roman soldiers (v. 29), and of his public humiliation on the cross (v. 37), while the Jewish leaders will use their own more Jewish version of it to mock Jesus (v. 42). “King of the Jews” is used only by non-Jews—the magi, Pilate and Roman soldiers; the Jewish leaders use their preferred self-designation “Israel.” But it is the term “king” which is deliberately sensitive:16 a Roman governor dare not ignore a claim to political leadership among the Jews, whose last official “king” was Herod,17 now replaced by the direct rule of the Roman prefect of Judea. And Jesus has given the Jewish leaders a sound basis for this charge by his acceptance of the title “Messiah,” underlined by his ride up to the city proclaimed as the “son of David” (21:9), the “king” predicted in Zech 9:9–10. “King of the Jews” is thus an appropriate translation of Jesus’ messianic claim into language a Roman governor could understand and must take seriously. Pilate will, however, show in vv. 17 and 22 that he is also aware of the Jewish term: “Jesus who is known as Messiah.” We have noted earlier the ambivalence of Jesus toward messianic language (see on 16:16, 20); now we see in practice how it can be used against him.18
Yet it seems that for Pilate the charge does not ring true. His attempt to free Jesus under the amnesty, and his subsequent disclaiming of responsibility, indicate that he does not regard Jesus as guilty on a capital charge. Matthew notes three reasons for this reluctance to convict. First, Pilate is apparently impressed by Jesus’ silence under interrogation: his “surprise” probably indicates a favorable impression (see below). Second, he has correctly assessed that the Jewish leaders’ desire to eliminate Jesus stems not from concern for Roman law and order but from their own religio-political self-interest (v. 18). And third, his wife’s dream provides a supposedly supernatural attestation to Jesus’ innocence (v. 19).
It is often alleged that Pilate’s favorable attitude to Jesus (which in different ways appears in all four gospel accounts) owes more to Christian apologetic than to historical reality. Certainly there was a growing Christian tendency to absolve Pilate of any blame,19 which reached its absurd culmination in his actually being made a saint and martyr of the Coptic church. But there is nothing historically improbable in his reluctance to allow the Jewish leadership, with whom he was never on the best of terms, to dictate to him in his own court. If he concluded that the issue was one of internal Jewish dispute rather than of threat to the Roman power, he is not likely to have had an interest in taking the side of the Sanhedrin. There is a partial parallel in the attitude of Gallio to the Jewish accusers of Paul in Acts 18:12–17, though it was easier for Gallio to dismiss the Jews as a minority group in Corinth than it was for Pilate to thwart the dominant community in Jerusalem. More relevant is Albinus, procurator of Judea some thirty years later, in his treatment of the prophet Jesus ben Hananiah whose polemic against Jerusalem and its temple so incensed the leading citizens that they brought him before the procurator: Albinus had him flogged, but, having failed to get him to utter a word in self-defense, “pronounced him a maniac and released him.” (Josephus, War 6.300–305) Pilate would apparently have been happy to do the same, but the pressure put on him by both Sanhedrin members and the Jerusalem crowd did not allow him that option. His eventual “capitulation,” even if not in accordance with justice, was probably the most prudent course he could take—wiser than most of his other recorded responses to confrontation with Jewish and Samaritan interests (see above on vv. 1–2). The fuller account of the Roman trial in John 18:28–19:16 provides further insights into the pressures Pilate was under, and the reasons for his ambivalent attitude to Jesus.20 He was in a no-win situation.
Pilate’s attempt to have Jesus “Messiah” substituted for Jesus Barabbas was not well judged. See comments below for the likely nature of Barabbas’ crime and the basis of his popularity. If Pilate had heard about the enthusiastic crowds who had welcomed Jesus as king outside the city walls, he may have supposed that the Galilean Jesus would be a popular choice for the amnesty. As an outsider he was perhaps unaware (like some modern preachers!) of the difference in outlook between the pilgrim group arriving at the city and the local population with whom he was now confronted. The choice between Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Barabbas would not be difficult for a Jerusalem crowd to make, both because a Galilean would not be their natural choice, and because the type of “Messiahship” represented by this Galilean, with his talk of loving enemies, had far less popular appeal than the direct action represented by Barabbas’ “insurrection” (Mark 15:7).21Set within this narrative is a short but immensely influential passage found only in Matthew (vv. 24–25), in which the issue of responsibility for the death of Jesus, already broached in vv. 4–5, is taken further. That this is not just a passing element in Pilate’s bargaining with the Jerusalem crowd is indicated by Matthew’s use, uniquely here, of the LXX phrase pas ho laos, “all the people,” and by the people’s inclusion of their children in the acceptance of responsibility. See comments below for the nature and the results of the responsibility they accept. It cannot be denied that these words have been the basis, however inappropriately, of much of the terrible history of Christian persecution of Jews as the “Christ-killers.” Perhaps the best way to combat such misuse is to discern how these words fit into Matthew’s overall understanding of the status of both the city and the Jewish people, and so to try to read this scene in the wider context of the theology of fulfillment developed by Matthew the Jew.
Following on the uniquely Matthean account of Judas’ remorse for shedding innocent blood, the two further elements in this pericope which occur only in Matthew (v. 19, Pilate’s wife’s dream; vv. 24–25, the transference of guilt) further underline the innocence of Jesus. Even Judas the traitor, the Gentile woman and the hard-bitten Roman governor can see what the Jewish leaders and crowd refuse to acknowledge.
11 From the involvement of the crowd in most of this scene, it seems that the hearing took place in public; the bēma (see p. 1046, n. 5) was probably a raised platform in front of the governor’s residence.22 There Jesus stands before the seated governor (v. 19), an ironic reversal of the destined position of Jesus as the seated judge of the world (25:31). For the title “the king of the Jews” see introductory comments above. The question “Are you the king of the Jews?” (which takes the same form in all four gospels) is clearly ironical when posed by the man who in fact held political authority over Judea. We shall note at 28:15 that Ioudaioi in the NT sometimes has a more restricted reference to Judeans rather than to ethnic Jews generally, and a provincial reference would be especially relevant to Pilate, whose jurisdiction covered Judea and Samaria, but not Galilee and Perea with their substantial Jewish populations. But Romans were probably not very sensitive to the tribal distinctions of Palestine: for Pilate, as for most non-Jews, probably Ioudaioi covered all the various sub-groups in much the same way that for many Americans anyone who lives in Britain is “English.” His concern was with his own province of Judea and Samaria, but the fact that Jesus was not a Judean but a Galilean probably made little difference to his view of the charge.23 For the Sanhedrin to have put the title “king of the Judeans” into the mouth of the Galilean Jesus would have been sarcastic in the extreme. Perhaps Matthew wants us to read it as such, but it is probably more likely that the term is being used here in the wider ethnic sense (as in 2:2), even though the trial is taking place in the Judean capital. The Jewish substitution of “king of Israel” for “king of the Ioudaioi” in v. 42 suggests as much.
Jesus’ reply (which, like the question, is the same in all four gospels, though John 18:37 adds “that I am a king”) is affirmative but qualified, as in 26:64.24 Jesus would not wish to deny his kingly role as Messiah of Israel; his arrival at the city had been designed to assert it. But what Pilate would naturally construe as a political claim is for Jesus a truth at a different level. When he used the same formula, “You have said it,” in response to Caiaphas, he went on to explain how his messianic vision differed from that of the Sanhedrin (26:64). This time, however, “You say it” is not followed by any explanation of why his “kingship” is no threat to Rome (for this see John 18:33–38). To try to explain the finer points of messianic theology to a pagan administrator would no doubt have been futile (as Paul found later with Festus, Acts 25:17–20; 26:24). At any rate, Jesus has clearly decided to let matters take their course; his enigmatic “You say it” is the last word Pilate will hear him utter.
12–14 Matthew does not tell us what accusations the Jewish leaders made. Presumably they amplified his alleged claim to be “the king of the Jews” with appropriate accounts of what Jesus had said and done. But the emphasis falls not on their speech but on Jesus’ silence, now more pronounced even than it had been before the Sanhedrin (26:62–63; see comments there). Pilate could have read this silence as an acceptance of the truth of the allegations,25 but Matthew’s statement that he was “very surprised” suggests otherwise, especially in view of the later comment on Pilate’s assessment of the motivation of the Sanhedrin (v. 18). All earlier uses of thaumazō, “be surprised,” have denoted being favorably impressed, whether the subject was Jesus himself (8:10) or the people who have witnessed his miracles (8:27; 9:33; 15:31; 21:20) or his words (22:22). Jesus was not like other defendants, and Pilate was impressed.
15 There is no evidence outside the gospels for this custom of an individual amnesty at festival time.26 The phrase used by Matthew and Mark, with no article, might be read as applying to all festivals, but John 18:39 says it was specifically a Passover custom, and the phrase used by Matthew and Mark is better read with the same sense as referring to Passover as the greatest of the pilgrimage festivals. There are known examples of the release of prisoners, as a means of gaining popular support, elsewhere in the ancient world, some of which are associated with festivals,27 and in Palestine we hear of one-off amnesties by Archelaus (Josephus, War 2.4, 28) and twice later by Albinus (Josephus, Ant. 20.208–210, 215).28 Such a policy on the part of Pilate is historically conceivable, especially given his unpopularity with his subjects, but an annual Passover amnesty goes beyond any parallels known to us. Its effectiveness would depend on the people having the right to select their candidate for release.29
16–17 Matthew’s impersonal “they had” might be understood as referring to the Romans (“they were holding”), but since Matthew when speaking of the Roman authority normally refers only to Pilate in the singular, it is more likely that this plural verb refers not to the Romans but to the Jerusalem crowd: knowing that the amnesty was due, “they had” their own candidate already selected, and presumably Pilate had been informed of this. So the only name under consideration is that of Jesus30 Barabbas until Pilate, under the impression that Jesus of Nazareth was also a popular leader (see introductory comments above), decides to try offering them a different Jesus. It is even possible that he had heard shouts in favor of Jesus (Barabbas) and assumed it was the other Jesus they were shouting for. At any rate, the coincidence of names gives sharper point to Pilate’s question: “Which Jesus do you want, the son of Abba or the one who is known as Messiah?” The phrase ton legomenon Christon, which will be repeated in v. 22, is Pilate’s way of identifying the alleged claim of Jesus of Nazareth (which he assumes the crowd will accept) without himself endorsing it;31 it is the same phrase which Josephus uses, equally noncommitally, to identify Jesus of Nazareth in Ant. 20.200. Pilate’s use of this phrase rather than repeating “the king of the Jews” shows that he has been well briefed on the language Jesus is understood to have used among Jews. Cf. 26:68 for the title “Messiah” used by Jesus’ opponents to mock his alleged claim.
Jesus Barabbas32 is known to us only from the gospel passion narratives.33 Mark 15:7 identifies him as a leader in a recent (otherwise unknown) violent insurrection. Mark says others were imprisoned with him awaiting sentence for the same offense, and the fact that Matthew describes Jesus as crucified between two “bandits” (vv. 38, 44), using the term lēstēs which Josephus regularly uses for those who fought against the Roman occupation,34 leads many to conclude that they too were members of Barabbas’ group. John 18:40 directly describes Barabbas as a lēstēs. These data, together with the fact that the crowd wanted Barabbas released, strongly suggest that he was not a common criminal35 but a freedom fighter—to the Romans an insurrectionist, but to the Jews a patriot. Matthew’s adjective “well-known” will thus have different connotations depending on who is speaking: “notorious” (so NIV, NRSV, NJB) represents the official view, but GNB and TNIV are surely right to translate it “well-known,”36 especially if the subject of “they had” is the people (see above). To them he was not “notorious” but “notable” and so the popular choice, perhaps a folk-hero in the mold of Robin Hood. The presence of such insurrectionists in prison at that time would lend further color to the accusation that Jesus of Nazareth was claiming to be “the king of the Jews.”
18 Pilate’s assessment of the situation shows a shrewd awareness of the domestic politics of his subjects. See p. 1046, n. 4, for the term I have translated “rivalry.” Pilate’s perception is valid: the purpose of Jesus’ trial was not to punish a breach of the law but to get rid of a man whose claims threatened the status and authority of the current Jewish leaders. This perception did not depend on any esoteric knowledge; it would be obvious from the way the charge had been presented and pressed by the authorities, and from Pilate’s own observation of Jesus under questioning.
19 This unexpected interruption of the trial narrative further explains Pilate’s reluctance to convict Jesus. We need not assume that the message arrived at this precise moment in the trial. Matthew locates it more generally “while Pilate was hearing the case,” and it may be that the message had reached him earlier, and therefore explains his attempt to avoid having to make a judicial decision by invoking the amnesty. His wife is otherwise unknown, though of course Christian legend has developed her role and even made her a Christian saint, called Claudia Procula.37 We know of a number of Gentile women at the period who were attracted to Judaism,38 and this might explain her interest in the case. She seems to have been aware of it even before Jesus was formally brought before Pilate, which perhaps indicates that Pilate had prior warning of the Jewish leaders’ intention. Dreams were commonly regarded as a means of divine guidance in the ancient world (see on 1:20). In Matthew the only other people said to be guided by dreams are the magi and Joseph (1:20; 2:12, 13, 19, 22). The intervention of Pilate’s wife serves only to deepen the guilt of the Jewish leaders: even a Gentile woman can see that Jesus is innocent.39 But of course she knew this only because God had told her, in the dream. It is God, rather than just Pilate’s wife, who thus testifies to Jesus’ righteousness, over against the accusations of the Jewish leaders.
20 The crowd who heard Jesus’ teaching and debates in the temple seem to have been favorably impressed (21:15, 46; 22:33, 46), so that in ch. 23 Jesus has been able to appeal to the crowd against the scribes and Pharisees. But now the crowd is on the side of the Jewish leaders. This is of course a different crowd: those gathered around the governor’s palace early in the morning would more likely be local people, whereas the majority of Passover pilgrims would be in the temple area, where Jesus had previously enjoyed their support. And the leaders mentioned here are not scribes and Pharisees but the chief priests and elders, the leading representatives of local authority in Jerusalem. It is possible too that the preparations made by the Sanhedrin members for the presentation before Pilate had included making sure that a sympathetic crowd was in attendance—the aorist verb “persuaded” could be read in a pluperfect sense: they “had persuaded” the crowd, which was therefore now in place and ready to respond vociferously. If it was known that this was the time for Pilate to announce the Passover amnesty, supporters of Barabbas may have made up much of the crowd. At any rate, the final demand for Jesus’ execution will come not just from the Sanhedrin but from a representative group of the people of Jerusalem. At the narrative level this will contribute to Pilate’s decision that it would be unwise to continue to oppose the move against Jesus; at another level it will be the basis for Matthew’s reflection in vv. 24–25 on who was responsible for Jesus’ death.
21–23 Pilate’s question is repeated from v. 17, and receives the answer which anyone but he could have predicted. But the crowd is not just pro-Barabbas but now equally definitely anti-Jesus. Probably those who had earlier been willing to back Jesus in his disputes with the authorities have now been swung by the fact that he has been officially judged a blasphemer by their recognized leaders; he is no longer an interesting novelty but a dangerous heretic. The repeated demand for crucifixion reads unpleasantly as the proposal of a Jewish crowd, for whom crucifixion, though by now only too familiar as a Roman penalty, was still probably culturally alien and barbaric (see above on 10:38). But they would be aware that if Pilate was to order Jesus’ execution it would necessarily be by the means preferred by the Romans for political rebels; this was already the fate awaiting Barabbas and his associates. Pilate’s question as to what Jesus’ crime was receives no answer, simply a renewed call for execution. The outcome will be based not on justice but on political expediency.
24–25 On other occasions Pilate seems not to have worried about provoking a riot (Josephus, Ant. 18.55–59, 60–62; Philo, Legat. 299–305), but this time the issue is not important enough to him to warrant such a threat to public order (and thus to his reputation as governor). His attempt to resolve the issue by amnesty has failed, and he is now prepared to let events take their course. But before passing sentence he will make it clear that it is against his better judgment, and he does not wish to be held responsible.40 The symbolism of washing away blood-guilt is obvious enough (Deut 21:6–9; Ps 26:6; 73:13; and for pagan examples Sophocles, Ajax 654–656; Virgil, Aeneid 2.718–720), and Pilate’s words spell it out, using the same almost technical term for “innocent” (in relation to blood-guilt)41 as Judas had used about Jesus in v. 4.42 But if he will not bear the responsibility, someone else must, and he passes it on to the crowd whose shouts for Jesus’ death have forced his hand.
The response of the crowd is a direct acceptance of responsibility rather than a wish, as it is often tendentiously translated (see p. 1047, n. 13). They are saying yes to Pilate’s statement: he is not responsible, they are. Jesus has been duly convicted under Jewish law, and they are willing to be answerable for his death which they, unlike Pilate, believe to be deserved. For the formula “x’s blood on y” as a statement of responsibility for death cf. Lev 20:9; Dt 19:10; Josh 2:19; 2 Sam 1:16; Ezek 18:13; 33:4–6; Acts 5:28; 18:6. Note too the formula in 23:35–36 about the blood of the righteous “coming upon” this generation.
But there are two features of v. 25 which add further weight to this declaration. First, Matthew’s attribution of these words to “all the people” indicates that for him this is more than the thoughtless words of a few hooligans who happened to be present. The words are spoken by the same crowd as in vv. 20–23, but now Matthew does not refer to them as “the crowd,” as is his normal habit when talking about the people of Jerusalem, but he uses the term laos43 which in the LXX and later Jewish use is especially associated with the community of Israel as God’s chosen people.44 A declaration by “all the laos” is made by a representative group of Israel;45 cf. Acts 2:36 where Peter will declare to “the whole house of Israel” that God has vindicated Jesus “whom you crucified.” And secondly, the responsibility rests not only on those speaking but also “on our children.”46 Pilate’s challenge did not require this addition, but by including it Matthew extends the principle to the next generation.
The fact that this text (especially when translated as a wish rather than a statement) has been misused as an excuse for Christian persecution of Jews through the centuries47 creates a natural embarrassment which makes it difficult for us to hear what Matthew intended us to hear from it.48 We may assume that Matthew, as a Jew, was not condemning all Jews for all time. But his choice of the phrase “all the laos” and his inclusion of “our children” show that he was thinking of more than the particular group who happened to be in front of the governor’s palace that morning. The reference to “our children” was probably prompted by Matthew’s reflection that it would be a new generation who bore the brunt of the Roman onslaught on Jerusalem in AD 70.49 In the discourse of chs. 24–25 we have been alerted to the fundamental shift in the divine economy which would come about with Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus and which is symbolized in the coming destruction of the temple. The kingdom of heaven is no longer to be focused in the laos, the city and the temple, but in the vindicated and enthroned Son of Man who, after the temple is destroyed, will gather his chosen people from all the corners of the earth. All this will happen within this generation (cf. “us and our children”). Jerusalem’s rejection of the Son of Man has set the seal on the expulsion of the former tenants from the vineyard, and a new “nation” is to take over the tenancy (21:43), a nation made up of those who belong to the Son of Man and who are therefore the continuing members of the kingdom of heaven. As early as 8:11–12 Matthew has given notice of this impending change when he talked of many coming from east and west to share in the banquet of the kingdom of heaven with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob while those who seemed the natural “sons of the kingdom” would be thrown out.
The terrible words of all the laos in 27:25 are, I believe, best understood as reflecting that overall theology of a new people of God rather than as pronouncing the permanent culpability of Jews as Jews. The people of Jerusalem, like their leaders, have rejected the Son sent to them by the owner of the vineyard, and the status of ethnic Israel as the chosen people of God can never be the same again. Together with the city and the temple the people of Jerusalem represent the ancien régime, which is soon to be swept away in the events of AD 70. It will be a new sort of “nation” (made up of Jews as well as non-Jews) which will henceforth be the community of the people of God, and to which he will look to produce the fruits of his kingdom. And this new situation will be the result of the choice made by “this generation.” (23:35–36)50
26 Pilate fulfills both parts of the crowd’s demand, the release of Jesus Barabbas and the sentencing of Jesus “Messiah” to crucifixion. This brief clause is the nearest Matthew gets to recording the official judicial condemnation of Jesus which resulted in his execution. The preliminary flogging was an accepted part of the process leading to crucifixion;51 it was done with leather whips sometimes weighted with pieces of metal or bone, and was a brutal process which inflicted serious injury and could itself sometimes prove fatal.52 The gospel narratives, both at this point and at the point of crucifixion, make no attempt to draw out the sheer physical horror of the procedure, though Matthew’s first readers would have known, as modern readers do not, that Roman “flogging” was something far more serious and obscene than a few strokes with a whip.
Of the four verbs in Jesus’ prediction in 20:19, three appear in this verse (“hand over,” “flog,” “crucify”); the fourth (“mock”) will be fulfilled in the verses that follow.
D. The Death and Burial of Jesus (27:27–66)
The judicial process, such as it was, is over, and now the sentence is to be carried out. Jesus is now in the hands not of the judicial authorities, Jewish or Roman, but of the Roman execution squad. The grim process will run its course, but as it does it will become apparent that this execution, superficially just like any other crucifixion, is unique on account of the person who is being crucified. This will be most obvious in the verses which speak of Jesus’ death and the events which accompanied it (vv. 45–54). But even before that, in the mock homage to the “king of Jews” by the non-Jewish soldiers and the laconic charge written above Jesus’ head, and in the more theologically nuanced mockery by Jewish bystanders and opponents, Matthew expects his readers to catch the ironical truth of the honors heaped upon Jesus in jest and mockery: even in a setting of public humiliation and torture, this really is the king of the Jews, the temple-builder, the savior, the Son of God. And while the uncomprehending bystanders mock, Jesus’ chilling cry of abandonment, followed by the drama of the earthquake, the tearing of the temple curtain and the restoration to life of the pious dead, will tell all who are willing to hear that something of profound and world-changing significance is taking place there in the darkness, so that eventually even the hard-bitten soldiers who so recently had knelt in derision before the disgraced “king of the Jews” can now see that “This man really was God’s son.”
But nonetheless, Jesus really does die on the cross, and the hurried arrangements made for his burial attest to the reality of that death. So all the pieces are put in place which will contribute to the dramatic climax of the Jerusalem story: the watching women to ensure that no mistake is made, the solid rock of Joseph’s tomb and the huge stone which sealed it, and an official guard at the tomb to ensure that Jesus stays dead and buried.
In all this climactic sequence of events Matthew will add no further fulfillment formulae. The only verbatim quotation of an OT text will be in the opening words of Psalm 22 which supply Jesus’ brief shout from the cross. But the conviction that Jesus’ death takes place in accordance with the scriptures (26:31, 54, 56) will find expression in a series of less formal allusions, especially to Psalms 22 (see on vv. 35–36, 39, 43, 46, 50) and 69 (see on vv. 34, 48), psalms which depict the suffering righteous servant of God.1 The ultimate explanation of the cross is neither Jewish hostility nor Roman injustice, but the declared purpose of God.
1. Jesus Mocked by the Roman Soldiers (27:27–31)
27Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus with them into the guard room2 and gathered the whole cohort around him. 28They took off his clothes3 and put a red cloak around him; 29and they wove a crown4 out of thorns and put it on his head and a stick5 in his right hand, and kneeling in front of him they made fun of him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews.” 30They spat on him, and took the stick and kept striking6 him on the head. 31Then, when they had made fun of him,7 they took the cloak off him and put his own clothes on him, and took him off to crucify him.
After Jesus was condemned by the Jewish leaders, they abused and mocked him (26:67–68). Now that the Roman trial is finished8 the governor’s soldiers do the same, but in a suitably cruder and more violent way.9 To have a supposedly self-proclaimed king in their power offered unusually good sport, and for non-Jewish soldiers to have such an opportunity of abusing a Jewish dignitary with impunity was a chance not to be missed.10 The whole scene is a mock enthronement, with improvised cheap substitutes doing duty for the royal robe, crown and scepter, and physical abuse substituted for loyal homage. After the brutal torture of the Roman flogging Jesus would be in no state to resist even if he had wished, and his already battered physical condition would only add to the pathetic appearance of this Jewish “king.” All this takes place out of the public domain, where there are no Jewish onlookers to take racial offense. By the time Jesus emerges into the open on the way to the cross, the instruments of mockery have been removed and Jesus is back in his normal clothes.
It may seem surprising that Matthew is willing to give so detailed a description of what is to the Christian reader an extremely distasteful episode, but within the scheme of his passion narrative it serves (a) to provide a Gentile counterpart to the Jewish mocking (26:67–68), (b) to show the detailed fulfillment of Jesus’ own prediction in 20:19, (c) to depict Jesus once more as the suffering servant of Isaiah (Isa 50:6), and (d) to allow the reader to reflect on the reality of Jesus’ kingship which the soldiers can see only as a joke. In 28:18 we shall read of the real enthronement.
The soldiers detailed to carry out the crucifixion must presumably have been among this mocking crowd. It will therefore be the more remarkable when we hear them declare in v. 54 that after all Jesus was the Son of God. Matthew’s readers know, of course, that the kingship the soldiers made fun of was in fact real; but the way Jesus dies will cause even some of those same soldiers to change their mind about him.
27 Pilate’s soldiers would be auxiliaries rather than Roman legionaries (there was no legion stationed in Palestine at this time);11 they are likely to have been drawn from the non-Jewish population of surrounding areas, who would have had little sympathy with a supposed Jewish king. The gathering in the praetorium (see p. 1060, n. 2) would thus be large and rowdy;12 “the whole cohort” would strictly mean some 600 men, but Matthew may not be using the term in its technical sense.
28–30 A prisoner would normally have been stripped for the flogging; it is not clear whether some clothing had been replaced after the flogging or whether some basic clothing had been left on until now. The royal regalia for this mock enthronement are improvised from what was easily to hand. The word for “cloak” here is specifically used for a military cloak, shorter than a standard himation, and colored with a cheap red dye; this did duty for the much more expensive purple robes worn by the Roman nobility and especially by royalty. The “thorns” from which they wove the “crown” may have been from any common spiny plant;13 even if the intention was primarily mockery rather than physical torture,14 such a wreath would inevitably be painful. For the “stick” (or cane) see p. 1060, n. 5. On an already bleeding naked man these parodies of a king’s robe and symbols of power would produce a ludicrous effect, which is then exploited by the soldiers’ mock homage. “Hail, King of the Jews” perhaps parodies the formal imperial greeting, Ave, Caesar. When spitting and repeated blows are added the scene combines cruelty with extreme dishonor (with an echo again of Isa 50:6, as in 26:67–68).15
31 The replacement of Jesus’ own clothes for the walk to Golgotha was probably a concession to Jewish scruples about public nakedness (Jub. 3:30–31; cf. Gen 9:20–27). Crucifixion was normally naked, and in v. 35 Jesus’ clothes will again have been removed; m. Sanh. 6:3 specifies that the clothes should be removed only at the place of execution, not on the way there. None of the gospels tell us whether the crown of thorns was left on Jesus’ head after the mockery, as later Christian art has traditionally assumed,16 but perhaps the fact that the removal of the military cloak is specifically mentioned allows us to assume that the crown stayed in place.17