Mark 15

CHAPTER XV

The second half of the Passion history begins at this point: from now on Jesus is in the hands of the Gentiles.

Mark 15:1

1 And immediately in the morning, having passed a resolution, the high priests together with the elders and the scribes and the whole Sanhedrin, after having bound Jesus, carried him away and delivered him up to Pilate.

We have already stated the Jewish law regarding capital crimes. To pass the verdict of death required a second session of the Sanhedrin after an interval of at least a day; moreover, night sessions were illegal. But the Sanhedrin, once having hold of Jesus, was determined to rush him to death because it feared the uprising of the people in case of delay. So the illegality of the night session was simply disregarded. But the formality of holding a second session was found feasible even though in this case it was illegal as confirming an illegal night session; yet it lent at least a show of legality by being a second session.

Mark is at pains to inform us that the entire Sanhedrin was present at this meeting. He mentions the three groups and follows this with καί: “and thus the whole Sanhedrin.” It was no mere party or faction in the Sanhedrin that brought Jesus to death. Though it was a plenary session, all the 71 judges did not need to be present, and a few, like Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, seem to have been absent.

On the three groups see 8:31 and note how they are mentioned in 14:53 at the night trial of Jesus. In the present instance, however, we have something that is entirely exceptional, namely the first group and then μετά with one article which combines the next two groups into one (R. 787). The commentators usually disregard this point, but it evidently intends to single out the high priests as being the leaders in the present proceeding and to designate the elders and the scribes as the followers. This meeting was held πρωΐ, early in the morning, before the pilgrims were astir.

It should be clear by this time that συμβούλιονποιεῖν (Matthew λαμβάνειν) does not mean “to hold a consultation” or “to take counsel.” The expression means “to pass a resolution,” and the resolution that had to be passed in this second session was the formal confirmation of the death verdict that had been pronounced at the night session. Matthew is plain on this point: “they passed a resolution against Jesus to put him to death.” In all formality they took the final vote on the death penalty for Jesus. The next step followed as a matter of course: the Sanhedrin had to take Jesus to Pilate. B.-P. 1248 defines συμβούλιονλαμβάνειν (διδόναιἑτοιμάζειν, or ποιεῖν) as consilium capere, einen Beschluss fassen; R. 109. Luke 22:66–71 gives us some of the details by stating how Jesus was re-examined, how he reaffirmed that he was the Son of God, and how this was declared to be enough.

It is not necessary to suppose that the Sanhedrin counseled about or voted on taking Jesus to the Roman governor. The moment the final vote on the death of Jesus had been taken, the matter about going to Pilate was settled. The case was like any other that called for capital punishment. The Sanhedrin might decree death, but the Roman government had reserved the right to confirm and to execute that decree or to refuse its confirmation and execution.

Another view, that has found favor for some reason, is that the Sanhedrin “held a consultation” as to how to present the case to Pilate, what crime was to be charged against Jesus, and what evidence was to be produced. But, as has already been shown, the expression used by Matthew as well as by Mark does not have this meaning. Mark’s μειά indicates that the high priests managed the whole affair after death had been voted. Moreover, it was not their intention to lay the whole case before Pilate but simply to go to him with the demand that he confirm the Sanhedrin’s death verdict and carry it out.

So they bound Jesus like a dangerous criminal and “carried him away and delivered him up to Pilate.” Mark, like Matthew, uses two finite verbs to describe the action: away from themselves, over to Pilate, Jesus is taken. The prophecy made in 10:33 is literally fulfilled: “they shall condemn him to death and shall deliver him to the Gentiles.” The entire second half of the Passion history is thus marked: from now on Jesus is in the hands of the Gentiles.

Mark 15:2

2 Matthew inserts the story about the remorse and the end of Judas at this point, but Mark continues with the account of Jesus before Pilate. And Pilate inquired of him, Thou, art thou the king of the Jews? And he answering says, Thou art saying it.

Mark writes with great brevity as he relates this incident from Pilate’s examination of the prisoner who had been turned over to him for the execution of the death penalty. Instead of simply obliging the Jews and ordering their verdict to be carried out, Pilate, with due regard for Roman justice, proceeds to try the case himself by insisting on receiving the charges and receives a regular tirade of charges. We add John 18:20–37 and especially v. 37, John’s fuller account of Mark’s brief summary. In order to understand why Pilate asked about Jesus’ being a king we add Luke 23:2, the series of charges against Jesus, the last of which was that he pretended to be “Christ, a king.” So Pilate took Jesus into the prætorium (the residence of the prætor) and examined him privately by taking up the central charge in which all the rest were involved.

The question shows how little Jesus appeared like a king to Pilate; he was, of course, thinking of a political king. Yet Jesus affirms that he is a king: “Thou art saying it!” The difference between σὺλέγεις and σὺεἶπας, “thou art saying it,” and “thou didst say it” (English: “hast just said it”), is rather slight, R. 915. Either is the regular way of affirming the contents of a question. From John we learn that Jesus told Pilate exactly what kind of a king he was, namely, a spiritual and not a political king, and Pilate was fully convinced of the latter.

Mark 15:3

3 A second incident is sketched briefly. And the high priests went on to accuse him of many things. And Pilate again inquired of him, saying, Dost thou answer nothing? See, of how many things they are accusing thee! But Jesus no longer answered anything so that Pilate was wondering.

This is the second great silence of Jesus; the first is recorded in 14:61; the third in John 19:9. It is to be placed just where Matthew and Mark have it, after Pilate’s examination of Jesus and his declaration to the Sanhedrin that he was guiltless. Then a flood of vicious accusations of all kinds bursts from the high priests, from these especially, although Matthew mentions the whole Sanhedrin. Jesus had been brought out of the prætorium in order again to face his accusers. Pilate is, of course, once more seated on his elevated judge’s seat outside of the prætorium—the Romans loved to dispense justice publicly, under the open sky. The imperfect is iterative, R. 884, and the verb is construed with the genitive of the person and with the accusative of the thing.

Mark 15:4

4 After the shouting of angry accusations had subsided, after all eyes were turned on Jesus, he simply looked at the governor who was seated on his judge’s seat, and, since every ear was straining to hear, the silence became only more intense. It is Pilate who at last utters the astonished question: “Dost thou answer nothing?” which is followed by the equally astonished exclamation: “See, of how many things they are accusing thee!” The πόσα is in an indirect question (R. 292) and is exclamatory (R. 917), and ἴδε is the imperative and not the interjection as the accent shows. Yet the situation should not confuse us. It may appear like fair and strict justice to see that the accused is permitted by Pilate to face his accusers and to speak freely in his own defense. But Pilate has himself just pronounced Jesus guiltless after due examination of the charges that were preferred. Does that verdict of the governor not stand?

But if Pilate is uncertain after hearing all this added testimony, it is his business to examine farther into the case just as he had made an examination at first. The silence of Jesus speaks eloquently against Pilate. Why does Pilate try to shift his responsibility upon Jesus with his question and exclamation? It is the duty of his Roman judge to silence all these angry accusations, or, if he cares to do so, to examine into any one or more of them. It is due to his cowardice that he does not forthwith enforce his verdict of innocence and use his legionaries, if necessary, to disperse this Sanhedrin and its following but allows that verdict still to be questioned and turns the task of upholding it over to the prisoner Jesus. Secondly, the silence of Jesus is directed against the Jews and expresses his contempt for their accusations; they are not worth a single word. Note the emphasis in the two negatives οὐκ and οὐδέν.

Mark 15:5

5 There is also an emphasis in οὐκέτιοὐδέν. Mark makes it emphatic that Jesus answered absolutely nothing. First there is the silence that Pilate broke with his word to Jesus; then the silence that followed Pilate’s words. It certainly spoke volumes. It certainly went home to Pilate’s mind. This was, indeed, no ordinary prisoner.

Not for one moment did Pilate deem Jesus guilty because he was silent. He felt the very opposite—and more, the astounding patience of Jesus, his willingness to suffer unjustly, and the majesty of his person in following the course he did. “So that Pilate was wondering” expresses the result (ὥατε with the infinitive) achieved in Pilate’s mind. It has been well said that Pilate was touched by something akin to what we feel when we see in him the Lamb of God that opened not his mouth.

Mark 15:6

6 The vacillation of Pilate which finally brought Jesus to the cross culminated in Pilate’s scheme to induce the Jews to choose Jesus instead of Barabbas. Now festival by festival he used to release to them one prisoner, whom they would beg of him.

Κατά is distributive (R. 608), hence ἑορτήν needs no article; yet “festival by festival” refers only to the annual Passover festival (John 18:39). The renderings found in our versions do not seem to understand this distributive sense of the preposition. The two imperfect tenses denote customary actions: it was Pilate’s custom to release and the people’s custom to beg of him. Δέ reads as if this remark about the custom is parenthetical, intended to explain what follows. No one now knows how far back this custom extended; but it seems certain that it had been established before the Romans came into power and was continued by them as being so well established as to be considered a necessity (Luke 23:17). The people were allowed to have the one prisoner whom they asked for.

Mark 15:7

7 Now there was the one called Barabbas, having been bound together with the insurrectionists, who had done murder in the insurrection.

Δέ again introduces a preliminary statement. The name “Barabbas” is recorded only for the purpose of identifying the man whom the Jews preferred to Jesus. The evangelists do not play on its composition: “son of Abba,” with “Abba” denoting some prominent rabbi and thus forming a kind of parallel to Jesus’ title “Son of God.” The textual evidence that this man was called “Jesus Barabbas” is so inferior as not to call for discussion. Yet some would retain “Jesus” on the plea that no scribe would have inserted it, and that it must, therefore, be original. But the very reverse seems to be true. Those who love to allegorize and play with words and names seem to have inserted “Jesus” in order to obtain: “Jesus, the Son of God,” and “Jesus Barabbas (the son of Abba).” We discard these fancies and the unconvincing evidence adduced for them.

Matthew says only that Barabbas was a “notorious” prisoner (ἐπίσημος, “mark σῆμα, placed on him”); Mark tells us what made him notorious: he was one of a number of insurrectionists who had committed murder in the insurrection; Barabbas was thus now in fetters (the perfect δεδεμένος with its present connotation). All the tenses used in v. 6–10 are interesting, especially the three past perfects which refer to antecedent action, R. 905; οἵτινες is merely explanatory (R. 727) and not causal. The cause of the insurrection and any further details are unknown. The article τῇστάσει does not mean “the well-known insurrection” but refers back to the insurrectionists and the insurrection in which they had been involved. John supplements by calling Barabbas a robber.

Mark 15:8

8 And the multitude, having gone up, began to ask for themselves as he was used to do for them. But Pilate answered them, saying, Are you willing that I release to you the king of the Jews? For he was aware that because of envy the high priests had delivered him up.

This is not a new multitude, as some suppose, that had come from the Temple courts to ask Pilate to observe the old custom of releasing a Jewish prisoner. About everything in the entire situation is against the introduction of a second multitude. No, this is the multitude that had already gathered before Pilate’s tribunal, the common people as distinguished from the Sanhedrists. The move that Pilate observe the custom comes from them. Pilate was available just now, and when someone thought of it, the request was made of him.

The texts vary between ἀναβάς, “having gone up,” and ἀναβσήσας, “having shouted out.” We prefer the former in the sense that a delegation went up to Pilate as he sat on his judge’s seat and preferred the request, ἤρξατοαἰτεῖσθαι indicates a certain amount of formality. The middle αἰτεῖσθαι, “to ask for oneself,” is used in business transactions, C.-K. 92; R. 805. In the present instance the established custom placed Pilate under obligation, and the middle is in place for this reason.

It is sometimes assumed that according to Matthew’s account it was Pilate who thought of this custom and took the initiative in the matter because he thought that he might thus release Jesus through the influence of the people and played the people against the Sanhedrists. But Matthew does not touch this point at all; he states only what Pilate did after the people had made their request.

Mark writes that Pilate answered “them,” i.e., “the multitude,” and this is correct; but Matthew indicates that he did this by placing the choice of the prisoner to be released before the Sanhedrists, these “having accordingly been brought together.” Yet both evangelists describe at length that the choice was not to be made by the Sanhedrists as such but by the entire assembly of the Jews that was present before Pilate’s judgment seat. According to Luke 23:16 Pilate had just made the offer to the Sanhedrin to chastise Jesus and to let him go. The request of the people opened a new way to Pilate to release Jesus with Jewish consent, and he embraced it with avidity. The nomination of the prisoners, one of whom was to be pardoned, seems to have rested with the governor. Whether more than two were ever nominated is not known. On this occasion at least Pilate nominated only two in order to make the selection certain in advance. He takes the worst criminal he has in prison at that time, this notorious Barabbas, and as the only alternate Jesus, “the king of the Jews.” He is certain that the Jews cannot possibly unite on Barabbas.

Mark abbreviates when he writes: “Are you willing that I release to you the king of the Jews?” He does more: he indicates that Pilate wanted to release Jesus and none other. He calls Jesus “the king of the Jews” even as the Sanhedrists had made his claim of kingship a charge against Jesus. Even to the last, the inscription on the cross, Pilate repeats “the king of the Jews.” He was anything but a king in Pilate’s eyes, and thus a tone of mockery against the Sanhedrists runs through Pilate’s use of this title for Jesus. It seemed ridiculous to him that the Sanhedrists could fear this man as a pretender to kingship and make such pretension a capital charge. Pilate knew that the Jews would have liked nothing better than to have a national king, one who was mighty enough to cast off the Roman yoke. Well, Pilate was more than willing to have them take and keep Jesus as their king, one who would certainly be innocuous as far as Rome was concerned. Note the asyndeton in θέλετεἀπολύσω; the verbs are paratactic grammatically but hypotactic in logical sequence (R. 430, with the sample θέλετεποιήσω); and ἀπολύσω is the deliberative aorist subjunctive (R. 878, with the Sample θέλειςεἴπωμεν).

Mark 15:10

10 Mark, like Matthew, states openly the reason why Pilate was ready to use any means for releasing Jesus. “He was aware” (ἐγίνωσκε, durative imperfect) that the motive of the Sanhedrists in delivering Jesus up to him was nothing but “envy.” The people were flocking to Jesus, and this made the Sanhedrin envious. We see that Pilate placed reliance on the people and felt certain that they would vote for Jesus in spite of the Sanhedrin. In this, as in many other things in connection with this trial, Pilate was sadly mistaken. It is significant that “the high priests” are mentioned as being filled with envy. They were the real leaders of the Sanhedrin and they were the ones who intended to retain their control at all hazard.

Mark 15:11

11 But the high priests stirred up the multitude in order that he release the rather Barabbas unto them.

Mark uses the stronger term “they stirred up the multitude,” incited them; Matthew writes only “persuaded the multitudes.” Mark again also writes only “the high priests” whereas Matthew mentions also the elders. Mark wants us to understand, both here and in v. 10, that the high priests dominated the situation and controlled the rest of the Sanhedrists as well as the populace. They got busy at once and sent their men through the crowd to stir it up to ask for the release of Barabbas. The fact that their own ὑπηρέται consented was understood. But they seem to have had no difficulty with the crowd that had come to see what was doing at the prætorium. Just how they succeeded is not stated.

It has been suggested that the Sanhedrists pointed out that Pilate was protecting Jesus, and that the Jewish opposition to Pilate was thus turned also against Jesus. These and similar arguments may have been used. But the thing that weighed most heavily was the fact that the high priests wanted Barabbas. The crowd yielded to their authority. The ἵνα clause expresses purpose, and μᾶλλον, “rather,” refers to Jesus as one who was not to be released.

Mark 15:12

12 Now Pilate again answering said to them, What, then, shall I do with him whom you call the king of the Jews? But they yelled again, Crucify him!

Mark shortens the narrative. A sufficient interval was allowed in order to permit the assembled crowd to determine its choice. Then Pilate demanded to know whom they wanted released and received the unanimous reply: “Barabbas!” He heard it with a shock of disillusionment. His scheme to free Jesus in this way has failed utterly. He had badly underestimated the influence and the power of the Sanhedrin; he had counted on others acting with some moral consideration when he himself was incapable of simple justice. He had placed Jesus beside a murderer—the man whom he himself had pronounced innocent beside the man whose bloody guilt was beyond a doubt.

The flagrant injustice to Jesus is glaring—he is treated as a condemned criminal, placed beside another of the same kind, and the people are to make a choice between the two. The man who could do that had no right to complain when he found others doing the same sort of thing.

The pitiableness of Pilate now comes to view. Οὖν implies that Barabbas had been chosen, and that the new question (πάλιν) rests on that choice: “What, then, shall I do?” etc. All along Pilate did not act the judge, did not determine the case, render the verdict, and enforce it by his legionaries, if necessary. No; he wanted the accusing Sanhedrists to offer him a verdict, yea, the verdict that nothing in the world could induce them to offer. All they did was to hold out against him firmly to the end. All that Pilate did was to yield to them more and more until he surrendered completely.

Pilate is utterly helpless. After Barabbas has been chosen for release, Jesus is left on Pilate’s hands, and he is compelled to do something with him. Pilate, the governor and ruler of the whole country, actually asks these Jews what he is to do with Jesus! So he himself does not know what to do! So he is not at all sure of himself! Does he want these Jews to tell him to release Jesus also? Is the whole business to be reduced to a farce by releasing both men? Ποιήσω is the aorist deliberative subjunctive, and verbs of doing good or ill are followed by the accusative of the person, R. 484. The antecedent is incorporated in ὅν, both are in the accusative, R. 720, and ὅν is predicative.

Matthew has Pilate call Jesus “Christ” while Mark writes: “whom you call the king of the Jews.” Pilate used both titles, but in his appeal he puts them into the mouth of the Jews and does not himself assert that these titles belong to Jesus. His purpose is to touch a favorable sentiment toward Jesus among the Jews. They surely do not want the Gentile Pilate to decree the death of one who has received these high titles among their own people. But instead of touching a favorable feeling he touches the very opposite. “The king of the Jews” only enrages the Sanhedrists. In spite of the way in which Pilate now introduces the title these Jewish leaders will have none of it. That was the very thing that they had charged against Jesus: that he made himself a king; and for themselves that was the very thing they would not tolerate, that he should be a king over them in any sense.

Mark 15:13

13 If Pilate does not know what to do with Jesus, these Jews know. And they tell him promptly in no uncertain terms, with one simple and terrible word: Σταύρωσοναὐτόν (Matthew has the third person: Σταυρωθήτω), “Crucify him!” Matthew writes that “all” said this, Mark that “they yelled” (more descriptive), the Sanhedrists probably beginning, and the rest joining in. This ominous word was first uttered here, compare Jesus’ own prophecy in Matt. 20:19 and 26:2. The question is asked as to how these Jews, whose death penalty was stoning, came to demand crucifixion for Jesus. The fact that Barabbas was to have been crucified, and that Jesus was now to take his place, seems a doubtful answer. More satisfactory is the fact that the Jews had turned Jesus completely over to Pilate to be executed by him. The Romans had deprived them of the right of inflicting the death penalty, so they held Pilate to its infliction, and that would be by crucifixion alone.

Mark 15:14

14 But Pilate went on to say to them, Why, what evil did he do? But they yelled exceedingly, Crucify him! But Pilate, wishing to do enough for the multitude, released to them Barabbas and delivered up Jesus, after having scourged him, to be crucified.

After the preceding aorists the imperfect ἔλεγε marks that what Pilate now says was something that was quite ineffectual: he went on to say this, but it amounted to nothing. The γάρ in the question is little more than an intensive particle, R. 1149; it is like the German denn in questions, B.-D. 452, 1. Here we have the spectacle of the supreme judge trying to convince the accusers by argument of the innocence of the accused! For Pilate’s question: “Why, what evil did he do?” intends to tell the Sanhedrists that Jesus has done no κακόν, “good-for-nothingness,” and that they are unable to prove anything of the kind against him. But when the judge lowers himself to become a mere attorney, not he but the accusers will act the judge and dictate the verdict.

Pilate received the answer he deserved, no counterargument, no accusations of any κακόν, but the most frantic yells: “Crucify him!” The mob spirit was beginning to rise, which is a terrible thing especially in the East. The more they yelled, the more agitated the scene became. One word from Pilate could even now have gained control—a sharp military order to the chiliarch of the cohort of 600 legionaries to clear the place of Jews in short order and to protect Jesus from molestation. But Pilate was long past such a courageous course of action. His very vacillation invited this Jewish insistence that he bow to their will. In that loud yelling and its incipient threatening tone we see where the mastery lay. Insert Matt. 27:24, 25 at this point.

Mark 15:15

15 Mark summarizes when he states that Pilate desired to do enough for the multitude; τὸἱκανὸνποιεῖντινι, satisfacere alicui, “to satisfy someone,” literally, “to do the sufficient thing,” B.-P. 583. His surrender was complete. Pilate is no longer dispensing justice, he is only placating the mob by an act of acknowledged injustice. All the synoptists report that Pilate released Barabbas to the Jews and delivered up Jesus to be crucified; ἵνασταυρωθῇ is equal to an infinitive. Matthew and Mark insert the detail that Pilate scourged Jesus, but both use the aorist participle so that the order of the acts is: 1) the release of Barabbas, 2) the scourging of Jesus, 3) the order to crucify.

But this compactness merely summarizes, merely states three facts in the order in which they occurred, but this does not entitle us to make them interdependent. We see this in v. 16–20, the mockery, which both Mark and Matthew narrate by itself. The mockery did not, however, occur after Jesus was ordered to be crucified—it would then have been utterly senseless. The scourging and the mockery are of one piece, and it is John who furnishes us the key to both. All the proof that has been accumulated to show that scourging regularly preceded crucifixion is beside the mark. The aorist participle φραγελλώσας precedes the aorist verb παρέδωκε; Jesus was not ordered to be crucified until some time after the scourging. As John shows, Pilate’s object in scourging (and in mocking) Jesus was not to crucify him but to save him from the cross.

When Pilate failed in his scheme with Barabbas he did not yet give up. From Luke 23:16 we learn that in the beginning Pilate had offered the compromise to scourge Jesus and to let him go. He now reverts to this idea and has Jesus scourged. It is quite unwarranted to read two scourgings into the records. Mark and Matthew have only the one word φραγελλώσας, “having scourged” him, the Latin flagellare; John has the regular Greek term μαστιγοῦν.

Stripped of clothes, the body was bent forward across a low pillar, the back stretched and exposed to the blows. In order to hold the body in position the victim’s hands must have been tied to rings in the floor or at the base of the pillar in front and his feet to rings behind. We cannot agree that the hands were tied behind the back, for this would place them across the small of the back where many of the blows were to fall and would shield the ribs where the whipends were to lacerate the flesh. The Romans did not use rods as did the Jews, each rod making only one stripe and cutting only the back; they used short-handled whips, each of which had several leather lashes, ugly, acorn-shaped pieces of lead or lumps of bone that were fastened to the end of each short lash. The blows were laid on full force, the officer often shouting: Adde virgas! (Livy 26, 16), or: Firme! (Suetonius, Caligula 26) to get more vigor. Two whips were applied, one from each side.

The effect was horrible. The skin and the flesh were gashed to the very bone in every direction, and deep, bloody holes were torn where the armed ends of the lashes struck. See Josephus, Wars 6, 6, 3; Eusebius, 4, 15.

The scourging of Jesus must have taken place outside of the prætorium, right before the eyes of Pilate and of all the assembled Jews; for both Mark and Matthew report that for the purpose of the mockery, which, according to John, at once followed the scourging and really formed its completion, the soldiers took Jesus into the prætorium, into the αὐλή or courtyard where the whole cohort had room. To the scourging we may attribute the unexpectedness of Jesus’ death and also his breaking down under the weight of the cross. The object of Pilate in scourging and mocking Jesus was to show these Jews what this insignificant man really was about whom they were making such a violent demonstration—a joke of a king; let them look for themselves. Crucify him? Act as if this harmless, helpless dreamer amounted to so much? The very idea was ridiculous. But this attempt of Pilate’s to have the Jews content themselves without the actual death of Jesus also failed (John 19:1–7), and Matthew and Mark thus add at once that Pilate ordered his crucifixion.

Mark 15:16

16 Now the soldiers led him away within the courtyard, which is the prætorium, and they call together the whole cohort.

Following the scourging and completing what that intended to accomplish there came the mockery; see John’s account. This answers the question as to how an act such as this mockery of Jesus could be staged at all.

No commentator attempts to show that mockery accompanied scourging as a customary procedure; this was never the case. The mockery of Jesus is so exceptional that nothing resembling it has ever been found. Those who think that Jesus was scourged as being a person who had already been condemned to the cross imagine that the mockery was staged merely to fill in the time until the cross and the other paraphernalia for the execution were made ready. But even so, why fill in the time with this peculiar type of mockery? If Jesus was scourged only in preparation for crucifixion, this mockery remains unexplained. Those who note that Jesus had not yet been condemned to the cross generally note the mockery as the play of the soldiers who guarded Jesus.

It is said that Pilate gave his tacit consent and paid no attention to the uproar in the prætorium. These explanations are unsatisfactory.

“The soldiers led him away within the courtyard” can mean only one thing: these soldiers, who had Jesus in hand, were most certainly under Pilate’s orders in all that they did with him, and so they now take Jesus inside the prætorium on an order from Pilate. They could not and did not move this prisoner about on their own initiative. The scourging took place outside, in front of the prætorium, in view of Pilate as he sat on his judgment seat, and before all the assembled Jews. John 19:4 shows that Pilate himself must have gone inside when the soldiers were ordered to bring Jesus in after the scourging; for Pilate comes out again after the mockery, and Jesus was dressed as a mock king. All this has but one meaning: Jesus was scourged and then mocked on Pilate’s own order.

This was Pilate’s stageplay with Jesus in order to save his life from the cross, if possible. He argued: Who would insist on crucifying such a pitiful travesty of a king? Mark states what he means by the αὐλή or courtyard: “which is the prætorium,” the inside open area which was surrounded by the buildings of the palace, into which a covered passageway led (compare the αὐλή mentioned in 14:54). The relative ὅ is attracted into the neuter by the predicate substantive, especially when it presents the main idea, R. 712; only here in the New Testament is ἔσω used as a preposition.

Upon Pilate’s order the whole cohort was assembled in the courtyard. A σπεῖρα, manipulus, is the tenth part of a legion, 600 men, with auxiliary troops running the number to 1, 000, so that the commander was called a chiliarch. Such a cohort was the force which Pilate had with him here at Jerusalem as the garrison of Antonia. The idea is not that the cohort was assembled to a man but that, when all of it was called, as many as were not otherwise engaged did come. The courtyard was thus thronged with legionaries. Pilate’s orders were to show the Jews what sort of a king their Jesus was.

Mark 15:17

17 And they put on him purple, and, having plaited a thorny crown, they placed it about him. And they began greeting him, Hail, king of the Jews! And they kept hitting his head with a reed and kept spitting on him and, having bent the knees, kept making obeisance to him.

This is Mark’s description of the mockery. The soldiers dress Jesus as a king by putting on him a purple robe and a crown. Mark knows about the scepter (v. 19) but makes no special mention of it here. The word πορφύρα refers to a “purple dye” and is used also with reference to a cloak of that color. Matthew writes “a scarlet cloak,” John merely a ἱμάτιον, an outer robe. Regarding the color Mark and John say that it was purple, Matthew says that it was scarlet.

But the color was not pronounced, the sagum or paludamentum was old and discarded, so worn, soiled, and faded as to be of doubtful color: “a red-colored cloak such as common soldiers wore,” M.-M. 529. Jesus was naked when the soldiers took him into the courtyard of the prætorium; his clothes lay in a little heap on the outside where he had been stripped for the scourging. When the purple cloak was thrown around him—imagine how the rough, soiled cloth made the bloody wounds of his back shoot with agonizing pain! This ugly scarlet cloak was to serve as the royal purple mantle that was worn by kings on state occasions and was thus intended to present Jesus as a king who was in full state attire.

On grand occasions a king is distinguished by wearing a crown; so a crown ἐξἀκανθῶν, “out of thorn twigs,” Mark has only the adjective ἀκάνθινον, “of acantha wood” (twigs), “thorny,” was placed on Jesus’ head. Thorny twigs were plaited into a rough wreath (hardly a cap) and, bristling with sharp points, were made to encircle the head of Jesus (περί in the verb). A crown would, of course, suggest a king. The problem of how to improvise a mock crown probably solved itself by the use of some thorny bush that grew right there in the courtyard; no one knows what sort of a plant it was. The purpose was thus fully met: to make this king ridiculous and to do it in a cruel way. Everybody would recognize the circlet as a crown, and what a bloody crown it was! Trickles of blood disfigured the contused face of Jesus, not with the artistic elegance of so many of our great painters, but with the stark hideousness of brutal reality (see Tissot’s paintings!).

Mark 15:18

18 The king is dressed for his part. There follows the mock acclaim with its further brutalities. All the verbs used express duration—the thing went on and on. All of the many soldiers had to get a chance at Jesus, and that took some time. The Jews stood outside and heard the gales of laughter and the ribald shouting as the mockery proceeded. The soldiers began to greet Jesus in the way in which kings are greeted: Χαῖρε, βασιλεῦτῶνἸουδαίων! Read R. 465 on this vocative. Χαίρειν is used in all kinds of greetings, and the imperative would naturally be durative in wishing gladness and good fortune. The cutting sarcasm of this acclaim was intended to humiliate the soul of Jesus to the lowest depth.

Note again that the title “king of the Jews” reappears. It is generally supposed that the soldier just picked up this title from what those who served as guards of Jesus heard at the trial, and that on the basis of these hints they built up the whole mockery of Jesus as a fake king. But it is Pilate who throughout, even to the writing on the cross, harps on this title; and it is his word to the soldiers themselves that directs them as to the way in which they are to proceed with Jesus. But think of it—Jesus was actually not only the King of his nation but the very King of kings, God’s own Son! The mind staggers before the scene here depicted.

Mark 15:19

19 The reed of which Mark speaks is the scepter that the soldiers placed into Jesus’ hands in order to complete the picture of the king. When the soldiers filed past to make their acclaim they snatched this reed out of Jesus’ hands and used it to strike him over the head. The fact that the thorns were driven more deeply into the head, and that the blows themselves were exceedingly painful, was only incidental. The real point in this continuous striking of the king’s head with the king’s own scepter (the symbol of his power) was to demonstrate to this king that his power and his authority were less than nothing—any man could take the reed and knock this king on the head with it, and what could he do? John 19:3 adds that they also gave him blows with their hand, slapped him soundly right and left.

Jesus foretold that he would be spit upon (10:34), and this prophecy was fulfilled already at the Jewish trial (14:16). It is now fulfilled in a manner that is still worse and more protracted. This spitting into the face of Jesus is the most disgusting insult human beings can offer. It was intended to show what these pagan soldiers really thought of Jesus: he was a king who was fit only to be spit upon. As his power was less than nothing, so also were his honor and his majesty; even the vilest insult he could not ward off. All this shows what it meant when the soldiers bend their knees before Jesus and make obeisance to him.

These protestations were so many added insults—blows and spittle and then obeisance. Mockery could not go farther. Note the imperfect tenses, all express continuation. How long the mockery lasted is not indicated, but only that it did last quite a while. We can imagine what the condition of Jesus was when Pilate at last stepped in with an order to cease and, as John reports in full, took Jesus out with him, dressed thus as the King of the Jews by these pagans, and presented him to the Sanhedrists and the Jewish crowd before the prætorium—we know with what result.

Mark 15:20

20 And when they finished mocking him they took off from him the purple and put on him his clothes. And they lead him out in order that they might crucify him.

It was after this vain, spectacular effort of Pilate’s to save Jesus from death that he was finally remanded to the cross. Mark has already stated this fact at the end of v. 15. So he now adds that when the soldiers were through with their mockery they led Jesus away in order that they might crucify him. Although only the soldiers are mentioned as doing all these things, it is evident that they acted in everything only on their orders from Pilate. The aorist ἐνέπαιξαν stresses the completion: “when they finished mocking him”; R. 840 shows that we should use the past perfect “had mocked” in such connections.

The fact that Jesus was naked during the mockery, save for the red cloak, appears from what is now stated. That robe was removed when they were in front of the prætorium, and his own clothes, which had been left lying there since their removal for the scourging, were again put on Jesus for the journey to the cross. The plural τὰἱμάτιααὐτοῦ refers to both his tunic and his outer robe. Verbs of clothing are followed by two accusatives, one of the person and the other of the clothes, R. 483. “They lead him out” does not mean “out of the prætorium” but away from it to the place of crucifixion outside of the city.

Mark 15:21

21 And they impress one passing by, Simon, a Cyrenian, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, in order that he carry his cross. And they bring him to Golgotha Place, which is, when translated, Skull’s Place.

Immediately after the sentence had been pronounced Jesus was led to the place of execution. There was no law that would require a delay. Such a law did not exist in the provinces. The imperial laws on this point applied only to Roman citizens. The procession formed, Jesus bore his cross, and Matthew’s ἐξερχόμενοι brings us to the gate of the city, where the present incident occurs as they were going out. The condemned were generally led through the most populous streets, and the place of execution would be near a highway, where many people would congregate.

The traditional via dolorosa, which is now shown in Jerusalem as being the street over which Jesus passed, is of late construction. The city was completely destroyed several times, even many of its levels were changed; for in places declivities were filled with debris, which raised the present sites as much as 60 or even 80 feet.

Both Mark and Matthew imply that Jesus bore his cross, and that for some reason another man had to be provided to relieve him of the burden; Luke writes in the same way. We are certainly right in thinking that Jesus broke down under the load, broke down so completely that even his executioners, the soldiers, saw that no kicks, blows, and cursings of theirs could make him stagger on. The effect of all the frightful abuse that had been heaped upon Jesus since his arrest, through the night and the morning, became apparent.

The cross was no light burden. Much has been written on its shape, as to whether it was an X or a T or had a crossbeam †, and whether the beams were fastened together from the start. All the evidence points to the latter form even as the church has everywhere accepted it; but it is often pictured as being entirely too high. Jesus bore his cross and not merely the crossbeam or patibulum, John 19:17. By literally bearing his cross Jesus lends a powerful effect to his figurative words about our bearing our cross after him, Matt. 10:38; 16:24.

Mark has the most to say in regard to Simon. He was a “Cyrenian,” one who hailed from Cyrene but was now a resident in Jerusalem, one of the many Cyrenians dwelling there (Acts 2:10). The exceptional feature is the fact that Simon is identified by a reference to his sons; Mark speaks of them as if they were well known to his first readers. It is quite unfair to argue that we have no more reason for identifying Rufus with the person who is mentioned in Rom. 16:13 than for identifying Alexander with the man by that name who is mentioned in Acts 19:33 or the other who is mentioned in 1 Tim. 1:20. Rufus could be the one who is mentioned in Rom. 16:13 because this person was godly; not so Alexander because the one who is mentioned in Acts is a Jew, and the one who is referred to in Timothy is an apostate Christian. Mark would never have designated Simon by naming him as being the father of such a son.

It has been generally agreed that both sons held positions in the later church that were prominent enough to have them named when their father was to be identified. It has likewise been assumed that Simon’s strange contact with Jesus led to his conversion and thus to the prominence of his sons in the church. The idea that he was already a believer and was pointed out as such to the soldiers by the Jews in order to be forced to carry the cross has nothing to commend it.

The phrase ἀπʼ ἀγροῦ, without the article (R. 791), does not mean that Simon had gone out to his field in order to work there. It is time to drop this idea and the hypotheses that are built on Simon’s working on this Friday, namely that it could not have been the sacred 15th of Nisan, etc. It was not yet nine o’clock in the morning, which was no hour to be returning from work in the field. Simon was just coming in vom Lande for the Temple service that was held near this hour. No one knows what had taken him out of the city. It is possible that, like many other Jews, he lived a distance outside the walls and came into the city quite regularly.

The soldiers simply took this Jew and forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. They pounced on the first man that came along, perhaps caught Simon right at the city gate where escape was impossible. No Roman soldier would demean himself by carrying a cross for a criminal. No Jew would willingly touch the cross because he regarded it as accursed. So the soldiers caught Simon and probably thought it a good joke on this unsuspecting Jew that he had to carry another Jew’s cross. The verb ἀγγαρεύω is from ἄγγαρος, the Persian postal courier, and from the Persian entered into both Aramaic and Greek.

The courier was authorized to requisition animals and anything else he might need to expedite him on his trip. Thus the verb came to mean “to press into service” exactly as Simon is here impressed. Note ἵνα as a mere substitute for the infinitive, R. 993.

Mark 15:22

22 It was thus that they bring Jesus ἐπὶΓολγοθᾶ, “to Golgotha Place,” the place for crucifixion. Mark translates this Aramaic name by using the neuter relative ὅ in the usual way: Κρανίουτόπος, “Cranium Place” or “Skull’s Place,” and by making Γολγοθᾶ a genitive like Κρανίου that is dependent on τόπος. The name refers to the shape of the hill; it was like the cranium or rounded top of a skull and most certainly has nothing to do with skulls that were lying around on the place of execution—why just skulls and no other bones? The bodies of the executed were buried in pits.

The site of Golgotha is not altogether certain, but it has long been certain that the site that is now shown in Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is spurious in toto. Far more acceptable is the skull-like hill outside the walls which is now occupied by a Mohammedan cemetery, a hill that rises above the recently discovered “Garden Tomb” (also called “Gordon’s Tomb” from its discoverer). The author viewed this tomb and found many marks to indicate that the adjacent hill was the place of crucifixion and the garden beneath it and away from the hill the place of the entombment.

Mark 15:23

23 And they tried to give him wine having been made like myrrh; but he did not take it.

Mark and Matthew report only the offer of doped wine which Jesus refused of the actual crucifixion proceedings. The imperfect ἐδίδουν is, of course, conative, R. 885: “they tried to give,” which implies that they did not succeed; Matthew’s ἤθελε has the same force: they tried repeatedly to force this drink on Jesus, but he kept refusing (Matthew) and so refused decisively (Mark, the aorist). There is no need to regard this as a clash between Matthew and Mark, one stating that Jesus objected to the bitter taste, the other that he objected to the myrrh and its stupefying effect. It was the myrrh that was so bitter, and the bitterness betrayed what effect would follow. When Matthew writes “mixed with χολή, gall,” he does not mention the substance that was used but designates the wine only as being something bitter. Mark indicates that the actual substance was myrrh.

The verb σμυρνίζω (not in M.-M.) means “to be like myrrh,” and the passive “to be made like myrrh.” Myrrh was added to wine to give it a stupefying effect. This offer of doped wine was not an act of mercy on the part of the executioners; it was done in order to make their labor of crucifying easier. A man who had been heavily doped with this drink would be easy to handle.

After tasting the stuff (Matthew) Jesus refused to drink it, nor could he be persuaded to drink it. He intended to go through the final ordeal with a mind that was perfectly clear; he also intended to endure everything without avoiding a single agony. After even a moderate drink of this wine Jesus could not have spoken as he did on the cross and thus made his death what it was.

Mark 15:24

24 And they crucify him. And they apportion his garments, casting lot on them, who should take what.

Among the astounding features of the Scriptures are the records of the supreme events—one word only to describe the scourging of God’s Son, one only for the crucifixion, one only for the resurrection. Events so tremendous, words so restrained! Who guided all these writers to write in such an astonishing manner? This is one of the plain marks of divine inspiration in the very product itself. Matthew uses only a participle as if the crucifixion were the minor act that was subsidiary to the apportioning of the clothes. Luke has a simple aorist to express the fact, John likewise.

Mark alone has σταυροῦσιναὐτόν, the vivid, descriptive present tense. The intention of all the evangelists is evidently not to describe the awful act of crucifixion. The fact, not the details, is to fill the reader’s mind.

From the great mass of evidence that has been collected we gather that, first of all, the cross was planted firmly in the ground. The crosses were only on very exceptional occasions high. That on which Jesus was crucified raised his feet no more than a yard above the ground, for the short stalk of hyssop was sufficient to reach Jesus’ mouth. A block or heavy peg was fastened to the beam, and the victim sat straddled on this. The victim himself either climbed up, being boosted perhaps by the executioners, or they lifted him up to the seat and fastened his body, arms, and legs with ropes. The great nails (of which the ancient writers speak especially in connection with crucifixions) were then driven through the hands’ and the feet.

A hundred years ago about everybody was certain that the feet of Jesus were not nailed to the cross—in spite of Luke 24:39: “Behold my hands and my feet!” Exhaustive investigation has convinced all who have seen the evidence that the feet were also nailed, and each foot with a separate nail. The central seat or peg kept the body from settling to one side after the ropes were removed. None of the old writers mentions a loincloth. The agony of crucifixion needs no description; we mention only the hot sun, the raging thirst, the slowness of death which was sometimes delayed for four days. It was a great relief for the malefactor to learn that he was to die that very day.

John describes the division of Jesus’ garments in detail (19:23, 24). Mark, like Matthew, states only that the customary division was made and again uses the vivid present tense and states that it was done “by casting lot on them.” Mark adds the double indirect interrogative “who should take what,” which is used in the Greek but not in the English. It is not stated how the lot was cast. A common way was to place lots in a helmet and to shake them until one flew out; another way was to reach into the helmet and to draw out a lot. If the former method was used, one man would be designated, and the first lot that flew out would be his, the lot being marked for one of the four portions that had been arranged; John tells us that there were four. In the case of the valuable tunic of Jesus three lots would be blank, and the other would be marked to win.

The clothes of the victim were the perquisites of the executioners, the victim being treated as one who was already dead. It was nothing exceptional to gamble for the clothes of Jesus. The soldiers who crucified the malefactors probably did the same thing.

Mark 15:25

25 Now it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

It is only his fondness for coordination that leads Mark to write καί where we should write a temporal conjunction such as “when.” Accordingly no stress is to be placed on the repetition of the verb “they crucified him” as if the awful fact were to be emphasized. When Mark writes that Jesus was crucified at the third hour, at about nine o’clock in the morning, the other synoptists agree with him, John also; for Matthew and Luke show that, when the darkness fell at noon, Jesus had been hanging on the cross for some time. It is certain that the synoptists use the Jewish mode of counting the hours by beginning at six in the morning and continuing until six in the evening, which would make “the third hour” our nine o’clock.

There is a difficulty with regard to John 19:14 which states that Pilate pronounced sentence on Jesus at “about the sixth hour.” If John uses the Jewish method of counting, this would be noon; if he uses the Roman method, it would be our six in the morning. Both views fail to agree with the time that was necessary for the recorded events. Yet the reading in John as well as in Mark is assured. The problem is wider as regards John; there is difficulty with other passages in which he names the hour. This problem has never been solved. It is no solution to say that John contradicts or that he corrects Mark.

That is an evasion and gets us into other difficulties. We leave the problem as it is; see the fuller discussion in connection with John 19:14. It is certain that Jesus was crucified at nine o’clock our time and was thus sentenced by Pilate at about eight our time.

Mark 15:26

26 And there was the superscription of his indictment written above, The King of the Jews.

This was put up at the time when Jesus was crucified and was placed above his head as Matthew states. This disposes of the idea that it was fastened to the cross already at the prætorium. It is possible that the inscription was an afterthought on the part of Pilate, and that he sent it to the centurion on Golgotha with a messenger; but it is more probable that the inscription was delivered to the centurion at once, not for display on the way out, but to be affixed at the place of execution.

The genitive τῆςαἰτίαςαὐτοῦ is objective and states what was written in the superscription, the charge or “indictment” against Jesus on which he was condemned. The crime of Jesus was, then, the charge that he was “the king of the Jews.” From the start Pilate selected this charge as being the central one made by the Jews and examined Jesus regarding it and found him innocent of any nationalistic pretensions. Throughout the trial before Pilate, Jesus figures as “the king of the Jews” whom the Jews disown most violently and finally declare that they have no king but Cæsar. They thus forced Pilate to condemn Jesus as “the king of the Jews.” To the very last they had hurled the charge at Pilate: “King! King!” which he knew was false, and which he knew they knew was false. So Pilate now has his revenge on these Jews.

They shall have Jesus on the cross, but only as a king, only as their king. Let all the world read: “The King of the Jews.”

By adding nothing further Pilate really proclaims the innocence of Jesus right here on the cross. Pilate sets it down as a simple fact that Jesus is, indeed, the king of the Jews, and Jesus had fully explained what kind of a king he is. So this accusation was at the same time a vindication. The superscription was written in three languages, which explains the slight variations in the wording. When the Jews demanded that Pilate change the words to make them read that Jesus said that he was the king of the Jews, Pilate, exasperated enough as he was, flatly refused.

Mark 15:27

27 And with him they crucify two robbers, one at the right and one at his left.

Mark has said nothing about the robbers before this time, so this statement about the crucifixion of these two comes as a surprise. Yet we see at once how necessary it is that we hear about these robbers. Note that they are directly connected with Jesus. They are crucified “with him,” yea, so directly “with him” that one is nailed at the right of Jesus and the other at his left, which thus places Jesus between the two. The Greek idiom ἐκ views the two sides, right and left, as projecting “out from” Jesus; and the plurals for right and left view them as being composed of parts.

Since he was crucified between robbers Jesus was certainly numbered with the transgressors, Isa. 53:12. This is Pilate’s estimate of this king of the Jews. We are not told how he came to order these robbers to be crucified together with Jesus, yet we see that it was done in order to insult the Jews and to degrade their king even in his very crucifixion. The two robbers were to cast shame on Jesus and thus on the Jews. We need not waste time in asking why one robber was placed on one side and the second on the other side; this was done automatically. Since there was one important victim who was distinguished by even a superscription, the two unimportant victims would be placed so that the other would hold the central place. Those paintings are certainly wrong which depict the malefactors as being only tied to the crosses; they were nailed as Jesus was.

Mark 15:29

29 We omit v. 28 as being without sufficient textual support. And those passing by kept blaspheming him, shaking their heads and saying, Ha, thou that destroyest the Sanctuary and buildest it in three days, save thyself by coming down from the cross! In the same way also the high priests, mocking him to each other together with the scribes, kept saying, Others he did save; himself he cannot save! The Christ, the King of Israel, let him come down now from the cross that we may see and believe! And those having been crucified with him were reproaching him.

We learn who “those passing by” were when we listen to what they say. These are Jews from the city, for they repeat the very thing that was said in the night session of the Sanhedrin by the last two false witnesses about destroying the Sanctuary, etc. (14:57–59). People who came from a distance could not have used words such as these in blaspheming Jesus, these could have been said only by people who were from the city, who had heard some of the details of the night trial before the Sanhedrin.

Mark and Matthew say that these people “were blaspheming”—note the imperfect tenses in these verses, all picture the mockery under the cross. To blaspheme means to speak against God or anything pertaining to God in anger or in derision. God was here mocked in his own Son. The shaking of their heads has been regarded as a gesture of indignation or of malignant joy or of derision and mockery or of all these together. But this is putting rather much into a simple gesture. To shake the head means to say no. Each situation modifies this no, but the negative in the gesture remains. So these people shake their heads to express their negation and complete disapproval of the statements which they attribute to Jesus.

Mark 15:30

30 We find ἐκ only here in the New Testament. Since σῶσον is the second person, ὁκαταλύωνκτλ. is the vocative: “thou that destroyest,” etc. These people draw a deduction when they are uttering their blasphemous cries. If Jesus can do a thing that is so tremendous as to replace the great Sanctuary (Holy and Holy of Holies) in three days he ought to be able to save himself from his present predicament. But it is evident that he cannot do this. So he was the one that talked so big and is now able to do nothing at all even for himself! When the verb precedes the aorist participle, the two are nearly always coincident as they are here: “save thyself by coming down.”

This mockery was the worse for the grave misunderstanding of the real words of Jesus on which it rested (John 2:19). What Jesus had said was that by their rejection of God’s Messiah, God’s true Sanctuary among his people, the Jews should just go on in their course and thus destroy their own Sanctuary, this symbol of the Messiah, which could, of course, not remain when the Messiah was rejected by the Jews. Then, Jesus said, he would raise up the Sanctuary, the true one, himself, from the death in the tomb, that death by which the Jews would destroy their own Sanctuary, yea, their own entire nation. That time was now here. These mockers attended to it that what Jesus had prophesied concerning the Sanctuary three years ago should now not be forgotten at the start of the actual fulfillment. Articulated participles often appear in address (R. 1107) and need no added σύ in the Greek. They seem almost like nouns: “the destroyer,” “the builder,” for the tense is quite timeless.

Mark 15:31

31 In this third great mockery to which Jesus was submitted also the members of the Sanhedrin as such were represented; and ὁμοίως indicates that they descended to the same low level as the rabble. Matthew names all three groups of the Sanhedrin, Mark only two, but both Matthew and Mark make the high priests the leaders in this mockery. It is a mistake to think that only a few of the Sanhedrists, the most rabid among them, persisted to the end whereas the rest attended to duties in the Temple and the like. No, so fascinated were they that as many as possible remained, the great bulk of their body at least. Even here in public these men throw their dignity to the winds, forget who they are, and, like the common herd, give way to their basest passions. What they are capable of in this respect 14:65 has fully shown.

They cannot now spit on Jesus and strike him, but they certainly stab him with their cowardly and insulting tongues. Note that they mock Jesus “to each other.”They make their mockery the more nasty by addressing it, not to Jesus, but to each other by speaking of Jesus in the third person. Μετά, “together with,” puts the scribes in the second place and makes the high priests the leaders in this fearful mockery.

Their chief contribution to the mockery is: “Others he did save, himself he cannot save!” A deduction is again involved, namely that if he saved others, rescued and delivered them and put them into a safe state (all this is included in σώζειν), he ought to be able to do at least as much for himself. More follows, namely the reverse argument: since he cannot save himself he really never did save others. We should not be misled to regard “others he saved” as an admission that Jesus did save others; it is the opposite, a sneering protasis to the apodosis about himself, a denial that he really ever saved others. All his miracles in helping others are derided—they must be spurious since he cannot help himself.

Mark 15:32

32 The fact that this interpretation is correct is evident from the second slander. Here again the high priests seem to admit that Jesus is “the Christ, the King of Israel”; but they give Jesus these titles only in mockery. They mean the opposite, that he cannot be the Christ and King. A deduction is again involved. If he were, indeed, the Christ, etc., he would certainly come down from the cross even as these mockers demand. “Let him come down!” they shout at each other; the aorist is perfective, and κατά aids the perfective idea, R. 856.

“In order that we may see and believe” implies a promise that they would indeed believe, the aorist to express actual believing. No object is needed since the context supplies the thought that they would believe Jesus to be the Christ and the King of Israel. They naturally use “Israel” when speaking of themselves, the religious name of honor for their people; Pilate used the ordinary name “Jews,” which was used since the Exile and was derived from the tribe of Judah and the Kingdom of Judah, the members of which were almost the only ones to return from the Exile; “Jews” thus indicated national descent. The implication is that, if they could see, they would believe. This shows their conception of what faith in the Messiah would be. This vilification is really senseless. They ask Jesus to come down from the cross in order to demonstrate his Christhood and divine Kingship when their reasoning would require that Jesus should never have placed himself in their power to let them bring him to the cross.

It is noteworthy that the derision uttered beneath the cross turns on the power of Jesus: his power to replace the Sanctuary and his power to step down from the cross; again his power to save others and thus to save also himself. That power is mocked as being nothing but sham and pretense because Jesus does not use it as they dictate its use to him. The truth that Jesus does and will use his power in his own far more glorious way is hidden from them. These mockers know only power and that used, first of all, in self-interest. Of grace and mercy that care only for others at the complete expense of self they know nothing. So their mockery recoils only upon themselves.

To all this mockery there is added another, that of the two robbers who were crucified with Jesus. Mark continues with the imperfect: “they continued to reproach him.” Matthew adds “with the same thing.” Both Mark and Matthew use the plural, and do that in such a way that the grammatical explanation to the effect that this is only a plural of the category, so that one robber would suffice for this class of mockers, is without warrant. While both at first joined in reproaching Jesus, before very long one of these robbers came to repentance, of which Luke has made the record. He also informs us that the Roman soldiers joined in reviling Jesus. The chorus was thus rather unanimous. There is no discrepancy between Luke and the rest regarding the malefactors.

A complete turn to repentance, considering all that had transpired on Golgotha, is even psychologically perfectly in line. But aside from any explanations that one may venture, the facts as they are recorded by the evangelists are beyond dispute.

Mark 15:33

33 And the sixth hour having come, a darkness came on the whole earth till the ninth hour.

The first great sign in connection with the crucifixion of Jesus is this strange darkness that ἐγένετο, “occurred,” from the sixth Jewish hour, our noon, until the ninth, our three o’clock. This darkness descended when the sun was at its zenith and was shining with maximum power and lasted three full hours into the afternoon. All astronomical science denies that this was a natural eclipse of the sun. This cannot take place when the moon is about full. Skirmishing through all the ancient records also produces no tangible result. We are left with only one conclusion: this “darkness” was wholly miraculous exactly as were the following signs. God darkened the sun’s light by means of his own just as he shook the earth and split the rocks.

The fact that this darkness covered “the whole earth” (γῆ cannot here mean only “land” or “country”) or “all the earth” (Matthew) ought to be disputed no longer. When the light of the sun is shut off, the day half of the globe is made dark. Yet many contend that ἐφὅληντὴνγῆν refers only to “the whole Jewish land” or even only to Jerusalem and to its vicinity; they understand γῆ in the sense of “region.” But why should Mark then add “the whole” and Matthew “all”? Those who refer to “the whole earth” often spoil their correct understanding by saying that this is only “a popular way” of writing; since the darkness extended over a large territory, the evangelists wrote “over the whole earth” when they really did not mean that.

Luke writes τοῦἡλίουἐκλείποντος, “the sun failing,” and thus states that the cause of the strange darkness lay in the sun itself and not in clouds or vapors that interfered with the rays of the sun. When the sun itself “fails,” the entire day side of the globe will be in darkness. Some think that the darkness set in gradually, then grew deeper up to a certain point, and slowly receded after that. The evangelists offer no support for this view. We are not told why the darkness lasted just three hours, and it is in vain to ask.

Various explanations have been offered for this darkness. One is that nature suffered together with Jesus; another that the sun could not endure to look upon Jesus’ suffering—yet it looked upon the first three hours of it as well as upon the death; nor can the sun be personified as being an intelligent person. Closer to a correct understanding is the explanation that this darkening of the sun was a moral reaction against the murder of Jesus. It was more. This darkness signified judgment. It was not a mere reaction of the natural sun but a sign that was wrought in the sun by God. Darkness and judgment go together, Joel 2:1, 2, 31; 3:14, 15; Isa. 5:30; 13:9, etc.; and other passages dealing with the judgment, including Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24, etc.; Luke 21:25.

Mark 15:34

34 And at the ninth hour Jesus shouted with a great voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is when translated, My God, my God, for what didst thou forsake me? And some of those standing by, when they heard, were saying, Lo, he is calling Elijah! But one having run, when he had filled a sponge with sour wine, after having placed it around a reed, began to give him to drink, saying, Let us see whether Elijah is coming to take him down!

The judgment that was symbolized by the miraculous darkness was not one that was to be executed at some future time, perhaps at the end of the world, but one that took place during the very darkness itself, in the person of the dying Savior himself. The darkness and the agonized cry of Jesus belong together. “At the ninth hour” is just before the darkness ended. At this climax of the sign of judgment “Jesus shouted with a great voice.” It is the agony he is enduring, has endured for these three hours, that makes his cry so loud and so strong. He is very near to death; these last three hours and their fearful darkness complete his expiatory suffering. Both Matthew and Mark have preserved the original words, the former with the Hebrew “Eli, Eli,” the latter with the Aramaic “Eloi, Eloi,” and both with the Aramaic “lama sabachthani?” The Jews understood the Hebrew “Eli,” which Jesus actually uttered, though they themselves spoke Aramaic.

The words of this cry are quoted from Ps. 22:1 although neither evangelist mentions this fact. That this is a purely prophetic psalm the author has shown in The Old Testament Eisenach Selections, 428, etc. David is not describing himself as a type so that Jesus would be the antitype; David is prophetically describing the suffering and dying Messiah. Even the skeptic David Strauss saw that Ps. 22 furnishes “complete in advance” (prophetically) what occurred on Golgotha. The omniscient Spirit of prophecy alone could have placed at the head of this psalm that supreme cry of agony which was uttered on the cross. For it is not because David wrote this line that the crucified Jesus made it his own cry but because Jesus would cry out thus on the cross that David wrote it as a prophet. The older ideas that Jesus spoke aloud the entire psalm, perhaps also the following psalms, or that he spoke aloud only the first line and went through the rest silently are without foundation and destroy the force of the actual cry.

The idea that his physical agonies or his inner mental distress pressed out this cry is certainly insufficient since men have often suffered both and have yet felt deep inner comfort in the fact that God was with them. Nor can the forsaking of which Jesus complains be reduced to mean only an abandonment to the wicked power of his enemies, for this would mean that Jesus had so low an idea of God and of fellowship with him that he felt his nearness to God only in fortunate days and lost that feeling when his enemies seemed to triumph over him. Again it is unwarranted to think that this cry came only from his human nature as if his human nature had been unclothed of the divine and left to stand alone in these three hours of agony in the darkness. Such Nestorianism misunderstands the agony on the cross. Jesus does not lament because the divine nature or its divine powers have left him but because another person (“thou”) has left him.

Some have supposed that when Jesus uttered this cry he virtually tasted of death, and that this is what he meant by being forsaken of God. But Jesus died, actually died later, and was not forsaken of God in his actual death, for he commended his soul into his Father’s hands. And no virtual dying can exceed the actual dying. Again it is true enough that the death of the sinless Son of man must have been infinitely more bitter than the death of any sinful man can possibly be. But again we must reply that this does not explain the forsaking, for if God does not forsake the repentant sinner in the hour of death, how could he forsake his sinless Son who needed no repentance when death came to him?

We should note the difference between Gethsemane and Golgotha. In the garden Jesus has a God who hears and strengthens him; on the cross this God has turned wholly away from him. During those three black hours Jesus was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), was made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13), and God thus turned completely away from him. In the garden Jesus wrestled with himself and brought himself to do the Father’s will; on the cross he wrestled with God and simply endured. He cries to God with his dying powers and now no longer sees in him the Father, for a wall of separation has risen between the Father and the Son, namely the world’s sin and curse that are now lying upon the Son. Jesus thirsts for God, but God has removed himself.

It is not the Son that has left the Father, but the Father the Son. The Son cries for God, and God makes no reply to him.

No man can really know what it meant for God to forsake or abandon Jesus during those three awful hours. The nearest we can hope to come toward penetrating this mystery is to think of Jesus as being covered with the whole world’s sin and curse; and when God saw Jesus thus he turned away from him. The Son of God bore our sin and its curse in his human nature, but only as this was united with and supported by the divine nature. That is why Jesus cried “my God” and not “my Father.” But the possessive “my” is important. Even though God turned from him and left him, he cries to him and holds to him as his God. The divine perfection of Jesus appears as the Lamb without blemish though made sin and a curse in the hour of his sacrifice. R. 261 shows that ὁΘεός is vocative.

Some overlook εἰςτί in the question, which is matched by ἱνατί in Matthew. The translation “why” fails to distinguish between these interrogatory words and διατί which is also rendered “why.” Jesus asks: “For what purpose didst thou forsake me?” Jesus knows on what account and for what reason God forsook him (διατί), namely because of our sin. The fact that was hidden from Jesus during this fearful ordeal was the object God had in view in thus forsaking him because of sin. What purpose did this forsaking, which was so dreadful in the suffering of Jesus, serve as regards the redemption that was now almost accomplished? We need not be surprised to hear from Jesus himself that this purpose was hidden from him, for in his humiliation other things, too, were kept from him (13:32). All that we can say is that only thus, by Jesus’ being actually forsaken, could the full price of our redemption be paid.

Though Jesus did not know he still submitted and obeyed. Though he saw only God, and that God far from him, he did not waver. That, too, was needed for our redemption.

To be forsaken of God undoubtedly means to taste his wrath. The polemics that are directed against this deduction are ill-advised. Jesus endured the full penalty for our sins when God turned from him for these three hours on the cross. In those hours the penalty was paid to the uttermost farthing; and when that was done, God again turned to Jesus in the capacity of his Father. Commentators sometimes combine the forsaking with the death, yet the two are quite distinct. The forsaking had passed when the death set in.

When Jesus died he placed his soul into the hands of his Father and was thus certainly not forsaken. But while they are distinct, the forsaking and the death occurred side by side. The death was the penalty for the sins of the world, and thus there had to come this forsaking of the dying Savior in connection with it. When this had been endured, Jesus could cry, “It is finished!” and then yield his soul into his Father’s hands as a ransom for many.

Mark 15:35

35 The loud, agonizing cry of Jesus was heard for some distance. “Some of those standing by, when they heard,” made answer. Their answer is rank mockery. These must have been the Jews who had mocked Jesus before. The soldiers cannot be referred to, for even if they understood the words, what did these pagans know about Elijah? The darkness had lasted so long that the impression it had made had gradually worn off. These wicked mockers distort the first two words of Jesus and disregard the rest. They understood well enough that “Eli, Eli” really meant “my God, my God,” for the Hebrew for Elijah is Elijahu or Elijah, LXX, Ἠλιοῦ or Ἠλίας. Yet the malicious minds of these Jews made a joke of this cry of Jesus’ and went on to say: “Lo, he is calling Elijah!”

The point in this silly joke was the Jewish belief that Elijah would not only precede the Messiah and introduce him to the Jews but would also live again beside the Messiah and attest him as such. So the mockery was this: “Now that this fellow is about at his end he is frantically calling for Elijah to rescue him and to proclaim him as the Messiah!” This was the reply that men made to the Savior in the terrible hour when he drank the bitter cup of agony for the sin and the guilt of the world. This, too, he had to endure as part of his suffering.

Mark 15:36

36 Both Mark and Matthew abbreviate at this point. We insert John 19:28, 29, the word of Jesus: “I thirst.” It was the untold agony that lent the great force to the cry: “My God,” etc. But the darkness now gave way to the full light of the sun, and the agony of his being forsaken of God was ended. Jesus feels himself sinking and knows that his death is at hand. He intends not to sink slowly into unconsciousness but to die with a loud shout of triumph. It is for this reason that Jesus asks for a drink to moisten his parched lips and thus to speak the last words with a loud and triumphant voice.

Mark and Matthew report only that Jesus received the last drink. The “one” (τίς as substantive, “somebody,” R. 742) who ran to answer Jesus’ request must have been a soldier, for the soldiers alone had the sour wine (ὄξος) for the very purpose of moistening the throats of the crucified, whose tortures included the most raging thirst. We need not trouble ourselves about the question as to whether this wine helped to prolong life; for, if it did, the very object of crucifixion was the most prolonged torture. The centurion very likely gave a sign of assent, and thus one of the soldiers ran for the wine.

The subsidiary actions are expressed by aorist participles, and their relation to each other is interesting: “having run (first), when he had filled (third), after having placed it around (second).” We should incline to use finite verbs in English. The soldier took a reed, fixed a sponge to one end of it, wet this with the wine, and held it up to Jesus’ lips, who sucked some of the wine from the sponge. John tells us that the reed was a stalk of the hyssop plant which grows stems that are about 18 inches long. This indicates the height of the cross—a reed that was so short was sufficient to reach the mouth of Jesus. The imperfect ἐπότιζεν pictures the action of giving Jesus a drink.

While this was in progress, the rest (οἱλοιποί, Matthew) kept up their mockery about Elijah. These must have been the Jews. Carried away by their shouting, the soldier who was giving Jesus to drink, as Mark reports, joined in the cry. Ἄφετε (Matthew has the singular ἄφες, which makes no difference in the sense) is to be construed with the volitive subjunctive ἴδωμεν and is much like a particle. Hence we ought not to translate: “Let be, let us see,” etc., (our versions), as if these Jews wanted to keep the soldier from giving Jesus to drink. We simply translate, “Let us see,” or, “We shall see,” R. 430; B.-D. 364, 2; B.-P. 199. The mockery lies in the intimation that Elijah will perhaps actually come; and it is especially empty in the mouth of a pagan soldier. Καθελεῖν is the aorist infinitive from καθαιρέω, “to take down.”

Mark 15:37

37 Now Jesus, having let out a great voice, expired. All the synoptists speak of the mighty shout with which Jesus died. He rallied all his powers for the last two words and spoke them as a victor whose triumph is won. Luke and John report what these last words were.

All the evangelists use choice words in reporting Jesus’ death. None is content to say only that “he died.” Matthew and John mention the fact that he gave up his πνεῦμα, Mark and Luke use ἐκπνέω, “to expire,” meaning that he breathed out his spirit. Luke tells us that he commended his “spirit” into his Father’s hands. None of the writers refer to the ψυχή, the immaterial part which animates the body and which is often equivalent to the physical life. When Jesus “breathed out” his spirit, more is meant than that his physical body became lifeless and devoid of the ψυχή; his πνεῦμα left, the immaterial part which is, indeed, one with the ψυχή but is more, namely the seat of the ἐγώ or personality which is open to all the heavenly world and the divine Spirit. “Soul” and “spirit” are far more alike in English than they are in the Greek. We see this at once when we note that the Greek derives its adjective ψυχικός, “carnal,” from ψυχή whereas we have no derivative from “soul” to express the fact that our immaterial part is moved by the lower passions that arise from its connection with the body.

Yet the exalted expressions used by the evangelists should not lead us to think that Jesus’ death differed from our own. The separation of soul and spirit from the body was the same in him as it is in us. Nor was the logos separated from the human nature of Jesus when he died. Body, soul, and spirit constituted the human nature of Jesus just as they do ours, but in him the logos was the ἐγώ or personality. The death of Jesus in no way affected the union of the logos with the human nature, for this nature alone has the ability to die. God’s Son died according to his human nature and according to that alone, his divine nature participated in the act. Compare Delitzsch, Biblische Psychologie, 400, etc.

The πνεῦμα of Jesus was breathed out of his body, and in this way Jesus died. It is unwarranted to refer to John 10:17, 18 to prove that Jesus died, not from physical causes, but by a mere volition of his will. That passage deals with the entire action of Jesus in giving himself into death for us. He laid down his life when, as he said in advance, he voluntarily entered his Passion, the end of which would be the death by crucifixion. It was the physical suffering that killed Jesus, the Scriptures assign no other cause. Yet we conceive of his death as being one of peace and joy, a triumphant return to his Father after the hard and bitter work of redeeming the world.

Certain older medical authorities have held that the death of Jesus was induced by a rupture of the walls of his heart so that we might satisfy our sentimental feelings by saying that Jesus “died of a broken heart.” Our latest and best authorities inform us that this is quite impossible. A lesion such as that could result only from a degeneration of the heart, and this occurs only in older persons in whom disease has left its effects. This includes also the tentative suggestion that some artery perhaps burst and thus caused death.

Where did the πνεῦμα of Jesus go after his death? Into his Father’s hands (Luke 23:46), into Paradise with the malefactor (Luke 23:43), into the glory that the Son had from eternity (John 17:5). These expressions refer to heaven, the eternal abode of God and of his angels and his saints. Some interpreters let the spirit of Jesus enter sheol or hades, a fabled place of the dead that is intermediate between heaven and hell. This sheol is comparable to the idea of certain theologians that the soul of Jesus went down to hell to suffer the tortures of the damned and thus to buy us free. These views regarding Jesus also darken the Christian hope that at death our spirits, too, enter heaven and no hades realm of the dead.

Mark 15:38

38 And the curtain of the Sanctuary was rent in two from above to below.

Jesus is dead, his lips are silent; God now speaks in a language of his own. Mark records only the miracle regarding the curtain in the Sanctuary. The καταπέτασματοῦναοῦ is the inner curtain or veil that hung between the Holy and the Holy of Holies. In the Sanctuary of the Herodian Temple a second curtain hung in front of the Holy Place. This, too, was at times called καταπέτασμα, and the plural is used as a designation for both curtains. But the regular term for this outer curtain was κάλυμμα, and the other term was used only occasionally.

Yet this has led some to think that Mark (and Matthew) refer to the outer curtain; but this is without good reason. If the outer curtain were referred to, the writers would have used the distinctive term for that curtain and not the term that was standard as a designation for the inner one.

The inner curtain is described in Exod. 26:31; 36:35; 2 Chron. 3:14. Josephus, Wars, 5, 5, 4 has the following: “This house, as it was divided into two parts, the inner part was lower than the appearance of the outer and had golden doors of 55 cubits altitude and 16 in breadth. But before these doors there was a veil of equal largeness with the doors. It was a Babylonian curtain; embroidered with blue, and fine linen, and scarlet, and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful. Nor was this mixture of colors without its mystical interpretation but was a kind of image of the universe. For by the scarlet there seemed to be enigmatically signified fire, by the fine flax the earth, by the blue the air, and by the purple the sea; two of them having their colors the foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax and the purple have their own origin from that foundation, the earth producing the one, the sea the other. This curtain had also embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens, excepting that of the (twelve) signs (of the zodiac) representing living creatures.” The thickness of the curtain corresponded with its size, and its strength was according.

All at once this mighty curtain “was rent in two,” and that “from above to below” as if an unseen hand had severed it by starting at the top. The two pieces fell apart and thus exposed the Holy of Holies. Consternation must have struck those who saw the sight. Jesus died at three o’clock, thus the curtain must have been rent at the time when the priests were busy with the evening sacrifice. Many eyes thus saw what happened. Perhaps the sound of the rending attracted general attention. We have not the least reason to think that only one or two priests, who were busy for the moment in the Holy Place, saw the rent curtain or discovered that it had been rent.

The rending was miraculous as were the other signs. We have no intimation that it was caused by the earthquake because the curtain was stretched so tight that, when the earth shook, it split in two. Then it would, indeed, not have split from the top down to the very bottom but would have been torn in several directions. The idea that it was fastened to a great beam at the top and that this beam broke in two and thus tore the curtain, is an unprovable supposition.

The sign feature of this torn curtain is easily recognized. Only once a year the high priest alone dared to pass inside this curtain, on the great Day of Atonement, to bear blood for the cleansing of the nation. In Herod’s Sanctuary the Holy of Holies was empty, for the ark of the covenant that had stood there in Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed. When the curtain was rent, God proclaimed that the ministration of the Jewish high priest was at an end. What this high priest and his annual function typified was at an end because the divine High Priest, Jesus, had now come and had entered into the Holy of Holies of heaven itself with his own all-atoning blood. Heb. 9:3–15; Heb. 6:19, etc.; 10:19, etc. When chiliasts say that the Jewish Sanctuary and its services will be restored in the millennium they would restore what God abrogated with the rending of this curtain and thus put themselves in contradiction to God in this most vital matter.

Mark 15:39

39 Now when the centurion standing by over against him saw that he expired thus, he said, Truly, this man was God’s Son!

Mark generally gives the details and also records the emotions, but in this instance it is Matthew who does both, not Mark. He contents himself with a mention of the centurion, Matthew adds a reference to the other guards who felt and spoke as the centurion did. Mark states only that they saw Jesus “expire thus”; Matthew explains that this referred to the earthquake and everything else that had occurred. He also adds that the centurion and his soldiers were filled with exceeding fear. We learn incidentally that no less an officer than a centurion commanded the detail that crucified Jesus. We cannot determine how many soldiers were ordered out for this execution; some think of only twelve, four for each man crucified, yet an additional guard may well have gone along for the sake of safety.

All of these heathen men are affected alike, all of them express themselves in the same way. The nature of their fright and the thought that inspired it are brought out by their exclamation: “Truly, this was God’s Son!” Their fear was religious awe. This centurion and his soldiers knew how Jesus was brought to the cross. He had seen the conduct of Jesus throughout his ordeal. He had witnessed the mockery of the Jews, in which even his soldiers had joined, and the word about Jesus being God’s Son had been part of that mockery. Then came the death with the loud cry “Father,” and immediately after it the earthquake and the rending rocks. Taking it all together with this climax, we see how the centurion came to exclaim as he did.

This Gentile, who is called Longinus in tradition, comes to faith beneath the dead Savior’s cross. His confession is a strong one with its ἀληθῶς, “truly.” This adverb is set over against the Jewish unbelief and mockery. Whatever the Jews may say, the centurion sees that the truth is the divine Sonship of Jesus. Οὗτος is purely deictic (R. 697) and not in the least derogatory. R. 781 thinks that the context alone decides whether υἱὸςΘεοῦ means “the or a Son of God,” since the articles are absent in the Greek. But this view is not correct as regards the articles, for even “the Son of God” might be read as referring to one of several Sons. We regard Θεοῦυἱός (Matthew) and υἱὸςΘεοῦ (Mark) as equivalent to a proper name, Gottessohn, with the articles being absent for this reason.

The centurion did not borrow this name from his pagan mythology and refer to the human offspring of some pagan god; he obtained this name from the Jews and used it as they understood it. Yet he says: “This man was God’s Son,” using ἦν, for this divine Son was man and was now dead. Luke reports that the centurion said: “This one was righteous,” δίκαιος, and thus pronounced a verdict upon Jesus, which was the opposite of the Jewish verdict. We conclude that this officer said both “righteous and God’s Son,” for the two go together. Legend reports that this centurion became a believer, and there is evidence that the legionaries that were at this time stationed in Jerusalem were Gauls or Germans.

Rationalistic and modernistic exegesis does not regard the centurion’s confession as an admission of the deity of Jesus, for rationalism and modernism deny this deity. All argumentation from this source will thus be dogmatic in the extreme. So we know how to understand the dictum that “Son of God” is only another term for the human Jewish Messiah, and that the centurion could have meant no more. We can see the object when the question is raised as to what this pagan centurion could possibly know about real deity, especially in a man that died before his very eyes; and when the answer is then drawn from pagan mythologies. Did the evangelists know the emptiness of this officer’s confession and nevertheless record it when it really meant nothing for true believers? Did they not know that their record would be understood as referring to the deity of Jesus whereas the centurion had either a Jewish or a pagan notion? Surely, the evangelists would not have tricked their readers.

40, 41) Moreover, there were also women beholding from afar, among whom also Mary the Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James the little and of Joses, and Salome, who, when he was in Galilee, used to follow him and to minister to him, and many others that came up with him to Jerusalem.

All these friends of Jesus were witnessing his death. Mark and Matthew mention only the women, but beside them Luke places οἱγνωσταὶαὐτῷ, “those known to him,” his acquaintances, a masculine term that thus refers to men. From John we know that he was the only one of the Eleven present. The women were, indeed, dear friends of Jesus, for they had been accustomed to follow him in Galilee and to minister unto him (this is the force of the two imperfect tenses) of their substance, Luke 8:3. The hardships of Jesus in his arduous work had moved them to relieve him in such ways as they could. They had followed him on his last journey to Jerusalem; Mark mentions “many others” who had likewise come up with him to Jerusalem.

They had come with him (σύν in the verb plus αὐτῷ) not merely to attend the Passover festival. Now in this terrible tragedy their love had conquered all fear; here they stood with bleeding hearts, watching their Lord and Master die.

They viewed it all “from afar,” of necessity. The soldiers kept a free space about the crosses, and the wicked Sanhedrists crowded up as far as they dared, and the mob of people came to see the θεωρία or spectacle (Luke 23:48). It was not fear that caused these acquaintances and women to stand some distance from the cross but the situation in which they found themselves. We know that during a lull in the disturbance near the cross, when the Sanhedrists had grown weary of mocking, Jesus’ mother and John and two other women went up to the cross itself and were not hindered by the soldiers.

Mark, like Matthew, names three of these women. As Peter was the leader among the Twelve, the men, so “Mary the Magdalene” was the foremost among the women. The Mary who was the mother of James and Joses was the wife of Cleopas and a sister of the mother of Jesus. These two women were with Jesus’ mother and John beneath the cross. Mary’s son James is distinguished from others of this name by being called “the little.” The third woman is Salome, who is by Matthew called the mother of the sons of Zebedee (James and John), whose husband it seems was dead at this time. The name is enough; it needs no addition to identify her.

Mark 15:42

42 And evening having already come, since it was Preparation Day, which is pro-Sabbath day, Joseph having come, he from Arimathæa, prominent, a counsellor, who also himself was awaiting the kingdom of God, having dared, went in to Pilate and asked for himself the body of Jesus.

As wonderful as are the signs that occurred in connection with Jesus’ death, so wonderful is the burial of his body. It is laid away in the most astounding manner. There is fulfilled Isa. 53:9: “And he made his grave … with the rich in his death.” Jesus was dead—what was to become of his body? His friends, the women and John, were utterly helpless and unprepared. It seemed as though the sacred body would be dragged away by the soldiers and thrown into a pit with the bodies of the two malefactors. What else could be done? God took care of his Son’s body in death.

With ὀψίας in the genitive absolute we supply ὥρας, “a late hour having arrived.” The expression may be used to designate both evenings, the first from three to six, and the second from six to nine. The first is referred to here. And this mention of time goes together with another. This was Friday, hence παρασκευή, “Preparation Day,” which Mark translates for his Gentile Christian readers as “pro-Sabbath day,” the day before the Sabbath began which is called “Preparation” because everything that was needed for the Sabbath had to be prepared on this day, beginning with dinner in the evening after sunset. So the time left between the death and the burial was short.

Mark 15:43

43 It was now that help suddenly appeared. Joseph of Arimathæa came and took full charge of the proper disposal of the body. The ἐλθών (Matthew ἦλθεν) does not mean that he came in from the country at just this time and thus arrived at Golgotha, or that he arrived from the city just now. He must have been among the spectators, and when Jesus was dead, he came forward to take charge of his body. Joseph is named from his home town Arimathæa in order to distinguish him from other Josephs; and this town is Rama, which was originally a part of Samaria but a part that had been transferred to Judea, which made the town “a city of the Jews,” Luke 23:51.

We regard εὐσχήμων and βουλευτής as separate terms, each being in apposition with “Joseph.” It will not do to have this adjective modify the noun, for in the Greek the entire emphasis would then be on the adjective, which is evidently not intended; there is to be an equal emphasis on both terms; hence we translate, “prominent, a counsellor.” The idea in εὐσχήμων refers to both wealth and standing; βουλευτής, “counsellor,” means Sanhedrist, a member of the great Jewish court, but Luke adds that he was opposed to the action of this body regarding Jesus. We do not know how he showed his opposition. John adds that for fear of the Jews Joseph had kept his faith in Jesus hidden until this time. The Jews had officially threatened to expel any man from the synagogue who confessed Jesus, and this meant cutting the man off from all connection with the Jewish religion and ostracizing him from his nation.

Mark has the relative clause: “who also was waiting for the kingdom of God,” on which see 1:15 and note that the kingdom means the reign and rule of the promised Messiah in power and grace. Mark intends to designate Joseph as being one of the spiritually minded Israelites like Simeon, Zacharias, Anna, Elisabeth, etc. The periphrastic imperfect ἦνπροσδεχόμενος stresses the continuousness of Joseph’s waiting and expectation. We venture to say that he expected Jesus to step forth at any moment as the great King of Israel with earthly majesty and power to usher in the great Messianic era. Some imperfection of this nature held his faith in check so that he just kept waiting instead of boldly confessing. But now that Jesus is dead, that all Joseph’s hopes and expectations in Jesus had apparently crashed, this timid man comes forward boldly, casts all his fears to the winds, and takes charge of the sacred body.

Great and influential as he was, when he stepped forth on Golgotha, that meant that he spoke to the centurion about his wanting the body and his going to Pilate to secure its possession. The centurion gladly consented to wait. At the request of the Jews the bones of the malefactors had already been broken and the spear thrust into Jesus’ side.

Joseph hurried from Golgotha to the prætorium and dared to go right in to make his request of the governor. But we should not suppose that by entering a Gentile abode Joseph broke with the entire Jewish religion. All he did was to incur ceremonial pollution for the day. The Sanhedrists had avoided this when they came to Pilate with Jesus in the morning and remained outside of the prætorium, but they were thus careful because they wanted to be able to eat the Chagiga in the afternoon. Joseph was not concerned about eating this sacrificial meal, he intended to bury Jesus and would be ceremonially unclean anyway by handling Jesus’ dead body. Note the middle voice in ἠτήσατο which is used in business transactions.

The middle is in place because the Romans quite generally allowed the relatives and friends of men who had been executed to bury their bodies if they so desired. This was the basis of Joseph’s request.

Mark 15:44

44 Now Pilate wondered whether he was already dead, and having called to him the centurion, inquired whether he died a while back. And having learned it from the centurion, he presented the corpse to Joseph.

Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead. The perfect τέθνηκε has a strong present connotation: “has died” and “is now dead,” the English requires the past tense “was dead” or the past perfect “had died.” Death by crucifixion was extremely slow, being sometimes delayed for four days. Pilate could thus hardly believe Joseph when he said that death had already set in in the case of Jesus. He is dealing with a Jew, even a Sanhedrist, and thus makes officially sure. The view that Joseph was a friend of Pilate’s is shut out by Pilate’s action in demanding a report from the centurion. This officer in charge at Golgotha reports at the prætorium. The question addressed to him is now stated in the aorist with πάλαι (some read ἤδη), which is used also for indicating recent events: “whether he died a while back.” The centurion probably accompanied Joseph, waited outside, and was called by Pilate.

Mark 15:45

45 The body is called τὸπτῶμα, something that has fallen, thus “the corpse.” Matthew writes: “He commanded that it be duly given,” ἀποδοθῆνια; Mark: “He presented the corpse to Joseph.” Some think that this was a special favor and that Pilate might have asked for money; but Matthew’s verb shuts out that idea just as Mark’s ἠτήσατο does in v. 43. Cases in which money was demanded were rare. Pilate had the power of granting the request, it is true, but his granting was a regular procedure and nothing more.

Mark 15:46

46 And having bought linen cloth, after having taken him down, he wound him in the linen cloth and placed him in a tomb, which had been hewn out of a rock cliff, and rolled a stone before the door of the tomb.

Joseph is the actor throughout. This means that he took full charge, the others who helped let him take the lead. That, too, seems to be the reason the synoptists say nothing about Nicodemus. Joseph must have been a masterful man. On his way back to Golgotha from the prætorium he bought the σινδών or linen cloth in which to bury the body. Why only the linen, why not also the spices that were necessary for a decent Jewish burial? We have the answer in Nicodemus; he bought no less than a hundred pounds of spices. This cannot have been accidental, the two men must have met, understood what each was doing, and thus divided the purchase.

“Having taken him down” (καθαιρέω, the technical term for removal after crucifixion, Field, Notes, 44) reports only the fact and not the manner. Joseph, of course, had help. There were at least three men counting John, besides a number of women. It is possible that the soldiers too helped at the direction of the centurion. The body was perhaps lowered from the cross after the nails had been drawn out of it. Means to reach the crosspiece must have been at hand, they were the same as those that had been used in crucifying Jesus. This view seems to agree best with καθελέν.

The synoptists tell us that Joseph wrapped the body in σινδών, fine linen cloth that had just been purchased and was thus fine and clean. For the purpose of wrapping (ἐλειλέω) the linen was cut into long strips, and these were passed around and around the limbs and the body. John makes this plain and also narrates how aromatic spices were sprinkled between the wrappings. Only the head was left free in order to be covered with a special cloth after the body was in the tomb. The bloodstains must have been removed before this was done. The sour wine of the soldiers was perhaps used for this purpose with the centurion’s permission. No anointing of the body was possible on Golgotha; Mary of Bethany had attended to that in advance (14:8).

But where could the body of Jesus be taken now that a tomb so suddenly became a vital necessity? It is Joseph who meets this need. He himself had one that was entirely new (Matthew), that had been hewn out of the solid rock of a cliff side (ἡπέτρα as distinguished from ὁπέτρος, a detached rock boulder). Luke and John tell us that no one had as yet been buried in this tomb. John adds the detail that this tomb of Joseph’s was near Golgotha, which made it especially convenient since the friends of Jesus were pressed for time; for the Sabbath began with the setting of the sun. The body could hardly be carried away to some spot that was at some distance. This fine new tomb of his Joseph offered for the body of Jesus. There he placed it (ἔθηκεν) for its sacred rest.

This tomb, where no decay or odor of death had as yet entered, was a fitting place for the body of Jesus, which no corruption or decomposition dared to touch (Acts 2:27). Here his holy body could have sweet rest, all its dreadful, painful work done. Yet Jesus was not intended for a tomb. He needed one only on our account, and only until the third day. Luther writes: “As he has no grave for the reason that he will not remain in death and the grave; so we, too, are to be raised up from the grave at the last day through his resurrection and are to live with him in eternity.” And we can do this because by his death he had conquered sin and death and was now bringing life and immortality to light.

Quite recently, in a quiet spot just outside of the walls of the present Jerusalem, at the foot of a skull-shaped hill (Golgotha as it certainly seems to be) the so-called “Garden Tomb” (also called Gordon’s Tomb from its discoverer) has been discovered, which corresponds most remarkably in every detail to the data that are furnished for Joseph’s tomb by the Gospels. It is an ample chamber, hewn out of the solid cliff, the face of which is smooth and perpendicular. The floor is not sunken, and it does not need to be. It is a rich man’s tomb, for it has a vestibule, and in the main chamber along the three sides there are only three places for bodies, the center being left unused. It is a new tomb, for only one place for a body is finished, the other two are not entirely completed. The place toward the cliff has the floor hewn out a little in the outline of a human body.

The three places for bodies along the sides of the three walls are cut out boxlike, the bottom being level with the floor. At the foot-end of the finished place for a body and likewise at the head-end, between this and the foot-end of the next place for a body, the stone is left thick enough to afford a seat, “one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain” (John 20:12); and the angel on the latter would even be “sitting on the right side” (16:5) as one enters the vestibule. These heavier rock sections across the foot-end and on the left of the head-end (the left as the body would lie) are still intact while the thinner wall along the side of the body has mostly broken down. When the author viewed this tomb he was deeply impressed and compelled to say, “If this is not the actual tomb in which Jesus was laid it duplicates it in every respect.” Still other striking features agree. So many fake sites are shown in the Holy Land that the view of a site like this leaves an indelible impression.

The great stone that was rolled before the door of the tomb was a flat, upright slab that was circular like an immense grindstone. This moved in a groove that was next to the cliff and was wheeled back to the left to expose the opening and forward to close it. The groove slanted upward from the door so that, when the stone was wheeled to the left, it had to be blocked to remain there. The bottom of the slant was directly in front of the door, where the stone would come to rest on a level place. After the body was duly placed in the tomb, the circular slab closed the entrance as indicated. This stone was not a “boulder.” It is never called πέτρος but always λίθος, and one can scarcely imagine how a rough boulder could do anything but block a rectangular door. No three men, even with the help of a few women, could move a boulder that would be big enough to close even a low door—that in Gordon’s Tomb is of a good height.

Mark 15:47

47 Now Mary the Magdalene and Mary of Joses were viewing where he was laid.

These two Marys have been mentioned in v. 40. Luke tells us that the women who had come out of Galilee with Jesus also followed to the tomb and saw how the body was laid in its place in the tomb. The reason Mark mentioned only these two is indicated by Matthew. When Joseph and the others left, these two remained and sat near the closed tomb until the shadows fell. The second Mary is named with reference to only one of her sons (Ἰωσῆ, genitive) just as she is named after the other in 16:1.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-P. Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschen Handwoerterbuch, etc.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

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